Sorry for not posting for so long. We've been very busy with work, activist causes, people visiting, and Sarah visiting law schools. I wanted to share with you a blog I wrote for work about the new US ambassador in Nicaragua. In USA's typically head strong way the government appointed a man partly responsible for funding and administering the Contra War in the 80's. A war that was especially cruel as US-trained fighters were taught to attack "soft targets" such as farming cooperatives, health clinics, literacy centers, etc. The war led to tens of thousands of deaths, dismembered peoples, and forced [View Full Entry]

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I wanted to post some pictures of some friends that had stopped by for a day or two in Granada. We tried to make the best of our short time together by doing some hiking and a ropes course with Jen and a Kayak tour with Cheka. We are grateful for them to make the effort to see us. It was wonderful to reconnect, discuss some old times and create some new memories. We look forward to more visits. We'll soon post some photos of our adventures with Erica and Al. In the meantime enjoy these ones. [View Full Entry]

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I wanted to give you all a little background about our neighborhood before I write about a common occurrence that I've had during my time down here in Managua: We live next to and within a neighborhood where a large portion of the houses are made of rusty patched together Zinc plates and the main economic activity involves an illegal market of trucks selling gravel and dirt that is stripped from the nearby mountain. A significant portion of the community is struggling to find employment and to pay the bills, find money for food, etc. While I write this I know [View Full Entry]

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Rick and Sarah's Xmas More than a month after our holiday experience I thought I'd tell you all a little about our abnormal Christmas. In Nicaragua, the whole country practically shuts down for the second half of December. For Sarah and I this meant some exciting travels. We had visions of seeing many parts of El Salvador and Honduras, seeing beaches, fortresses, forests, and the like. However, given my desire to work too much, my reluctance to plan things, and a decision to be in a very remote town by the 30th of December. We ended up having little time to [View Full Entry]

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I begin this entry with the requisite apology for not having posted in over a month. Rick and I have managed to keep ourselves quite busy, spending time in various Nicaraguan--and even Honduran--locations. We've finally made our way back to Managua, and plan to stick around, at least for the work-week. Seeing as how I haven't written since Thanksgiving, the pool of stories and happenings I have to draw from has grown almost stiflingly vast. If only I could relay all of our amazing experiences to you as they happened. Of course, the better and more feasible option is for each [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Sarah and Rick's new blog site! Sorry to switch the address so quickly, but we feel that this sight will provide everyone with a better interface through which to vicariously experience Nicaragua. You may notice that some of the old entries are now illustrated in Technicolor (they have pictures)! As an added bonus, you can subscribe to this blog and automatically receive an email each time we post a new entry. We promise that you won't get any spam from this subscription. Many of you have already been subscribed. We won't be offended if you choose to unsubscribe at [View Full Entry]

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We recently went to a Nicaraguan Professional League Baseball game here in Managua. We went with some of our neighbors and sat along the first base side in a section affectionately known as "the jail." It's closed off to the rest of the crowd and the field because it's the all you can drink section. Apparently, the partyers have been known to make a run onto the field. The night was interesting because of 2 reasons: 1) The Boer Indians (or Indios del Boer) have the same exact copied logo of the Cleveland Indians. I'm pretty sure US copyright laws don't [View Full Entry]

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Rick makes his first entry about a trip to a campo village a few weeks back: As our cab pulls up to the open air market we are getting propositioned to go to seemingly every city in the country. Multiple men crowd around us while we are still inside the cab scrambling to find money to pay the driver. They forcefully ask us "a Matagalpa?" "Jinotepe?!" "Masaya?" hoping that we'd get on one of the unprivileged/unsanctioned buses not able to enter the station. We push our way through them to reach the relative calm of the bus terminal where we learn [View Full Entry]

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I am finding it difficult to write entries lately. Not for lack of topics to write about, but because I feel so inadequate explaining the complexity of my life down here--even things that may seem simple, like my daily routine, or my trip to Granada this weekend. I feel a burden of explanation and honesty. But the honesty I would like to portray is difficult to access from my limited perspective and without better language skills. The story is always much longer than any of us want to endure. I am going to try to write about small things, and perhaps [View Full Entry]

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Rick and I went to Xiloa (roughly pronounced "hee-low-AH") this past Sunday for a day trip. Xiloa is a little Laguna just northwest of Managua. We read in our guide book not expect crowds or tourism since many of the restaurants and ventas were still closed and in disrepair from Hurricane Mitch (circa 1998). The guidebook read, "There are frequent buses from Managua that will take you right to the water at Xiloa." Unable to find any such bus, or even a single person in the mercado who knew of such a bus, we setteled on riding a bus headed out [View Full Entry]

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