Nicaragua Day 2

Day two in Nicaragua! We woke up early again and came had breakfast at the hostel. Mama Tiff, Peter, Ben, and Cassi went into town to get eggs, mango, bread, papaya, and watermelon. We had a shorter amount of time to eat compared to our first day, then we headed out on a long walk to the learning center. At the learning center we met the 6th grade Nicaraguan class. We broke up into three groups with the Nicaraguan kids and painted murals with them. Once we split into the groups we really began engaging ourselves with the Nicaraguan children. Our projects were English/Spanish vocabulary, life cycle of a plant, and Mombacho Volcano. We painted murals inside the learning center to make it look cooler. We got to use a lot of our Spanish speaking skills with the children, and we were very astonished with how much English the kids could speak with us. We got to paint our names in the learning center alongside many of the Nicaraguan children, which will stay in the learning center for many more grades to see.  After the kids left for school, we began construction of tables and chairs which will be used in a new learning center that will be started in June with the next group of kids that comes to Nicaragua. We sanded down wood to smooth it before construction. After we finished we enjoyed another delicious lunch at Ramona’s, whose pollo, arroz, and frijoles are unparalleled. After filling our bellies we split up. Half of us continued constructing tables and half of us went to Amped’s recreation program to play soccer with the local children. At the rec program we got to meet even more kids that were a great group to be around. The half that was working we started assembling the tables and we sanded down the rest of the boards for the legs of the tables. We also tried some native sour fruits from a tree a very nice Nicaraguan man picked some and gave them to us. The two groups headed back to the hostel at the same time and met up to have a little down time before dinner. After grouping up, we walked through town to the Amped staff house where they treated us to a dinner of chicken, hot dogs, and cheese burgers. We had a blast while we ate, played cards, listened to music, and socialized while getting to see the house of our hosts.  Some of us took part in what had to have been the most corrupt but most fun game of Monopoly that we had ever played in which the winner was still unclear. After we finished we walked back to the hostel. some went into town for ice cream, and the rest came straight back. We’re winding down for the night and preparing ourselves for a busy day tomorrow. We really enjoyed socializing with the local children and getting our hands on involvement in the community. We can’t wait for what lies ahead.

“Ramona’s a badass” - Peter L.  (Editor’s note: she is an older, Nicaraguan woman, for more information: http://ampedforeducation.org/stories/)

"When you walk by kids on the street in the US, they just pass, but here every kid says hello or hola when they see us.” - Zach Lee

"The fields with all of the wild horses caught me by surprise." - Ben L

Editor's note: Sorry, my computer died last night so yesterday's blog had to be posted this morning! We'll be posting another one tonight. - Jeff