A quick update!

Just wanted to write a quick update to let you know what we have been up to the last few weeks. We have been busy trying to keep up with Spanish, learn the schedule of the school and our new town, and build relationships! Personally—things have been going really well. We really love the location we have landed in, the people are wonderful and day-by-day we are feeling more confident in Spanish (although hour-by-hour is a different story! ha!) We are enjoying our home, cooking together, doing some landscaping and making it our own.

To keep you updated on what our work is/will be like here in Nicaragua…We  are spending the next 3 months diving in with our Spanish, building relationships and just seeing how things flow at the high school in San Nicolas and the town of La Garnacha (where we have the opportunity to work and help with the community farms and businesses in this small town). At this time, we truly are observing until the beginning of December when school is out for the long break in between school years—in the states we call this summer break. When the new school year begins in February, we hope to have a more consistent and set schedule or expectations, but for now observing and discussing and discerning is what we are doing.  There is some sense of a schedule that we have kept up from Davie and Sarah’s schedule they had while they were serving here. Currently, we are running 1 adult English class each week, and primary english class in La Garnacha (1x/week), and observing in the high school classrooms. With La Garnacha, we are cleaning veggies and helping at the farmer’s market on Friday’s.

In February, when school gets started again we will have a more solid schedule and idea of where we can plug in with our skills. A few ideas that have already been floating around are similar to that of previous volunteers, including assisting in English classes at the high school and teaching after school English classes and an adult class, as well. A few new ideas include; Alli helping with some counseling /social work initiatives at the school (parent meetings, “core values” education, future planning—career, college etc…), as well as a few organizational things at the school. At La Garnacha, there has been some talk of wanting help with a few basic accounting practices for the businesses in town and the farm. Also, the possibility of a computer class to teach basic word processing and maybe some excel to help with accounting.

We are very excited about the prospects of using some of professional skills we used in the states here in Nicaragua—working alongside people here and learning from them, as well! It seems a lot of that has already begun.

Thanks for following along on our journey!

I also wanted to take the opportunity to post our P.O. Box address in case you would like to send anything to us! We’ve heard that sending packages can get a bit pricey, but a card is always nice and the system is pretty reliable .

Allison y Kyle Stiffney

P.O. Box 46

Esteli, Nicaragua

Love,

Alli