For four entire days last week I went nowhere without being encompassed by a tangled mass of arms and legs and hugs and kisses and shouts of children ranging from 3 to 14 years old. Welcome to my home-stay at 13.5! The purpose of the Manna Project home-stay is the following:
- To provide a cultural experience for the PDs, increasing their knowledge and understanding of life in the community.
- To further understand the assets and needs of the community in order to better serve them.
- To further connect the community of Cedro Galan and Manna Project, building deeper and more personal relationships.
- To give families in Cedro Galan an opportunity to support Manna Project.
Cedro Galan is the community we serve with our programs in El Farito, the small open air school house. However, for my home-stay, I chose to stay with a family on kilometer 13.5 of carretera vieja a Leon, the area we know as "13.5." This barrio (neighborhood) includes a group of homes which contain various members of a large extended family. Many of the 13.5-ers participate in our various programs. I stayed with Tatiana, Gerald, and Maycol, three precious children from my English class. They play every day with their extended family members in 13.5, so my homestay brought back memories of growing up around my very large and noisy and wonderful extended family. Every morning the children walked to the local Catholic school while I stayed home with their mothers. Mornings could be filled with everything from chores to idling outside to a very exciting trip to the local market for grocery shopping. In the afternoons, madness ensued upon the chavalos return. These children play with an unmatched enthusiasm. From tree-climbing and mandarina-picking to pickup games of baseball and soccer, these kids don't stop. I was especially touched when they wanted to play memory with spanish and english words, something we often do in Kid’s English to practice vocabulary. Tatiana cut out squares of paper and wrote the spanish vocabulary while I wrote the english...pretty soon, all the cousins were learning how to say gecko, shark, dog, and duck (we're studying animals in class). I can't claim that keeping the pace with such a lively bunch of youngsters didn't absolutely wear me out, but I will say that being around so much joy and energy perked up my mood and helped me focus on the good in life. For a week, it was like I could go back to being a kid again, surrounded by family and laughter and silly arguments and lots of gallo pinto, the Nicaraguan staple cuisine. In addition to taking me back, this week was a chance to get an inner look into the daily life of members of the local community. From sunrise to bedtime, I experienced life through the eyes of 13.5, a life which entailed cousins, playtime, clothes washing on the pila, singing our respective national anthems, and very cold bucket showers when the water ran low.
I didn't take my camera on my trip, but I'll add a few pictures here that I have of the kids I stayed with in 13.5:
Meet Marcos and Freddy...on the way to Kid's English, they got a little rambunctious in the Patrol.
"Dos para bingo! Dos para bingo! Venga pa' aca!" This is a common little ditty these kids sing when they get really excited about being close to winning at bingo. This has become a favorite game, allowing the kids to learn while having fun.
Marcos, it seems, is just as big of a Vanderbilt fan as I am. What a coincidence.
On a big outing with our class to celebrate good attendance and practice vocabulary! Pictured left to right are Maycol, Jan Maggi (that's me!), Tatiana, Marcos, Leah, Gerald, and Stefano. I lived with siblings Maycol, Tatiana, and Gerald for the week in 13.5 with their mom and older brother. Note Stefano's glove...I think he thought we were at the movies to see the new Michael Jackson movie, not "Lluvia de hamburguesas" (that's "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in English), which we viewed instead. Note how "bien vestido" (well dressed) they were for their outing...they were very excited, although that may not show in the photo.
With love,
Jan Maggi
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