September Celebrations

September so far has held a lot of new and now familiar cultural experiences for us. Nicaraguans are known for their tendency for over celebrating both major and minor holidays. It doesn't really matter what the occasion is, it should be celebrated in style with a minimum of two days off and lots of pomp and ceremony. September for Nicaragua, is especially important as September 14th is their national Independence day.

Therefore, the last two weeks at school have been a strange mixture of mid-semester testing and preparation for our grand celebration of Nicaragua's independence. My responsibility in this preparatory phase was to teach 8-10 students how to do puppets. Ha! That was a challenge...how to put on a puppet show with no actual puppet materials? We ended up finding some puppets a team had brought down that were essentially clay heads glued to an over-sized Popsicle stick. The beautiful thing about these puppets was that when the sun came out, they became soft and their little plastic bobble eyes fell off. I had the intention of gluing them all back on, but I turned my back for two seconds and some little kid walked off with all the eyes! So, some of our puppets had one eye, or no eyes at all. Let's just say that in the end our puppet show required A LOT of imagination.



'Congreso is so much fun!- Pre-schoolers....Two of my 1st graders getting ready for the art contest.

Anyways, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this last week we held a "congreso" for the kids, which is basically like an all day school assembly. We had an art contest, a popularity contest in which the students voted for one girl and one boy from each class, soccer games, kickball games, and lunch. It was a lot of work, and challenging to try and keep all of the kids from getting totally out of control.







Top: "Stop cheering...it's so loud!"....racing to put the objects in the circles the fastest.
Middle: Making flags for our parade...and the concentration required to win an art contest!
Bottom: Me and Yaritza...The traditional outfits for Nicaraguan folk dancing.

Finally, on Friday was the last day in which we celebrated Nicaragua's Independence Day (two days early) with a march through Los Cedros and a talent show from the kids. During the march, we were accompanied by the band of one of the public schools. The band consists of two parts. The girls who march and dance in the front and the boys who bang on their drums and dance around with what looks like a large cheese grater they wail on with a metal stick...perhaps it would be better described if you could see/hear it for yourself (i.e. check out the video below). Our kids followed behind the band waving flags and carrying banners and the national flag.






Top: View of the Indpendence Day parade. Josh and me in our "traditional" Nica shirts
Bottom: Mf and all the teachers in our matching shirts. The token male teachers (Josh and Carlos) modeling their matching shirts.

Once we got back to the school, the real ceremony began. Most of the kids were involved with various "talent" performances. We had kids quoting patriotic poetry and doing interpretive dances to their all time favorite worship song "Tomalo" (Take it all), and the highlight of the performances our awesome puppet show (j/k). One of the things I love the most though is seeing the kids participating in the traditional folk dances of Nicaragua. It is so fun to see the girls dressed up in their brightly colored dresses with flowers in their hair participating in part of their cultural heritage.




A few of the elementary girls showing of their folk dancing skills...A proud display of the Nica flag.

Beyond all the fanfare of the last few weeks, life has been pretty steady for us. One interesting change has been that Josh has taken on a new and often frustrating role of being the "Inspector of behavior." One of the frustrating parts of the school has been that there is not a very successful discipline structure at the school. Part of the problem is that, according to Nicaraguan law in the public schools, they are not allowed to give students detention, are not allowed to deny them entrance to classes, or take away recess, or really discipline the students at all. Therefore your classes end up looking like barely managed chaos and your teachers get worn out very very quickly. We, however, are outside of that jurisdiction to some extent since we are a private school. As a result, Josh, David and I have helped institute an actual disciplinary system, and Josh has been elected to enforce it. We will see how it works, but for now the students have the "fear of Josh" in them.


Our recent house guest thanks to all the rain :)

Well, I think we've run out of stories so I will let the pictures and videos do the rest of the writing.

Mini Olympics

It's that time of year where families around the world are glued to their televisions every evening, taking in the spectacular physical feats performed by athletes from around the world. While Nicaragua's contribution to the Olympics was a mere 6 athletes, we were represented nonetheless. Except for a few occasions where our fellow gringo neighbors across the “road” took pity on us and our inability to see Michael Phelps blow away the rest of the world or to see Shawn Johnson’s solid performances in gymnastics, the Olympics passed us by. For me (MF), that was disappointing at times because I LOVE the Olympics…it brings back fond memories of my childhood and of being the one time my parents let us watch as much TV as we wanted (ha ha!). However, even though we didn’t get to participate in the World Olympics we did have our own mini Olympics out here in Los Cedros.

These past two weeks our school have participated in sporting events against other local schools in the area. Sports are done a little differently at schools down here Nicaragua. Kids aren’t picked up by school buses nor do their parents have personal cars so as a result transportation to and from sporting events is essentially non-existent. Consequently, rather than having “sports seasons” like we do up in the States, they have “sports weeks.” Last semester we had two days of soccer games that were held at our school. This semester they had two full weeks of volleyball, basketball, futsala (soccer on a smaller scale), baseball, track and field, and hand ball games for students ages 13-14.

Top: Cheering on the team...sportsmanship at it's finest.
Middle 1: Coach Carlos celebrating a win...1st and 2nd graders should get an award for their support.!
Bottom: We happy faces and sad faces all throughout the week.

We have found in watching and helping these two weeks to see how all of the students perform since half of the games they participated in they have rarely ever played. Nicaragua is the land of baseball and soccer, so throw in volleyball, basketball, handball and track and field and you are in for some very interesting interpretations of the games.

For instance, basketball proved to be a mixture of American football, soccer and volleyball particularly with the girls. It was honestly hilarious to watch them batting the ball back and forth, scrambling for it, kicking it, essentially doing anything but putting it through the hoop. Our girls lost their game 4-0...by far the lowest scoring basketball game we’ve ever been to. The style of the game didn’t change much with the boys either, although they did win their first game! If anything it was even more physical (hence the football part) there were fouls left and right and traveling and double dribbling ran rampant. But every basket that went in was like it was the winning point at the end of a very intense and close game. Although our teams didn’t win very many games during the events, it was fun to be a part of it and to see our kids having so much fun.

Other than that, August has been a pretty uneventful month for us. No family or teams have come down this month to make the weeks fly by. Instead we’ve found a quiet contentment in being back out here on the “Island” as we so fondly call Los Cedros. So with that, I will leave you with a few thoughts I read in a biography about Mother Theresa.

“God has not called [us] to be successful, God has called [us] to be faithful.” As we reflect on these past seven months, in some ways we question “what have we really accomplished since coming down here?” We still don’t have internet, or fully functioning computers, and it often feels like my students haven’t learned a word in English. But what we’ve accomplished may not be the point, the obedience and endurance it has taken in coming to this wonderful and challenging country may be the lesson in itself for us.

Finally, I read this quote and thought it so beautifully portrayed the poverty we see every day: “The beauty is not in poverty but in the courage that the poor still smile and have hope in spite of everything…I admire their love of life, the capacity to discover richness in the smaller things.”

We see this truth portrayed in the faces of our students and Nicaraguan friends every day. While life is hard and for most every day holds immense struggle, there are still things to smile about. There is a strange and often unexpected beauty that is found in the simplicity and poverty of life these people live in. What a reminder that is for us when we long for the comforts and familiarity of home. Stuff is not what makes you happy, it may make things easier at times, but there is a beauty in the rawness of life that we often miss out on because we have so much.

So, that is it for August. We’re sorry this was the only update for the month, but September is looking like it will be packed for us, so there will be much to write about. With a team and then family coming down, along with Nicaragua’s Independence Day falling in the middle of the month, the tranquility we’ve found in August will not last much longer!

Refreshed

Yikes! Has another month really flown bye? Looks like it has. Thanks to the youth group being here and Elias and Theresa (my...Mary Frances' older brother and sister-in-law) coming down, July has proven to be a full and wonderful month for us.

The second semester of school is in full swing now. In my teaching realm, not much has changed. The usual class routine of managed chaos and rolling with the punches due to a very fluid class schedule has become common place in my life. So, I prepare for the best and hope that I will actually get through a lesson plan! Josh on the other hand has joined me this month in the teaching realm...ha ha! He is finally confident enough, and fluent enough in Spanish, to begin his roll as the computer teacher. He will be teaching the 5th and 6th graders basic computer skills like, how to turn one on, how to open basic programs, and most importantly how to type. However, since we only have 5 working computers (and a few of those are limping along as they are) he has had to get creative with class schedules. So, every Tuesday and Thursday morning from 8-11 he teaches 45 minute segments to groups of 5 students from 5th and 6th graders. The students are excited to be receiving computer classes, Josh is excited to have something "set" in his schedule, and I'm excited for him to understand what it's like to teach these kids! Other than that, things have been pretty quite out in Los Cedros.



With that said, July is a milestone month for us as we have reached our 6 month mark meaning that we had to leave Nicaragua for 72 hours so we could renew our visas. My older brother Elias and his wife Theresa, kindly flew down to hang out with us for a week here in Nicaragua and to then accompany us for a sweet weekend in Costa Rica!







We have heard before what a stark contrast there is once you drive across the border into Costa Rica, but hearing is nothing like seeing! Here's what we noticed:
1- The police men are wearing sweet uniforms complete with bullet proof vests. There are also way less of them, you don't see them hitchhiking for rides, and the few we did run into didn't pull us over just for the fun of it.
2-The roads are nicely paved. Enough said.
3- There are beautiful healthy horses that are equipped with real saddles and are used simply for the pleasure of riding them.
4-Tourist towns actually have supporting infrastructure. Josh and I could tell we'd been in Nicaragua for 6 months cause one of the most exciting things was pulling up to the town our hotel was in and seeing these shopping centers that looked like they could've been a part of Kirkland's waterfront strip or found in Redmond Town Center. In Nicaragua, you've got the hotel...which is usually in the middle of nowhere and nothing else.
5-The cost of everything is double in Costa Rica (even though the exchange rate is $500 Colones to $1). Josh and I can both go out to eat here in Nicaragua and walk away not having spent more than $12...that's dessert and drinks included. In Costa Rica, you could barely find anywhere to eat that had plates under $10...but I'd say the food was worth it.
6-The national food is not rice and beans and fried chicken!
7- We actually saw pure bred healthy dogs. Sure there was the occasional mutt, but for two dog lovers like us, it sure was exciting to see "normal" looking dogs...and made us miss our puppies at home.
8- Costa Rican's seem to grasp a little more that trash doesn't get thrown out your window as you're driving or just thrown on the ground. There's this magical little place for it called a trash can. That was refreshing for us in and of itself as we were able to drive past these beautiful locations and not grieve the fact that they've been ruined by mounds of trash people have left behind.




I'm sure there are many more differences between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, but I'll stop there. The truth is both countries are beautiful and offer vastly different and wonderful cultural experiences if you are willing to embrace them. It's just that one fits our clean and comfortable North American viewpoint better than the other. Either way, we are grateful we had such a lovely weekend away from reality and feel refreshed to come back and finish out the rest of our time here strong...we'll see what August has to hold.

P.S. We're going to add more pictures later...the internet is being finicky.

July Starts off with a Bang!

Phew! We’re wiped! It has been a crazy last three weeks between the end of the 1^st semester happening and Northshore’s Senior high trip. However, it is nice to feel tired for we know that what backs that emotion is a lot of fun, many new memories, and impact we cannot fully fathom or know.

I have successfully made it through my 1^st semester and am grateful to see that my students have all done quite well. I have far fewer kids failing than I anticipated and am encouraged to see the progression and improvements even from the beginning of the 1^st semester. While, my creative juices in lesson planning are waning, I look forward to seeing how much farther these students will come. Plus, seeing how the kids have been able to use the English we have learned with the teams has been so inspiring! One fun experience during our last week of school was the celebration of Teacher’s day. Some of the parents and students prepared some dances, gifts and even a piñata just for the teachers! But the biggest surprise of all was receiving my first ever teacher’s gift…two lovely pairs of underwear! Ha ha! Not exactly a common gift to be given the in the States, but I can definitely say I will probably always remember what my first teacher’s gift was!

With the end of the semester wrapping up, we looked forward to the arrival of Northshore’s team. Over the past few months we have been working closely with the youth group at Ebenezer church (our local Los Cedros church) to plan, prep and determine the course of activities for our youth extravaganza. During the day time, we made invitations and walked through out Los Cedros passing them to anyone who looked within the right age range (14-18). Another part for the team worked on different simple repairs within the Los Cedros community. One particular project was the surprise construction of a kitchen overhang for one of the ladies in our church. Prior to the addition to her house, she cooked inside her home over an open fire. Being able to cook outside will have many health benefits for her family and will make cooking in general easier.

Top: The Northshore Senior High youth group!
Bottom: Sanding and painting metal posts for the kitchen we constructed.

Now for a quick run down of the events we did with the youth in Los Cedros. The first night we had a scavenger hunt and about 170 youth show up. They were then broken up into teams and dispersed running and screaming through out the dirt streets of Los Cedros looking for things like 5 beans, 10 rice kernels, a pig, a rabbit, 3 coconuts, etc. Only in Nicaragua could a scavenger hunt contain live farm animals and have every single group come back with them! It was so much fun and was the talk of the town for the next couple of days afterwards.

Top: 170 youth seated under the roof of our new Rancho! The youth in the midst of trying to undo the human knot. Bottom: The results of our scavenger hunt, a rabbit and a pooping pig!

The second event consisted of a game of Sticks (essentially glow-in-the-dark capture the flag) which was interesting to try and explain, or to even know if the youth played the game or just ran around waving their glow stick necklaces. But either way, they had lots of fun and the glow sticks were a big hit. After the game we showed the movie Night at the Museum using a Nicaraguan crafted screen of Styrofoam under our newly finished Rancho building. The one interesting thing event of the night was when we were dispersing Koolaide to the youth during the movie. About two minutes into that process we were literally mobbed with kids pushing and shoving to get juice...something they have all had. So, we had to take a deep breath, remember that anything free is going to seem like the most amazing thing to these kids, and promptly rush the Koolaide behind the safety of the locked kitchen doors.

The third event was a nice change as we were able to hold it in the daytime. Due to all the sunshine and warm weather we had a water balloon extravaganza. There were water balloon tosses, a race to fill up a pail of water using a cup with holes, flyer’s up using water balloon launchers and then an all out water fight! Who knew that water balloons could be so much fun!
After the events, we packed up the bus with lunch stuff and the two youth groups (Northshore and L.C.) and headed off to the beach. We spent the next few hours basking in the warm sunshine, playing beach soccer ball, making PB & J sandwiches, and surfing the waves. It was a beautiful and relaxing afternoon.

Top: Garbage cans full of filled water balloons! The infamous water balloon launchers.
Middle: The water fight in action. Zach and Tony enjoying the beach.
Middle #2: Think Chariots of Fire! The Northshore youth group on the beach!
Bottom: Two youth groups united! We couldn't have succeeded with out these guys (Carlos, Delila and Breesa)

Finally, the last event we held started off with a Nicaragua vs the United States soccer match. Between the Nica side occasionally having 14 players on the field at a time and our mismatch in skill, the U.S. ended up getting creamed. After all that excitement, we held a hotdog dinner followed by a Young life-esque club night. We did a funny skit, a yo-yo competition and various hilarious gross games involving chocolate pudding and gummy worms.

Top: Brandon, one of my 6th graders, practicing with his yo-yo.
Middle: Our rocking band who played on the last night! The boys cooking 200 hotdogs!

Beyond the youth events we also enjoyed spending the 4^th of July with the team, watching fireworks explode over the swimming pool at the Buzbee compound (the
Buzbee’s hold all the Northshore teams when they come down). We also enjoyed a day of wandering around the Masaya artisan market and a trip to wonderful Laguna de Apoyo. We truly enjoyed being able to soak up time with Ben and Pam Izzard (the youth pastor and his wife, two good friends of ours) along with my two youngest brothers Clark and Galen who were members of the team.

Top: Watching the fireworks with good friends, Ben, Pam and Natalie Izzard at the Buzbee's.
Bottom: Josh and the brothers on the bus. Mf and Clark...the last picture of us before he leaves for England in September!

Unfortunately this is only a brief overview of all the fun and memories we had with this team. But, we were energized by this team and are eager to see what the outcome on the Los Cedros youth will be in the months to come. Our hope is that this past week will inspire our local youth group to continue reaching out to other youth in the community, showing them that a relationship with Christ is life changing and fun!