Hola all!
This week was a nice transition into our new home of Nicaragua for the next month or so. Traveling went as smooth as we hoped and arrived to the Mariposa School early Sunday morning. The first thing that we did was split into groups of 4 people to do 3 different types of service projects. Audrey, Ariana, Emily and Ottilia volunteered at a local primary school reading and playing with kids. Jelte, Dan, Kerry and Jill worked at a community center reading and playing with kids as well. The last group worked at a reserve planting, weeding and watering crops in the gardens. That group was Alex, Nola, Nicole and I (John). Because it was only for the mornings, the sessions really only lasted for about 2-3 hours each day. It was a nice way to really start off our volunteering part of this trip. On Wednesday we all worked together on a reforestation project, which was very tiring but awesome to see what the school is doing in the community. The founder Paula moved to this area of Nicaragua with a hope of giving this rural community job opportunities. A few years later she has two beautiful campuses for learning, a reserve for growing food, and a huge plot of land that they are reforesting. It is inspiring to see people solely work for the greater good of a community and not for self profit. Overall it was a great week, the group learned a lot and is ready to move on and explore more of Nicaragua!
-John Kanas