Update...Oh So Belated!

Beautiful food at Sally's 70th birthday:


Dear Faithful Blog Followers,

We would like to first apologize for the extreme delay in updating the blog. A few weeks ago, we were finally the victims of crime down here (we got robbed...blind), and that took some of the wind out of our blogging sails. Don't worry, there was nothing traumatic involved like knives or guns. We just let our guard down for a few minutes and left our backpack unattended in a car in Managua. Somebody broke in and took our backpack, complete with laptop (with many important files, including all pictures from the trip!), digital camera, iPod, Nina's glasses, and other valuable stuff. It was bad, but we're over it. We would like to give a shout out to our Nicaraguan "Tio," Rodney, who spent days investigating the matter, shaking down police and security companies, offering rewards, and literally doing everything humanly possible to help us get our valuables back. He is the best.

Anyway, without the camera and computer, we have been slightly blogging impaired. Therefore, there's way too much information for one post. I'll give some highlights, and we'll save the next post for info on the trip with Nina's parents (in progress, and hilarious).

We had a great visit with Sally and Manny Debono, and their daughter, Becca (Our sis-in-law). Sally was born in Nicaragua, and came to visit for her 70th birthday. Sally and Manny stayed at Rodney's house (her first cousin, thus our excellent connection) and we stayed nearby with Becca. We had a birthday party for her with her Central American family, toured a volcano, went to the beach, went to more parties, hung around Granada, hung out at Rodney's place, ate Rodney's food, slept in Rodney's hammocks, mooched off of Rodney, and tons more! We all had a great time, and as usual, Rodney was the perfect host. It will be very sad when we have to say goodbye to him next Thursday!

The past month in Granada has consisted of finishing our volunteer work with La Esperanza. We finally finished our somewhat cumbersome uniform and school supply project, and after that we began teaching art and PE in a local school. However, the biggest thing that we accomplished had to do with Nina's little buddy, Junior. As we approached the end of our stay there, Nina became more and more frustrated with the fact that Junior would not get the services that he needs after she leaves. School started at the beginning of February, and after we saw his school in action, it became clear that we wanted to send Junior and Whitman somewhere else. Nina spent many hours online looking at schools, and found a great one in Managua. However, moving to Managua was going to be very difficult for the family, so we started looking for new schools in Granada. Nina finally found a place that is a dramatic improvement over their current school. We paid their tuition for the year (a pittance compared to US private schools) and got them ready to go for the year. We plan to stay in touch with La Esperanza in the coming years so that they can continue to go there for school. We hope that they will both be able to focus and learn at the new school, since it was clear that these things were very difficult at their old school.

Currently, I am writing from a beautiful mountain lodge in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. We are having a ball with Nina's parents, and cannot wait to give you all an update about this adventure! Thank you all for continuing to check the blog, even though we stopped updating. We'll get better, so stay with us for the next month! Here are a few more pictures from the Debono's visit, and around Granada:

The Debonos at Masaya Volcano:


Pictures from the culmination of our uniform and school supply project in Granada:

We miss all of you and can't wait to see folks back in the US in less than a month!

Love,

Nina and Paul