New Hospital!!

On May 25th, the town of San Nicolas had a very exciting day—the inauguration of the new mini-hospital! While there has been a health center in town for many years, this hospital will allow for more access to care, including specialist doctors and more staff. I think this is a great step for our little town. It is incredible to think of the changes we have seen in the past two years! We know many people would say the same thing about education and infrastructure in this area, and now they can add health care to that list as well. Below are some pictures taken by our mayor’s office. It really was a great day to celebrate this new addition!

(Photo Credit: San Nicolas Alcaldia)

A few weeks before completion

Inauguration Day!

The Emergency Entrance

Inside the Hospital

This is a really great addition to the community. I know many people will benefit from these facilities and the new staff and specialists.

Love.

Visitors Galore!

We had the privilege to host 3 different couples in March and April! While 2 of the couples were new to San Nicolas, the third couple knew their way around quite well :)
Davie and Sarah visited us in March and were able to recconect with people in San Nicolas and see some of the sights around this beautiful country. We loved hosting them and sharing our joys and struggles about living and working in San Nicolas. They just GET IT! We also had a chance to skype with Billy and Kristin while they were here and that was a great time for all of us to connect. We enjoyed catching up and look forward to the next time our paths cross!

In March, we also hosted Jill and Peter who were our friends (and short-term roommates) in Indianapolis. We loved having them here and showing them our lives here. We loved that they were able to visit our schools and help us in English class. Turns out ‘Jill’ is very difficult to pronounce in Spanish ;) We also enjoyed a bit of vacation time with them and visited a beautiful beach near San Juan del Sur.

In April, Greta and Darin made their way south from Portland, Oregon. We enjoyed spending time with them. We visited our schools, hung out in our patio area, and enjoyed some time on Ometepe Island.

(No photo credit to me: Sarah, Jill and Greta! Thanks!!)

Lunch in Esteli (Kyle, Alli, Jake, Sarah, Davie)

Getting that wifi from the park

Enjoying Breakfast with Friends

“Playing” soccer with some of my elementary students in Quebrada de Agua. My team definitely beat “Team Peter” :)

Jill and Pete in Granada

Yoga at Sunset

Group Picture on the beach (Alli, Kyle, Peter, Jill)

Greta and I at the Mirador—another amazing sunset.

Checking out the plants at La Garnacha

Beach Day!

Incredible views at the Mirador

Ometepe was incredible, as always!

It has truly been a blessing to have SO many visitors over our 2 years here. We really feel lucky that so many have chosen to see our lives here and now get it in a different way. I will have another visitor blog coming up, but as we start to wrap up our time here in San Nicolas, I will also start writing about the good-byes and experiences we will be having over our final 2 months of service. I cannot believe we are gearing up for those good-byes.

Love.

Yes, I Can!

That is the title of our 12-week English program this semester. We have switched it up a bit this year and decided to work more towards a “burst” of English with a focus on pronunciation and conversation. With the help of some very awesome Costa Rica Peace Corps Friends who passed on some great planning materials, we are really enjoying the classes and the students seemed to be more engaged. These classes aren’t meant to get to full to fluency in 12 weeks. BUT it is supposed to get the kids up and participating and to get them to the the point when they say Si, Yo Puedo! (Yes I CAN!) If they are willing to get in front of the class and hold a basic introduction conversation without giggling and running away then we are half-way there :D

Last week we did the clothing unit where we learned a lot of clothing vocab and the proper use of the verb “to wear”. Of course, this meant a fashion show (in my younger student class), and the kids loved it! Here are a few pictures from that day:

Helen, the Fashionista

Ronmel, the coolest dude in town!

Ciara, the trend setter

Luis Aaron, the trail blazer

All the models and Profe Allison, looking SWEET! :)

Love.

Vacation means VACATION :)

Wow! Sorry we’ve  been MIA in Bloglandia…When school let out and we wrapped up graduations we took the word vacation very seriously…and stopped blogging. Ha! But we are back and gearing up for another school year. Classes begin on February 6th and we are ready to start out English classes again and reconnect with the students and teachers.

December and January have been a great mix of relaxation, connecting with our community, San Nicolas fiestas partonales (homeland parties! Complete with bull riding, approximately 10 parades and lots of food and drink) visiting places in Nicaragua we had not yet seen, and hosting friends and family! We enjoyed having Kyle’s brothers for a visit when we were able to explore the island of Ometepe for the first time (AMAZING!) and then my siblings came to visit the week following Christmas. We went volcano boarding and celebrated the new year in Leon! It was a lot of fun. And great to be surrounded by family around the holidays.

Christmas day looked VERY different for us this year. We were ALONE! It was, honestly, quite relaxing, and we enjoyed it. But we are also looking forward to being surrounded by our families again for future holidays. While we enjoyed a relaxing day of Christmas snacks and movies, it just didn’t quite feel like Christmas, especially with no snow :) We did spend Christmas eve with our host family and shared some of our favorite dips and Christmas treats with them (spinach artichoke dip and Pretzels with a chocolate kiss in the middle). We also made a few other cookies and  treats and delivered plates to our neighbors and friends. I would say a pretty successful Christmas :D

We have continued to host our adult English classes and help out at the high school as needs arise. The school director had been on a well-deserved week-off, so we have also enjoyed our time at home, cleaning the house, sprucing up the yard, and inviting friends over for meals. We just recently arrived back in Nicaragua after traveling through Central America with my parents. We had a great time reconnecting with them and seeing beautiful parts of this slice of the world. Now we are refreshed, ready and excited dive back into the 2017 school year! We are ready to see our students and fellow teachers and we are excited to continue to our work with English and building relationships.

I think that about sums up our vacation time so far! Here are a variety of pictures from school vacation 2017 :D

The Bishop came during our town’s fiestas patronales in San Nic to lead a mass. Our priest (padre patricio) is in the white shirt and khakis. Fun fact: he is also our landlord :)

Kyle and his brothers at Volcan Masaya

One of the amazing lookout points on Ometepe

I love this picture :D We did a tour of Flor de Cana Rum factory tour with Kyle’s brother and had to get this shot!

Flor de cana tour

Kyle helping a friend with some accounting/excel work.

We were lucky enough to cross paths with my lovely aunt and her super fun family! :) Thanks for letting us crash your party!

Pizza making with some of the high school students

My siblings visited and we did a lot of puzzles :) We also visited Leon and went volcano boarding.

New years eve dinner in Leon!

With my siblings, we visited Somoto Canyon and jumped, floated and walked our way through the canyon. Beautiful!

We made a delicious lunch with our friend, Albertina. She brought veggies from her beautiful organic farm.

Albertina preparing the salad in our kitchen.

Hanging out with your parents is so much more fun when you are older :D

Lovely dinners, great weather, and lots of laughs shared!

And, of course, amazing sunsets at every turn. I swear that Nicaragua has some of the best sunsets in the world! Can’t beat these views!

Happy 2017, let’s make it a good one!

Love. 

Graduation Season part II

This is our second (and last…what??!) round of graduations. I am really not very good at good-byes and endings. So the end of the school year, saying good-bye to the seniors, and the thoughts of the end of our term has made this past week a bit emotional for me! It’s just another reminder of how quickly our time has gone here. I know we won’t be leaving until the middle of next year, but I can’t help feeling the weight of those good-byes already. But enough of those sad emotions for now… it has been a very happy and celebratory week. Our students have graduated from Pre-school, 6th grade and from high school! It was fun to experience a wide range of graduations ceremonies (although EVERY one included the “graduation march song” on repeat at least 10 times…we have been dreaming with this soundtrack in the background…)

Last Thursday, Kyle and I divided and conquered. I attended the Quebrada de Agua graduation where I help on Monday and Tuesday. I celebrated with 3 awesome, intelligent 6th graders and my favorite teacher profesora Maria :) Kyle headed up the hill and out into the reserve to La Garnacha where we clean veggies on Thursdays and teach an elementary English class.

Quebrada de Agua’s Graduation was in the school house. I helped make the banner.

Two 6th grade graduates, and a pre-school sister graduating.

Prof Maria and I. She was the MC of the event and I ran the music :) I think we make a pretty good team!

Our three 6th grade graduates!

The graduates of 2016-Pre school and 6th grade!

On Friday, I attended the primary and pre-school graduation in town at the catholic church. I went to support all the students we see walking to school everyday(about fifteeen 6th graders), but most definitely to see our “host sister” graduate from pre-school. Serling is part of the family that we lived with for the first few weeks we lived here in town. She gave us a very direct and QUICK introduction to Spanish. She didn’t have much patience for our slow understanding of Spanish at the age of 4 and when we asked her to slow down, it just seemed like she sped up! :) She is such a sweetheart and we love that family, so we were excited to celebrate her promotion with her and give her a special gift, too!

Friday night, we helped clean and organize the church for the high school graduation the next day. It was a lot more fun this year, because it felt like we knew more of what to expect and we were able to be more helpful/useful to the director and the teachers.

On Saturday, the high school graduations! We watched 22 daily students graduate with the bachelors degree and 54 Saturday students graduate with their bachelors. It was a really exciting day. A common theme throughout all these graduations are the speeches about being thankful for the educational opportunities these students have access to. They often say, fifteen years ago you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in this area with a even a high school diploma, but now you can find students in university and individuals holding college degrees. We really hope this message resonates with these students, as much as some of them see opportunities elsewhere (going to the states, working on the family farm…), we totally believe in the value of education for these students. We know it’s not the answer for each individual, but if just a handful end up going on to get a degree and a job that follows that will send huge ripple effects throughout these communities. We always love what our school director says: “Educacion: La unica cosa que nadie puede tomar de vos” // “Education: The one thing no one can take away from you”

The graduation mural. Another piece by Allison :) But really guys…I am getting pretty good at cutting out letters and pasting them in  straight line!

The parade of graduates walking into town to arrive at the church! So many proud students and parents.

Some of the graduates

I helped run the music/sound system and got to sit by this cool dude!

Graduates Galore!

It was also really neat to see one of our favorite teachers at the high school be recognized at the ceremony for his 35 years of service to the ministry of education. He is definitely a highlight in our days at the school and is a wonderful educator and friend! We were so excited that he was recognized in this way. We were also recognized with a certificate recognizing our solidarity with the community and the school. That was also a nice surprise, especially with the news that we will be the last volunteers from VMM in San Nicolas (see this post: VMM Organizational Update).

Juan Jose: 2016 teacher of the year!

The MC’s Prof Elvin and Prof Idalia

With the school director, Prof. Idalia

Photo op with a few other teachers

We had a great time celebrating with all the students and families who achieved another great success in their educational journeys!

What I’ve been writing in all my graduation cards and notes to the students: Nunca dejes de aprender! // Never stop learning!

Love.