12/27/11 Heading up to El Jocote

Last night, our guide and organizer from Green Empowerment, Caitlyn Peake, gathered us together after 10 PM after we had all arrived to give us more information about the coming days. I´m sure some of us were wishing we had heard this before we decided to come as she talked about the hazards we will quite likely be exposed to, including but not limited to biting, blood-sucking insects, mud, and latrines. To be fair, we knew about the latter. The mud is a bit unexpected as we are in dry season. The insects we´ve already had an intro, at least to some of them. I have a welt on the web of my hand and on my ankle that don´t seem to want to respond to calamine, hydrocortisone, or benzocaine. The hand is better, i.e. ignorable, after about 5 days, but the ankle hovers at the edge of our awareness.

Caitlyn tells us that there is a new road up to El Jocote and, after her 2 years of commuting up there, she seems quite pleased. We will be on the northernmost border of the State of Boaco if you want to get a general idea of where we are. El Jocote (named after a type of plum that is no longer common in this heavily deforested region) doesn´t show up on Google Maps and there are many  villages of the same name dotted around the country.

Breakfast is cooking and it smells delightful. We´ve been living in the lap of luxury but we are about to have some challenging yet enlightening experiences. It will be a marvelous opportunity to be integrated, at least somewhat, into the heart of a Nicaraguan village. See you all on New Year´s! Jaime, the director of Asoociation Fenix or Aso-Fenix, after the mythical bird, showed up and gave us an introduction to the project. Although he can speak English, he has Caitlyn translate what he says in Spanish. He is very sweet guy and I know we are going to enjoy participating in a project that he has worked very hard on. This NGO is his baby having given birth to it 10 years ago. All of their projects are in the state of Boaco just a short distance NE of Managua, but a world apart. El Jocote, for example, did not have a road into it until this project. The neighbor of the largest town in the vicinity loaned out their earth moving equipment in order to build the road. Now there is an artery into the village and things will never be the same. Trucks and buses come through daily bringing in goods and produce and allowing villagers to get out more easily than ever.

We are packed into a bus that is a little large for us and though it claims high clearance, I can tell that Caitlyn is a little concerned that it may not be adequate for the roads we will be on and the streams we will be fording. We are offered to stop for lunch at the crossroads where the highway splits. The left fork carries folks to the Northern Highlands and the Hondurus border and the right will take us into the State of Boaco. We are anxious to get away from the hustle of the main highway and choose to go on a bit and stop at a roadside place by the huge reservoir that feeds the farmlands in the area. It is a special treat as we have the oportunity to taste tortillas made from freshly picked corn. Everyone takes a few pictures of the woman who is making them on a wood-fired outdoor stove. They are delicious, but the corn pudding is below Caitlyn's standards as it lacks the cinnamon and vanilla that she is use to.

We can now see the mountains ahead including a shapely peak named Santo Domingo and turn off the highway, go through the small town that loaned out the equipment and where we pick up two more volunteers who will be helping us and are also doing a project in the village, take the newly built road, and eventually turn off on the road that eventually ends in El Jocote. We initially pass a celebration taking place at a ranch lower down. There is a line up of horses, so it appears they are still the main means of transportation. Immediately after this, we come against the first challenge as the recent rain has made the road slick and our bus can{t get the momentum to both cross the small stream and go up the steep slope on the other side. Jaimie tries out his tow strap which immediately snaps. We finally manage to get the bus up when it backs further back and guns the motor along with the tow strap, now tied on one side and hooked on the other, as well as a nylon rope that is doubled over. We get quite a crowd of onlookers.

The bus finally lets us off a couple of kilometers from the village. The new road that was built where there once was a trail will be impossible to get the bus up and over. We walk the rest of the way while Jaimie{s four-wheel drive truck takes our stuff. As we approach the village, a number of young men are playing beisball, baseball, in a field. It is almost as popular as soccer in Nicaragua and they are very proud of the players who have gone on to the US major leagues including one who pitched a perfect game.

We assemble at Antonio's house, one of the members of the Council, where most of us will stay, and get final instructions. Then it's off to meet our host families. We will be the most challenged  as no speaks any English in our household, but we will have a great oportunity to learn more Spanish. (These isolated villages use words and phrases that are particular to their region and even fluent Spanish speakers carry a Spanish-Nicaraguan dictionary to help them communicate.) Nubia and Tanyo are young grandparentsThey will be paid for each night we stay there (3 in all) and all the meals we eat with them. They have given us their bed and bedroom and will share a single room in the front room that serves as their living and dining room. She rises at 4 AM each day to prepare food for Tanyo to take to his fields where he spend each day from sunup until he returns 10 hours later. The roosters will start crowing around 4 AM, a good hour before first light. Bedtime here isn{t much later than 8 PM.

12-26-2011 Heading up to Managua

Most of our morning was spent carefully going through our stuff in hopes of sending some things home after our week in the village. At least Joanie was doing this. I plan on doing it tonight. So I ran out and got another little container of yogurt and made a smoothie with the last of our huge papaya we´ve been eating off of all week.

We finally got out and went to the El Convento Museum which had only one room devoted to the saints. The first room had a lovely, colorful selection of primitive realistic paintings from the regions around Granada and some representative of famous battles in Nicaragua. There was a model of the cith of Granada, a huge display of pre-Columbian statues, a lifesize representation of games that were played by the ancient peoples from the region. When we walked out, we got our first, clear sighting of Volcano Mombacho. We went on to have a Mexican lunch and then a tour of the Coco (Chocolate) Museum which is in a building that also houses a spa and numerous modern works of art. One was so similar to the one we had just seen in the primitive selection.

Photos from Granada

Apoyo Lagoon - Crater Lake with Salsa music

Another view of the Lagoon

El Tigre

It was getting hot and about time to get to the bus station. We said our good-byes at the Posada, slung out backpacks on, and hiked up to the bus. It was seamless and within an hour we were in a taxi headed in a very circuatous route to the NGO Asociacion Fenix office. Caitlyn, our Green Empowerment guide and born and bred Portlanders, has arrived shortly before us. Now we´re uploading all the photos from the last week in hopes of posting them for your visual pleasure. The rest of our group for the Service Project will arrive by bus and plane this evening.

Christmas Day in Granada, Nicaragua

Wow! Just noticed that Portland is having the driest December on record so far! Unfortunately, the sun wasn´t around either. Looks like a wet one coming in this week. 

sweet touch for our little home away from home - we really got spoiled!

We´ve had torrential downpours almost every afternoon since we got to Nicaragua on Wednesday. Some of the gutters in Granada are about 2 feet deep and 3 feet across, so I guess they know how to deal with it.

Photos from Granada and environs

Midnight Mass at Iglesia de Guadelupe

Catedral de Granada from öur¨street Calle La Calzada

Juana by the fountain in Parque Central

Fortaleza la Polovora has been closed for many years

We bought this huge papaya and ate some each morning

Cigar Factory

Art School where I also went to refill our water jugs

Complex projects - they were using leaves from Conneticut as well as Cuba

Had to take this in as my grandfather rolled cigars a century ago in Chicago

Santa is coming to town - lots of American carols in the air as well

Climbing the Bell Tower at Iglesia de LA Merced

joanie bicycling down the Peninsula

black line was our bike route

murals on the school across the street

the view

rain came down in torrents minutes after this view of the volcano

end of our bike ride!

great swimming spot!

little bird getting his frçeet wet

kids playing in Parque Central

elder and nino

volcano

joanie preparing for biking back!

the little ones do the nativity drama

these guys drown out the band playing next to them

the line up next Parque Central

they didn´t stand a chance

Santa made it!

our digs

kids had a stick that fired off one rocket after another - so cool, I wished I could bring some home!

I went to Midnight Mass only at the Guadelupe Church at 8 PM. All is well all is bright, but we turned in early and missed the fireworks.- not completely, as I heard them  - What a way to celebrate a holy birth! We should all get as big a bang out of our birthday as these folks do for Christmas!

Had a marvelous day at Apoyo Lagoon (think Crater Lake with Salsa music) swimming, kayaking and hanging out on beach chairs.  Started raining just when we needed to leave.  Ride there and back in the back of a truck with a canopy and seats for 8.  Very wet trip back to Granada.

In the spirit of the discussion on Jew-Chinese Food-Christmas, Joanie and I decided to have it for our Christmas dinner in Granada, I had seen one near our lodging so had no trouble finding it. It was crowded as was every other restaurante in the city. We grabbed a table and were immediately treated to 4 Latin American baritones singing Leonard Cohen´s ¨Halleluyah!¨ Of course it was on cable, but who cares. We immediately joined in with the chorus. We also lit our hanukiah which consists of a thick piece of tinfoil, matches and a mass of birthday candles.