Let me first apologize for the tardiness of this post. We have much to write about and will try to send several updates in the next week.

After visiting the barrio next to Granada, Anielka, the program director, asked us if we would like to visit the other barrio – the one outside of the city that we just started working with. The barrio is about 10 miles outside of town. So, Anielka arranged for a driver to take us in her father’s truck. In typical Nica fashion, all seven of us piled into the back of the truck and away we went.

The country side on the way to the barrio was simply amazing. Most of the land on the way out to the small rural community is cultivated. They grow anything from corn to nuts there, and the fields are extremely green. Even on the large fields, most of the harvesting is done with ox or horse. With the lack of development and the sight of an older man wearing coveralls guiding his ox down the rows you almost think you are looking back in time only to be pulled back by his brand new “New Era” Yankees baseball cap, which he wears slightly to the side. After the 45 min. ride we find ourselves standing in front of a beautiful two-room school. Anielka told us the Nicaraguan Government had built the new school for the community last year. We waited outside, as the two teachers finished class. The main teaching style is to have the students go to the chalk board and solve problems. After the students finished, we gathered all the kids to take a group photo, as the teacher has always wanted a group photo, but he never had a camera to take it. So, Anielka gathered all the students, and Melissa started snapping away.

After the photo shoot, Anielka instructed all the students to go home. She told them, we would be by shortly to visit them in their houses. Our first stop of the day was a 20 min walk through back yards and fields. This household had two children. The girl is in 4^th grade and the boy is in 5^th. They both greeted us with huge smiles and immediately ran to the house to get their notebooks and bags for review. Their mother joined us right after she put the horse back in the pin with her two cows. The mother is a truly remarkable lady. She works full time around the neighborhood building fence and plowing land with her ox. It is not how she envisioned her life, but with two kids and a father who could barely make enough to feed the kids, she went to work. Before Empowerment International came to this barrio the kids would work with her to help support the family. She wanted to send them to school but could not make enough money to feed the kids and send them to school. So, when Empowerment came she was very excited to have her kids attend school. She told us that she wanted her children to grow up and have a chance to become professionals, so that they did not have to work the way she does now. Eight months ago the youngest could not read, but now Anielka says she is one of the better students. It was truly inspirational to spend some time with that family, and we look forward to visiting them again.

When we left their house, the little girl wearing no shoes was our guild to the next house. Many of the children in this barrio only have one pair of shoes and they are usually the shoes EI provides them for school. Because of the rainy season the ground is usually covered in rain and mud; so, the kids put their shoes for school in plastic bags in their backpacks and walk barefoot to and from class, wadding through mud, so that they can have clean shoes for class (as is required). Thankfully, this is a problem that will soon be resolved due to the generosity and networking of my mother and her coworkers. They have donated enough money to buy all the kids in the Santa Ana Barrio rain boots. We are going to Managua next week to buy them.

The rest of our trip to the barrio we experienced much the same that we experienced upon our first visit there. The children were all eager to show us their work, and their families were more than welcoming -always providing us chairs to sit on and glasses of water if we need them. Usually, as is true in the other barrio, they will stand so that we can sit.

Leaving the barrio, Melissa and I both had the same feeling that the kids and people of this barrio were very special. It is an area that seems to be untouched by TV and video games - a place where the kids all play together in the streets and fields and the parents almost work together to raise their families. It is not difficult to feel the true sense of community that exists there. Needless to say, it was a great experience, and we are eager to return to the barrio as soon as we can.

Patrick