Signage
Sign in front of the school
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Update #7
Update #7 June 2nd 2008
In this Issue:
Directors update
Class update
Current needs
Volunteer opportunity
Adelante in the news
Directors update: Hello from rainy Nicaragua! It has been quite a long and eventful two weeks since the last update. Nicaragua just finished an excruciatingly long transportation strike over the price that transportation workers pay for gasoline. The strike lasted for over a week, during which time no taxi's, buses or local city transportation was working in the country. Although it was nice to have the city streets clear of taxi's for the time, it made it difficult to do any business that required moving a large amount of goods. This in turn hurt many small family businesses as they could not get goods and merchandise to their shops to sell.
Finally the president approved lowering the price of gasoline for transportation workers which everyone was happy about. Fast forward one week, and he raised the price of gasoline 16 cents for everyone else in the country. I make no judgments. I only report on the situation.
As if it wasn't enough that Nicaragua's transportation had been halted by a strike, the next week, Thursday May 29th, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras was ravaged by 130 m/hr winds thanks to Hurricane Alma. Unfortunately for me, the hardest hit place in Nicaragua was León, where I live. Thousands of people in the rural outskirts of the city and next to the ocean were evacuated to safer locations and thousands more the next day were left without electricity or water. Most didn't receive their electricity or running water for a very difficult 5 days. In an effort to aid people in more severe situation, a few friends and I filled up large tanks of water daily to take to communities that had no access to water. These communities didn't have water to drink, clean, bathe or wash. Although the situation seemed dire from my perspective, people reminisced about their experience in 1999 with Hurricane Mitch when it rained for a solid 8 days straight, so they didn't really feel that this situation was that bad. It was my first hurricane so I had more dramatic and emotional things to say about the situation than most others. We are in the rainy season now in Nicaragua but it is very unusually for hurricanes to appear this early in the year, I was told. This news did not aid in patching the holes of fear that the hurricane had created, instead made me think more about what on earth I was going to do when another hit, ha ha.
These past two weeks I was also excited to have visitors from home who had come to see me. Although their timing, as per the hurricane, was less than ideal for them, their visit was very nice and I was grateful they decided to come and experience Nicaragua. Because of one of their independent efforts, they facilitated Rotary Monroe in donating quite a large sum of money that we were able to put to use immediately in a local school, buying each student a pencil, pen, two notebooks, rulers, pencil sharpeners and pencil bag. Other supplies were also provided to the teachers and the school in general. Many students were excited to finally see ground broke on the beginning of their first recreational area. We brought in two goal posts which were immediately placed into the ground and cemented in permanently. It was quite amazing to see all the collaboration and enthusiasm that the small amount of money created within the community. You can see more pictures from the amazing day on the blog if you like.A big thanks to Polly and Myra who made it possible.
Class update: Classes open to the public on June 16th, and I am very excited to offer two schedules to accommodate the local peopless busy lives. There will be a class offered in the morning from 10-11:30 and one in the afternoon from 5:30-7:00. "Nicaraguan time" could quite possibly push back the start time by 30 minutes ha ha.
Current Needs: I would like to be able to offer dictionaries to all students but I don't quite have enough dictionaries to be able to do that yet, so any donations of any Spanish/English dictionaries would be greatly appreciated. I have a friend that plans on visiting in August which could be a good time to send them.
Volunteer Need: Adelante is in the process of finding a volunteer to exchange English classes for Spanish classes. It would be a great opportunity for someone to improve their Spanish greatly at a very minimal cost. We would like volunteers to commit to a time period of at least 6 weeks. Please contact Mateo for more details. Mateo.g@adelantenow.org
Adelante in the News: Adelante and its executive director have been highlighted in Amigos June edition of their newsletter. Please see their website for the article: http://www.amigoslink.org/news/mateo
Next update June 12th
In this Issue:
Directors update
Class update
Current needs
Volunteer opportunity
Adelante in the news
Directors update: Hello from rainy Nicaragua! It has been quite a long and eventful two weeks since the last update. Nicaragua just finished an excruciatingly long transportation strike over the price that transportation workers pay for gasoline. The strike lasted for over a week, during which time no taxi's, buses or local city transportation was working in the country. Although it was nice to have the city streets clear of taxi's for the time, it made it difficult to do any business that required moving a large amount of goods. This in turn hurt many small family businesses as they could not get goods and merchandise to their shops to sell.
Finally the president approved lowering the price of gasoline for transportation workers which everyone was happy about. Fast forward one week, and he raised the price of gasoline 16 cents for everyone else in the country. I make no judgments. I only report on the situation.
As if it wasn't enough that Nicaragua's transportation had been halted by a strike, the next week, Thursday May 29th, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras was ravaged by 130 m/hr winds thanks to Hurricane Alma. Unfortunately for me, the hardest hit place in Nicaragua was León, where I live. Thousands of people in the rural outskirts of the city and next to the ocean were evacuated to safer locations and thousands more the next day were left without electricity or water. Most didn't receive their electricity or running water for a very difficult 5 days. In an effort to aid people in more severe situation, a few friends and I filled up large tanks of water daily to take to communities that had no access to water. These communities didn't have water to drink, clean, bathe or wash. Although the situation seemed dire from my perspective, people reminisced about their experience in 1999 with Hurricane Mitch when it rained for a solid 8 days straight, so they didn't really feel that this situation was that bad. It was my first hurricane so I had more dramatic and emotional things to say about the situation than most others. We are in the rainy season now in Nicaragua but it is very unusually for hurricanes to appear this early in the year, I was told. This news did not aid in patching the holes of fear that the hurricane had created, instead made me think more about what on earth I was going to do when another hit, ha ha.
These past two weeks I was also excited to have visitors from home who had come to see me. Although their timing, as per the hurricane, was less than ideal for them, their visit was very nice and I was grateful they decided to come and experience Nicaragua. Because of one of their independent efforts, they facilitated Rotary Monroe in donating quite a large sum of money that we were able to put to use immediately in a local school, buying each student a pencil, pen, two notebooks, rulers, pencil sharpeners and pencil bag. Other supplies were also provided to the teachers and the school in general. Many students were excited to finally see ground broke on the beginning of their first recreational area. We brought in two goal posts which were immediately placed into the ground and cemented in permanently. It was quite amazing to see all the collaboration and enthusiasm that the small amount of money created within the community. You can see more pictures from the amazing day on the blog if you like.A big thanks to Polly and Myra who made it possible.
Class update: Classes open to the public on June 16th, and I am very excited to offer two schedules to accommodate the local peopless busy lives. There will be a class offered in the morning from 10-11:30 and one in the afternoon from 5:30-7:00. "Nicaraguan time" could quite possibly push back the start time by 30 minutes ha ha.
Current Needs: I would like to be able to offer dictionaries to all students but I don't quite have enough dictionaries to be able to do that yet, so any donations of any Spanish/English dictionaries would be greatly appreciated. I have a friend that plans on visiting in August which could be a good time to send them.
Volunteer Need: Adelante is in the process of finding a volunteer to exchange English classes for Spanish classes. It would be a great opportunity for someone to improve their Spanish greatly at a very minimal cost. We would like volunteers to commit to a time period of at least 6 weeks. Please contact Mateo for more details. Mateo.g@adelantenow.org
Adelante in the News: Adelante and its executive director have been highlighted in Amigos June edition of their newsletter. Please see their website for the article: http://www.amigoslink.org/news/mateo
Next update June 12th
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