In a nutshell...

From L to R : Nashira, Sheyla, Karla, Mary, Brenda, and Adilia.

Last week was a busy week! Mary and I held the Adult Literacy training conference. We had a small group of five, solid women who embraced the curriculum and are now looking for students to enroll. I had to get Mary up to speed with the curriculum and the vision behind it. Mary is a sharp individual who has a passion for education and she took the information I gave her and ran with it. Her enthusiasm and love of teaching showed the minute she started to interact with the facilitators. Not only was she able to accurately teach the information, she had those teachers participating non-stop in discussion and activities. She has told me countless times that she wants to do this to the best of her ability so to not hesitate to correct her or tell her how she could do better. She has a great attitude.

The students were attentive, enthusiastic, and were good sports when we had them do wacky team-building activities. Every day was filled with serious discussion and a lot of laughter. I enjoyed watching their expressions as I told them that they are the first spanish speaking country to use this adult literacy curriculum - in the whole world. Their reaction actually gave me goosebumps. 

A quick re-cap for those who don’t know: Last year, Erin and I, went to India to be trained on an adult literacy and life skills curriculum that is incredibly successful. It has been translated into 21 different languages native to India but has yet to be taken out of the country. If I remember correctly, there was one other man in the training with us who planned on using it in Pakistan. Kamala Chiranjeevi, the creator of the curriculum, was so excited to hear that we were going to translate and adapt it for use in Nicaragua.

We originally were projecting January (after the holidays) to be the start date for the classes. We don’t want to lose the momentum we have so we are giving the facilitators two weeks to enroll students and plan to start after that. I am looking forward to the day where I can visit these classes in action!

Me and one of the graduates, Brenda!

Yesterday Dustin and I went to Betania so I could meet with the literacy teachers and to visit the farm. Dustin was taking video and I was playing with the kids. After lunch, a bunch of men from the community joined together to play a game of volleyball. Austin was playing, Dustin was shooting film, and I was playing with a different set of kids. There is nothing more entertaining for those kids then watching themselves on a video camera! I love going to Betania. I enjoy seeing the familiar faces and sounds of the village outside of town.

Right now, I am enjoying my Sunday afternoon on my SOFT chair! A good soft couch or chair is hard to come by, it seems. Well, we finally moved into our house this week and we are really enjoying the space after living out of a suitcase in a single room since we’ve been here. Living in a Miskito style house with a lot of windows allows for nice cool breezes throughout the day. It’s nice to finally be settled in. 

Van Halen and Barry Manilow

Panama City in the background (it was breezy that day!)

The last two weeks have flown by and our time spent in Virginia doesn’t feel like it actually happened. I really enjoyed spending time with family and my girlfriends. It was a little bit of a recharge to be around such love and support. My Aussie friend, Noeleen, sent me a forward the other day (I’ll admit I don’t read 99% of the forwards I get) about how the best thing a woman can do for her health is to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. We share our feelings with our sisters/mothers/friends during our “girl time” which helps us to create more serotonin - a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well-being. Apparently this was studied in Stanford but regardless, I would have to agree with the benefits of spending quality time with my girls. 

After our time in Virginia, Dustin and I flew to Panama for a conference (cue Van Halen’s Panama). We were asked by the senior pastor from Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville, Georgia to attend this conference and report back our findings. We traveled to Israel last summer with our friends Jamie and Donna Winship and a group from Grace Fellowship Church. The conference focused on partnerships between North American and Latin American churches. We met a lot of great kingdom minded church leaders and look forward to seeing some of them again in the near future. 

While we were in Panama, we had enough time to visit the Panama Canal. It was interesting to learn the history of the canal as well as getting to watch several container ships pass through the locks. After reading the vacation guide that was in the hotel, Dustin and I hope to someday come back to see and experience more of the country. Especially now that we have friends we can visit while we are there. I smell a road trip!

So now we are back in Nicaragua, spending a few days in our house in Managua and trying to squeeze in some meetings with people. I had my fastest meeting to date with Pastor Berman about the Adult Literacy curriculum we are trying to implement in Nueva Vida. It might have been a five minute meeting but it was probably the most productive. He has found a group of adults who are interested in facilitating the classes and has also found a local woman who can partner with me in this adventure, who can continue to work on this in Nueva Vida even while I am in Port. This is very exciting to me since there wasn’t much I can do from Port and the Pastor is way too busy to be taking on the tasks I need to get done in order to start this program. Celebrating small victories!!

Today, Dustin and Alvaro are bonding as they tackle the craziness that is our yard! I am working on my Adult Literacy presentations for the upcoming training this week in Port. We have several more teachers who are interested in being facilitators so we decided to hold another training conference. Tomorrow we are waking up crazy early so we can catch the first flight over to Port. Our house is ready and waiting for us so we get to move in as soon as we arrive! 

*If you’re wondering why I referenced Barry Manilow....the trip to Panama was the first time I flew Copa Airlines. Do I need to explain any further.....? 

I READ therefore, I am.

First group of trainees.

Mary is the principal of the VERBO schools in Puerto Cabezas and has agreed to partner with me to launch and manage the adult literacy and life skills classes. Mary will ultimately take full responsibility for the management of these classes once our time in Nicaragua is complete. I had the opportunity to meet with Mary this past Monday to get to know her and to plan out the next steps.

Mary shared with me that she has a Masters in Education and that she spent 10 years in Guatemala as a school teacher but did not like it in the beginning. As time passed she became more comfortable with teaching and developed a love for the profession. Last year Mary became the principal of the VERBO schools in Port. When Mary described her passion for teaching and how excited she was to be a part of this program, her eyes would well up with tears.  I am so excited to be working with Mary as she shares the vision of the program and is determined to do her best to make it a success.

Last Tuesday, Dustin and I held a short meeting with Mary and a handful of the literacy facilitators that participated in the training this time last year. Some time has passed since the training and we wanted to remind them of the vision and to motivate and encourage them as well as letting them know what to expect over the next few months. There are four new people who want to become facilitators and Mary would like to find a few more. We are going to hold another training session at the end of October. We will also be holding a refresher meeting for the currently trained facilitators to review how to teach the curriculum and to discuss the next step of gathering students from the community.

Mary and I met again today so I could get her up to speed on the training materials and how to use the curriculum. The next step is to see if we can get a few more people interested in facilitating classes and to get ready for our 4-day training session in October!

Below are a few pictures from the previous training.

Let's get this party started!

Dustin and I have been in Port for a few days now and trying to get settled in. Dustin, Austin, Johnny, and I drove roughly 250 miles from Managua to Puerto Cabezas with one overnight stop in Rosita. Most of the road was unpaved and either a mixture of dirt and rocks, gravel, or dirt riddled with holes of various sizes. This was my first time traveling to Port by car and I new it would be a rough road but was hopeful that maybe it was recently grated. That wasn’t the case. The constant bouncing around from side to side wasn’t a match for the Dramamine but my neck was a different story. I did enjoy the beautiful landscape throughout the trip. Since it’s the rainy season, everything was lush and green. 

Now that we are here, we are trying to get as much accomplished before we return to the US in October for week. Earl is back in Port and we are ready to get things rocking again! Mary is the principal of the VERBO school and will the be person responsible for overseeing the literacy classes once they are up and running. She is very passionate about the program and is extremely eager to start. We’ll be getting together with the teachers in the coming week and setting up our plans to get the ball rolling. I’m looking forward to working with her and getting to know her more.  

Dustin recently visited the farm in Batania that is being managed by college student Austin Fricker. Here is a link to video clip from his visit to the farm and a link to Austin’s blog. we drove past Betania on our way to Port and it’s exciting to see the visual changes in the community since the first time I was there several years ago and after Hurricane Felix in 2007. All the new houses that were built after the Hurricane by CFC and other partners, are painted and looking good. 

It’s been a year since I’ve been here because I did not go on the usual Spring Break trip. One of the first kids from the orphanage that I saw was Chanoi. Chanoi and his sister Seraina are some of the first children who quickly found a secure spot in my heart. I’ve watched them grow over the last five years. As I was walking over to the guest house, I spotted Chanoi in the distance but had to take my glasses off because I wasn’t sure if it was really him. He’s taller, his face has matured and he greeted me very politely. Long gone are the days of him hanging from my neck and drawing me multiple pictures. But it made me happy to see him and know that he’s been a part of my life for this long and that I don’t plan on that changing any time soon.

Chanoi and me in 2009

House near river bank in Wawa Boom

Austin and Dustin waiting to board the river barge.

Here we go!

View from our place in Granada after a storm.

Dustin and I will be driving to Puerto Cabezas this Thursday once Pastor Earl and Austin Fricker return from their long drive from Virginia. (They are driving back two vehicles that were donated to Pastor Earl.) The drive from coast to coast is about 14 hours across with some rough terrain. It’ll be my first time making the drive but I’m glad I’ll probably only have to do it once. I am looking forward to getting to Puerto Cabezas so I can get to work on starting up the Literacy and Life Skills program with the school principal, Mary. The classes will be held in Port and the nearby village of Betania. I also can’t wait to see the kids in the orphanage. Since I did not go on the spring break trip this year, it has been over a year since I’ve seen them. 

The plans for starting the Literacy program in Nueva Vida (as an ONET initiative)  is underway. I met with Pastor Berman to discuss specifics about the people interested in being the teachers as well as planning the future training sessions.  So far, we have a small handful of people interested but I was told that eight other churches are definitely interested in starting this program so the potential is high. Training is targeted for late November/early December with classes to start in January. 

Another ONET initiative that I’ve been tasked with is to meet with the volunteer teachers in Nueva Vida who teach English to the teens in the youth groups. I will be coaching them on teaching strategies and practices but will mostly focus on creating benchmarks and assessments to accurately track the progress of the students so they will be ready to take the English proficiency test at the university which will open up opportunities for future employment.

After six weeks of language school, my mind is a soupy mix of spanish words that need to get themselves in order. I have not had a huge amount of practice since school let out except for small talk and placing food orders. I have also been practicing listening to other natives speak. If everyone spoke as clear as my teacher, then I’d be set. But, they don’t so I need to practice listening as well as speaking.

I really enjoyed our time in Granada while we were in school. We took advantage of our surroundings on the weekends since Granada is a tourist town. My friend Jen came to visit over a long weekend and we had a lot of fun roaming around Granada and seeing what else it had to offer. One outing was driving up Mombacho Volcano which has a cloud forest at the top. The drive up was an adventure in of itself. We had to drive up a very steep one way road with sharp switchbacks but the road was surrounded by beautiful foliage. At the top we took a walking tour to one of the two craters and we were fortunate enough to arrive when the clouds broke so we could see the town and the islands in the lake below. Just the day before, we took a small boat around the islands in the lake which were formed when the volcano blew it’s top many years ago. There are 365 islands in lake that vary in size and are occupied by mostly personal homes (and one small island with just a few monkeys).

One of the monkeys we saw on Monkey Island.

We took a short vacation to San Juan del Sur before heading to Managua. We relaxed at several different beaches and Dustin took surfing lessons. Dustin was bit by the surfing bug so I’m sure there will be some future weekend trips when we are working on the west coast. 

Sunset in San Juan del Sur

Nica Times

It’s the hottest month of the year in Nicaragua and we have not completely melted yet. Actually, I think we are quickly becoming climatized. Some days I break down and turn the AC on because my arms are sticking to the table while I do my homework and it can become a bit overwhelming. But other times, once I’ve cooled down, the AC is too much. 

Class update: Dustin is doing great at fine tuning his spanish. His teacher likes to bust his chops incessantly about what he does and does not know. Although, there seems to be quite a bit of chop busting going on from him too. I’m getting better at conversing with my teacher. It has made the class more fun and makes the four hours go by quicker. I’m getting hammered with verb conjugations and while I can’t possibly remember ALL the verbs she’s been giving me all the time, I am getting more comfortable using the more common ones correctly. We have 2 1/2 more weeks left and I intend on soaking up as much as I can. I’m looking forward to getting to Port to engage with the kids in the orphanage on a whole new level - without a translator!

This weekend we are in Managua for several reasons. We are trying to locate a suitable place to stay when we are working on the west coast for OrphaNetwork. Our friend Alvaro is going to accompany us. Later, we’ll be shopping for items we’ll be needing in Port and could use now in Granada - nothing crazy, just things to make life a little bit easier here. I love Granada but it’s a very noisy town so it’s nice to wake up to silence and a dark room!

Last week, our good friend Nicole came to visit us for a few days. It was great to see a familiar face in our context. It was fun to hang out and relax and also show her a part of Nicaragua since it was her first time here. This week, I have another friend, Jen, coming to visit. Jen has been to Puerto Cabezas before with us and I’m looking forward to showing her some of the west coast. 

Dustin has been really busy with school, working for ONET, and doing his regular job! I try to help out as I can but there’s not much for me to help with at this point. He’s been a real trooper getting through it all while going to school. 

I’m mainly focused on my spanish. I still have one last online TESOL certification course that I’ve been neglecting but I’m hoping to start that this weekend. If not, I’ll definitely crank it out once my spanish classes are over. Next week I am meeting with a Pastor from Nueva Vida to discuss starting the adult literacy training over there. I’m so excited to see some classes get started. Right now, we are just going to discuss potential teachers and near future training of those teachers.

That about sums it up for now. I hope to write more frequently once school is over when we really get into what we are doing here.

Breathe

View of Old City Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

Dustin and I are back in Nicaragua (this time for a while) and our whirlwind visit to the U.S., Israel/Palestine, Jordan, and the U.S. again is now over. Knowing that we’ll be here for an extended time makes it easier to rest (a little) and get settled into our surroundings.

Our trip to Israel/Palestine can’t be summarized in one adjective like awesome or great. While it was those things, it was many other things on many different levels.  I’m still processing it so I can articulate what I observed and experience without either A. talking for hours on end or B. losing my audience. It’s never easy to fully talk about and do a place justice to someone who wasn’t there with you experiencing the same thing. So for now, all I’m going to say this that there is a lot that is not shown or discussed on the news - about both sides. It was an invaluable experience to be able to talk with and be among both Palestinians and Israelis on the same trip and listening to what they have to say about their histories and the current conflict. More on that at another time.

I think one of my favorite places we visited was the Sea of Galilee. Not only is it beautiful, it’s the place where Jesus carried out most of his ministry. There are several places we visited that were “believed” to be certain spots where Jesus did this or Jesus  did that. But the sea is the sea and it was fun to imagine some of the events that went on there. We had time to sit along the banks, alone, to pray to and to listen to what God might be saying. Later on, many of us decided to get baptized in the sea. Not a bad place to have it done if you ask me! I’ve already been baptized but did it again and had Dustin do it. It was an awesome experience. 

Dustin and me at the Monastery, Petra

After the trip, a small group of us jumped over to Jordan for a few days to meet with some people that we know. My brother, who was on a trip from Prague and Budapest, flew over to Amman to join us. We first went to Petra and hiked all the way to the top to the Monastery. On the way down we decided to ride donkeys to give our feet a rest and to make it out quickly. We laughed the entire way down as our donkeys would randomly start running and would clump together so our legs were wedged between other donkeys and knees were in places they shouldn’t be. 

Mike in a Roman amphitheater in downtown Amman

In Amman, Mike and I had the opportunity to break away from the group and spend some quality time together while roaming around the city eating amazing food and shopping. Thanks to Dori who was our guide that afternoon! Mike stayed in Amman for two extra days and had a great time with our friends. 

One of the great things about this trip were the friendships that were made. Some friendships were brand new while others were strengthened and went to a deeper level. It’s great to be around likeminded individuals who have similar passions. 

Kind of a vague and general blog about our trip but I don’t want to write a novel in one blog.  Now, I am focused on language school and getting started on my work for ONET and continuing my work on the literacy component of the PEACE plan.