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In the States, when asked the common greeting “How are you?” the typical response has become “Busy!” Here in Nicaragua I would not say that life is “busy,” but that life is “full”—and “full” is much different than “busy.”  Life here is full because every day is full of LIFE, not just a list of busy things to cross off a checklist, but every day new things to experience, people to meet, stories to hear, communication barriers to break down, beauty to stand in awe of.  Going to bed exhausted most nights—not from the stress of life’s demands and to-do’s, but from the fullness of all the LIVING that was fit into one day. (Granted, some of the exhaustion credit also goes to my children, who do at times cause some real stress, but most of the positive credit goes to La Mariposa for filling our schedule with so many amazing cultural experiences and trips).

FAVORITE THINGS THIS WEEK:

ALL the Views.  Seriously, EVERYWHERE they take you in this country, there is somewhere to stop to have an amazing view overlooking volcanos, lakes, rainforest, villages on the sides of mountains—SO MANY beautiful overlooks, it will be hard to choose which ones to display here!

Sharing stories.  As we meet more of the adventurous, big-hearted kinds of people who would travel to Nicaragua and chose to stay at La Mariposa, we find it doesn’t take long to jump from small talk to sharing deep life stories, and in the space of a week someone you’ve just met that week feels like you’ve always known them.  Things like 3 communal meals a day and holidays spent relaxing at the lake provide great opportunity to learn about each other, and hearing about the life’s work and travels and adventures and dreams of our fellow students and the staff and teachers here has been so encouraging and inspiring.

New Holiday Traditions.  Like how the big meals and celebrations of Christmas and New Year’s happen on the Eve of those days, but on the 25^th and 1^st where does everybody go?  To hang out at a BEACH of course!  I think we really could get used to this weekly spending-a-day-at-the-lake thing (as long as it is a volcanic hot-springs-fed sort of lake—even I went in for an extra swim at Laguna de Apoyo just for the enjoyment of it, because the water is niiiiiiice!) (However, the tradition of setting off 20+ minutes worth of REALLY LOUD firecrackers all over town at 12:00 on New Year’s Eve when people who are too old and tired to stay up and wait for the new year to arrive are just trying to sleep…I could do without that one.)

Culture of handcrafted arts.  In the past week, we have visited a man who crafts figures and bowls out of volcanic stone, a house of pottery where all the color and polish are made naturally using rocks (and the kids where given a turn to shape the clay on the wheel with the potter), and a family that produces woven blankets on large wooden looms (and our children were given the chance to yank on the cord that sends the spool of yarn shooting across from one side of the loom to the other, helping to add strands to a blanket being made). In all of those cases, the art of their craft had been passed down from generation to generation, involving the whole family in the process, and they took pride in the quality of their work.  (And in each case, an item or two will be coming home with us to commemorate how we were able to experience how that unique item was created).

Children learning language.  It is so fun to hear our children grow more confident in using new words.  Their teachers will sometimes bring them over to Denver and me during our classes and have them ask us a list of questions in Spanish, or sing us a Spanish song they just learned (still in awe that Quinten’s teacher could get him to perform a song for us solo!).  Thea especially is turning into quite the conversationalist!  And for those of you who know 3-year-old Cheyenne and how producing speech sounds clearly has been difficult for her, she has suddenly in the past two weeks started to use so many new words in ENGLISH, it seems like almost every day there is something she says that makes us say, “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard her say that word!” Which I attribute in part to the wide variety of new experiences she’s having, and the motivation to put words to and describe those new experiences (one of her newest vocabulary words is “Fun!”  Also “almost,” as in “we’re almost there” because of all the traveling, “enough” because we’ve had to instruct her often to conserve her use of things like water and toilet paper, “beach” and “swim” from all the trips to the lake, “tomorrow” because there are always fun things to anticipate.  With meeting so many new people, she started pointing to herself and saying “Shiny” to introduce herself, and learned to say names of new friends like “Juli”, “Allison”, and the names of favorite dogs (her new word for all dogs is “Woofie”) and the monkey “Chita”, all very clear and understandable.  Oh, and in Spanish she can also say “Hola,” “Gracias,” and “Adios!” 

AND THE FEW NOT-SO-FAVORITE THINGS…

Touring historical museums with a 3-year-old.  Try standing in a historical home with antique furniture and other easily-knocked-over items and a door standing wide open to the street outside, while a guide presents for 20 minutes in Spanish about the life of political hero Sandino, while a child who never sits still runs from one possibly breakable item to another, out one doorway into another, throwing a tantrum here and there when told she can’t touch something (also a major angry meltdown from one of the older children when he discovered his pencil was missing somewhere on the grounds and demanded we find it (never did)). Ditto on the tour of the historical cathedral in the former capital city of Leon, complete with laying flat out in the middle of floors and refusing to get up when she decides she is too sleepy to walk anymore…maybe you’d be on the verge of an anxiety attack too. 

Saying good-bye so soon.  The flip side of getting to meet new friends who come as students to La Mariposa is that sometimes you get to know someone really well over a week and then their time is over and they leave.  (Juliet, when you read this, Cheyenne was still asking days after you left, “Juli?”).  But this week we are getting in a good group of new students who will be around for a longer period along with us, so we are excited for interactions in a larger group for the rest of this month! 

I’ve been behind in reflecting on the completion of week 2, and already we’re halfway to needing to start looking back on and writing about week 3!  But as I said in the beginning, life here is FULL!  Thanks for joining us in it!

~Tara

This is one of those times when you look back on a span of time and think, “Could it really have been ONLY a week??”  It feels like we’ve been here so much longer already, partly because there is often SOOOO much activity packed into a single day that it feels more like 3 days all in one.  So the crossing of the one-week point seems like a good time to take stock of some of the highlights so far, and with that some of the less enjoyable aspects as well. 

MY FAVORITE THINGS:

Outdoor classrooms.  I mean, the fact that it is the end of December and I can be sitting here typing this in a hammock chair on a balcony surrounded by night insect sounds, wearing pajama pants, flip flops and a light jacket…La Mariposa is a beautiful place, and the spaces set up around the school grounds for Spanish classes are perfect for enjoying all of that natural beauty and the life happening around you while working hard at a new language.  I love having reason to spend so much time outside, at a time when normally back home so much time would be spent indoors! 

Flowers in bloom.  Always one of the most joyfully startling things for me when coming from a season of brown, gray, and white in Ohio, is to arrive in a place where there is so much COLOR bursting everywhere!  Oh to have flowering trees that are in bloom all year round!  I love trying to capture the exotic colors and interesting shapes in photography as best I can.

New friends.  One of the most fun parts of La Mariposa has been all the different people we are able to meet, from all different places and backgrounds, different ages and motivations to come study language.  So far we have had fellow students from the UK, California, New York, Michigan…University students and teachers and retirees and Non-profit volunteers.  Unfortunately our children are the only kids here right now, but they jump right in chatting away with the other adults here, and everyone is so graciously tolerant and friendly with them!  Also very unfortunately, the number of students is very low overall after the political crisis of the summer, so there are not as many new friends to make as there would have been a year ago (so hey, come study Spanish!).

Puppy snuggles.  Few things could make a new place more quickly feel like home than being greeted by a pack of happy dogs.  The very recently rescued puppy “Pecas” (Freckles in Spanish) has certainly contributed to our children feeling welcomed and excited to be here, and Denver shared in a previous post the pictures of Cheyenne being entertained by the job of tossing handfuls of food to all the 12 dogs who live on the school grounds.  The school’s founder, Paulette, had a hobby of taking in and rehabilitating neglected dogs (and cats) from the street, which has grown into a big part of the character of the school, what makes it really unique.

The best weekend views.  Which would be lush green mountainsides seen from the back of a horse! There is a time slot reserved for me to sign up to go horseback riding up the mountain ONCE A WEEK.  The horses are also those that have been rescued from abuse and neglect by Paulette, and now in addition to once a week rides up the mountain road by students, they are also used for Equine Therapy for children with disabilities in one of La Mariposa’s community programs.  Which was my DREAM as a teenager (and yeah, probably still is…).    

Stunning landscapes.  I love trying to take photographs that capture the vast sweeping beauty of the new parts of creation we’ve been awed to experience so far (and the smallness of us in comparison), from volcanic crater-formed lakes under blue and white-clouded skies, to the depths of the heart of a volcano both mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time.

Children’s enthusiasm for new experiences.  Like needing to hand-wash clothes.  The day I told the kids to each pick out a dirty outfit to bring down for a clothes-washing lesson, I couldn’t believe how excited they each were to try it out and how proud they were to have completed to process independently.  I’m sure that will wear off, but for now… And also of course the more exciting but potentially scary or stretching experiences, like walking through creepy underground tunnels of a fort that once held prisoners, and staring into the abyss of an active volcano. Their natural curiosity and love of learning usual wins out over fear!

AND FEW NOT-SO-FAVORITE THINGS…

Children’s difficulties with new experiences.  Like a diet made up of mostly rice, beans, vegetables, and platanos in every form (similar to a banana but for cooking, served baked, fried, sweet, crunchy, with eggs, with salsa…)—the school’s menu is mostly vegetarian, to be more sustainable.  We’ve had better luck the past few days with some pasta and egg dishes that they’ve really liked, but for a few days earlier in the week the amount of whining and refusing to try things at meals was rough. The availability of a big bowl of the freshest fruit with granola and cornflakes at breakfast every morning is a big help!  And then Cheyenne’s adjustment to the 4 hours of the morning spent with her one-on-one teachers and having difficultly communicating (loud yells of “No, Daddy help!” from across the campus while we are in classes…).  But the past two mornings her later morning teacher has been able to rock her to sleep for a morning nap that she very much needed!

Bringing Ohio cold and flu bugs along for the ride.   I mean, we were supposed to be skipping that whole season by coming to a warmer climate for the winter, but when two kids wake up the morning of the flight already coughing…In just one week here we have had Quinten throwing up through a night with what seemed to be the 24-hour stomach flu that all of the girls had already back home, and Cheyenne’s cough virus progressed to a pretty awful croup-like level that kept waking her up for multiple nights.  Being away from home and the normal remedies and comforts one would usually use to help your sick child feel better faster was stressful, but also humbling to think about all the parents in parts of the world who helplessly watch their children suffering and dying from much worse conditions. Perspective.

Living in Close Quarters.  I love our kids, and this trip is a lot about experiencing new things WITH them and making memories TOGETHER, but man, SOMETIMES…Sometimes, on days when there isn’t a trip and we are all inside the school for the whole day, and it is hard to ever be alone or get a break from keeping Cheyenne from getting into everything she shouldn’t, and Quinn and Thea are bickering or extra whiny, and we all share ONE ROOM with a bamboo screen dividing the middle and nowhere to escape to alone to recharge…I start to feel a bit claustrophobic, surrounded on all sides by my children, like I don’t have enough room to breathe. Today (Friday) was one of those I-can’t-handle-being-around-you-anymore, anxiety-inducing kind of afternoons. Of course, if we were at home with the kids out of school for Christmas break right now I’d probably be feeling about the same way by this point in the week…but at least I could send them to their rooms!

Hand-washing clothes WHILE potty training.  *Sigh* I don’t think that needs further explanation…

So that is a peek at life, one week into our adventure.  A lot more to look forward to, and many more challenges to overcome. We are excited to be able to share them with all of you following our journey!

~Tara

Click the facebook icon in the top right corner to view pictures from the past few weeks. (I’m two lazy to cross post).

Our last two days of Christmas celebrations have been full of new experiences. Check out the video below to see what we have experienced. Following that is a journal entry to go along with the video.

After waking up early enough to help feed the animals, Christmas Eve started out like a normal study day. We all had Spanish classes. Halfway through my grammar class, I got serenaded by Quin singing me a colors song in Spanish. For the conversation part of our class, we switch teacher each week. This week I have Marvin, an older gentleman who also was our tour guide for some recent trips.

In the afternoon, we joined a Christmas Eve Celebration for children with disability and their families, a program run connected to La Mariposa. The celebration included kids singing, dancing, and pinatas. Their pinatas are well designed in layers that include balloons. If someone breaks through one layer, some candy falls down (instead of all of it at once), and there are more layers to get through. This way more children have the opportunity to take a crack at it. Another unique characteristic was they had to do a “pinata dance” while they were hitting it. Quin took a turn viciously attacking a snowman pinata (but didn’t bother with the dance).

 We were also fed arroz con pollo (rice with chicken), and cake during the ceremony, which ended in each child in the program getting a present.

At sundown, we joined a procession made up of kids and their parents. Some were dressed as shepherds, some angels, others wise-men, and finally Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. They went from house to house reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay, stopping at each for around 15 minutes, singing songs, and getting treats and drinks. The procession was complete with a band, and fireworks at each stop. If you can imagine a cross between trick or treating, forth of July, Christmas caroling, and the Christmas story (plus a marching band), you can start to image what we experienced (watch the video). Their final stop was at the church, where we left them to have a Christmas celebration supper at a host family’s house. By the time we left, it was late, and Cheyenne was passing out in my arms.

Christmas morning, the kids opened a few presents Tara had brought along. Following that, I took the two oldest kids to a reserve owned by La Mariposa to release 26 Iguanas. Iguanas are endangered in Nicaragua, and were purchased at market where they normally would have been eaten. Instead we were able to cut free the string that tied their legs and that sewed their mouth shut, and release them into the wild. Thea was very brave, and helped release “Pinky” and “Tiger”.

In the afternoon we headed for Laguna de Apoyo, a lake that formed from the “caldera” of a nearby volcano. The water was warm, and wonderful to swim in, however we picked a windy day, and the waves made it difficult to Kayak. The shoreline was filled with volcanic rocks, which were hard on the feet, but overall a beautiful area.

Overall we experienced a very different Christmas experience outside our normal traditions, and now have some neat memories to take home with us.

Merry Christmas to all of you back home!