All Other Projects

As for updates with all other projects things have been progressing quite slowly. I fell ill for about five days within the past two weeks. This means I have not had a chance to get everything completed that I had hoped for. I have already extended my trip from the 27th of June to the 2nd of July. I hope this will give me enough time to get a little bit more work done, before I have to leave. I would love to stay and complete everything however, I must return to the states to finalize things there as well.

With all the donated clothing I collected prior to my travels, I have finally been able to walk through the entire village and get the names and ages of the children in the poorest families. These families include single mothers, large families, and families where neither parent is able to work. I have encountered a total of 48 families in the most need. Tomorrow, I will spend the day walking the village with these bags of clothing gifting them to the families. The bags of clothing include one article of clothing for all children, a stuffed animal for children aged 4 and under and two extra outfits for children under one years of age. All extra clothing will be left with the community leader of Los Zorros, another impoverished village to the north, to be distributed accordinagly. Nathan Yue, of Rancho Esperanza, and Doña Francisca, the local health promotor for Jiquilillo, have been an immense help in the walking of the village and creating the gift bags themselves. I owe so much to both these individuals. Without them it would not have been possible.

As for the vehicle to be used as an ambulance Nathan and I have looked at several others in Chinandega with our friend and mechanic, Mosies, only one of which he feels is worthy, however, we still have to negotiate a price. They are asking $6,500 which would be reasonable, with the exception that the truck will need new tires. Good tires in this part of the country are expensive therefore the truck will not affordable if they do not lower the price. We are still working and hope to have this finished before I leave on the 2nd of July.

Sponsoring children however has been an entirely different problem. The teachers have decided that it is best to wait and do the sponsoring in January when the new school year starts. This way a child can be sponsored in the same grade for the entire year. So now I will be creating attendance charts and discipline charts for the teachers to use until January. These charts will keep track of how often the children attend classes as well as what their attitude is towards learning. If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to add a comment to this post.

The picture associated with this post was taken Friday the 22nd and was taken during Kid´s Club which is held at Rancho Esperanza. Nathan and I decided a reading day would be appropriate since it was a really hot day. Nathan, and our two volunteers Stephany, from Boston, and John from Southern England, our chef Jacqulene, and myself all laid out on sheets with the children under our shadiest tree and read with the kids for two hours. The children were so into the books we acutally extended kids club. It was great to see them all so interested in the books and learning in general.

Gifting Materials to the School

Updates for the School. So far the school project is the only completed project for Jiquilillo. I have recently, on Monday June 26th, been able to gift the supplies to four out of the five teachers that teach at the primary school in Jiquilillo. The attached picture is of the teachers and myself with several supplies that I was able to collect in the states. Thanks to physical donations I was able to gift packages including pencils, pencil sharpeners, rulers, sicissors, notebooks, glue, erassors, and pencil boxes to each teacher to be lent to students who don´t have the necessary materials for the day. I was also able to gift a soccor ball, football, and several tennis balls for the children to use during recess. All parties including the teachers and the children were incredibly excited about the materials and have asked if future donations are possible if books and dictionaries and teaching supplies could be included. I feel this is very important considering the school has no dictionary, one set of out-dated maps, and only several books on site.

Also, just to let you know a little more about the school the NGO, Save the Children, has just this year become very active in the school system, and just last week held a meeting at the school directed at attendance levels. They NGO discussed several concerns with parents and teachers and several communitiy members who do not have children attending school, including Nathan Yue, owner of Rancho Esperanza. The main problem Save the Children has encountered is that attendance is low because the parents are not making the children go to school, instead the parents are allowing their children to work on fishing boats to help feed the family. However, another problem which was discussed by the parents is the teachers lack of attendance as well. The majority of teachers live in the city of Chinandega and do not make it to school before the bell, due to the bus system. This means that the children are less apt to show up on time or in reality at all. Save the Children stated at this meeting that if attendance does not increase they will pull all future funding. Currently, the main focus of Save the Children is providing free drinking water and one meal a day to each student. They have also gifted a swing set for the children to use during breaks.

Slight set-back, Still pushing forward

So far things with the projects have been slow. To start Nate Yue and I spent 2 days in Managua with our friend Moises, who is a mechanic. We must have looked at just over 15 vehicles. I have the blisters on my feet to prove it as well. Still no luck. The majority of vehicles did not pass Moises tests and the ones which did well as you can guess where way out of my price range. Moises also informed Nate and I towards the end of the day that we were getting "Gringo prices." This means that because Nate and I were from the US they were giving us a higher price than they normally would. Moises only knows this because he had looked at several of the vehicles previously and they had given him a cheeper price. Go figure. Thanks to Moises´honesty we have hired him to head out of Managua to both Masaya and Rivas where he will have more luck finding affordable cars in good condition since these places are closer to the Costa Rican border. Nate and I will not hear back from him until tomorrow so I will make another posting whenever I get back into the city.

As for the clothing and supplies which I had collected tomorrow Doña Fransica will be walking through Jiquilillo another time because the first list of the families who need the most help was accidentaly throw out while I was in Managua. Doña Fran and I are focusing on families run by a single mother and larger families who do not have a good means of income. I will have a more specific update about this and will include pictures of some of the families.

As for the sponsor of children through the school, things have also been moving slowly. The village has now been without power for 5 days and nights straight so most children have not been going to school and most of the teachers have left to return to the city to the luxury of their own homes. Nate did however, get a chance to speak with the teachers today while I was in the city and he called to let me know we have another meeting scheduled for Wednesday. This is good news. What I have asked the teachers to bring to the meeting is their class attendance lists, grades and notes about the children in their classes. I am hoping to find children who enjoy coming to school and do well when they are there, but who just cannot afford the supplies. I will let you know how this meeting goes once I return to Chinandega (the city where I use the internet.

As you can see I actually remembered to bring the camera and hook-up to the city with me this time. The attached picture was taken the other day at Kid´s Club. The girl in the photo with me is Maria she is 10 years old. She lives with her 3 older sisters and her twin brother. Her parents do not live with them and Maria herself does not know where they are.

I Made it

Just a brief note letting everyone know that I´ve made it to Jiquilillo, Nicaragua. I´m so excited at being back and spent the first few days getting re-aquainted with everyone. It was nice to see all my friends again. However, things have changed in the village so it was a bit strange to see. The people I kept in contact with never mentioned the changes, because it was a natural progression for them, and they didn´t even think about it.
Currently, I´m in the City of Chinandega, using the internet to stay connected to everyone who has helped so far. Things with the vehicle have been progressing well. Nate, my friend and owner of Rancho Esperanza, is helping me. Today, we looked at one pick-up in Chinandega, but our mechanic told us it was junk. We have three more to look at tomorrow in Managua. Keep your fingers crossed.
Things with the school have been moving a bit slower on the other hand. I´ve been having a hard time connecting with the teachers. This past week was a bit different for them, with Nicaraguan Mothers Day right in the middle of the week and a huge teachers meeting on Thrusday and Friday. We have another meeting set up for the end of this week, so hopefully things will get rolling soon.
I do want to thank everyone once again for their support. I will not let you, me, nor my friends down! Sorry there is no picture I forgot to upload my pictures to my memory chip. Next week.