Operation Walkabout

Hello, So this past week was spent attending a spanish school located inside a volcanic crater turned lake. Staying at laguna de Apoyo was really amazing. We met an eccentric group of people and saw many monkeys. Clases were fun because they are situated outdoors and Alex and I were always being distracted by howler monkeys or lizards or chickens. Some of the activities we did with the school were a walk around the jungle to see birds and monkeys, cleaning up a beach and attending some kind of town hall meeting where developers talked about the houses they wanted to build in the nature reserve. Leaving Laguna de Apoyo, we crawled into the back of a school bus which could barely make it up the hill and then took an intercity van which had at least 25 people in it. The walk to Casas de la Esperanza was pretty eye opening, The whole way there, the eroded dirt road is bordered by tiny houses scrapped together with pieces of wood and aluminum roofing. There are lots of starved stray dogs around too.Here is the link to our facebook photo album.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=552622&id=503820390&l=27b9694213

When we first arrived in Nicaragua after a long day of flights, the two of us were easily picked out of the crowd by our arranged driver Mario. He and his wife Erin are the head of Casa Canadiense, an organization that takes groups from Canada and integrates them into ongoing community development projects.

After a really long of travelling, we were happy to have a safe place to stay. The truth about
managua is that every single house is fenced in and padlocked, windows consist of iron bars and open walls are topped with barbed wire. It is also not uncommon for the wealthy to have night guards. These are just basic precautions to deter thieves. We feel perfectly safe here and with everybody we've met so far. Everyone has been so kind and patient with us, helping us around the city, buying us lunch and teaching us spanish. We like to thank
Susanne Dorge and Joe Gunn, without their help these past days would not have been possible.
Day One

The morning of the 20th was the beginning of an even longer day. We were awoken at 6 by a sympony or noises including roosters, trucks, people selling bread and the never ending slew of honking horns. Having no food, Erin told us about a breakfast place a couple of blocks away that we could walk to called La Lecheria. Here began our first and painful encounter with the language barrier. In retrospect, ordering pancakes was the worst of our worries because when our guide and friend of Susanne and Joe's, Martha, called, all we could muster was "No entiendo": I don't understand. It was finaly confirmed that she would pick us up with her brother, Alberto. The first stop of the day was at a big mercado where we exchanged dollars to cordobas, bought a bounty of bananas and met Marthas sister and neice.

We spent the next hour struggling to find Casa Benjamin Linder, driving around the Montoya neighbourhood and asking many locals if they knew where to find it. Eventually the right person pointed the way, we snapped some pictures with the mural, and toured inside. Benjamin Linder was an american who came to nicaragua during the revolution. He was the only American to die in the revolution, and after that, the Clinton administration withdrew it's support of Samosa's government in Nicaragua.

From here we carried on to visit Carmen, who runs a restaurant and works in developing communities.

After a visit with Carmen, we went to see where Martha works. She runs an internet cafe as well as a computer school. It was started by her brother who had Polio, he went around in his wheel chair and invited sex trade workers to learn at his school in pursuit of a better life.

The final stop of the day was to see Fatima and Adan. Adan used to be a messenger for Joe Gun while he worked in Nicaragua. n. While there we sat outside and talked, got joked with a little bit for being gringos, and reminisced. Finaly, exhausted and sweaty, we headed home and passed out in our camas.

Day Two

When the sun rises here, people start to boogie. Since the water wasn't working when we arrived on friday, we were happy to finally get clean. Today we planned to visit with Reuben at Puntas de Encuentros- a feminist organization that uses media to connect with both men and women about common social issues. Young people there run a radio show and a soap opera that speaks about things like equality and sexuality.

One of the many offices at Puntas Encuentros, here they were editing some radio interviews.

We met with Reuben, the organizer of Puntas and also the first english speaking person we'd met with. He took us out to lunch with some of his colleagues to a Comedor, a buffet style restaurant where we had the most delicious dessert made of baby corn called rilla.

Relaxing in a hammock after playing soccer with some local kids

Alex with a very delicious pineapple

After our tour and lunch, we were dropped of by Ruben's driver (which by the way- almost everybody has professional drivers if they can afford it, and for good reason too. We'll explain later.) at Casa Canadiense. In desperate need of physical activity, we went out to a park a few blocks away with a soccer ball. After just a couple of passes back and forth on a concrete basketball court, we had amassed a group of locals and began to play 4 vs. 2. Alex, two kids around the age of 12 and myself battle it out against Luchio and his friend, who were just younger than us. Sweat instantly began to pour and didn't stop until

long after we stopped playing.

A 3 $ dinner for two. The bread and donuts were bought from a lady walking down the street selling bread. The are the best donuts we have ever had the pleasure eating.
The evening was concluded by a spectacular series of thunder and lighting. At one point the thunder was so loud it set off several car alarms and knocked out our electricity!

Day 3
Again we had breakfast at the Lecheria, this time feeling a bit more adventurous, Sam tried a their famous "Lecheagria", literally sour cream. in a jar. It was.. worth a try. Martha's cousin picked us up in his taxi and brought is to Martha's house. She fed us a wonderful lunch of chicken rice and vegetables and we met her mother, nieces and nephews. Although she does not have much, she showed us incredible hospitality and even she invited us for christmas.

After lunch we drove out to the lookout for Laguna de Apoyo and the artisan market in Masaya.