bittersweet goodbyes

Ah yes, we all know the sweet sorrow of saying goodbye. And to anyone who has worked with children I think you understand that saying goodbye to them after building your relationships can be just as hard, if not more so. However, we have to vouch that saying goodbye to these children in particular, these Nicaragua bundles of laughter, who opened their hearts to us so freely and without question, has entered a new level of difficult. After 6 months of working in Elba Zamora Elementary school - tutoring, playing, escorting to the dentist, accompanying to futbol matches, eating lunch at one family's house in the community, and so much more... we were privilege to witness and learn the real way of life and to fall deeply in love with our new home away from home.

So perhaps you can understand why we would drag out the goodbyes.

Part 1 was taking the 10 or so kids of the family we love down to the "beach" aka lake side for a Sunday picnic and day of fun. The kids played in the waves for a solid 6 hours, coming out to eat, give us a rock they found, play a quick round of futbol barefoot on the hot sand, or attempt several times to convince us to get in the water with them. (Unfortunately, due to our knowledge of how much garbage and waste water gets deposited into the lake shore, we couldn't manage to get in past our ankles). But we sat on the shore chatting up the moms, taking pictures, and soaking up the family outing we had prompted.

Part 2 was our goodbye art project which we did with the whole school - 1st through 6th grade. PIGGY BANKS! Matt had the super cool idea to turn a bunch of plastic bottles into piggy banks, so after saving up for months our chocolate milks we finally had enough. He designed the attached feet, ears, and tail and we painted them with pink paint-glue paste and then decorated them with markers when dry. Each day out of the week we went into a different classroom to accomplish this and the kids went wild! It was total chaos and a mess to say the least, but it was an art project they each were thrilled to take home and put to immediate use. We would hear the following expression afterwards: "Mi chancho es rico" o "Mi chancho es pobre" depending on if there were coins inside or not.

Part 3 was our utterly adorable and tear-jerking last day at school where we were completely surprised with classroom and individual performances where kids danced, sang, read poems and then gave us exactly 1 million hugs, letters, and drawings. Even the teachers stood up and said really sweet things about our support and help within the school, and yes our eyes welled up a good handful of times. After the show, we had what we thought was the last pinata out back, which this time we were smart enough to bring some extra candy for the little tikes that we knew wouldn't get into the "i'm out for mine" brawl. Then we accompanied the futbol players to our last match and watched as they went all out on defense in their attempt to win for us. The score was 0-0 but they told us several times "we did it for you!"

Girls dressed up to dance

Waiting to watch the performances

Us with the 1st and 3rd grade teacher with whom we worked

Part 4 was our goodbye to the family we have been spending our lunch hours and afternoons with for the past 6 months. We spent quite some time getting together some things to take out to them including clothing that did not make the cut back to Albuquerque, school books and toys for the kids, a photo album, and written goodbye letters with drawings. The biggest hit was the world's most annoying but popular toy called "Tracka trackas" for the boys. The toy consists of two hard plastic balls hanging on the end of a plastic string which if you are talented enough you bang together up and down to make quite a lot of noise. The boys spent all afternoon practicing, as it takes time to build up the skill.

We got to the house and were pleasantly surprised to see our colleagues from Spain - Nuria and Silvia there joining in on the celebration. After distributing and receiving gifts, we ate a tasty meal of what appeared to be a cross between Nica and New Mexican enchiladas, but really was lasagna! Also the Spaniards made a bomb Spanish tortilla for all. After the meal there was loads of dancing and Matt was a huge hit as he is now acclaimed part Nica. And then came the Pinata! This time they bought one for us and we got to hit it. I was first and took off the poor little horse's head within seconds.

Of course we were not ready to leave when the time came and it didn't help that a few of the girls busted out the water works hard core. But we look forward to many return trips to visit the beautiful friends we have made.

Lupe, Sandrita, and Mateo the folklore king.

Bachatea Mama!

Las manos arriba, mueve la cintura, da medio vuelta....

Gato loving Matt's 505 hat that was gifted to him.

505 is both the area code for NM and Nicaragua.

Andris in her new glasses. THANKS NEE NEE!

A good picture of me and the Lupe, but poor Andris is tearing up.

TODA LA FAMILIA <3 <3 <3

Note, this is not the last blog. There will be more to come. Stay tuned, especially for amazing, must-see video footage.

nica limo to playa popoyo

Our surfer roommates Andy and Emily had been planning a trip to Popoyo beach for a couple of weeks, which we all decided to postpone the first time around due to the tsunami warning. However, a couple of weeks later proved to be the weekend to go as we had just cause for celebrating Jenna's (british roommate) 21st birthday!

We give complete credit to Andy, Emily, Marina and Antonio for booking us our ghetto-fabulous Nicaraguan limousine to get there, aka this very old, falling apart VW van. What an adventure we had. It went like this:

We were supposed to leave at 4pm, however the shuttle driver came by our house at 4:30 in a different vehicle (not the one we were meant to take) and wanted to make sure we were ready and had paid before coming back with the real van at 5 pm. Then the driver forgot to bring the infamous "cooler" which had been part of the bargaining deal, so we went by the hosting hostel to grab it. Little did we know, this would be the first of our many delays (and so the drinking began). At the hostel the van died because it was out of gas, so the driver and a few of the boys had to walk to buy enough gas to put in so that we could drive to the gas station and fill up. This was the first time we had to push the van to get it going.

Once we finally got on the highway it was 6 pm, but we chugged right along in the dark until turning off onto an unmarked dirt road which we took for a good two hours. (You need a shuttle to get to these beaches because the roads are such that bus schedules to get out there are sporadic, if at all). Once we got on the dirt road, the real fun began. Our driver stopped to ask for directions (are you having a laugh yet?) and the van DIED! So out jumped the boys to pee, and then push start us for the 2nd time. Once we got going again, the driver made sure not to stop completely for any of the following times he needed to ask for directions. Now, you might be thinking what more could happen? Well, let's just say the road started to get really hilly and on the bottom of a good handful of the hills we came to very large puddles and small rivers that we needed to cross. At first we were quite nervous about it all, but eventually we gained confidence in our little VW and at the last river Matt says, "Dale pues! Es Facil!" (Go ahead, it's easy!) and the driver plunges us in only to have the van die just before exiting the river, AND at the bottom of a hill! This time everyone had to exit, jump in the river, and help get us out! Such a pity we did not get photographic evidence!

Note: side door is very sensitive and may fall off upon opening or closing, there is no window in that side door, but check the cooler in the front!

We finally did make it to our destination - hotel Popoyo. It was probably the nicest place we have stayed in our entire 6 months here, but we shared a dorm room with 5 other people so it wasn't too expensive. We enjoyed having air conditioning, hot showers, and our own backyard pool!

Day 1 in Popoyo consisted of walking down the very long stretch of beach in the blazing sun to try and find a beach front restaurant for lunch. No such restaurant was found, but the "melting elefante" (a new fancy, interesting hostel) agreed to whip us up some food. The wait was a good 1.5 to 2 hours, but the food was very well received.

Nicaraguan fish is served whole. Fins, bones, and eyeballs included!

After lunch we mustered up courage to play in the very strong waves. And Jenna and Cindy enlightened us with the fun of taking "jumping" photos.

Day 2 consisted of lots of games including water volleyball with a beach ball with the girls won, of course!

Roomies having a construction competition with massive Jenga wooden blocks.

My favorite Nicaraguan bird: Guis!

Sunset from the hotel rooftop

Jenga master

Jenna's birthday night celebration proved to be loads of fun. Here's surfer Mateo ("like totally dude it was so wicked today surfing the waves, I got a gnarly scar, check it out man!") distracting her as we set up the big surprise: a pinata full of tasty chocolate and other gifts!

And then after some inebriation, and to top off the night, we pushed Jenna into the pool fully dressed which then led to Cindy pushing me in and before you knew it everyone was in!

Well the ride back was pretty mellow and chill because our driver showed up in a brand new, qualified shuttled and left the VW beater behind. All that was missing was the cooler, but we passed out and arrived back in Granada 2 hours later instead of 5.