Slow and Steady Finishes the Blog Post

I've been here in Nicaragua for two weeks now, so I thought I should probably update the ole blog (aka Kara told me to update it). I've been working at Fundación Fénix for about a week and a half, and things are going well. I've been teaching English to some high school students in the mornings and then doing microenterprise type stuff in the afternoons (which I'll get into more in a second). There have been some problems with attendance in the English class because the government here is requiring that some of the students do mandatory volunteer work (you figure that one out) teaching illiterate people how to read. Fun fact: part of the anthem of the current political party goes, "Luchamos contra el yankee, enemigo de la humanidad." For those of you who are a little rusty on your Spanish, that means, "We fight against the Yankee, the enemy of humanity." So that makes for an interesting dynamic! There's a lot of stuff the U.S. has done here in Nicaragua that gives a little more credence to that line, but that's a story for another day. Back to English classes!

Even though it's ranged from fifteenish students to three on some days, there are a few that have come every day. There's a trio of guys named Eduardo, Carlos, and Roberto that have come consistently and are pretty awesome. They've been extremely friendly and they're very eager to learn English. Eduardo even has a little booklet that he writes English sentences in with their Spanish translations in his free time, and last time I checked he had around four or five THOUSAND phrases. They're not the only ones who benefit from the class though, because they've been teaching me a ton of Nicaraguan words (although a good bit of those words are kiiiiinda inappropriate). I've had a lot of freedom in what I teach them, so we've had some time to learn some fun phrases as well like "What's crack-a-lackin'?" and "See ya later alligator! In a while crocodile!" Don't worry, I'm teaching them legit English too.

Like I said, I've been doing microenterprise stuff in the afternoons (think "very small business"). The other day I got to help give out loan money to women in the community who sell various things. And as I mentioned in the last blog post, we're in the process of getting some encurtidos (stuff like peppers, onions, and carrots in vinegar) that they produce here sold in a major grocery chain. Right now we're trying to develop a brand/logo/marketing strategy because we'll be talking with the president of the grocery store on Thursday in a business fair type thing. The idea is to market the food as a way you can help support the fight against drugs and human trafficking in Ciudad Sandino. Let me know if you have any ideas!

I've been having a good time with my host family here. The five year old named Luis Alexander has really taken a liking to me/my computer (you'd be amazed by how many times he can watch the exact same episode of Dora la Exploradora and still be entertained), and here's the result of our little photo shoot the other day:

Alexander really likes to dance to "I'm Sexy and I Know It," but I haven't caught it on tape yet. For now, this'll have to do:

So everything that came before this current paragraph was written a little over two weeks ago, but I never got around to finishing the post. It was really because I wanted to build the suspense for all of my loyal blog viewers (aka my mom) and definitely not because of any lack of motivation on my part. Just think of it as the blog version of a Double Stuf Oreo, because you're getting twice the blog for the same low price!

I've been here for just about a month now, and I've settled into things a bit more. I'm doing the English classes still, and attendance is still a problem, but the trio I wrote about earlier is still coming every day so it's good with me. Eduardo is now up to around 17,000 English phrases. That kid is ridiculous! This past week I also started teaching English to preschoolers (about five years old), so that's pretty exciting. It's fun, but it's somewhat equivalent to trying to teach and control a class full of squirrels or something. I've still been working with the organization to develop a brand/logo/marketing strategy for those encurtidos that I talked about in the last post so that we can sell them in a grocery chain called La Colonia (although we weren't able to meet the president like I said before). Here's the rough draft design we've got so far (I've still gotta clean up the drawing a little and make the Fundación Fénix logo a little clearer), let me know if you have any suggestions or advice!

We've also been working to expand the agricultural production here at Fundación Fénix. This project and the encurtidos are both to increase the sustainability of the organization so that they don't have to rely on donations. We took a trip this past Thursday to Rivas to buy some baby plantain, papaya, lemon, orange, etc. trees that we're going to plant. The lady we bought them from is a friend of one of the directors, so she actually just gave them to us and we were able to buy a ton of plants from another store with the money we had left over! (this picture is pre-buying the buttload of extra plants)

While we were in Rivas, we stopped by Lake Nicaragua and got to hang out there for a little while. It's got a beach with the softest sand I've ever felt, and in the middle of the lake are two volcanoes. Pretty intense, right? It's hard to capture something so big in a picture, so I took a little video too (although that still doesn't do it justice).

These are the directors of Fundación Fénix, Ms. Torres and Ms. Karla.

We also stopped by another place that I really liked called La Laguna de Apoyo. It's another one of those things that can't be captured well by pictures/videos, but I tried.

The last things I'll share picture-wise are some photos from a community meeting we had the other day. I have the opportunity to apply for up to $800 in grant money to fund some kind of additional project, so we met with community leaders to identify existing problems and possible solutions. I actually really enjoyed it and am looking forward to seeing what comes from it!

Oh yeah, and this car on the beach in Rivas that looked like it was posing for a commercial:

A few weeks ago, one of the family members graduated from college so we had a graduation party for her on the weekend. A bunch of people were supposed to come (who I didn't know), and I didn't even know the family very well at this point. Now this is a typical Scottie move right here: I can go off to a foreign country by myself for the whole summer and be fine, but give me a common social situation such as going to a party where I don't know many people, and I panic. Makes sense, right? I was stressing out in my room for the hours before the party started thinking of how I was going to feel SO awkward and I would have trouble understanding conversations since it would all be in Spanish and I don't know how to dance Latino-style (yet) and all these other things, and as silly as it sounds, I started praying that God would help me. It felt kind of ridiculous to pray for something as trivial as going to a party, but part of my personality is that situations like that really stress me out, so I needed it.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO INFORM YOU THAT AN EARTHQUAKE JUST INTERRUPTED MY BLOG! It didn't cause any damage though, so it was actually kind of fun :)

Ok where was I? So after praying about my little pansy boy weaknesses, I went ahead and walked into the living room where the party was. Nothing too exciting happened, just ate some food and talked to one of the family's relatives for about an hour and then went back to my room. But you know what? That was a complete success in my mind. I didn't spend the whole time inwardly criticizing myself and I did something that was out of my comfort zone. When I got back to my room I was just incredibly grateful that God helped me through a situation that I really didn't want to go through. It probably sounds stupid to make such a big deal out of something so small, but I don't really care because it's something I struggle with and God is good. I started reading through some Psalms and read verses like these:

"Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge. I said to the LORD, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.'"

"I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken."

"I love you, O LORD, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise."

So a night that I was dreading ended up turning into a pretty beautiful time of worship for me. Like I said, God is good.

The Lord's been teaching me a lot of things over the past few weeks. He's been convicting me about the times that I read the Bible just to know the Bible better and not its Author. I'm trying to focus on not just skimming over things so that I can remember them better, but instead meditating on them so that they might change me and so that I might know God better. I'm excited because from the beginning I've thought this was going to be a summer in which I do a lot of growing, and (God willing) it looks like that just might happen. Please pray that I would really stick with what God is teaching me and not allow myself to be lazy or get distracted, and also that God would open up doors for me to share my faith with the people I've met here (and that I would be faithful when those opportunities arise). Also, please let me know if any of you have things I can be praying for! Well my eyes hurt from looking at the screen so long for this dang blog post so I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY KARA! ¡Hasta luego!