La Casa De Ravine

Originally, when we arrived Katia, the leader of the church organized for Bridgette and I to stay in separate houses. Not because they wanted to separate us but because they thought this would be a more comfortable sleeping arrangement. For my sister who has never been outside of the United States, let alone to a third world country, to be separated from me was terrifying. I cannot even begin to describe the look on her face when she heard this. I, however, was not phased because in my mind being separated was absolutely not an option and I let Katia know this immediately. I was ready to just go pay for a hotel before I was separated from my sister. This was a little disappointing because I wanted Bridgette to live with the people and have the real authentic experience but we had to do what we had to do. Once I told Katia that we absolutely had to be together, they quickly organized  solution for us to stay together at Ravine's house. Win win! Authentic experience and we stay together! This really worked out perfectly. Ravine and his mother were wonderful hosts. 

The house was a typical Nicaraguan house. Concrete structure including a bathroom and living room and rooms added on with scraps of metal. It's amazing how little you really need to live. We have huge comfy beds, TVs, AC, and countless other comforts. What do you really need? A cot, a friend, and maybe a fan :-) How much better spent would your time be if you had fun with friends, building quality relationships based on mutual care for each other rather than watching TV or playing on the computer. It's almost comical that we spend our time doing such meaningless activities. I'm a huge culprit myself, I love my computer and Facebook and all of that. It's good to have a refresher like this from time to time to remind myself what the Pura Vida is. 

Anyways, Bridgette was awesome. Not being used to this type of living conditions, she really responded well. She didn't mind the shower, beds, or any of the situation. The only thing that caught her by surprise was the amount of stray cats that walked across everyone's roofs. Since Ravine's house was elevated above the houses that backed up to it on the next street over there were many cats walking across the roof right in front of us! It was only scary when one would jump down out of nowhere haha! Every time I come to Nicaragua I experience something a little different and this was definitely a surprise for me on this trip. I've seen cars with megaphones blaring commercials and music rolling up and down neighborhood streets, roosters that begin crowing at 3 in the morning, skinny horses with ribs showing and ferrel dogs everywhere. Cats is a new one for me. 

I'm so proud of my sister :-) 

Carosa

Carosa is a small town located about 1 hour from Managua. Carosa is situated on the top of a mountain and although it is accessible, I wouldn't want to attempt it with anything other than an SUV.  The homes are standard Nica homes: a concrete structure that contains a living room and rooms built off of this with scrap metal, an outdoor sink and an outhouse. As with many rural homes this home also had some farm animals/pets; a goat, puppy and pig. This is a very new community in the church and so we decided that it would be the perfect place to do an interview with our good friend and youth pastor, Emmanuel, in order to demonstrate to the youth something really cool that being involved with the church has to offer. 

The youth were very energetic and excited to be a part of the interview and we put them in the background of 4 seats, for me, Bridgette, Solliette, and Emmanuel. I would ask a question in spanish, Bridgette would translate in english, Emmanuel would answer in spanish and Solliette would translate into English. We asked a series of questions about who Emmanuel is, what is involvement is with the church and the camp. We also asked him to discuss the camps benefits for the community. These are all very important questions to have answered for people at home and it is also very interesting to hear a Nica's perspective on the benefits of our camp. Emmanuel discussed how soccer is a fun tool that everyone enjoys and a great way to bring the people of different communities together in the spirit of uniting the church. It is also a great opportunity for most of the youth that perform hard labor work and do not ever have the opportunity for fun. Organized sports in Nicaragua are almost nonexistent. Even where there is opportunity, it is not an option for these youth that work rather than go to school to provide for their families. 

The Beginning...

Having traveled to Nicaragua 5 times, I'm well accustomed to the culture. However, watching my sister's uncertainty and reactions to arriving in Nicaragua stirred up memories of an old Ali who is so different from who I am today I can barely recognize her. My first trip I was very scared, I felt terrified by the living conditions and even more so that I had to live in them.... pretty much as sheltered as they come. Bridgette was scared by the poverty and the conditions of living also. She  was especially intimidated by the language and felt so out of place I could see the fear in her eyes and feel the tightness in her chest. However, if you come to Nicaragua you will see that it does not take long to figure out that these people are so amazing and the culture is so beautiful that it heavily outweighs anything that could initially seem like a negative. It didn't take long for me to get over my fear on my first trip and neither for my baby sister! 

We went to "Tip Top", a sort of KFC type fast food restaurant, and nothing could make Bridgette more happy than chicken and french fries. As we sat and waited for our food… and waited for our food…. and waited for our food Bridgette started to laugh about the length of time it took to get our "fast" food. I explained that this is how the rest of the world operates… no one lives at the fast pace of Americans. No one in Nicaragua wants to finish their food quick so they can catch a TV show or so something that is more pressing. What do they do at meal time? They sit down, talk, laugh, enjoy each others company. Once you have a meal like this you'll realize how relaxed you are and how "in the moment" you feel. There's no cell phones, there's no place to go, just time to enjoy that time, that place, and that moment. 

So can you guess what happened in this time? Bridgette started to talk and was so shocked to realize that everyone was really patient with her trying to do her best to communicate with some of the spanish she learned in school. I explained that no one was going to make her feel bad if she didn't say something correctly, if anything, they would help her try to speak better. This was a huge confidence booster for Bridgette and before I knew it, Bridgette started using words in spanish that she didn't even realize she knew from her classes! Luis, Alexander, Ravine, and Solliette welcomed her with opened arms and had a great conversation with her! If only fast food had this type of affect in the United States. haha. Bridgette opened up and started to officially love her experience in Nicaragua! 

A Summer Trip To Nicaragua! (Intro)

Returning from yet another trip down to Central America. I have to say, it is absolutely one of my favorite places on earth. There is not a feeling quite like it when you have the combination of great adventure, exploring new things, spending time with Nica friends and making new friends, diving into another amazing culture, and all the meanwhile making a difference. 

It makes me so happy to say that on this trip my sister accompanied me. Not only was this her first time to Nicaragua, but also her first time out of the United States!!! 

We have two goals for this trip and both are a bit different than our previous trips where we put on huge soccer camps. One very important part was to take some videos and interviews of some of the youth involved with and affected by the soccer program. This is so important for people at home to hear from the people of Nicaragua, how beneficial the soccer program is. This is where all of the donations of soccer balls, clothes, shoes, and money, and volunteer efforts go! Thanks to iMovie, these videos should be up pretty soon! Anyone want to help me translate for subtitles? 

This summer we are flying Tony Mardiaga, of the community Somotillo (where we hosted our last camp in Nicaragua), to Maryland to experience the US and interact with our soccer community to help educate people and create a tangible connection for our soccer community to Nicaragua. Because Tony does not speak english and has not yet been outside of the Nicaragua, let alone on an airplane, we decided to travel down to Nicaragua to accompany him back to the US and help him on his journey. Of course, we would not simply fly down to Nicaragua just to fly back so we decided to spend some time exploring the country and interacting with our friends of the church. It was quite the adventure…