from January 9 and 10

Jan 9:
Hi everyone! I am now in Leon, Nicaragua, in an internet cafe, so I wanted to take the opportunity to write you all! My flight went just fine, a long boring 4 hour layover in Houston was the only bad part. Both flights left around 15 minutes late, but arrived just about on time. I was met by two volunteers and a pequeno who has graduated university and is now doing a year of service helping the other pequenos who are in Managua (for university or trade school). I stayed two nights (one day) in Casa Guadalupe in Managua. There were four volunteers at the house already when I got there (three Germans, one American) and another arrived the day after I did (from Norway). On Jan 5 our volunteer coordinator (another German) and another volunteer (from Holland, she´d been at language school) arrived and we all went to Casa Asis, the baby house. Casa Asis is in San Jorge, a suburb of Rivas. All the pequenos ages 0-8 (or so) live in Casa Asis. They also have a guest house, so we stayed there and spent our days with the kids. On the 5th we got there in time to eat lunch, and then we took a break after lunch because the kids all nap and rest anyway. We played with the kids later in the day. In the evening we went to a nearby town to watch some of the island pequeños do folk dances. On the 6th we went to mass in the morning with the older pequñnos (maybe 5 and up). In the afternoon we had our normal break from 1-3 and then played with the kids til dinner. On the 7th I went back to the main offices in San Jorge with Liselot (Dutch) and Michelle (American) because they needed to see a doctor and they wanted someone who spoke better Spanish. I think I probably speak the best Spanish of all the new volunteers. One of the Germans, Kiki, speaks quite well, so we might be about the same. Some of them have only had a month (or less) of language school, so it´s hard for them. Anyway, so we spent all morning at the office, even though the doctor visit only took 15 mins. (The NPH doctor from the island was there, so we didn´t have to go to a clinic). But we had to wait a long time for the truck to come get us to take us back. But it was ok. We got back for lunch, and then the afternoon was the same as Sunday. Tuesday, the 8th, we played with the kids in the morning and then had our normal afternoon. Sometime... maybe Monday night... another German volunteer came. All the volunteers are women except two Germans (the volunteer coordinator and another one.) Today we left early in the morning and took NPH pickup trucks to Rivas, and then a bus to Managua, and then a taxi to another bus stop, and then a microbus (like 15 passenger van) to Leon and then a taxi to the hostel. So that was a lot of travel.

Jan 10:
Here´s a little more info about Casa Asis. I think I said that´s it´s for babies through age 7-9. Somewhere around 7-9 they leave and go to the orphnage. I think it´s when they get to 2nd grade. And it´s only once per year, so that´s why there´s not the specific ages. The kids are divided into two groups, babies through age 4 or 5 and then the older kids. They usually do different activities, although sometimes they are together. They are cared for by tíos and tías. There are two different sets of tíos, so they don´t all work all the time. There are also some older (18 and up) pequeños from the island that are doing their year (or years) of service there. There´s about 30 kids total I think, and there are maybe 8-10 tíos working at once, so the kids are well cared for. Since it´s summer break (dec and jan) they have a more relaxed schedule. Usually at least the older ones have school in the morning. And I think the little ones might have preschool too. So they have a nice mix of activities for the kids. They have toys (I think donated from the US or Europe) and they play games and go for walks and ride bikes and watch tv (but not too much) and all sorts of normal kid things. The tíos do a good job of playing with them and hugging them and that sort of thing. They seem like mostly very happy kids. They sleep in big dorms and there´s always a tío on night duty in each dorm. They have different people who cook and they eat a really nice variety of food. It´s really quite healthy I think. It was a really nice place to be for a few days and it was fun to play with the kids. One of the volunteers is going to be there all year, and I think she´s excited about it. The rest of us would like to come back to visit sometime during the year.