Rural Communities

A major part of my work with Mpowering People involves traveling to several rural communities around León, meeting with groups of mothers to discuss their "plan de negocio", or projects for earning money for the year. This usually entails selling something, such as clothing, bread, or soup.

Here are pictures of our trip to Tamarindo:

Traveling by bus: "Bienvenidos a León"

Beautiful scenery

Road in Tamarindo

For the meeting, I created a few questions to discuss with the moms and was in charge of facilitating, which meant asking questions and writing down the responses. It was really hard! Not only was it difficult to understand all of what they were saying, but also to keep everyone on track!

We caught the last bus back to León

And took some silly photos together

Attempt #1

Attempt #2 (not much better)

In addition, we traveled to Ceiba for a meeting the other day, but failed for the second time to attend it!

The first attempt was on my first day of work, when it began to pour rain.

This time, we missed the main bus, took an alternative bus which dropped us off on the side of the road to the entrance into the community, hitched a ride with a semi-truck which dropped us off at a construction site, and for the next hour, unsuccessfully tried to hitch a ride to travel the 8km to the meeting location.

Boy, what a day!

Waiting on the side of the road, with plenty of time to kill. So hey, why not take a photo?

Can somebody please give us a ride???

More nice views of the countryside

The main road in Ceiba

Comments

Sayonara Arigato

We went out to a restaurant for lunch today, a little eatery called.... something that's located.... somewhere (At this point, I have absolutely no idea where things are located in León or the names of the restaurants we've eaten at. Typically we just hop into Mateo's truck and go wherever he decides to take us.) The restaurant is pretty busy - lunch is the biggest meal of the day, so the place is filled with hungry customers. Inside, there is a wood fire stove in the center of the restaurant, filling the room with a thick, smokey scent. Upon entering the restaurant, I passed by an older Nicaraguan man, whose face lit up when he saw me. "Ohhh!" he exclaimed. "Sayonara Arigato!!" I laughed. It was something that caught me completely off guard, and the incongruity of it struck me humorous, since the man obviously thought I was Japanese. If this same incident had happened back in the States, I would have felt insulted, but there was something about how t...

Meet my host family!

This morning, we met our host families and host agency representatives for the first time! After a few hours of introductions, autograph bingo, a presentation about our Community Based Initiative (or as Sam liked to call it, "mini proyecto"), and a game of Pictionary, we finally parted ways and left Mateo's house with our host families. My host family is very kind! They are also about the same height as me (we're all cute and short!) so I think it's a perfect match. Paulino, me, and Doña Chilo They have two daughters, a dog named Bebe, a rabbit named Joka (ho-ca), and they live with their grandmother. Doña Venega and Joka el Conejo JOKA!!! I also had a mini-adventure on my first day with Mpowering People. Ingrid, my jefe/mentor, and Gabriela, a post-graduate volunteer, arrived at my host family's home on a motorcycle to pick me...

I'm in León!

We made it! After 12 hours of traveling, we've finally made it to Nicaragua...."we" being myself and the whopping THREE other volunteers - Maddy from Portland, Olivia from Denver, and Sam from Chapel Hill! I was surprised by the small group size, but apparently that's characteristic of the gap year program. We actually flew into Nicaragua during a lightning storm! It was quite the experience to be in an aircraft, flying among the clouds, while bolts of lightning are shooting down all around you. Fun stuff! Our in-country Amigos coordinator met us at the airport, outside of customs, where a huge crowd of Nicaraguans were clustered about, families waiting to greet family coming off the airplane as well as various taxi drivers and vendors advertising their goods and services. We chucked our backpacks onto the bed of the coordinator's pickup truck and drove to a restaurant, where we had our first meal in Nicaragua! Enchiladas con mole y champiñones The en...

The Stinky Girl Travels

Search This Blog