Managua

Managua has been an adjustment with our transition here. Much less freedom and many more warnings regarding safety. Nehemiah Centre is lovely and secure but strange to see armed security guards on the compound.



Tesoros is celebrating Santo Domingo at the school with parties all week. This is fun, confusing and a little hard to know where to help. The parents are very nice and smile and try to communicate with us but our lack of Spanish gets in the way. Michelle the director there has been great with helping. Next week she is away to South America. Another volunteer Derek has better Spanish so he can help us translate.

The boys are working on a metal ramp for use with the horses. Jeremiah is putting his welding skills to use.

We can't walk very far for safety reasons so we need to hire a mototaxi or a taxi to get to places. We fit all 5 of us in the back of this little mototaxi. By Nicaraguan standards that is not impressive. We stumbled on to the end of the horse parade on Aug.10 for the Santo Domingo celebrations. We watched from our restaurant. On our return home we saw about 30 people load into the back of a truck. They were stopped but only to check for insurance and then off they went. People hanging off the sides holding onto the railings.

Miguel the taxi driver we have is excellent and very accomodating. He is most understanding of our lack of Spanish. We didn't think our language teachers had a lot of english but by comparison we realize how much they did. Certainly more than our little Spanish.

Last night we went out for dinner and spent the most so far not realizing we were talking American dollars on the menu not cordobas. Our salads cost us $10 each. We went to the movies and saw a movie in English with Spanish subtitles. Elizabeth said it didn't feel like we were in Nicaragua last night.

Please pray for this part of our journey. Safety, a sense of security for the kids and knowing that what ever part we play makes a difference.