October...still boiling hot..

I´ll make todays post primarily about my work within the countryside communities.

So, my work situation has changed a little bit. I´ll explain as best I can. I work within two communities: Las Cruces and Machitia. In Las Cruces, as already mentioned, I work with only one other person, Jorges. Machitia is a different situation. Basically INPRHU has split our entire group on half, one going to Machitia and one going to Topochcali.

I was fortunate enough to land in the Machitia group. Machitia is about an hour and a half outside of Somoto, wayyyy up in the mountains. We ride in the bed of a truck as we do with most trips, and the view is fantastic! I´ve taken many pictures, and even took a video out of the back of the truck, but it hardly does the landscape justice.

Not only is the landscape beautiful, but the community seems to be the type which I expected to be working with when I came to Nicaragua. Machitia itself is just a base camp for the activities. It serves as a school for children in the surrounding area. We work with a group of about 90 kids, and so far have made some promising progress (we find that the best method for getting things done is to split the kids into one group of girls and one group of boys)

During our last visit we worked on some basic exercises, analysing the hopes, dreams, and reality of their situation. We had them fill out questionaires, draw pictures, etc. You would be surpised at the simplicity of those dreams. Although a soccer pitch was among them, most were for the simplest of things; for example, electricity, clean drinking water, or proper transportation to outside communities.

During our break we took a hike to the top of the mountain. On the top there is another school, serving the younger children. They were outside playing a game of baseball. When they spotted me and my fellow Canadians they all stopped and stared. I think they rarely see any outsiders, let alone white people. It was a pretty funny situation. We managed to get them to line up for a picture, which I believe they enjoyed.

I think I´ve failed to mention an important detail. Before I left Canada, a donation was made by the Ottawa YMCA, Metro Y. They donated 27 soccer balls for me to bring down to Nicaragua for the children. Very generous. I couldn´t be more happy with the donation. It is probably the most appropriate thing that I could have brought down for the kids here. Our plan is to split them up among the countryside communities, where the kids really do have nothing.

Dont worry, I´ll get lots of pictures :)

The aspect of my work situation which has changed has to do with Las Cruces. One of my fellow Canadian volunteers has had problems with her supervisor saying inappropriate things in her workplace. She requested a switch to another supervisor and community. Jorges and I happened to be the only male pair of work partners with a female work supervisor, so we´re making the switch. I´m perfectly fine with the switch if it will fix the problem, but I´ll be missing another week of work inside of the community. My new community is called Caldera, and they specialize primarily in producing Straw Mats and Fruit. As it stands, I won´t be working there until about October 16th. At least we´re starting to make some good progress in Machitia.

Hmmm... I feel like I´ve missed something that I had been meaning to post. If I think of it I´ll post again!

Best wishes to everyone back home! You´re all in my thoughts!