World Map Success!

Our World Map Project in the Municipal Library in Nagarote!

Ahhhhh...sweet tangibility

Kaitlyn and I wrapped up a small project last week, just in time before our trip back to the States on the 15th. We completed a mural of the world on an inside wall of our town's library. World maps are popular PC side-projects, especially among education volunteers. Primarily these maps are useful to the community since most classrooms lack the resources of atlases, globes, or large maps. However the project was also successful in promoting artistic creativity among youth as well as developing cooperative relationships among the various groups that came together to make the map project possible. Initially we received permission to use the space from our local mayor and librarian, were given the funds to buy the paint and other supplies from the local sister-city project (Norwalk-Nagarote), and did the actual painting with the help of the teacher and students from the sister-city project's art class. In all it took us three long, hard days to finish, but the results speak for themselves. We were blown away by the hard-work and creativity generated by the art students. As the pictures show, the true essence of the mural lies in the accompanying paintings located above the map that include: the national bird (guardabarranco), nicaraguan flag, and our town's icon the genizaro tree.

Some pics for your enjoyment :)

Some cuties at Las Parcelas.
One of my smaller schools. You are looking at all of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders.

Alex and his tree buddy, Javier.

Planting trees in Las Parcelas!

Bobby the dog that lives next door but comes over to eat :)

My posse in Las Parcelas.

Reading is fun!

My new school this year, San Antonio.

Pre-school girl in San Antonio.

Some of my volleyball girls during a toureny in Nagarote!

Okay so that is it for now. Alex and I are doing well and are counting down the days until we come home for vacation (2 months) and then finish our service (6 months). We will update soon. Miss you all!

7 months to go....

Finally! A blog update. Yes, it has been a very long time and we apologize for the delay. We have been trying to get back into our routine since our string of visitors (Hunter, Meredith, Kara, Chris, and AJ) and then I (Kaitlyn) had to make an emergency trip home to say goodbye to my grandfather before he passed away :( On a different note, Alex participated in a half-marathon about a month a ago that took place in the northern department of Jinotega. Many volunteers and Nicaraguans participated. Alex finished as one of the faster volunteers in the race (3rd place amongst Peace Corps Volunteers!) Overall, it has been an emotional and chaotic few months but things finally seem to be settling down as we head towards our last hard months of service.
We are currently both working hard to get our school gardens and school tree nurseries up and running. The idea is to get everything planted now, so when the rainy season comes in about a month that the little plants will be strong enough to withstand the torrential downpours. A few of my gardens suffered over the week long vacation of Semana Santa , or Easter as we call it but we have replanted and hoping that my students will be cautious with the plants.
A few other projects include: helping the local sister-city project develop their Community Education Curriculum, Alex has been writing a guide for Environmental Leadership projects, giving out donated sneakers to my girls volleyball team, trying to start a world map project in the local library, International Book Donation for our poorest rural schools, writing a supplement for our Peace Corps Environmental Education Guide that helps teachers adapt the lessons to multi-grade classrooms (Alex and I work in only multi-grade schools so we are sort of the experts in this area), planning for a teacher workshop about Environmental Education in another town, working on our new government formatted 4-month reports, and getting ready for In-Service Training to take place next week in Selva Negra, Matagalpa.
These next few months we hope to accomplish the majority of these projects, along with getting all of our teachers on board to co-teach and eventually teach on their own using the new participatory methods that we have been demonstrating. In July we will be making a short trip home for vacation and when we return we will have our close of service conference in August and then we start wrapping up our service that will officially end in November! On the one hand, it has been a long road and on the other it is hard to believe that we are in the last quarter of our service! This means we have started to stress a little about post-Peace Corps life, especially with the economy, but we are also looking forward to moving on to the next stage of our lives. So with 7 months to go we are pushing through, working hard, and aiming towards that finish line! We will keep you posted as new projects develop and will try and post some more pictures soon! Adios!

Life in the cloud forest.

The city of León from the old fort/prison.

Nicaraguan myths and legends.

Paintings of torture techniques on the walls of a revolution-era prison.

The old fort/prison from the revolution outside León.

Random Photos and Notes

The lions of León, outside the largest cathedral in Latin America...which was originally supposed to be built in Lima, Peru...long story.

Market madness in the Masaya bus terminal

Kaitlyn in the clouds on top of Mombacho cloud forest.

Alex holding his find, a dead rattlesnake.
Environmental brigadeers.

Good times at home.

Sad times in the airport on the way back.