The Forgotten Children of the Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

Well last night I had nightmares about locks and fraying ropes and danger, which I'm sure arose from the school visits. Allan dropped me off at Sintiope, yesterday, one of the satellite schools just iutside Urbaite. It is one of the rural schools attached to Rafaela Herrera.  It is quite small, three buildings with four classrooms and a small admin area. We were met by Mayella, who was previously at Rafael at Herrera as deputy and another young woman who was teacher in charge.  She showed us around. Firstly there was a classroom with practically no door and the space stuffed with barbed wire.  It had been broken down, as the front gates had no padlock. So that was the first two things on the list. In fact all doors were similar in that they couldn't be locked and unlocked. The only one with a functioning lock was opened from the inside by a parent entering the neighbouring classroom, clambering over a very unstable partition and opening it from the inside. The partiti...

Today Tuesday, I visited Urbaite for lunch. Lou collected me. We checked the shopping lists; we have one for today, one is being dealt with in Managua, the cleaning equipment, all the stationery is being done by the libreria in Moyagalpa, and also today the technician is mending the speaker in the secondary school. Whilst we were in Moyagalpa we arranged for the IT technician to check the computer.   We sorted some arrangements for the week and chatted about the excursion day. It appears I will be paying so I did a bit of fierce negotiation both about transport and food. We headed to the bus stop where we met one of the teachers, she seemed to speak well of the new head,  unlike Amada. We waited for a while whilst Marvin kept hopping off to chat to various people. He knows everyone.  We got on the bus which was pretty full. I realised I couldn't use my right arm to hold on so it was a bit tricky. The teacher invited me to sit on her lap which I did, but trying...

The day didn't start off well but we achieved plenty in the end. I pulled the curtain rail down trying to pull the curtains , but then it's only a rod through holes at the top! A gheko leapt off the table, I spilt my tea on my embroidery and had to wash it under the tap. It could only get better. At least I had plenty of water. Marvin told me they only have water part of the day in the summer because the water is so low. Silvia tells me I'm to have a different breakfast tomorrow, a bit more variation she said, but having had a weekend in Granada I can manage a couple of days the same, besides I'd bought some guava jelly to go on my biscuits and Saturday I'm going to Villa Paraiso, a treat I've promised myself. But today was Gallo pinto, scrambled eggs and banana.   I had time for a beach walk and bit of sewing before being collected. Once at Marvin's we went thought the priority lists and collated some information ready for shopping. We found that some ...

My little break began on Friday because of the need to seek some medical advice. I found a large swelling at the top of my chest which was sore on Thursday and thought it best to get checked out. I spent part of the night thinking through potential arrangements should I need to go home, which was actually the last thing I wanted to do.  So a message to the family set the wheels in motion and at 7am I was collected by Jordy on the motorbike to go to Marvin's, where all had an inspection, matters like this bring a family affair! Then I was whisked off to the clinic at Moyagalpa hospital to see a doctor. The family have told me very clearly that they are on 24hour call and I shouldn't hesitate yo contact them. I was very impressed with the clinic. We walked in, gave my name and were told there would be a few minutes wait as there had been an emergency. Within 10 minutes a lovely lady doctor called my name and ushered me into a consulting area. Straight away she asked if I had fal...