Hugh and Magda have been in Nicaragua for a week now and a lot of progress has been made. The community of Miraflor is very excited about their new school and everybody has been working very hard with the masons that Namlo has contracted as skilled labor. It has been raining a lot, but in spite of the bad weather, the foundation is nearly completed. The rebar reinforcement has been cut, assembled and installed. The seismic beams will be completed by Monday and then they will start building the walls.
Starting next week, Zenia Perez Zeledon will be joining Namlo as Project Coordinator for Nicaragua. She is from Esteli, very enthusiastic about Namlo's projects, core beliefs and methodology. She will be a great asset to Namlo and a great help to the communities that Namlo serves.
Magda, Hugh and Zenia will be working in Miraflor and visiting Barrio Nuevo next week. More to come when they return to Esteli.
Miraflor school construction site as of Oct 6, 2007
Hugh and Magda and Zenia are back in Esteli after a very "interesting" trip to Barrio Nuevo. It has been raining a lot here in Northern Nicaragua and the rain was the predominant feature of the trip. However, today is a beautiful, sunny day here in Esteli and, hopefully, this will be the theme of the week, but last week it rained and rained and rained and ... A softboiled egg in Spanish is said to be "pasado por agua", which translates as dipped in water and when people ask us how we are, Magda has been answering "pasados por agua". It is indeed nice to see the sunshine again.
Anyway, things in Barrio Nuevo are going well. Zenia met our old friends Don Lupe and Dona Tea and other members of the community. They like her and she likes them and we continue to be very encouraged that Zenia will be a great asset to Namlo. There has been a change of teachers at the school. Egda, the very good teacher who lived in the community, has had a baby and is on maternal leave. We are very happy to say that she will be coming back when the new school year starts in Febuary. In the meantime, there are three teaches--and the school is going well. They were preparing for final exams since the school year ends in about one month.
Coffee harvest will be a little early this year and Don Lupe says that the crop will be good. On the other hand, the bean harvest is smaller than normal due to the rains and this is a problem for the community. The price of frioles(red beans) has tripled and it is very hard to find them for sale in San Juan del Rio Coco.
The community is excited that we will be back in a few days to visit them with volunteers from the United States. They are already planning some songs and festivities for us. They are also very interested that Carol, one of the volunteers, will be teaching them how to knit, as their first project in community development. Hold your Holiday shopping until we come back with the first scarves.
Back at the Miraflor school, the masons and the community groups have been working in the rain to raise one end wall to window level and made a lot of progress on a side wall. With the good weather, we expect that all four walls will be completed to window level this week.
Yesterday we met with the community and we are making a list of people who want to start adult literacy classes. Zenia has stayed in the community and Hugh and Magda have come to Esteli to meet with the Ministry of Education and arrange for the adult classes.
We are all looking forward to the arrival of the volunteers next Saturday. They will be bringing school supplies from several sister schools and letters from students at Kyffin Elementary, a sister school to Miraflor. During their 9 day trip they will help teachers and students in the classrooms as well as the working groups build their new school.
Miraflor school construction site as of Oct 15, 2007
The last two weeks have been very busy in Nicaragua. The rain has finally stopped and given way to sunny, warm days allowing construction to go full speed. In addition, a wonderful group of volunteers came and helped with everything from construction to knitting classes for the adults. Nicholas, a high school student, even brought music to the scene as he played his guitar and instructed the students how to play to flutes he brought.
Regarding construction, things are going great. As of last Friday (October 26), we were finishing the Gables that will support the roof and the sub-flooring was nearly complete. We have purchased materials for the roof and it will go on soon. The masons still have quite a bit of finishing work and the cement for the floor must be laid, but the school construction is making very good progress.
The group of four volunteers, Carol, Virg, Shannon and Nicholas, has been great. Everybody worked on the construction. There is no machinery on site, so if you need rocks for the sub-floor, they need to be moved by hand. If you need shaped metal pieces for the seismic beams, they need to be cut and bent by hand and everybody helped. (Virg especially enjoyed making the metal squares that hold the seismic beams together.) Large piles of rocks were brought by ox cart and they needed the by put into the rooms for sub-flooring. After school Magda organized a human chain with the volunteers and the students and made a game of passing the rocks one to the next in line. It would be an exaggeration to say it all went quickly, but it did get done.
Carol taught knitting to the women of both Miraflor and Barrio Nuevo and this also went well. Zinnia knows how to knit and she will continue the classes on her visits to the communities. Nicholas and Shannon had the fantastic idea to bring recorders (plastic flutes) and taught the students at both Miraflor and Barrio Nuevo to play them. They are not ready for Carnegie Hall, but they sure had a good time and it is a start. Shannon, Carol, Nicholas and Magda all helped the teachers learn how to use the supplies sent by the sister schools.
Hugh is back in Denver and Magda is now back in the Miraflor community waiting for two more volunteers, Beth and Ken, who will be going soon. Magda will be back from the community this weekend and will give another update.
Miraflor school construction site as of Oct 26, 2007
Magda and Zenia are back in Esteli and the roof is on!! Next week the masons will do the finishing work and lay the cement for the floor. Then, all that will be left is the tile for the floor, which will be done the following week. It is amazing that the construction has gone so quickly. The masons have done a great job and the community has also worked hard on their school.
Magda and Zenia will leave for Los Pinares on the early bus on Sunday. There is no way to contact the community ahead of time, so everybody will be surprised to see them walking up the trail from Santa Domingo to Los Pinares. Zenia has not been to Los Pinares yet and she is in for a real treat when she meets Don Jose and Dona Sylvia and their children and the other people of Los Pinares. They plan to come back on Tuesday and then go back into Miraflor until Beth and Ken arrive on November 12th. They plan to spend Tuesday night in Esteli and, hopefully, Magda will send us an email with updates about Los Pinares.
Miraflor school construction site as of Nov 1, 2007
Magda is back in the US and the school is finished!! Beth and Ken are also back and they are working on a report about the water systems in the communities.
The Miraflor school construction has gone very well. The students are now having the winter break, but when they come back to school in Febuary they will be in their great new building. Magda plans to return to Nicaragua in Febuary to inaugurate it and help with all the community development projects that are now ongoing in Nicaragua.
We can now post the before and after photos of the school and a shot of some of the community members as we get ready to construct. To all of them and to all of you who supported this project--congratulations on a job well done.
Miraflor community ready to build
Miraflor school--Before
Miraflor school--After