Wednesday, April 16, 2008

As for updates on my life living at Rancho Esperanza, well, well where to start.







Nate has had a birthday back at the end of February where all the kids from the community came of and threw eggs at him. Don’t worry they really like him a lot it’s just a funny custom here. What a sight though, 30 plus kids charging Nate each with at least one egg. I think he smelled for about a week. Afterwards we did a huge piñata with the kids. I’m talking huge it was bigger than me!!! As it was Nate’s birthday he was able to have the first swing at it. All in all it took about an hour to break it open. Then there was cake with the kids and festivities with the adults in the evening!

Next Nate and I got a puppy. He is sooooo cute. Don’t worry Mom and Dad I still love my cat and can’t wait to get back and see him. The puppies name is Roñoso, which means scabby. Funny thing is when we got him he was about one to two months old and he had this huge scab on the tip of his nose and well the name just sort of stuck. He’s now about four months old and he’s really lived up to his name. He loves to dig holes in the Rancho floor as it is a sand floor however the sand flies love to dig holes all over his body. Therefore he is always covered in scabs!! But he’s still cute as a button and healthy as a whip I just got his last vaccination Wednesday morning so he’s up-to-date for the year!!

Let’s see, Semana Santa, the huge celebration week leading up to Easter was insane here at Rancho Esperanza. Typically Nathan and I are dealing with crowds no larger than 25 daily. We have communal meals and people just pitch in with chores, it’s simple and really homey feeling. However, during Semana Santa Nate runs Rancho Esperanza as a fully functional hotel with a bar and restaurant with several menu options. Let me tell it was insane. We had four chefs, two waiters, we had a live musician, and three people running both the bar and doing the compost runs. And yes don’t forget we run on a composting toilet system so we were running about 40 to 60 five-gallon buckets of kitchen scraps and human waste to the compost bins daily. We averaged about 150 people on Friday night alone, which we severed at the bar and in the restaurant. I don’t think I sat down all week. Every night starting on Wednesday we had at least 100 people per day. At nights we had all six cabañas full with up to six people in each. Although, we found out later some had 10 to 15 people. However, the beauty of Semana Santa was Nate was able to raise enough money to change the roof on the main Rancho which was falling apart.


So after one week of nothing but sleep literally, Nate commenced his roof changing projects. It was fun to watch but I’m glad it only took a week to do because I’m sooo sunburned from not having any roof over my head at any point during the day and the rains have finally begun. We now have our roof back on and a nice carport for the ambulance. Check out the pictures. They actually put the palm on the roof at night (because it was cooler) by lights run from batteries as the power company cut power to our village for about almost the entire week at night.


Last but not least I’ll try and tempt you all to come for a visit with the best sunset shot I think I’ve ever taken!! It’s beautiful, peaceful and just the way of life here!! Come visit I’ll be here till July as you all know, the great thing is it’s a hostel so there is plenty of room to stay!! Check out the website http://www.rancho.esperanza.bvg3.com/ if you want more info (it needs a bit of updating which we are working

Now for what most people are most interested in the School!!!


Rancho Esperanza and the Assist Jiquilillo Fund have been working on getting attendance to increase in the school so our idea has been do something special for the students who have perfect monthly attendance. This is a new project which we started this past Tuesday. We offered a piñata to the students who had perfect attendance for the 18 days of February. It however, was not just a piñata with candy, Nathan and I stuffed them full with pencils, erasers, and pencil sharpeners. It was really exciting to see the children’s faces when not just candy but pencils and other things fell! They were actually fighting over the pencils, erasers and pencil sharpeners and just letting the candy fall. I must say it was nice to see kids who wanted things that they would use for school! Since we are slightly behind on the months we will be doing March next week but may switch it up and give all the kids notebooks instead of doing a piñata! Only time will tell. We’d like to keep it as exciting as possible and do something different every month. Rancho Esperanza is very excited to tackle this project solo which works well for the Assist Jiquilillo Fund which has its funds tied up in other educational projects.

Actual attendance levels for February were fairly pathetic for First grade out of 45 students only 10 had perfect attendance. Second grade out of 23 students there were only 7 who were able to participate in the piñata. Third grade was better with 20 out of 23 and Fourth grade was good with 19 out of 21 students. Fifth grade was not as successful with only 7 out of 20 and Sixth grade had only 6 out of 18. Preschool did not participate in the piñata’s as the teachers herself was rarely there. It’s hard to see such low attendance levels but we can only hope that this project which is essentially bribing kids to come to class will work. Then the education itself is left only in the hands of the teachers.

As for sponsorships it is still a hard battle with the teachers. As of Tuesday at the suggestion of Nathan I’ve changed my scope of work with the teachers and I will no longer be basing the sponsorship on the four categories of attendance, participation, homework, and need. I will be meeting with the teachers over lunch next week, to discuss only attendance of the children and their levels of need. Once the Assist Jiquilillo Fund chooses 4 students from each class with the teachers I will begin a walk through the community to verify the level of need of each of these children. For those whom I find have the most need they will be sponsored. It will be a difficult decision but I am hoping to also get some helpful insight from Dona Francisca, the local health promoter. If all goes to plan, please cross your fingers that it actually does, all will be up and running by the end of the month. Then the last thing I will have to do is trips to Chinandega the city with all the children to purchase the uniforms, shoes, supplies, etc... And finally write the bios of the children and send them out to you the loving sponsors! I think the city trip will be a challenge, just imagine, little old me walking around a big city with up to 14 Nicaraguan children in tow. What a sight to see. I may need to reassess and just get measurements of all the children. I’m not sure on this part yet.
As for the purchase of materials for the schools, the Assist Jiquilillo Fund has purchased 6 dictionaries, 2 atlases, 5 puzzles of the muscular and skeletal system, 6 backpacks for the teachers, 6 notebooks for the teachers, 2 100-piece boxes of chalk, large paper for posters, 4 locks for the doors, crayons for each classrooms and pencils for each classroom. Currently only one more lock needs to be put on the door which I have a carpenter and friend scheduled to do next week. This one lock turned out to be way more complicated as the last lock was snapped off the cement as a result of someone kicking in the door. Hopefully this new lock will do the trick. After the lock is put on and the children are sponsored the Assist Jiquilillo Fund and Rancho Esperanza will be looking into getting a well built for the school and repairing the bathrooms. Pictures’ will come soon so you can see the current conditions.

Community Center Updates include lots of new things.












The Community Center is finished. Nathan ended up being sort for the construction of the walls so the Assist Jiquilillo Fund donated $500 to complete the construction of this wonderful facility!
Currently the Center is being used for Rancho Esperanza’s Kids Club project. This is the after-school program where the kids in the community can come and just be kids. It is such a nice change to see some of the kids in the village who normally work all day long get the occasional break and well just be a real child. All week BINGO has been the most popular game. I’ve got a small white board set up and I’m using this game as an amazing learning tool. I’m working on letters and numbers with all of them. It’s hard but Nathan has two volunteers who have been staying at Rancho Esperanza who have been wonderfully helpful with this aspect. They sit with the kids and keep them focused on the letters in BINGO and then the numbers. It’s been only one week of BINGO and all the kids now know these four small letters and can shout out Spanish Words with which start with each letter. They also have been able to recognize the majority of the numbers which range from 1 to 75. Supper exciting, since most of the kids even those who are 14 are still in 1st grade and before the game didn’t know their numbers nor letters very well. Another favorite activity is drawing and coloring which the children are enjoying in the above photo. Don't worry we are in the process of making tables for the community center too!

Another activity we are currently using the Community Center for is movie nights. Every other Sunday I help Rancho Esperanza put on a movie for the kids. Last May, with personal funds I purchased a projector and made a screen for this sol purpose! We are working on the Harry Potter series right now and the kids and adults as well love it! Movies start at 4 and go either till they end or until the power goes out, which has been happening a lot and is really putting a damper to this project. Rancho Esperanza will hold movie nights twice a month and offer them free to the community!

As for future plans of the community center the first projects the Assist Jiquilillo Fund and Rancho Esperanza will begin is empowering women here in the community. We will be offering Sewing classes to start. Currently, we are looking for a teacher and may have potentially found a woman who is certified. She is the neighbor of our friend Boris who lives in El Viejo, a city about an hour outside of Jiquilillo. We just need to do an interview verify her credentials and then purchase the machines. If everything works out right (which it very rarely does here in Nicaragua) we will have this project up and running by the end of May!!! Classes will have a very small fee associated with them which will be used to purchase the necessary material and thread. The Assist Jiquilillo Fund has been planning on assisting with this project and will be able to donate $500 for the purchase of several machines including both electric and petal sewing machines (for when there is no power)! This still leaves $500 more to be used for future classes which Rancho Esperanza and the Assist Jiquilillo Fund will be spearheading.

Updates on the Ambulance/Vehicle










So we’ve done it!!! Finally, after months and months actually more like a year of searching for the perfect used vehicle in good condition we’ve found one and it has been purchased!!!! I can’t belive it Nathan, Moises (our mechanic), and I are trilled to show you the truck which we are now using as an ambulance and teacher transport. It doesn’t look like much I must say but this is it. We are still finalizing all documents because our Moises had to purchase the truck for us, so the vehicle is still being transferred into our names however we’ve got it and have been using it. Funny story about the purchase is it had to be bought in Moises’s name otherwise the original owner of the truck would have sold it to us for $10,000; however since Moises is Nicaraguan and not a Gringo he was about to talk the price down to $7,300, which is totally within the budget. The original plan was to be able to raise $10,900 however I was only able to raise $8,300. So this leaves an extra $1,000 for repairs and such.

Since the purchase of the truck we have made three runs to the hospital. The first being for Nathan himself, he had an ant which tried to build a home in his ear so we had to bring him to the hospital for an emergency ant removal. It sounds really funny and disturbing at the same time, however it is true, scary but true! Second trip was for Maria Jose Asetuno Carrbio, our neighbor. She went into labor only about 10 days after purchasing the truck so I rushed her to the hospital and an hour later out popped Junior Jose Lopez Carrbio. Please note the above photos. He is soooo cute and small and well he’s a baby what more can I say. Out most recent trip has been for Elizabeth Oviedo who was also pregnant, however, she is not originally from Jiquilillo and was just visiting so I’m unaware of the turnout of this trip.

The truck is also being used to bring the teachers into the community so they arrive to school on time. This project has been hard, because we need to leave Rancho Esperanza at 6:15am in order to get them to school on time. I have a feeling unless we find another driver this project will not remain a daily thing, as when I’m not here Nathan has a hotel to run as well. Yes, for those who know me well it’s amazing I know I actually get up willingly between 5:30 and 6:00 here to work. Scary hugh?

So far the truck has held up well and we’ve only had one major repair of replacing one four-wheel drive unit the part itself cost $52.50 and Moises has a deal worked out with Nathan at the moment so labor was free. Otherwise, it’s just a few small tweeks left of the back windows sticking and one door won’t unlock. Simple (I think) but not necessary to be functional!

I’ve worked out a deal with Rancho Esperanza for them to cover the majority of gas consumption. This is working by The Assist Jiquilillo Fund renting the vehicle to the hostel for use during the day when it is not being used for emergency runs (after 3:30) or for transporting the teachers (early morning). So far it is working well, and I’m sure this will continue to work in the future.