Monday morning we moved into the volunteer housing. There are four different houses (which actually look like mini-hostels) all with clean kitchens, dining area, a common area with a TV and computer, a washing machine for laundry, communal bathrooms and dorm / private rooms. The house we are in is one of the smaller houses with only 5 rooms but the only one with double beds for couples.

Our bedroom for the next 2 months

The closet and sink in our room, oh luxuries

Our bed with a mosquito net

the kitchen, open to the jungle patio

Outdoor water tank shower

Our living room

After settling into the house, which definitely included deep cleaning our room and the kitchen, we attended our first volunteer meeting. At the meeting we found out that our volunteer work consist of planning and running the children’s (ages 5-12) winter break activity program for a poor village outside of Granada called San Ignacio. The activity program doesn’t start till next Tuesday, December 1st but since we are early arrivers we are the planning process (Ryan, me, Stef, and Anna). Both Ryan and I are super excited about this because we get to choose the activities the kid’s do: arts & crafts, sports, educational aspects, etc. for the next 2 months. We really feel like we will have an influence on the kid’s by creating the curriculum ourselves.

After the meeting we were all pumped up. We went straight home to start working on registration posters, (Registration is this Thursday, Friday and Monday) and looking up arts and crafts activities. With the arts and crafts we are first limited to the materials here in town and second have to keep in mind that some of the families are so poor they don’t even have money to buy food for dinner every night. Therefore, we are researching arts & crafts made with recyclable materials: toilet paper tubes, newspaper, magazines, rocks, straws, etc. Ryan came up with a few good ideas with the toilet paper tubes and construction paper such as: making animal critters and Christmas trees. Anyways, I sure we will have lots of stories over the next 2 months of all the activities and good times we have with the kids and other volunteers.

Ryan making a snake out of toilet paper rolls for the kids

Ryan's arts and craft snake

Another good “sun shining” thing that happened today was Ryan fixed Chiquimula. He had to pull out the passenger seat and pull apart the entire dashboard to get to the back of the engine, but when he did Thankfully he found the problem was only a leaky hose. Down the street a guy sold him a replacement hose for only a $1. After that she sounded good. We are going to take her for a long test drive this weekend to make sure all else is well.

So even though it has been raining a little bit each day it has been shining good news for us.

written by  ryan & debbrial on November 24, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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La Esperanza owns a few bikes for the volunteers to use while they are here. Since our house is the farthest away from the main square I snagged a bike from one of the other volunteer houses whom barely used it. Ryan fixed it up for me: lowered the seat though I am still on my tippy-toes, tightened the brakes and checked the gears. Stefan and Anna also have bikes so we all decided to ride our bikes up to San Ignacio school everyday, usually a 45 minute walk from our house. I am happy cause the ride’s good exercise everyday. Meanwhile, Ryan set up a car pool for $1 per person per week for the other volunteers and is getting pay $1 a day by La Esperanza to take the computer for the kids up to the school. We figured this would add up to a free week of rent for us.

Ryan started Spanish lessons on Wednesday. He first planned to go 2 hours everyday during the week but after the first day and LOTS of homework he thought that might be too much. Instead we decided it would be better for him to go 3 times a week and I could go 2 times a week. Even though we are living in a Spanish speaking community it is still hard to learn the language without really knowing the words in the first place. Plus I was feeling left out cause Ryan, Stef and Anna are all taking Spanish classes. With us all in classes hopefully it will encourage us to speak more Spanish in the house. Queremos hablar español sólo en la casa.

On Thursday we started registration at San Igancio school. **Side note: San Igancio is a one of the poorest areas of Granada. The houses are small one to two rooms made out of thin slices of tree trunks or cardboard layers.

Thin sheets of layer wood = walls.

San Igancio house made with tarp and corragated steel

Houses in San Iganico

So continuing with Thursday’s registration… when a group of white people come into the village it inevitably generates attention.

Posting signs for summer school in San Igancio

Parents waiting to sign up there kids for summer school

Playing Soccer with the Kids

Kids of San Igancio

They love playing Baseball

the Crazy hyper kid

Kids of San Igancio

She doesn't talk or know how to read

We can’t wait for school to start on Tuesday BUT before our work and study load gets too crazy we decided to retract to the original plan of hanging out at the beach. We came back to San Juan del Sur for the weekend for just a little more surfing and sunbathing before the eye of the storm.

written by  ryan & debbrial on November 28, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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First day of school all the kids waiting at the gate

After all the kids were finally in the school and supposedly assigned to a volunteer we ended up having a chaotic day of cashing our kids around, trying to figure out who they were, if they real did belong to us and keeping them from destroying the school, themselves and us!! By noon one of the classrooms looked like a tornado ripped through it with paper, paint, crayon, chalk, glue, etc. scattered all over the place; on the desks, on the tables, on the floor, on the walls and on the kids. The only and most successful part of the day was lunch. We got all the kids lined up in two lines one boys, one girls then handed them a plate of rice and beans.

Lunch time....Rice and beans

Lining up for lunch

After that it was back to the chaos till 1:30 pm when the kids go home. By the end of day one we were all SUPER exhausted and doubting if we could pull this whole summer break thing off.

Anna keeping order to the limited water

Lunch time the first day

Ryan and his boys at lunch

That night we went home and completely rethought our plan. With some idea of the names and number of kids enrolled we came up with a simpler schedule for roll call and the days’ activities. The second day of school proved to be 100% better. First we lined up the kids outside the school gates then let them in one-by-one to go to their assigned volunteer from the day before. Once each volunteer had all their kids the group went to the scheduled activity for the kids’ age: either arts & crafts, education or sports. Each activity is scheduled for an hour then the groups rotate.

The older kids Dog Piling at sports

The younger kids playing baseball

Ryan's boys in Arts and Crafts class

Two activities then lunch & free time play then one more activity. Like I said day 2 was 100% better. And day 3 today even better. We are keeping this same set schedule for the rest of the summer break.

Originally I had signed up for the older age group 10-12 years old kids. Ryan had signed up for the youngest age group 5-6 years old. On the first day when we got our groups (in all the ruckus) I ended up with 4 boys and he had 3 little princesses all dressed in pink fluffy dresses. Immediately I decided I wanted to switch with him which ended up for the better. He now has 6 boys and I have 6 girls. I actually have 5 five years old and 1 10 year old girl who wanted to stay with her little sister cause she looks after and helps her out a lot. This works out great for me cause when I can’t explain thing clearly in Spanish to the little ones she helps me. The little sister doesn’t speak much, can’t really write and doesn’t know how to read. I also have another little girl who can’t write or read either. When it comes to education or drawing I make sure to help these girls out a little more. Though they are all really sweet and help each other. Today we did collages in arts and crafts which all the girls loved and did really well at. We also had 30 minutes of computers (a separate activity each group does once to twice a week) which they also were very interested in. In the computer class we first taught the kids how to handle the mouse and click the select button. Once they got that down they played kids’ educational games on the computers. It was so cute seeing these dirt faced, sometimes shoeless, clueless, poor kids learn how to use a computer. I have already started forming a bond with the girls.

3 of Debb's Girls learning how to use a computer

Celia 5 years old learning the computer

One of my girls and her brother

Two of my girls on the swings

One of my girls playing on the Titter-Totter

Well since it is a long weekend, of course, Ryan wants to go back to the beach. Here we go again back to San Juan del Sur. Our plan is to camp out on the beach and sleep in the van. This will be our first really Vagabond experience.

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 3, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Playa Madera our home for the weekend

Camping in the van at Madera

We have camped here for two nights and in the past days we have seen lots of people come and go. We met 3 guys who are living in Costa Rica studying and/or teaching English, so of course I had lots of questions for them. One the guys said he completed the same course I will be taking, the CELTA, and is now working in Costa Rica. He highly recommended the program and enjoyed it a lot. This boosted my confidence some. We also met 4 Canadian guys whom drove down all the way from Canada in a van just like ours, but it’s a Chevy Astro van. They said they rotate sleeping spots every few nights: two in the van, one on the roof and one on the floor. Didn’t sound so bad until we saw thousands of hermit craps come out from under leaves, branches, grass, and rocks on a voyage across our homestead to the salty waters of the Pacific. Each night we watch the colorful sun set then wait for the vas galaxy of endless stars we miss living in the city life. Then its time for a friendly campfire hangout on the beach with the other temporary residences of Madera. During the day Ryan surfs, I swim, we both practice our Spanish and talk to the locals whom we have become friends with since coming here for the past two weekends. While its been relaxing and thoroughly enjoying being at the beach we decided to pack up this afternoon and headed back to Granada for the final days of a nine day celebration for the Virgin Mary.

Ryan surfing at Madera

Ryan after surfing

Ryan at Playa Madrea

Street party for the Virgin Mary holiday

Procession of the Virgin Mary float

Float of Virgin Mary

Santa Lucia our street party

Anyways the night the procession was on our street I talked to a young local girl who told me all about the meaning of the celebration, how it travels from street to street and that on Monday, today, there is going to be a huge party in the Central Park with a ton of Mariachi bands. So now we are back in Granada to part-take in the traditional Nicaraguan holiday.

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 7, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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A little while later a group of older guys (16-20) showed up. We played a little more baseball then changed to soccer after they were hitting the ball too far for the younger kids to chase after it. The soccer game started off as a fun friendly game but quickly became an intense (still friendly) real soccer game. The younger kids naturally got booted out, kinda unfortunate, but I was having SO much fun playing soccer even though we got our butts kicked. Some of the guys were playing bare feet in the dirt and still running circles around us!! Fortunately though the goals were tiny so we could hold our own. Ryan got about 3 goal attempts and I had 2 slide tackles.

Two hours flew by fast when we were having fun. When we left they kept asking us when we would come back. Tomorrow, the next day. I don’t think any of the younger kids and definitely not the older guys come to the summer school program, so they were all super excited to be involved. Ryan and I were also really happy to connect with the older guys as well kinda like we were gaining respect from them. Anyways, because we have school we don’t have much time or energy to go out there everyday but I definitely want to do it again.

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 8, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Old Artesian Market in Masaya

Our next stop after Masaya was Volcano Masaya another 10 minute drive from the city. This volcano is famous for being one of the few volcanoes in the world where you can drive up to the crater edge at the top of the volcano. It is a super active volcano with constant sulfur gas and smoke spewing out the approx. 300 yard carter mouth. We tried to take pictures of the impressive hole but the smoke made it really hard. So instead I have downloaded some pictures from the internet. Supposedly the last time the Volcano Masaya exploded in 2000 a boulder landed on a tourist’s car (but no one got hurt). Now though they tell everyone to back-in to the parking spots “just in case”. Like it makes you that much safer. LOL. Anyways they also built some steps up the side of the volcano for a better look into the carter. We went up and actually found another massive crater right next to the first one, so there are actually two in Volcano Masaya. Pretty cool site.

Debb at Masaya Volcano

Masaya Volcano Crater

Masaya Volcano Crater

Masaya Volcano Crater

Steps to the top of Masaya Volcano

So our original weekend plan was to see these two places then head to Laguna de Apoyo, spend the night and enjoy the next day relaxing at the warm natural swimming hole. But…….not so much. What we thought was the right road from Volcano Masaya to Apoyo ended up being the back road back to Granada. We were looking for a sign for Laguna de Apoyo but ended seeing a sign Bienvenidos Granada (Welcome to Granada). Oooppps. Hence our day trip. So instead we decided to stay in Granada and go out to the bars with the other volunteers for Saturday night.
We will go to Apoyo another weekend, its just right outside of Granada, supposedly if we can find it. Haha.

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 12, 2009 from Masaya, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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In addition to organizing volunteers to work in schools around Granada throughout the school year and the summer school programs La Esperanza also organizes sponsorships for excelled primary school kids to continue on to high school. The sponsorships pay for the kids‘ uniforms, books and school. From what we have heard most of the high schools in Nicaragua are not free public schools, unlike most of the primary schools. It depends on the communities’ wealth and resources. Families have to pay up to $25 a month for high school; which doesn’t seem like a lot to us but for families who only make a few dollars a day it is. So La Esperanza has monitored some of the poorer schools and communities in Granada looking for excelled students. This means kids with good grades, good attendance and a desire to continue their education. La Esperanza picks one, two or three schools each year to select these excelled kids for the sponsorships called, Becas.

So on Monday morning we went to the La Esperanza office to choose one of the many kids on the waiting list for a Beca. First we looked at a list of the kids grades including math, language, social studies, geography, etc. up to seven subjects. Then choose the top two kids to read their short profiles. We decided on a girl named Tatiana. She is 12 years old, lives with her grandmother, father and younger two brothers. In her profile she said she likes to help her two brothers with their school work and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

While we have been working in the summer school program at San Ignacio for the past few weeks La Esperanza also organized some volunteers to work in a high school preparation program for these sponsors kids. Tatiana started the high school prep classes today. And after our work at San Ignacio we went to the prep school to meet Tatiana. She is a really sweet girl with a bubbly personality. Although our meeting was kinda short since we have a language barrier. But we told her we would come back to check up on her before we leave Nicaragua and are expecting update letters from her over the next few years telling us about her high school experiences.

It was really satisfying for Ryan and I to meet her face-to-face so she knows the sponsorship money doesn’t come from “thin-air” and that there are really people behind it supporting her, hoping for her best.

Me, Tatiana, Ryan....the girl we sponsored for High School

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 16, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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In addition to organizing volunteers to work in schools around Granada throughout the school year and the summer school programs La Esperanza also organizes sponsorships for excelled primary school kids to continue on to high school. The sponsorships pay for the kids‘ uniforms, books and school. From what we have heard most of the high schools in Nicaragua are not free public schools, unlike most of the primary schools. It depends on the communities’ wealth and resources. Families have to pay up to $25 a month for high school; which doesn’t seem like a lot to us but for families who only make a few dollars a day it is. So La Esperanza has monitored some of the poorer schools and communities in Granada looking for excelled students. This means kids with good grades, good attendance and a desire to continue their education. La Esperanza picks one, two or three schools each year to select these excelled kids for the sponsorships called, Becas.

So on Monday morning we went to the La Esperanza office to choose one of the many kids on the waiting list for a Beca. First we looked at a list of the kids grades including math, language, social studies, geography, etc. up to seven subjects. Then choose the top two kids to read their short profiles. We decided on a girl named Titiana. She is 12 years old, lives with her grandmother, father and younger two brothers. In her profile she said she likes to help her two brothers with their school work and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

While we have been working in the summer school program at San Iganico for the past few weeks La Esperanza also organized some volunteers to work in a high school preparation program for these sponsors kids. Titiana started the high school prep classes today. And after our work at San Igancio we went to the prep school to meet Titiana. She is a really sweet girl with a bubbly personality. Although our meeting was kinda short since we have a language barrier. But we told her we would come back to check up on her before we leave Nicaragua and are expecting update letters from her over the next few years telling us about her high school experiences.

It was really satisfying for Ryan and I to meet her face-to-face so she knows the sponsorship money doesn’t come from “thin-air” and that there are really people behind it supporting her, hoping for her best.

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 16, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Today though, knowing me, I couldn’t sit still for another day doing nothing. Instead Ryan and I explored Granada; since we have been here for almost a month and haven’t seen the sights. We started off with a bike ride down to the Lake (Lago de Nicaragua) only a few blocks from the house. It was really windy, the water is brown, and there is not much around there expect tourist restaurants and shops so I guess we haven’t missed much there. Next we road to the San Francisco Museum. Its is said to the best museum in Granada though compared to the museums at home it was minimal. It has a handful of primitive archeological art, some carved stone hedges, a depiction of ancient life with papier-mâché Indians playing tribal games; which were comical cause they looked like kids made them for a school art project not to be displayed in a museum, and lastly an actually very impressive scale model of the entire city of Granada. The scale model was by far my favorite exhibit. That and the view from the museum over the surrounding houses made it worth coming to the museum.

After the museum we continued on our sight seeing bike ride to take pictures around Granada. We started with several churches then to cemetery and ended at the bell tower just before sunset. There are quit a few churches (iglesias) in Granada the more popular being: Iglesia de Guadalupe, the Cathedral of Granada, Iglesia de La Merced and Iglesia de Xalteva. Here are pictures of each….

Iglesia de Xalteva

Granada Cathedral

Iglesia de La Merced and Bell tower

Iglesia de Guadalupe

The Cathedral of Granada located in the Central Park was originally built in 1583 but has been destroyed several time from civil wars and most recently rebuilt in 1915.

Another impressive architectural aspect of Granada is the cemetery located at the entrance into town. When we first arrived to Granada we were immediately impressed with the cemetery because of the large ornate tombs. Some of the tombs are built larger than people’s houses, especially the people of San Ignacio. The larger tombs whom belong to past Nicaraguan presidents, diplomats, military leaders and wealthy families are located at the front of the cemetery. Then progressively get smaller toward the back till they become only crosses in the ground.

Cross graves at the Granada cemetery

Many of the larger tombs are (how I would describe) constructed like Egyptian tombs except not in a pyramid shape.

Gaint cemetery tombs in Granada

Tomb plaques

is placed or carved into the concrete with the deceased name, dates of life and message. On top of the larger wealthier tombs are statues of angels, crosses, saints, etc. We spent an hour or more in the cemetery going up and down the aisle looking around.

Statue on top of a tomb in the cemetery

After the cemetery we road to the our last sight seeing stop for the day: the bell tower at Iglesia de Merced. From the top of the bell tower we had a fantastic view of all of Granada. It was like the mini scale in the museum turned into real life. In a 360 degree walk around the bell tower we could see the lake, the cathedral, the other churches, the cemetery, and all the Nicaraguenses homes in Granada. A beautiful view!!!

View from the bell tower

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 20, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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