Solentiname and Rio San Juan

Just when I thought I had seen all Nicaragua had to offer it throws me a few more surprises. With the schools closed for a week I have a few days off and after a 16 hour boat journey find myself in the south east of the country.

The Solintaname Islands are an archipelago of 64 islands in the south of Lake Nicaragua. They are home to a community of Nica Artists (one only 3 primitavist art movements in the works, the others being Haiti and the former Yugoslavia). The community of Mancarron, founded by Ernesto Cardenal (priest and then to be FSLN Minister for Culture) is a simple paradise.

Continuing east Lake Nicaragua flows into Rio San Juan, this then continues to the Atlantic (Caribbean) coast.

Life here is totally distinct to elsewhere in Nicaragua. With small riverside communities hugging the jungled rivers edge. Life here revolves around the river, it being a mode of transport, a source of food, a place to bathe and do laundry and obviously for the kids, a place to play.

In 1675 the Spanish built the fort at El Castillo to protect its interests inland (its 'atlantic city' Granada). At the time Nicaragua was a popular place for pirating and received many a celebrity sailor. Sir Francis Drake is considered a nobleman in English history, working as he did for the English queen, in these parts however he is known as The Pirate Drake. Even the then Captain Horatio Nelson was here in 1870 and managed to capture the fort, but after 9 months having received no back up he had to leave to continue his career to admiralty.

A colourful history continues in these parts when during the California Gold Rush years if you wanted to travel from New York to San Francisco one did so via Nicaragua and Rio San Juan. There was no quick way of crossing the US then and instead travellers would board steamships (vapores) in NY and sail to Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, up the Rio San Juan to Rivas, hop on a train to cross the isthmus and then continue to California by vapor.

Around every corner come more surprises in this more than diverse country.

(Here ends the history lesson, sorry to ramble!)

End of Semester

There are two semesters in the Nicaraguan school year and semester one is coming to a close. The exams have been taken, the children have had parties and the teachers are looking forward to a short break.

From the side of La Esperanza it’s been a fully packed and successful time. The four primary school teams have continued in their tutoring of pre-school, 1st and 2nd grades, the health team have been busy with community care and organising the dental and optical programmes and the English team battled daily trying to improve standards past “wassup man”!

Perhaps the biggest success in my opinion of the past year has been the High School team. Education is free to all Nicaraguans until the end of primary school, when many then leave the system through economic necessity. Through an international sponsorship programme we send 50 or so students to high school. Sponsors cover the educational costs (approx. $180 per annum if anyone is interested) of the students and La Esperanza provides a team of volunteers who provide additional coaching sessions in the afternoons after school. It has been a struggle motivating teenage students to come a study after school hours but pleasingly after much effort the study sessions are filling up.

All of the schools where we work belong to the ministry of education and have a full Nicaraguan staff. As anywhere some teachers are good and some are past hope (but what can you expect when the monthly salary for a teacher is $100, low even for Nica levels). Whatever their status all have been working through a period of change this past semester. In October 2006 Nicaragua voted the FSLN back into power and since coming to government it has started introducing promising changes to the education system. Modernising a highly antiquated approach is going to take plenty of time but I wish them much luck as it’s well overdue and most welcome.

Granada Part 2

The centre of Granada is modernising at a fast pace with fancy hotels, internet cafes and bars opening almost weekly. However one only has to walk a few blocks to see the old Nicaragua happily existing as ever. Where you are as likely to see a shiny new 4x4 as you are a laden cart being pulled by oxen The market doesn’t compromise in any way and its energy is unforgiving, with vendors going about their daily business as normal.

A few more blocks and you cross the arrollos, storm channels, and life changes dramatically. Here colonial charm ends and reality hits, confirming the statistic that Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Americas after Haiti.



Streets are of dirt (or since the rains have come, gloopy mud). Dwellings are made of any such material available, planks of wood, sheets of metal, flattened card, opened rice sacks and most have beaten earth floors.



Shortly many of these residents will become the owners of new more solid structures that they have built themselves under the guidance of NGO Las Casas de la Esperanza (www. casas-de-la-esperanza.org). Seeing the reality of what happens when the rains come I can only begin to imagine how much life will improve with a solid roof, walls and a concrete floor.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P9yU_2VX3c

Granada Part 1

Ma and Pa Pedlingham where here a few weeks ago for a flying visit (here we are atop Iglesia de La Merced) and I added Tour Guide to my list of many roles. Doing so made me realise that I am still yet to take you on a tour of the place that I have called home for the past 5 months.

This is certainly a tale of two halves as there is little relation between the Granada of the communities in which I work and that of colonial historic Granada. Part 1 will focus on the city of Granada and Part 2 on its surrounding communities.

The city of Granada was founded in 1524 Located on the shores of Lake Nicaragua it grew to be a very rich and strategically important city for the Spanish Crown. It was the first Atlantic coast city in HispanoAmerica, a strange fact considering it is approx. 250 kilometres from the coast. It is however linked to the ocean via Lake Nicaragua and Rio San Juan (see later blog). It has had a turbulent history, being attacked and levelled countless times by pirates and no-gooders. The Granada you see today was mostly built towards the end of the 19th century after the last major fire to level the city.

At that time Nicaragua was being ruled by filibuster William Walker. A north American despot he took advantage of the two warring political parties (Liberals from Leon and Conservatives from Granada) to declare himself president and had plans to annex Nicaragua to the US and even class it as a State (some would some that more recent US foreign policy had a somewhat similar sentiment but that’s a different story). Finally the two parties formed an alliance and managed to oust the none too happy Walker who on retreat put the city to flame, leaving as a parting gift a sign reading “Here was Granada”

Since his demise there has always remained a degree of tension between the two political cities. However movement was made with the formation of a neutral capital city, Managua, in the late 1800's. The only oversight of Managua was its placement on a substantial seismic fault which lead to its near total destruction in 1972. But again I digress.....

(pictured: Parque central, cathedral. For more general scenes of Granada see blog 'School Excursiones' where there is a Picassa link)

Food Summary

I haven´t done so well in keeping up to date with the food blogs and with time being an issue I have opted to write an overall summary of the best Nicaragua has to offer:

Fritanga – street side BBQ, best chicken in town served with platanos in a banana leaf to take away.
Gallo Pinto – see blog
Tortillas – Flat maize bread, a staple of the americas. How can something so simple be so delicious?
Frijoles – Enteros (whole), liquados, refritos. Beans in all their glory. I could and usually do eat them daily.
Ensalade de Vigoron – A Granada classic. Yucca and cabbage salad topped with fried pork skin (a giant pork scratching). Not a favourite of mine.
Indio Viejo – Maizena (maize flour) made into a paste and cooked with shredded chicken, vegetables and mint. Good.
Sopa de Albondigas - A Monday favourite, meatball soup.
Shrimp and Lobster – from the Atlantic coast. One of Nicaraguas lagest exports.
Plantanos – Verdes, green plantains, sliced finely and fried like crisps
Maduros, ripe and soft, fried whole, sugary and sweet
Tostones, battered rounds often topped with cheese
Quesillo – Mozerella type chees, serves with onion relish and wrapped in a tortilla
Nacatamale – Without doubt the tastiest Nica delight. Maizena stuffed with pork or chicken, rice, potato, spices and healthily but tastily, lard! Wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. Only available at weekends and always worth the wait.
Ceviche – lime cookied seafod
Baho – Beef, yucca and platano steamed in a banana leaf
Tacos de Leon – worth going to Leon simply for these, see blog
Guapote- Lake fish, some as big as a child!
Iguana – still to try this delicacy
Toña & Victoria – National beers, our good friends
Flor de Caña – My best friend. The best rum in the world. ExtraLite, 4, 5 & 7 years.
Fesco – Fresh fruit juice sold in the street in a plastic bag with a straw. Pitaya, a cactus fruit being the best coloured and tastiest, a vibrant purple.

Isla Zapatera

Lake Nicaragua, or Lake Cocibolca, is vast. So vast in fact that the conquistadors named it El Mar Dulce (Sea of Fresh Water). Its largest island is the twin volcanoed Ometepe (see blog entry March), it was however to Omeptepe’s smaller sister Isla Zapatera that I went to this weekend.

I stayed in a small cooperative named Sozampote, a small group of 20 families who settled on the island some years ago, displaced from northern Nicaragua during the war.

With pretty much nothing to do except look at the most amazing view it was a perfect dose of tranquilo and a great escape from the bustle of the city.

I left this morning on the 5am boat and whist awaking from a doze to see the sun rising from the lakes waves Iit made me appreciate so much this life I am living and how lucky I am to be having experiences such as these.

Unwanted friends

With the rains have come all manner of unwanted friends, evil-eyed mosquitoes, cockroaches the size of family cars and best of all scorpions.
Showering bleary-eyed on a Monday morning you wake up very prompltly with the discovery you are sharing said shower with an angry six inch aracnid!

School Excursions

All the hard work in organizing finally paid off these past weeks when we took the children from 2nd, 4th and 6th grades on their various excursiones.

2nd grade hiked the small volcanic hill Posintepe, close to Granada to appreciate the view of the city (which many have never been to), the lake, the islands, all in realtion to their villages.

4th graders went on a tour of the historic city centre and lunched in a restaurant (a real novelty!)

and 6th grade went to the islets in lake Nicaragua.

Check out the link below for photos:


http://www.picasaweb.google.es/laesperanzagranada/LaEsperanzaGranadaExcursions2007