¿usted no sabe los animales?

The harbor at San Juan del Sur

We arrived last night in San Juan del Sur. Compared to the rest of Nicaragua, at least what we have seen, this coastal surfing town is thriving, clean, beautiful. A large community of expatriates participate in a variety of projects to improve services to everyone in this area, and Jane Mirandette's biblioteca, with a mobile project serving 31 rural schools, is no exception. We are all thrilled to be here learning about the work done to improve literacy in Nicaragua.


Last night a group of us had late night snacks at Colibri, a Mediterranean restaurant that makes excellent food and sangria. Then it was off to bed in Jane's lovely Hotel Villa Isabella. This is truly a place worth staying. Several other groups of volunteers are here at the moment, including eye doctors holding a free clinic and a family distributing clothing to families in the surrounding area. We feel right at home.

Marlo en la Biblioteca

8 of us went out with the mobile project today. Although school is not in session, the book truck makes a few limited stops, and the children gather with their brothers and sisters to return books, take out new reading material, and participate in the manualidades—crafts—that the library staff brings.

As part of the course we are receiving graduate credit for, we designed quite a few craft activities to bring to the kids on the mobile project as well as the book festival we have been planning. Today we performed a puppet play written by Gail and translated into Spanish. After watching the play, the children made their own puppets, and we will be making several puppet theaters to leave here at the biblioteca.


We also had a handmade bookmark project, which was a huge hit. These children had never seen markers before, but once they got the hang of taking the caps off, they turned into busy little artists... and very few pen caps were lost!

We were all charmed by the dozens of kids, and given dozens of regalitos, mostly bookmarks with their animal drawings and their names printed over and over.

We all read books to the children. It was wonderful and inspiring for everyone, and great practice for the upcoming book festival.


The books ride out in the back of the truck in these large plastic boxes, and the kids line up with their library cards at the school. Not all schools have other books, and only a few hundred (out of over 9000) schools have libraries of their own. These children might never read a book if it were not for this project.







The main festival planners stayed in San Juan to double-check with the priest about using the plaza outside the iglesia, speak with the mayor's office and the chief of police, and create a schedule of events. Each of us will man (or woman?) a booth of crafts or activities, from hip hop dance classes to face painting, and Sara, Pat and Caitlin will act as wandering translators and stand-ins when others get tired. We are getting so much practice with our Spanish that when nicas want to practice their English with us, it's hard to switch back!

On the way home (we rode in the bed of a pick-up truck for about an hour each way, an hour of bumpy dirt roads and even a few little rivers which we crossed by revving the engine and holding on tight), we stopped for juice and cookies at this sweet, pristine beach.

We ran out into the cool water and danced on the sand until it was time to go home, where we had tostones on the beach before going to Jane's house for a presentation of pictures from the various library projects she has begun, including the main location in San Juan del Sur, the mobile project, and what she calls "library in a box," a program to set up small libraries where there are none with supplies that can be brought in one large blue box. She fed us and answered all our questions about fundraising and administration of the library, and the girls from Simmons invited us the join the Nica Sisterhood, to keep in touch and coordinate future volunteer projects in San Juan del Sur.

Tomorrow the rest of us will go out with the mobile project while the others of us learn more about the town and the day-to-day functions of the library. Then we'll go on a canopy tour and see baby turtles hatching at night. Friday we're going to the beach, Saturday is the book festival, Sunday back to Managua, and Monday... well, hopefully Monday will never come.