4th of July in Granada, Nicaragua

Granada, Nicaragua

July 4th, 2009

It looks like Europe Here!

Jose, Igor, Sol, Jenifer and I went to Granada on Saturday for the day. We took a bus and arrived there in the morning at around 9. Right away we went to Kathy’s waffle house to have breakfast. It was just like an American breakfast. I had a plan waffle and Jose had eggs, bacon and home fries, we shared everything and it was delicious!

We were there for about an hour and a half. After breakfast we walked to the San Francisco convent and then we just walked around the city. We walked down to the lake and sat there for a while. After the lake we went back into the city and went to the old church. We sat in the church for a while, before searching for lunch. We ended up eating lunch at this place called the Garden cafe. It was great light food and they had the best smoothies. We were getting a little tired of walking around and it was hot, so we took the bus back at around 3pm.

Volcan Masaya With The Gang

Volcan Masaya

June 27, 2009

Ah Yeah It's Still Acitve!!

My training group had a technical session at the visitor center at the bottom of Vulcan Masaya, which is located in the department of Masaya. It is one of the many active volcanoes in Nicaragua, but not the biggest. After the technical session they took us up to the volcano. The volcano was releasing a lot of smoke, but we couldn’t see any lava.

We walked up to the lookout point and had a great view of Masaya. We hung out at the lookout for a while and then headed back to the van for a snack. After the snack we busted out José’s jump ropes and we all played double Dutch. It was funny watching people try and jump into the double Dutch. We left shortly after that and headed back to our training towns.

Volunteer Site Visit

Estelí

June 14-17 2009

What a beautiful city!

We were assigned sites to visit volunteers and see what volunteer life was like. I went to the department of Estelí. It was beautiful, hilly, and very green. I had to take a bus from Managua to Estelí and it took about 2 hours. I arrived on Sunday and left on Wednesday. It was a vacation because we didn’t really have anything to do. Her classes were cancelled and so we had a lot of down time.

She showed me around her town and I met a lot of people that she worked with. It was nice to see what life was like after training. She was only a month away from leaving so she was winding down on her work. The point of the visit was to help us decided what we do and don’t want in a site. After that visit I decided that I wanted a mid-big size site, with less teaching and more potential for secondary projects. What will I get….?

a dog feeding a kitten.. you dont see that everyday!

At A Finca With Our Youth Group!

The Finca & The Youth Group

June 1, 2009

The Finca (AKA someone's back yard!)

Our Youth group invited us to a Finca, which is like a fruit farm. One of the girls in our group lives on a Finca. It took our training town (Juan, Igor, Jenifer and I) 30 minutes to walk there. Lucky for us had a guide to get to her house otherwise we would have never found it! At her house they gave us some cacao juice that tasted like chocolate and coconut. After our juice, we walked around and they showed us all the different types of fruits that grow there.



We tried fresh coconut, Mangos, and other fruits that I don’t know the name too! We walked further and further into the forest, down toward the lagoon. We passed a bunch of Monkeys and tried a lot of different types of fruits along the way. We didn’t make it all the way to the lagoon, thank goodness, but we make it too this pool that is at the bottom of a small waterfall. The kids were great, teaching us all about the forest and fruits! We probably spent 3 hours total at the Fina, before going back home.


Cacao Juice... UMMMM


Cutting the Coco!

Crazy Monkies Video!

A Rondom Religious Procession!