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Help Us Support Projects In Nicaragua

Dear Friends & Family,

We wanted to share a letter we wrote in support of fundraising efforts for projects in Nicaragua connected to La Mariposa, the place we did our language study. We were so impressed with the projects connected to La Mariposa in their support of the local community, children’s programs, animal rescue, and environment protection, that we want to help with fundraising efforts for some of these projects.

Prior to the political crisis in 2018, these projects were fully funded by tourism dollars at La Mariposa. We are starting monthly sponsorship programs to ensure these programs have steady income that is not so reliant on tourism in Nicaragua.

We need 20 people to donate $35 a month to fully fund Chispa de Vida, a program for children with disabilities. Learn More Here.

Equine program at Chispa de Vida – a program for children with disabilities.

This program is especially close to our hearts because we are in the process of adopting a child with special needs. The services and medical treatment he is able to receive for free through USA government programs is amazing. Without programs like Chispa de Vida, children in Nicaragua with disabilities have far fewer opportunities.

There are also plenty of other sponsorship opportunities if you have a special place in your heart for horses or dogs.

Cheyenne feeding rescued dogs at La Mariposa

Please read our full letter below, and we ask that you consider a monthly donation to one of these programs.

Denver & Tara

Our visit to Volcano Masaya, which we could see from La Mariposa

Dear Mariposa Supporters,

Those of you who have visited La Mariposa know that it is much more than a language school. It is a place of employment, an animal rescue & environmental sanctuary, a resource for local children with disabilities, community projects, and so much more. All these projects were started through revenue generated by students like you and me coming to the Mariposa. However, the political situation in 2018 and continuing into 2019 has decreased attendance to the school, and in turn hurt revenue to support these wonderful programs. We want to challenge you to support these projects through tax deductible giving this holiday season.

Why We fell in Love with La Mariposa

We are Denver and Tara Steiner (Ohio, USA), and we would like to share our family’s journey of how we fell in love with La Mariposa and why we have chosen to continue to support its projects.

Both of us had spent time in other countries individually before we met, and as parents we desired for our children to have an immersive experience in another culture. In our research to find a family-friendly setting, Tara discovered a number of travel blogs recommending La Mariposa for families with children. We checked out the La Mariposa Website, and knew that was where we needed to go. So in February of 2018 we traveled to Nicaragua without the kids to get a better feel for the school and plan out our future trip.

At that time, the Eco-hotel was so full of guests that we were placed with a host family (which was an amazing experience in itself) because there were no rooms left at the school. We got a tour of the various La Mariposa projects, rode horses up the mountain, and joined two micro-buses full of students to La Boquita beach (which quickly became our favorite beach ever). We excitedly made reservations for our family to return later that year.

Two months later, we were horrified to learn of the violent crackdown on protests at the hands of the government. La Mariposa school closed for a time, and we reluctantly started researching a plan B in another Spanish-speaking country if Nicaragua wasn’t an option. However, every place we researched online just didn’t feel right. They seem to do some things well, but they weren’t La Mariposa. It felt like we were compromising what we wanted our kids to experience.

Fortunately, by December 2018, the situation had settled down enough for La Mariposa to reopen. So in mid-December we took our 3 children (ages 8, 7, and 3) and traveled to Nicaragua as planned (and, by the way, felt perfectly safe for the 2+ months total we spent in the country, so don’t let fear stop you from coming). Over the next 6 weeks, we all studied Spanish with great teachers, explored Nicaraguan culture in a new city every weekend, swam in a volcanic lagoon every Wednesday, and so much more. We joined the participants in Chispa de Vida for their Christmas program. Tara volunteered in the newly-opened children’s program in San Pedro. Our kids each had their favorite rescue dogs, and our daughter looked forward to horseback riding every Sunday on rescued horses. Our family fell in love with the school, the staff, the animals, and the country.

  • New rescued puppies
  • Tara volunteering in one of the local children’s projects
  • Rescued Horses used for riding

We could go on, but that is not the purpose of this email. Check out our family blog to read more about our experience in Nicaragua, or watch our children’s presentation of our trip to their classmates back home.

While we were having a blast at La Mariposa, we also watched it struggle. There were a handful of other wonderful students, but nowhere near the numbers La Mariposa had seen previously. The absence of college groups was especially challenging. Finances got tight, staff salaries had to be cut in half, some staff left, and for a time even the Chispa de Vida program had to be closed to the children who so need those therapies, until several donors stepped forward to help it reopen.

Today we are hopeful that La Mariposa is making a comeback. That said, we never want to see any of these wonderful projects close or turn away children or animals that need rescued simply because of lack of funds due to political situations and other circumstances outside their control. To ensure these programs continue to operate, La Mariposa needs your help in ongoing support of these programs.

Ways You Can Help La Mariposa

1.       Visit – Come stay at La Mariposa, learn (more) Spanish, learn more about Nicaraguan culture, and volunteer at one of the projects. Invite your friends and family to experience La Mariposa for the first time. Encourage college and other groups to return. Your money will be used to pay staff salaries, give them dignified work, and the profit will continue to support the various projects. Online Skype classes are also available

2.       Ongoing Giving – We challenge all friends of La Mariposa who care about its future to consider monthly giving to one of the projects below, so that they will have a stable income independent of the state of tourism within the country.

  • Chispa de Vida – a program providing helpful therapies for children with disabilities. We need 20 people to sponsor children at $35/month to fully fund this program, and ensure these children can continue receiving the services provided (physical, equine, and hydro therapy). Click here for monthly giving.
  • Dog Sponsorship – $25/month covers food and veterinary services for the many rescued dogs that are part of the unique personality of La Mariposa. We currently have 5 sponsors, and are looking for 15 more to fully cover our dog rescue programs. Click here to sponsor a dog.
  • Horse Sponsorship – $35/month covers food and veterinary services for our rescued horses (many of which help provide equine therapy for the children in Chispa de Vida!). We need 20 sponsors at this level to fully fund the horse care project. We challenge individuals and even 4-H groups and riding clubs to consider sponsoring a horse together. Click here to sponsor a Horse.

3.       One-Time Giving – We welcome any one-time, end-of year gifts designated to any of the projects listed above. Additionally, the following are some special project considerations:

  • $10 buys diapers for a disabled child for 2 weeks
  • $20 funds the sterilisation of a dog
  • $30 provides wages for one week for one of the gardeners
  • $50 buys 15 days worth of materials for the 5 children’s projects
  • $100 pays for two tankers to deliver water to communities who have no water supply 

4.       Carbon Offsets – Global warming is a looming reality that disproportionately affects countries like Nicaragua. Perhaps the company you work for or you individually would like to purchase carbon offsets. Asociación Tierra is an NGO started by Paulette to support environmental projects and education. With money given here, hundreds of trees are being planted to help offset the vast areas of forest that have been cleared for dragonfruit exports. Larger giving would also allow additional land to be purchased and reforested. Contact Paulette if you have more questions or ideas on how you can contribute to this.

  • $50 – Purchase Native Trees

If you are receiving this letter, it is because you also love La Mariposa and we know you want to see its work in Nicaragua survive as much as our family does. Thank you for your consideration of ways you can help us keep Paulette’s dream alive for the sake of the communities surrounding the school who have benefitted from its presence, and all of us who have learned so much from being a part of it.  

Gracias por tu amistad y apoyo a La Mariposa,

Denver & Tara Steiner

Last day at the Mariposa (although we plan to return many times more!)
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Trip Recap

Our last month (March) as we traveled through Guatemala & Belize was a bit of a blur. We spent more time enjoying ourselves and seeing new sites, then we did keeping up on our blog. Perhaps we’ll come back and finish out our Travels through Antigua, Tikal, and Belize. But for now I want to post this, a trip recap by our children which sums up the entire trip well.

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Canyon Somoto, Nicaragua

At the end of our last week in Nicaragua, we were eagerly anticipating a visit from special visitors. Paulette, founder of La Mariposa, was planning to travel up to Esteli to spend time with us, and our children were SO excited to see her again! Oscar, one of the La Mariposa drivers, drove her in the truck so we got to see him too! As a surprise they brought along a pinata for the kids, and a truckload of crates and crates full of fresh fruits and vegetables from the La Mariposa gardens–greens and tomatoes and avocados and oranges and mandarinas and pineapples, overflowing our kitchen! Even a special package of fresh eggs from Paulette’s chickens, wrapped in banana leaves as a carton, which I think is the just coolest thing!

Isn’t that the coolest egg carton, though!?

We ate lunch together at our home, spent the afternoon chatting, and visited a park and Pizza Hut that evening. But the main event was the following morning! Somoto Canyon had been recommended to us by some other students we met at La Mariposa, and we hoped to see it while we were in Northern Nicaragua, so we invited Paulette and Oscar to join us. It was fun to get to experience a new part of Nicaragua that Paulette and Oscar hadn’t seen before either!

Cozy in the back of the truck for the hour and a half drive to Somoto.

The first part of the Somoto tour is a hike down to the riverbed, and then along the sandy, rocky riverbed, which is completely dry or very shallow pools during the dry season now, to get deeper into the canyon. Denver, Oscar, and our guide all ended up with a kid on their shoulders at one time as legs got tired and sand got in their shoes.

The next stage, when you arrive deep enough into the canton that there is enough water that you can’t walk any further, is to climb into a rowboat to be rowed further in through some beautiful rock formations as the sides of the canyon grow steeper and narrow around you.

The row boats come to a point where the way is completely blocked by large rocks that divide the riverbed into separate lakes. Everyone climbs out of the boat and does some rock climbing up and over the rock formations, which give a greater view down over the river and into the narrow parts of the canyon ahead!

Next comes the really fun stage (which Paulette and Oscar chose to opt out of and wait for us in the shade of a big rock): climbing down into tubes in the water to float into the deepest, most narrow parts of the canyon! The poor guides have to get into the water and swim, pulling the tubes along train style. At the deepest part of the canyon where you can’t go any further, there is a place where they let people climb up to jump into the water from crazy heights on the rock–none of us did, but we watch a couple of other crazy people and our guides do it (Shiny screamed and hid her eyes, I agree with her sentiment!).

Then it’s time to do the tour in reverse, getting towed back through the water to the big rocks, climbing down to the rowboat and and traveling back to the dry riverbed.

The fun part on the way back was that we had reserved horses for the hike back, knowing the kids would be tired, so we finished out the tour with Quinn and Thea on one horse, Paulette on another, and Cheyenne and I riding behind (Denver and Oscar walked).

The tour includes a traditional Nicaraguan lunch at the end, so we had the chance to sit down and share one more meal together before the long drive back and saying goodbye.

Somoto Canyon is a beautiful place, and made for a beautiful day of exploring with friends. Thanks for discovering a new treasure of Nicaragua with us, Paulette and Oscar!

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Two Fun Places to Visit in Esteli

After a couple of weeks in the routine of Esteli, we were getting some major cabin fever to get the kids out of the house and do something active! So we asked Marcelo for suggestions of places we could go close by, and he provided us with great options to help fill our last two Saturdays!

Centro Recreativo La Ensenada

This was a terrific way to spend a morning/afternoon! La Ensenada is an outdoor restaurant and swimming pools combined. For the cost of the understanding that you will order drinks and food from their restaurant while you are there, use of the pools is free for as long as you like!

It had one larger pool and one small pool perfect for Shiny to run around in! We got dropped off about 10:30 and stayed until almost 3:00, with delicious traditional Nicaraguan meal options for lunch (and things like cheeseburgers and chicken for the kids).

The property also included a yard area with playground equipment for the kids. Now why can’t we have cool multi-purpose restaurants like this in Ohio (I mean, besides that we could only effectively use them 3-4 months out of the year…)?

La Casita

La Casita is an organic, homemade foods cafe (outdoor, of course) which specializes in breads, coffee, and natural drinks for a light breakfast/brunch/lunch (all menu items grown and produced onsite on their little organic farm or locally). But the business also includes sales of all kinds of plants, flowers, and trees they grow like a greenhouse shop, and a large area of flowering trees and cactus gardens with walking paths, open lawn for playing, and playgrounds for the kids. Marcelo picked us up after the kids finished their last Fun Arte class at 10:00 our final Saturday and we met up at La Casita with Anabel and two of their teenage kids, Victoria and John Mark.

We enjoyed our “merienda” of individual bread loaves with choice of spread and toppings (mine was a yogurt spread with cucumber and tomato slices to make my little sandwiches, Denver’s was with Swiss cheese, and the kids chose a chocolate spread). I especially enjoyed my pot of fresh brewed chai tea latte! After eating we all hung out in the gardens and playground area. The kids especially loved the zip line swing, which sped across from a low platform on the playground to be stopped with a whiplash-inducing jolt and bounced back by a metal spring at the end of the cable, which they thought was hilarious!

And Shiny had fun ordering around her special friend Victoria (“Vicki”) one last time!

La Casita ended up being another great way to spend a Saturday, enjoy some delicious food, and get the kids out to use up some energy! Thanks for introducing us to these fun spots, Marcelo and Anabel!

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Settling Into the Estelí Routine

We said goodbye to La Mariposa on Friday, February 1st, and headed north on a bus from Managua to Estelí, the city where we would be staying for the next 4 weeks of our trip.  Denver’s cousin’s wife is from there, and it is her family we stayed with, and her brother, Marcelo, who is working with Denver on researching possibilities for the Tilmor tractor in Nicaragua.  They have a nice upper level added onto their home with two bedrooms, a patio area, and a bathroom, just the right size to comfortably fit our family. And the rooftop patio provided some nice views overlooking our neighborhood and the surrounding mountains.

School Routine

Our first Saturday, we stopped by Divine Mercy Bilingual School, not far from where we stayed. We enrolled our children, purchased uniforms, and got signed up for bus pickup service. When Monday rolled around, we were ready well before 7:15 waiting for the bus to take the kids to school which started at 7:30. Around 7:40, the bus finally arrived. The rest of the week, the pickup time was closer to 8:00.

The following Monday, we were caught off guard when the bus showed up at 6:40am (we weren’t ready, so they agreed to go on with the route and then come back for our kids). They hadn’t communicated this, but apparently the school started at 7:00am after the first week. So the kids finally got settled into a regular routine of making sure to be ready by 6:30 (except for the time the main bus had broken down, and the bus again didn’t show up until well after 8:00 for a couple of days…).

School in Nicaragua starts the first week of February, so this was one of the reasons we had timed our visit to start in February. We were hoping our kids’ Spanish would improve by enrolling them in school. What we didn’t realize is “bi-lingual” meant that almost all the classes were done in English! This made for an easier transition and less stressful experience for our kids, although it didn’t force them to use their Spanish as much. Thea made a friend in her grade that ended up being our next-door neighbor, and it was fun to hear the two of them interact mostly in Spanish. So while our language goals weren’t completely met, it was a helpful experience for our kids to meet kids in another culture, and experience what school is like for them.

A normal school day ended at 1:00, with the kids getting home on the bus about 1:20.  They would get changed out of their school uniforms and then we would go downstairs to eat the lunch that Karen and Karmen, our hostesses, always had ready and waiting for us. After lunch it was time for Cheyenne’s nap, and Quinten and Thea received their from-home school assignments for the day, usually a math sheet to complete, a reading and vocabulary assignment and/or a journal entry to write (with some time playing Minecraft on the tablet afterward as the big motivator to get schoolwork finished).   

Keeping this one out of trouble in someone else’s home is an exhausting job, so nap time was always a welcome break in the routine!!!
A special afternoon when the kids got to talk to their Ohio classmates on Skype!

Fun Arte

A weekend activity that occurred every Saturday was “Fun Arte”, a kid’s painting class that we enrolled our kids in. Official start time was 8am, but they were lucky to start things by 8:30am. These classes started with a story, and the kids were free to paint something inspired from the story. Cheyenne was too young for the class, but we snuck her in because Denver agreed to hang with her the entire time. This created a bit of a challenge keeping a squirmy 3-year-old entertained while trying to translate a story into English enough for the kids to understand. When it was finally time to paint, it was a bit more “fun”, and the kids’ creativity came out.

Denver’s Work Routine

As mentioned earlier, Denver spent this month working with the Tilmor project here in Esteli. This often involved joining Marcelo to visit a farm that was testing the Tilmor tractor. During this time his focus was learning more about agricultural practices in Nicaragua, distribution options, access to credit, and figuring out next steps based on that.

On off-days from visiting farms and businesses, he would have “office” days back home. This gave him time to gather thoughts, write up reports, and take care of other business (and spend more time with his wife, of course! *Tara’s edit*)

Tara’s Routine

Originally, we thought I might be bored with nothing to do while Denver was working and the kids were in school. Denver had asked the school if I might be able to volunteer a few days a week. I rode along with the kids on the bus the first day and without any specific direction on what to do, I stuck with Cheyenne in her class for the morning and had a chance to help her settle into the classroom routine. She had some moments when she got scared and I needed to reassure her and coax her back to the room, and we made lots of trips to the bathroom (which she thought was fun because of the preschooler-sized toilets), so I felt good about being able to be there to help her. 

All of us ready for our first day of school

While I was helping in Shiny’s class the first day, I noticed that the teacher of the youngest classroom, with mostly 3-year-olds, seemed very stressed with over 20 toddlers running everywhere and only one teacher, so I told her I would try to help her out the next day.  I ended up coming every day that week to try to help, but “helping” mostly meant trying to control some of the chaos by running back and forth to the bathroom with kids who needed to go, or staying back in a class with children running around and yelling while the teacher went to take kids for diaper changes (4 children in the classroom still in diapers that she was expected to have changed even though she was alone in a class of over 20 kids!).  She said it was more kids in the classroom than they’d had previous years, and some of the kids were actually 2 when they were supposed to be 3 (and those children cried the whole morning, every morning,so I spent much of my time trying to calm those children as well). 

I came home every day so exhausted and overwhelmed that I took a nap with Shiny and would sleep almost until dinner.  After a week of that routine, I ended up really sick with a bad cold over the weekend and into the next week, and with that excuse not to return to school the first few days, I realized how much anxiety the school environment had created and I was happy to just have that time at home to relax while my kids were at school!  (The teacher had told the head of school she needed a permanent classroom aide for when I was not there anymore, so I also hoped my not being there would help them realize the necessity of getting her some real long-term help!)

Mornings were much more fun and relaxing hanging out in the “home office’ with this guy 🙂

So my routine the remaining 3 weeks, after getting the kids ready and sent off to school, included things like eating a quiet breakfast with Denver, washing laundry or cleaning our living area, a lot of writing to catch up on the blog that we were very behind on, reading, practicing Spanish on my app, and preparing the kids’ homework assignments for later. I enjoyed the days that Denver worked from “home,” with some quiet time to talk and share a coffee and bread together midmorning while we worked. And it made so that on Valentine’s Day we even got away with a long walk to find a restaurant and had a kid-free lunch date with free babysitting since the kids were in school!   

Evening and Weekend Free Time

We didn’t have easy access to any transportation besides relying on Marcelo to drive us in his truck, which we didn’t want to make him do all the time.  Within walking distance our main options for getting out of the house on our own were a little ice cream shop we visited quite often for a treat, and another little shop where we could buy breakfast bread and snacks. There was a field across the road from us where the kids liked to go kick around the soccer ball, and on quieter evenings at home we played a lot of Dutch Blitz and Phase 10.

A longer walk away was a children’s park we played at a few times, once taking the neighbor girl and another time when Paulette visited us, and the kids always had a good time there.

We made a couple of visits to Marcello and Anabel’s house for Sunday lunch and spent the afternoon chatting while all the kids had fun cooling off in the kiddie pool they filled up for them. For Quinten’s birthday, we had the whole Castillo family over and ordered Pizza Hut (Quinn’s request), and the weekend after Quinten’s birthday we made a special trip to the movie theater to see the Lego Movie 2 as a gift—of course, the movie was in Spanish, so that was a fun new experience for the kids!  Our home also gave the kids access to (Spanish) TV, which they hadn’t had in over a month, and the very sweet 8-month-old baby girl who lives there provided some cute entertainment as well!

We are especially thankful for the warm welcome and hospitality we received from the Castillo family during our time in Esteli. On our last night they had a special goodbye dinner with the whole family, and we had fun destroying the piñata that had been given to the children by La Mariposa.

The entire family was very generous in offering help with whatever we needed, keeping us well-fed, and in opening up their homes to our (often very noisy and wild) family! Thank you for taking care of us, Castillo family!

Goodbye Esteli—Waiting for the bus on the last day of school.
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Saying “Adios”: Our Final week at La Mariposa (Until next time!)

The final morning, before loading up the van. Smiles for the picture, but the morning was full of tears!

Final. Week. In the kind of place that after 6 weeks of living feels like home, with people who after 6 weeks of doing life together feel like family. The final week at La Mariposa meant a long list of “last times” and memories to document so we can hold onto them after we are gone, at the same time hopeful that none of these “last times” really is the FINAL last time (even our children are already planning future return trips)!

Last weekend horse ride…

Our last weekend ride turned out to be our first ride with a full group of other riders, needing all 6 horses! Actually it was what we thought was our last ride, but midweek Thea and I got a bonus ride with some new students who wouldn’t get a chance to ride on the weekend. Two horseback trips up the mountain in one week made for a good finale!
Thea’s favorite horse, sweet little Lucy who is blind on one side.

Last Wednesday at Laguna de Apoyo…

Having a weekly family day at the lake will be a hard routine to leave behind! With reports from back home of dangerously record-low temperatures from the “polar vortex” and lots of snow, we were especially grateful to be hanging out in our swimsuits and paddling around a pleasant lake!

Last souvenirs to be purchased…

Because, those CHICKENS…I need more…
(And also other non-chicken souvenirs the kids picked out for the cousins and other family members). I could seriously search around artisan’s markets for treasures all day long (if only we had more luggage space and didn’t have 4 more countries and multiple destinations to get through carrying it all…)!

Last loads of laundry to be washed…

SO. MUCH. LAUNDRY. Keeping up with handwashing clothes in a family of 5 was challenging, and “keep up” we definitely did NOT do. We tried to get enough washed per week to make sure each person would have clothes to wear for the next five days or so, but the dirty laundry bags seemed to always still be full no matter how much we pulled out to wash. By the end of our stay we decided that in order to be able to pack our clothes mostly clean, we were going to need some assistance! So we finally took advantage of the service of asking one of the kitchen staff wash a number of items for us while we were in classes or at an activity, which for 3 Cordobas (10 cents) per item, we realized we were crazy not to have been getting some help all along! But there are parts that I will kind of miss, like working together with my two older children to help them each wash their own clothes.

Last trip to our favorite park…

There is a large, beautiful children’s park we discovered on a trip to the markets in Masaya. It is right beside the overlook of the lake and volcano, and has beautifully huge old trees for shade and lots of other plants and flowers all around the many different playground sets and sports areas for children, and even a section of gym-style exercise equipment meant for adults! It also has many little snack shacks so you can buy a slice of pizza or an ice cream cone, which was probably our kids’ favorite thing about going! They also have fun memories of spontaneous friendships made with other children there over an invented game of tag combined with dodgeball using a half-deflated ball they found, and of going with daddy to watch a 9-D movie experience that has a little trailer in the park (and terrified poor Shiny who had to cover her eyes for most of the time!). The park became a go-to whenever the afternoon activity was a trip to Masaya for shopping in the markets; Denver would get dropped off in the park with the kids while I got to go shopping with the group in peace!

Last snacks at Josimar’s Restaurant…

Josimar is one of the admin staff at La Mariposa, and had just ventured into opening up a little restaurant on the side with his family, easy walking distance from the school, so we tried to give them our business as often as we could! Josimar’s was a favorite place for afternoon snacks like pizza, chicken, french fries, excellent Calala (passion fruit) juice, and my personal favorite indulgence-a cappuccino complete with frothy milk! The extra fun part was that they supplied games like UNO, Mancala, and Memory, so we could combine snack time with family play time!

Last time to hold hands with a monkey…

I mean, this sweetheart…someone just please go hold her hand for us while we’re gone, okay?

Last visits with favorite furry friends…

Cheyenne’s favorite was definitely the kitten; Quinn wanted a picture to remember his favorite dog, good old Junior.

Last time to greet new students…

A fun part of being students here over so many weeks has been getting to meet new people from all over the world each week. A group from Texas was just arriving for a 10-day stay on our family’s last day. It was the first time our kids had another child close to their age at the school, and with only one day she and Thea still were quick to make friends and squeezed in a good amount of play time (and a walk to get ice cream!).

Last days of Spanish class and saying goodbye to teachers…

This kid…he might have whined sometimes about waking up and going to classes in the morning, and might have been reluctant to speak his Spanish most of the time, but did he ever CRY when it came time to say goodbye to his teachers (and made them cry too!).
Cheyenne’s main teacher Daleska also spent a lot of extra afternoons with our kids whenever we needed childcare during a history class or to get some extra work done (more laundry…), and she became really attached to her (despite all the 3-year-old tantrums and screaming “no”)!
On their last day of class, the kids’ teachers planned a special trip for them to Josimar’s restaurant for pizza!
lAnd of course, the grown-ups had some really cool teachers who we will miss too!

Last hugs and saying goodbye to friends…

There were many tears shed saying goodbye to La Mariposa founder Paulette, who made everything we experienced at La Mariposa possible, and who made our children feel loved and welcomed there! (Spoiler alert: this goodbye wasn’t for as long as we thought, because Paulette likes us enough to make a trip up to visit us in Esteli at the end of our month there, but that’s a future blog post!)

We were also sad to say goodbye to interns Andra and Jaime who we got to know well over our 6-week stay, as Andra was there for almost our whole stay (she left the weekend before we left), and Jaime was there the whole time (and still is; she keeps extending the length of her stay because it’s just too hard to leave!). Both worked hard for the school on things like fundraising and updating the new website Denver helped design, and also were great with our children! After dinner Andra was often pulled away by Cheyenne to the library to read books, do crazy dances like Baby Shark and the Chicken Dance, and create things with blocks (while Cheyenne’s parents got to sit a while longer at dinner and have pleasant conversations with other adults–thanks again Andra!!!). On Andra’s last day there was a special surprise cake for dessert at lunch that we all got to share in celebration of her time there and all she had done!

Last ride in the Mariposa bus…

La Mariposa’s excellent conductores (drivers) Oscar and Javier took us on so many wonderful adventures in the school’s beat-up but trusty vans, and man.y enjoyable conversations with other students happened in those vans on the long drives as well! Our final ride would be with Oscar to be dropped off at the bus station in Managua, northbound for Esteli.

Last views of the beautiful Mariposa grounds…

Our next destination is more of a city setting, making these beautiful gardens and trees with their colorful flowers and birds especially hard to leave behind!
La Mariposa: Thank you for all the wonderful memories, all the things you showed us about your beautiful country, all the improvements on our Spanish, all of your patience with the antics of our children, and for giving us an extra “family” to be a part of in Nicaragua–we’ll be back!!!

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Saturday in Managua

Most of the guidebooks I’ve read have treated the capital city, Managua, as a place to fly into, but then leave as fast as possible to get to your final destination. Other than a few business trips to edge of Managua, we had pretty much avoided it, despite being less than an hour away. We decided to give it a try our last free Saturday at La Mariposa.

At the recommendation of a college friend of mine, Derek Charles, we agreed to meet him and his family at an Aquatic Park in northern Managua. Derek and his wife Rebekah have been serving with MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) as country representatives in Managua since 2015. Their kids Lia (8), Silas (6), and Miriam (2) were close in age to our three children, and I was eager to give our kids a chance to rub shoulders with “Third Culture Kids” and see part of their life in Nicaragua.

Not sure what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised by the Aquatic park. The water park was only two years old and rivaled many parks you can find back home. One big difference, adults weren’t allowed on slides and larger equipment, everything was for kids.  (Water slides aren’t very well regulated, and “crashes” are common. So less adults might actually be safer). Our kids were initially shy, but quickly overcame that and made new friends with the Charles kids. The older kids soon could navigate the larger structures and slides together without us. This gave parents time to chat, while we tailed Cheyenne and Miriam in the kiddy pool area.

After a pizza and chicken lunch, we said goodbye to Rebekah and Miriam and sent them off for naps. The rest of us explored the rest of Xolotlan park. They have an impressive display of scale models of cathedrals found throughout Nicaragua. It was cool seeing the variety of architecture side by side.

Following that we walked through a scale model of “downtown” Managua as it looked in the early 1970’s before an earthquake took out many of the buildings.

Models of the old cathedral and presidential palace.

From there we got a tour of many other sights in Managua. Some highlights include:

Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception – AKA the “Eggcarton Cathedral”, a modern twist on cathedral design.

Loma de Tiscapa – an overlook over the city of Managua. The kids enjoyed snacks here, and running around on the playground.

    Old Cathedral – We couldn’t go in, but you can see the shell of what’s left from the earthquake, and the huge cracks on the sides.

    We ended the day at Parque Luis Afonso Velasquez Florez. It’s a very large and well-done children’s park. Our kids enjoyed paddleboats, a roller coaster ride, and playing on the many playgrounds. The park was named after a young 9-year-old boy who is considered a martyr of the Sandinista Revolution. He was killed in 1979 for being an outspoken critic of the Somoza government. Just three months after his death, the “revolution” took place with the ousting of “Somoza”.

    In 2019, it is a bit ironic to observe the “niceties” of these children’s parks and beauty of some of these city centers juxtaposed to the current political and economic crisis in Nicaragua. Last April (2018), a benign protest turned deadly when government forces shot and killed 26 people. Things fell apart from there, and hundreds more were killed over the next several months before opposition protest were snuffed out, leaving a political and economic mess in its wake.

    During this trip in Managua, I observed graffiti and burn marks on scale model cathedrals being painted over and restored. My kids enjoyed the result of lots of money poured into very colorful park systems.  I saw a forest of 140 Metal Trees costing around $3.3 million in one of the poorest counties in the Western Hemisphere. While my kids immensely enjoyed the parks, part of it felt like a facade, hiding the many problems and challenges of this beautiful country. A more optimistic reflection would point out the attempt to build an impressive and iconic downtown area for this capital city, something Nicaraguans can be proud of.

    At Tiscapa, a huge monument to the current government: the silhouette of Sandinista hero Sandino, the FSLN (Sandinista party) flag flying right alongside the Nicaraguan, and on the left one of the infamous giant metal “Trees of Life.”

    I was confronted with a different reality as we headed back home on public transportation. For nearly the hour plus trip, I stood with my two oldest kids on a jammed bus, bracing myself and them for the constant braking and acceleration of the bus. Something I’m glad my kids experienced, but something I wouldn’t want to do everyday. The verdict? Managua was a great trip and worth seeing, but not something I’d do every weekend.

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    The Children of the San Pedro Project

    I’ve already talked a lot about how one of the best things about La Mariposa is the way that they work to give back and invest in the surrounding communities.  In a previous post I described the plan to open a new children’s project in another local community, and our family was blessed to be able to purchase the school supplies and craft type items that we thought the project could use to get it off to a good start.  It was an honor to then get to be here for the grand opening day of that project and witness the overwhelming confirmation of the need in the community for a project like this!

    It was beautiful to have our children not only observe the opening of the new project, but also stay for their class time with their teachers that morning to interact directly with the other children. The experience of seeing so many children wanting the chance to participate left a huge impression on them!

    San Pedro is a small barrio of the larger community of San Juan, within easy walking distance of the school. Paulette described its needs this way: “This is in a barrio commonly referred to as “El Chirigete” which is highly offensive and means “dirty” (a reference to the community’s poverty)—it is the barrio everyone else blames for thefts or when anything goes wrong.  Ignored in general by the authorities (except the police), the people of San Pedro were very involved in the opposition to the government and the building of roadblocks (during the crisis this summer).  Most of the young men fled from this barrio during ‘Operation Clean Up’ and are now in Costa Rica.  So the idea of this project was to contribute to the process of reconciliation.” 

    At the time this new project opened, La Mariposa was right in the middle of a lot of stress and financial insecurity, still struggling to make a recovery after the fallout of this summer’s political crisis and months with no students to generate income.  And yet they felt called to reach out to this barrio, and begin a new educational project for its children, not knowing if the extra funding to support it would be there or not.

    When they began to plan for this project, they estimated that around 40 children might attend, and planned accordingly in renting a spare room of someone’s home to house the project.  On the morning that the project would open, all current La Mariposa students and our teachers piled into the van together to go be a part of the event.  By the time we got there, the room was already packed with children, all of the little tables and chairs were filled, and as we waited for the start more and more children and their parents continued to arrive, so that many had to stand, and many did not fit inside the room! After Hassell, in charge of directing all La Mariposa’s community projects, gave a welcome introduction and thanked everyone who had made it possible, she began to long process of trying to take attendance to get a list of all the children who had shown up.  In the end, there were not 40 children, but close to 100 children and their parents who were eager to take advantage of this extra educational opportunity!

    Hassell trying to bring some organization to the project’s opening morning, as children kept packing into the single rented room.
    Barely even standing room left, as parents share about their gratitude for an extra opportunity for their children to learn.

    Staff at La Mariposa had known there was a need, but were blown away by the community response to the project opening!  Within a week they were needing to look for a new location to rent for need of a larger space, and moved into one nearby that had two rooms. I was excited about the idea of being able to participate in the start of something brand new for the benefit of children, and knowing that they had so many more children than expected with only two teachers to lead the project, I asked Hassell if I might spend my last two weeks at La Mariposa volunteering in San Pedro in place of my regular Spanish classes.

    So for the last two weeks of our time at La Mariposa, I met with Johana (who was my ongoing Spanish grammar teacher for our whole stay, and is from San Pedro herself) at 8:00 to walk the 15 minutes through San Juan to the San Pedro project together, both volunteered together until the project ended at 11:00, and then walked back and finished out the 20 minutes or so of class time left before lunch with some final grammar lessons.

    My Spanish grammar teacher, Johana, became a great friend, as I got to know her over the 6 weeks at La Mariposa and especially during the two weeks volunteering together when I got to really see her heart for the children of her community!

    The first day we helped at the project, all of the children were still meeting at one time, split between the two small rooms with still not enough chairs for all of the children to sit. Two teachers trying to teacher that many children, ranging in age from 3-12, split between two different rooms, was quite a chaotic scene!  Starting the following day they divided into two separate sessions, younger children in the morning and older children in the afternoon, making numbers and space a little more manageable! In the beginning I was able to help by passing out papers and supplies, assisting children with craft projects, and sharing little games and books I brought to keep children in one room busy while teachers were instructing in the other room. 

    As the project got into more of a routine and I gained more confidence in the role I could play there, I was given more activities to lead on my own, like teaching the alphabet, reading books aloud to the whole group, and my personal favorites—teaching the children how to play “Simon Says” (“Simon Dice”) and to sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” (“Cabeza, Hombros, Piernas, Pies”).  I also enjoyed lots of little in-between moments: teaching small groups of children to play memory with a set of Cheyenne’s picture cards I brought along, and how certain children would come ask me for “las cartas” to play the game together every day during break time; sitting with children outside during recreo (a break time for snack, like recess) and answering all kinds of questions about my children, my pets, snow in Ohio; all the children who generously wanted to share their snacks with me, from mandarins to bites of their cookies to drinks from their yogurt pouch—they all wanted to have something to give me; the time kids had asked what my favorite fruit was, and I said berries like strawberries, and the next day a child pulls out a strawberry brought especially for me; my friend Angel who was waiting outside every day during recreo, even though he was in the older afternoon group, to ask me questions and practice phrases he knew or wanted to learn in English (our main accomplishments were “How are you?” “Very good.” And “What is your name?”—we didn’t have a lot of time!).

    And then there were the times spent sitting with Jose, a little boy with a disability that has kept him completely non-verbal, pointing out pictures and names of objects in books and responding to his sweet attempts to communicate through excited pointing and gestures and pulling on my arm to ask me to sit and read with him some more (sadly, in Nicaragua there aren’t laws supporting the education of children with disabilities in schools, so a project like this might be his only access to learning outside his home, since schools aren’t required to accept him or provide support services). His big searching eyes say there is a lot more going on inside his head than he is able to express!

    • Sweet, speechless Jose.

    It was sad to come upon the last day that I would be helping at the project before we left La Mariposa, and to think of saying goodbye to the children.  But they completely surprised me when I walked in the door that morning to find the children already seated in a circle around the room, the walls and ceilings strung with streamers and balloons, and even a pinata!  Plus a beautiful cake with a special personalized message on it, punch and treats for the children—all for a goodbye party to thank me after just 2 weeks of volunteering—I was so blown away and humbled!

    My surprise when I walked in the doorway!
    “Muchas Gracias por todo, siempre te recordaremos” – Many thanks for everything, we will always remember you”
    They made sure to point out that instead of “Adios, Tara,” the cake says “Hasta Pronto, Tara” which is more like saying “See you soon!” because they expect me to come back again!

    It was such a fun last morning of music, playing games (I had my chance to show off my pinata dance skills, and lead “Simon Dice” one last time), and helping to pass out all the special party treats for the kids to enjoy.  It was an honor to have been the first volunteer to help at this new project and get to know the kids of San Pedro and work with teachers Idana and Milita, and to have them so quickly make me feel like a part of their community who would be missed. 

    The whole surprise, the decorations, the cake, the party were all amazing gifts to be given, but the best gifts were all of the huge HUGS from kids at the end, the two little boys who each came up to me before they left to give a sweet little speech of their own thanking me for helping with the project and providing supplies, and a picture of the beautiful children of San Pedro who will have a special place in my heart, always!  Hasta pronto, San Pedro, te amo!

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    Starting to wind down: Highlights of La Mariposa Week 5

    The kids have talked a lot about missing their kittens back home, so finding some kittens to snuggle on the mountain reserve after a morning horse ride was a highlight!

    As we drew nearer to the end of our 6 weeks at La Mariposa, which had seemed like such a long time in the beginning, it felt like it was going by too fast, and I think we all wished we could slow those last weeks down to keep the end from coming! But those last two weeks still had many little joys and learning experiences to pack into our remaining time!

    In addition to the kittens above that the kids befriended one morning on the reserve, we had two special friends at La Mariposa adopt our family in those last couple weeks. One was Pelusa the dog, who began inviting herself into our room each evening just to chill on the floor near to us for a couple hours until we went to bed. The other was the rescued gray kitten Estrella who liked to come into our room to play wildly or curl up on a bed to sleep.

    I wrote in a previous post about the many community projects with children supported by La Mariposa. The children of some of those projects presented a special performance at the school one afternoon for a group of representatives from an organization that has gifted financial support. They put together an adorably choreographed rendition of the “Baby Shark” song complete with handmade costumes, and another group of girls danced a beautiful example of traditional Nicaraguan folkloric dance.

    Another afternoon Ismael drove our family to an unlikely tourist location—the local trash dump area outside the town of La Concha. We especially wanted our children to think about the global problem of trash, and to see it in a real way right in front of them. Seeing an entire valley turned into a solid mountain-sized wall of trash, and hearing how trash being pushed further over the side of the valley would get washed down river when the rainy season came, really seemed to make an impact on our children as they wrote in their journals later about the importance of trying to reduce the amount of trash we throw away every day.

    This might at first glance look like just a hillside landscape, but this whole hill is formed by a solid wall of garbage. A stark image of the huge problem of human created waste and where to put it…

    We enjoyed the many different opportunities La Mariposa has provided to see local artisans at work in their trades, and to support their art by taking a peice home from each one. This week we visited a local maraca maker, who intricately handcarves the instruments from a special type of gourd that grows on a tree. The children were amazed by his demonstration of how quickly he could take a plain gourd and perfectly carve the word Nicaragua into it in less than 30 seconds! We placed a custom order to commemorate our trip, and our own beautiful set was delivered in a few days!

    Only one week left to describe of our La Mariposa stay, but still so much packed in that I have about 4 blog posts in my head to try to wrap up everything we experienced in that last week, so stay tuned!

    -Tara

    That eye color though!
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    A Day in Granada: as told by Quinten (age 8) and Thea (age 7)

    Granada is another important and beautiful colonial city in Nicaragua. The Saturday trip to Granada also marked exactly 1 month since our family’s arrival in Nicaragua, and it made for a wonderful way to experience many things that make Nicaragua such a beautiful country all on the day of that anniversary! 

    I also made our children write journals entries about the city for school, so I will let their writings help tell some of Granada’s story.

    QUINTEN: “Granada is a cool place, but very important too! Other than being one of the oldest cities in the Americas, it has faced many dangers (pirate attacks, volcanic eruptions, etc.).”

    THEA: “First we went to a cemetery. A cow was “mooing” the grass (😊 😊 he he).  We looked into graves and we had fun.  People get buried in tombs.  One person would get buried with their family under the same tomb.”  

    **Okay so, we did not look “into graves”, lol, but we toured around to see the many very elaborate family tombs and statues adorning them.  Being from rural Ohio where cemeteries are mostly simple granite headstones, the idea of huge above-ground family tombs was a new concept.  Also, there really was a cow inside the cemetery grazing when we first arrived, very common here for people to graze their livestock on any public space that has grass on it, but the kids found a cow wandering among the tombs especially amusing and out of place.**   

    After the cemetery we walked around town some and stopped to see another beautiful old cathedral. I had the opportunity to climb to the bell tower for the view, but because of the steep stair climb (My legs were tingling for a while afterward and still sore the next day), children had to stay grounded and were happy to get a snack with daddy instead.

    QUINTEN: “Chocolate is good, right? But think about the story behind it.”

    THEA: “We went to a chocolate factory and learned how to make chocolate. We did a dance and sang “Ba-te, ba-te, Cho-co-la-te” (Stir stir Chocolate).  We got free samples of brownies, chocolate, mocha, Nicatella (like Nutella), and a chocolate massage made of cocoa butter.  It was fun.”

    Thea trying out the cacoa bean grinding dance!

    **The Choco Museo Nicaragua was a lighter stop after the cemetery. The guide who took us on the tour spoke great English, and was a born performer.  They have a creative and fun presentation to walk guests through the process of how chocolate is made, starting with the cacoa tree, the history of its use going back to the Mayans, the process of separating the beans from the pods and grinding them (with a fun chant and dance routine that invited audience participation!), the different products made from different stages of the process and the differences between the different types of chocolate (the guide was impressed by the tastes of our children who affirmed that DARK chocolate is the best kind of chocolate, we’ve raised them well).  And yes, at the end of the tour we all got to sample many different chocolate-based products they make there before we were invited to make some gift shop purchases.  It was a fun and informative experience, and didn’t take up a lot of time.

    Our enthusiastic guide, “Kenny Wonka,” spoon feeding samples of “Nicatella,” their healthier, more pure-chocolate version of Nutella spread.

    THEA: “Then we went to Lake Nicaragua in Granada.  They have islands (islas). The islands are made by Volcan Mombacho. A long time ago the volcano erupted, shooting huge rocks into the lake and making islands.  There are houses, cafes, or even restaurants on them.  We rode on a boat to an island to swim.”

    QUINTEN: “It also has 365 islands made out of volcanic rock coughed out of Volcan Mombacho, thousands of years ago. We went on a boat ride to the islands.”

    **That description that the islands were “coughed out” by the volcano, LOL!  The boat tour around the lake to see the isletas (little islands) in the afternoon was definitely the highlight of the day!  The volcano backdrops surrounding the lake are beautiful, and gawking at all the little islands with the unique homes that have been built on each one led to fun exercises in dreaming up “if you owned your own island, what would you do with it?” 

    One of my favorite pictures, Cheyenne being walked safely down the dock to the boat with daddy holding her hand on one side, and Marvin (our excellent, wise and knowledgeable La Mariposa tour guide who accompanies us on all of our big trips) holding her other hand.

    Our boat tour guide was super knowledgeable about all of the islands: which ones are owned by former and current presidents, which one is owned by the biggest beer mogul in Nicaragua, the ones owned by the family of Nicaragua’s first billionaire businessman Carlos Pellas, this one that was bought by Canadians and that one that is owned by a family from Brazil….And of course Denver would never let me forget “Monkey Island”, a tiny area of rock and trees inhabited only by 3 Spider monkeys!

    Our guide was also able to point out the many private islands that are currently for sale, and tell their selling price, which made me wonder if he doubles as a real estate agent and would make a commission if he convinced some tourists to make an impulse buy (which is tantalizing idea, they really are beautiful little secluded islands in a quiet lake!).  At the farthest part of the tour we stopped at an island restaurant that had a small swimming pool, bought drinks and played for a while. Denver and the kids even took a few jumps off a diving board into the lake! (Cheyenne and I were content to sit on the edge of the pool and just get our feet wet). 

    Sidenote, it was also our last day with two awesome La Mariposa friends, Cynthia and Pascal from Quebec, Canada (awesome French accents!), as they were staying in Granada at a hostel before heading off on some Nicaraguan adventures on their own.  Cynthia was great at making my children go wild with silly threats that she wanted to eat their toes (which I found out later led them to google the question, “How many kids have toes in Canada?” LOL!).  We miss you toe-eating Canadians!

    A picture Cynthia sent me of some of their further Nicaraguan adventures, swimming in Canyon Somoto, Esteli.

    So in all, it was a very good day, and if you are ever touring around this beautiful country, a tour of Granada should be on your must-see list!