Las Isletas

I have a little catching up to do!  Last Thursday the girls and I went to Las Isletas (small islands created by Volcano Mombacho) in Lake Nicaragua.  It was by far my favorite day of our trip so far.  Not because it was fun or easy or comfortable, but because of the experience.

Our friend Ricardo's family has owned an isleta for many years.  Recently more and more wealthy people are buying up isletas for their own vacation homes.  The local people on their isletas (who have lived there forever) are interspersed with the privately-owned isletas.  They live on what they catch that day, or the fruit that grows on the trees.  Their lives are very simple.  They wash their few clothes (often donated and passed around from a volunteer boat) in the lake, gather water from the lake for their needs, and cook over an open fire.

This is the community school called La Esperanza (the hope) where children arrive in their own little canoes

That is the beautiful Mombacho volcano (it seems much bigger and closer in person)

Approaching Richardo's family's isleta (about an acre)

Ricardo's family purchased the isleta from a local family who lives nearby, and that family continues to care-take Ricardo's isleta.  They have four children who rowed up after school (which is out at noon) to find their mom and dad.  They jumped in the pool with their clothes on, and despite the language barrier the kids tried to play and interact.

 

I asked the mom if she would row us over to see where they live (a little more realistic than Ricardo's isleta).  They live with her mom a little farther away, but she took us to her husband's family's isleta (who originally owned the island) in her little canoe.

Walking to the canoe

The water really didn't look that clean so we were really hoping not to tip!

That is the canoe we arrived in, but look closer in the trees...

Small parrots!  They were caught and their wings were clipped.  They are now the pets of the families that live on this little island, and the girls were elated to hold them.

The "kitchen" (a shack filled with smoke).

There is dinner in the bowls, a small piece of fish, some broth, a tiny bit of rice and a banana.

There are seven families that live on this tiny island.  Each family has its own small shack with beds (dirty mattresses on the floor with no sheets or pillows or blankets).  I don't think they had ever had a foreign visitor visit their island.  I wanted to take a hundred pictures and videos but also wanted to respect their home and lives, and didn't want it to seem like poverty tourism.

The small room of one family (the dad has a job in Managua with Ricardo's business)

Another small kitchen area

As you can see the birds were a big hit!  But even with that distraction their eyes were opened.  This little island (maybe a half acre) with so many people per little room, living on what they catch or find that day, using a latrine, and cooking over a fire...it was real, and right in front of them.

When we returned to Ricardo's isleta, and while the girls swam, I spent a long while talking with the mother about the kid's school.  There are 100 kids in two very small buildings.  She would love it if they had a larger school that could accommodate all of the kids.  They have a latrine (one) that leaks onto the beach.  They don't have enough materials.  She would love her kids to learn English.  She wished they could afford to have computers somehow.  But they knock door to door asking for donations for the end of the year party (she is the "PTA president) and they can't collect enough for a simple celebration (her goal is about $30).  She wasn't telling me this with any type of entitlement attitude.  She simply wanted more for her kids.  None of the families can afford to send their kids to Granada where the secondary schools are.  It would be a daily boat ride, a taxi ride from the port to town, and a small something (a small roll and juice) so the child wouldn't be so hungry while away from home, and it was just too much.  So the children go to sixth grade (which isn't like our sixth grade, more like our second grade equivalent in quality and quantity of education) and that is it.

World Vision had been helping this area of the isletas (although they are about to leave).  They bought a boat to get the kids to school.  But the kids don't need a boat.  They row their own canoes.  So the World Vision boat sits unused.  It seemed like a waste.  Didn't World Vision do their homework to find out what was really needed?  Geoff said this is extremely common.  Organizations move in thinking they are really helping out but in the end their contribution doesn't really serve the people.  I think world visiton us usually really careful about this, but in the boat instance it was a miss.

Poverty is in EVERY direction you look in Nicaragua.  It is overwhelming.  What can I do?  I know Geoff's work has always been to alleviate poverty, but I felt so helpless.  But what about this school?  This was within my reach.  The girls and I have been looking for a "sister school" to help.  This school, with kids we know, parents who have identified what they would like for the school, and contacts we can work with (the mom and Ricardo), can be our school!  Our brains began to churn!  We brainstormed ideas!  We can make a difference for this forgotten area and its children in Nicaragua!

On the ride home with a lily pad lily

That night Geoff came back from his trip north and we told him, with great excitement, about "our school".  Geoff told us of a YGL friend who created self-sustaining schools in another South American country by building a hotel next to the school, the students learn hotel management skills, and their work there pays for the school's expenses.  Awesome.  With tourism growing in Nicaragua maybe this would be a good way to pay for the school's needs while giving them a skill.

We spent the next day relaxing by our hotel pool before going to Managua for dinner at Ricardo's home with a few other WGLs.  We told them of our ideas.  Maria, who is a YGL, is the UN Program of Development Director (I think that is the title!) of Nicaragua and said they have money set aside for projects like this, her husband (from England) who is an amazing architect and builder has designed and built a high-end hotel on an isleta (we passed it on our way back to Granada) agreed to designing and building a zero-energy school.  The British woman who owns the hotel he built has been looking for a way to give back to the community.  He thinks she will be very excited to train students as well as notify guests who visit about the project because most are wanting to do something to help.  Wow!  In one night so many things were coming together!

The girls are planning on holding a Kid to Kid concert at the end of the summer with their friends to raise money for a new school.  They are also going to do a Spare Change drive in the community.  Tennie wants to write some of our family friends to ask if they will match whatever the girls raise.  And they hope to return with whomever can come to help build the school!  With all of the excitement we may return to Nicaragua before returning to the States to visit the school, gather the parents together to make sure the direction we can go is what they want and think is best, and really get the ball rolling.

Dinner with these remarkable people was fabulous.  What a gift opportunity is.