The most photogenic face in Nicaragua ... strikes again
Nicholas is a walking movie poster. I took this while he was watching his wife teach students how to make tortillas on a tour for the eco-tourism cooperative in Las Minitas.…
Unveiling is this Friday
These kiddos get to walk into their own preschool, with a bookshelf and books and laminated learning maps and games and supplies for crafts for their imaginations this Friday! Someone from the community in Las Minitas is building 2 doors by hand:…
Hot (and tasty) stuff
A few weeks ago, I learned how to make tortillas in Alcides' house. Or, rather, his wife tried to teach me. Mine was still burnt on one side and an off-kilter circle. They gave it to me to eat with a hard-boiled egg (a first here) and an enchi…
The sour and confusing ... Palmito!
Sitting on the side of a mountain eating the thready stalk of the inside of a palm tree, sweating my face off, I wiped the sweat out of my eye, stuck the palmito in my mouth, savored it and then thought, who thinks to open the inside of a palm tree…
Finally, Uncle Skip
My Uncle Skip drove giant tractor-trailers cross country for a living when I was a kid, and Uncle Skip was cool. He loved snakes and spiders and rode motocross and his van was painted in a fantasy mural and my brother and I always wanted to go on…
painting done, Opening party next week!
The school is painted! Spent all day Thursday painting the preschool with Sergio, Pedro and two helpers, and left with the blue bottom coat just starting to coat cement. Go us. Go The Friends Project! [www.thefriendsproject.org] Joselito is in th…
Salsa with the Sandinistas
Waiting for friends in Leon, who were inside the Sandinistan revolutionary museum, one of the volunteers gave me a quick street lesson of salsa. I then dozed off on the steps of the revolutionary museum, riddled with bullet holes in some spots, to…
Dear wasp that stung me on top of a volcano, $#@!
I got stung by a wasp on top of Cerro Negro. THAT was freaking scary. I LIVED! That is fantastic. More news to come, but I'd like to take this moment to pat freaking-out self for not panicking when I felt the zing and Adam said, "I saw som…
The Exorcist meets Mexican telenovela
I taught English the other night and the activity I gave them is to choose to create a horror or action or Mexican soap opera ... or Fast and the Furious and act it out. And then I gave them stuff like a machete and me and a cat and having to sing…