Feliz Navidad a Todos!

Greetings and Merry Christmas!

It's been an eventful week and a half in Granada! I'll try to keep it to the point, but there's been quite a bit going on.

Overall, we are off to a good start with our work as volunteers in Granada. Our organization, La Esperanza, works with local schools and communities to fill educational needs. On our first day in the office, we were immediately given the job of outfitting 80 kids before school starts (it's their summer break now). Quite literally, that's all they told us. "We would like you to find uniforms, shoes, backpacks, and supplies for the kids in this school." We were given minimal information about where to go, what exactly to buy, what specific kids to outfit, etc. We quickly learned that La Esperanza is very disorganized.

So, our mornings have been spent trying to organize this project. We found a tailor and seamstress in the village to make the clothes, a guy to sell us shoes, got most of the kids measured, and have learned various ways to track down kids who are not at summer school. None of them have phone numbers or addresses, so it's tricky.

Little by little, we're making progress on our morning project. There is another volunteer from North Dakota named Nick who is working with us on it, so we've made a good friend in the process. We hope that we can track down the remainder of the kids and get them all what they need before the start of school.

The afternoons are a bit different. Much to our amusement, Nina is once again working as a speech pathologist, only now in Spanish! There is a six-year-old boy in the village who can't speak, and because of Nina's expertise, La Esperanza has sent her to work with him in the afternoons. His name is Junior, and he is extremely cute and smart. Upon hearing a description of his problems, Nina thought he might be autistic. However, after meeting him, it was clear that he is not. He definitely understands what's going on around him, and understands spoken language easily. Nina thinks that he probably has Apraxia of Speech, which I think means the connection between his brain and his speaking muscles doesn't function properly. That is my very amateurish explanation, but you get the idea. Ask Nina for scientific details.

I have been assigned to a soccer program in the afternoons, which has been a lot of fun. However, there are lots of volunteers who play soccer, so the past few days I've gone with Nina to Junior's house. He has an eight year-old brother named Whitman, and I have been playing soccer and hanging out with him while Nina works with Junior. We are thinking about making this a permanent arrangement since Whitman wants to play during the therapy sessions, but Nina really needs one-on-one time with Junior. I've enjoyed creating a diversion for the last few days, so we might keep it up.

Yesterday was wonderful. We started the day by visiting a local orphanage for girls and delivering homemade cookies and toys. The girls were tons of fun! We sang Christmas carols in Spanish and English, and of course got into some camp songs, which was bound to happen. We really loved this orphanage, the girls in it, and the Nuns who run it. They expressed interest in some extra help in the afternoons with English instruction, so we're hoping to do that as well.

After the orphanage, we went to Junior's house so that Nina could do her afternoon speech therapy. While they worked, I experienced a funny cultural clash with Whitman. We were playing soccer, when Whitman suddenly told me to stop and be quiet. Very slowly, he took a sling shot out of one pocket and a rock out of the other. He started creeping toward a tree, and carefully took aim at an innocent little bird on a branch. Let me tell you, this was no Fischer Price slingshot, and he came within inches of cutting that little bird in half! The bird, of course, flew away fast. Whitman then went over to its nest, looking for something. In Spanish, I asked him what he was doing. "Looking for eggs," he said. Then I asked if he's ever killed a bird with his slingshot, and he said, "Of course! 140 so far!" He then started creeping through the woods, telling me to follow him. He repeated the shooting/egg search ritual about four times, while questions danced through my head. Should I be stopping this kid from killing innocent animals? It doesn't seem like he has any adult supervision anyway, so will he even listen to me?

After about the fifth attempted murder, he went over to a tree and got really excited. "Look, Look!," he said to me. He came down from the tree and I saw that he was carrying a nest with two baby birds! He was really excited and ran off, shouting about how he wanted to show it to Nina! On the one hand, I knew I should stop him and tell him to put the nest back, but on the other hand, I really wanted to see Nina's reaction. So I followed the kid, laughing quietly to myself. He wouldn't have listened to me anyway.

Nina's face did not let me down. Whitman was so proud, and Nina had a look of utter disgust. After the initial shock wore off, we both started telling Whitman that the fun was over, and that he had to put the baby birds back. "They need their mother or they'll die," we said. "If they stayed in the tree, snakes will eat them," he said. We went back and forth for a long time, until finally Whitman let out a loud sigh, rolled his eyes, and said under his breath in Spanish, "how can I explain this to this guy?" Once again, he told us emphatically that the babies would be eaten if they stayed in the tree. He then ran to his grandmother and gave her the baby birds. None of this seemed strange to anyone but us. Nina just looked at me and said, "we're in a different culture." Toto, I don't think we're in Indiana anymore.

Anyway, all is well with our adventure. I am writing this blog from the comfort of Rodney's Managua home. We arrived here this morning to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with him. Tomorrow he has lots of family coming in for a huge dinner, and we are so grateful to have a family for Christmas! As always, Rodney is being way too good to us.

We hope that everyone has a very merry Christmas! And now, some pictures/videos:

A street in Granada, looking toward the volcano:

The girls of our house:
Junior!:
Junior practicing his signs/talking with Nina:
Whitman with the cussed bird nest:
With Junior:
At the girls' orphanage:
Leading a camp song at the girls' orphanage:Today (Christmas Eve) at Rodney's house:

Rodney, in the Christmas spirit!:

And now, a video of some fun songs at the girls' orphanage:


And a video of a random Christmas parade that happened by our house the other day:



That's all for now! Feliz Navidad!

Love,
Nina and Paul