plan nicaragua

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Well, a little less enthusiastic right now than my last post filled with exclamation marks.

Mostly because I am exhausted.

I had no money left, and we have no bank in our department, so I had to go to Ocotal to go to the bank. Slight inconvenience, but an adventure nonetheless.

So there's this organization, Plan Nicaragua... actually, I am sure Plan is in several other countries, too. Anyway, Plan does things like provide notebooks and whiteboards to schools, to teach kids to wash their hands, and they build health centers, apparently. The woman who works in our communities, Betania, kind of rocks. She has a motorcycle and rides around and is very competent and gets stuff done.

The other side of Plan is that people abroad can "adopt" a kid. There are like 70 kids in my community that have "patroncinadores" or people who have adopted them. The patroncinadores write letters to the families and send photos and sometimes send gifts. And sometimes they come visit.

Yesterday, the first ever patroncinadora came to visit my community. Her name is Iris and she's from Germany. She spoke some English, which was good since the translator they provided was translating from English to Spanish. I hung out with Iris all day in the community... mostly because she was - surprise! also blonde and blue eyed... figured she wouldn't feel so alone with another gringa. I was also surprised to find that I could translate just about everything that needed translation, and I kept starting to... and then stopping and letting the translator do her work.

At any rate, the boy that Iris was assigned to adopt happens to be from one of the poorest families in my community, so they were very fortunate that their patroncinadora could come from Germany to visit. She brought very useful gifts ... like mosquito nets and dishes and toys and rope and .... useful stuff that the family needed. And then we went to the corner store and she stocked them up with rice and sugar and cheese and more rope and potatoes and tomatoes and I don't even know what else....

So. I am impressed with Plan Nicaragua. And with Iris from Germany. And it was fun for me because I realized I could translate the basics and not only Iris, but also the family was looking to me ... because I live there and teach their kids in school and they know me. And that made me feel like a better volunteer.

A lot of us go through periods where we feel like "bad" volunteers becuase we don't feel like we're DOING anything. I am an Ag volunteer, but have I done one Ag related thing? No. We are all harder on ourselves than anyone else is. I have only lived in Moropoto for 3 months. It is amazing to me that I have been in country for half a year, though.

One of my treats to myself is to buy an orange Fanta when I come to this internet place. It is one of the only "processed" foods I have, and it is only once a week or so. Ah but the creamy goodness!

It's the small things.

Okay I have a million and a half emails to write, so gonna do that. Lenin and I are FINALLY going to the Canyon of Somoto on Monday! More to come on that tourist attraction...

x's and o's from the mo-po

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