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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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).
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.
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!)
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!
Saying “Adios”: Our Final week at La Mariposa (Until next time!)
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…
Last Wednesday at Laguna de Apoyo…
Last souvenirs to be purchased…
(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…
Last trip to our favorite park…
Last snacks at Josimar’s Restaurant…
Last time to hold hands with a monkey…
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…
Last days of Spanish class and saying goodbye to teachers…
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”)!
Last hugs and saying goodbye to friends…
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…
Last views of the beautiful Mariposa grounds…
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
Starting to wind down: Highlights of La Mariposa Week 5
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.
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
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.”
**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.
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?”
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!
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!
Week 3 in Nicaragua: More Things to Love
We’ve fallen so far behind in documenting our travels, and we’ve done soooo much in that time, that it’s overwhelming to sit here after what has actually been 7 weeks and try to figure out where to start with all the weeks I haven’t covered yet! Thankfully photo documentation was plentiful and serves as the outline for my memories to keep our timeline straight.
Weekend 3: Leon
Leon is the second-largest city in Nicaragua (after the capital, Managua), and was the originally capital city starting in colonial times when founded by the Spanish; therefore it has a lot of historical and political importance, and is a usual stop in getting to know the country.
What to love about Leon: beautiful old architecture, especially the cathedral. There are tour guides to tell all about the history of the cathedral (which Denver heard, and I mostly spent chasing Cheyenne and trying to keep her from lying in the middle of the floor or climbing through the barriers to the temptingly fun-looking nativity scene up front), and then you can pay to climb up to the rooftop and walk around to see the view of the city and the details of the architecture up close. My favorite is trying to capture different angles of certain interesting parts of a building framed by sky and clouds, so I enjoyed the rooftop photography the most! And while in a culturally-famous city I’m sure there are many great restaurants to get some wonderful authentic Nicaraguan meals, we were with our children…so where did we eat lunch? Pizza Hut. Which is what they would say was their favorite part of the tour of Leon.
What not to love about Leon: The city is STINKING HOT! We get spoiled by the beautifully temperate climate in Masaya and especially La Mariposa with all the trees for fresh air and shade, so the temperature difference in the region of Leon is a shocker (more than 10 degrees hotter, plus lots of city concrete and few trees), so come prepared with the sunscreen, sunglasses, and lots of water! We ended up spending a couple hours of the afternoon at a nearby beach area in Leon rather than touring more of the city, which was more fun for our children, but still crazy hot and sand burning their feet, bigger waves and shorter stretch of beach to the water, so we personally recommend the beach at La Boquita (which is our trip the 4th weekend, next post).
Also weekend 3: Old Friends
What to love about Nicaraguan people: It only takes a couple of days together to feel like family and be welcomed back months after first meeting as if you had always been friends. When Denver and I first traveled to Nicaragua in February 2018 to scout out plans for this trip, we spent one weekend in a Homestay with a family in La Concha during our time visiting La Mariposa. They quickly made us feel at home in their home and we became fast friends with their teenage son with Down Syndrome, who loved coloring and telling us all about his collection of model animals. When preparing to return this December, I made sure to pick up a coloring book and a new set of plastic animals of North America to bring Daryl for Christmas. His father Julio had invited our family to come tour a citrus farm (lots of Mandarin and orange trees in harvest, as well as rows and rows of pineapple and dragon fruit) owned by his friend on Sunday, so that morning we got to bring Daryl his presents. His joy opening these two simple gifts and lovingly carrying them around was priceless, and made an impact on our children as well.
Week 3-4: Life in La Mariposa
Things to Love: Pizza making day. One this special day of the month when we get homemade pizza for dinner, the children were super excited to participate in the pizza-making class. The La Mariposa cooks helped them chop toppings, mix the dough, knead and roll it, and each assemble toppings (Homemade sauce, lots of veggies, lots of cheese) on pizzas that would be dinner for everyone that evening!
FURRY things to love: So. Many. Contented dogs lounging everywhere. The newly-rescued grey kitten, just starting to get braver and more adventurous, became a special family favorite during the last half of our stay, often inviting herself into our room to play or sprawl on our bed for a while before we went to sleep. And Chica the sweet old Spider monkey who just wants someone to come hold her hand, and walking down to their cage just to sit and hold her hand and stroke her arm for a while was calming for me too. (While Paulette would love all wild animals like these monkeys to live free, the ones who live here had been kept in captivity for too long before they were turned over to La Mariposa, so they can no longer be safely released to fend for themselves, so they give them the best care they can here).
More to love about fellow students: This week brought Jacob, a young man who has been coming with his parents to La Mariposa since he was a much smaller boy, over multiple years, and now as a 14-year-old came alone for a couple weeks to work as an intern and learn about how the business is run. He is well known by all the staff, has a homestay family he has lived with multiple times, speaks great Spanish, and independently jumps right in to life at the school (he is also tenacious enough to figure out how to bring the puppy, Pecas, home to Florida with him at the end of his stay, which also gave our children all kinds of ideas…) Seeing how Jacob come on his own as a teenager was especially inspiring for our children, and started them already thinking about how they want to return to help at La Mariposa when they are older; Quinten already has a plan to bring a group of friends on a school trip when he is in high school!
And I can’t forget: My handcrafted ceramic flowerpot chicken. What’s not to love? (You know you want one too).
