Nicaragua 2024 Overview

I travelled to Nicaragua from April 9-17, 2024…

It’s great to be back in the land of fresh air and A/C. The trip down to Nicaragua was quite the experience, with loads of learning. Here are some of my favourites from the trip. 

The goal was to go down and help the church in El  Pochote and build an additional room onto the church so the kids had someplace to go after school, for Sunday school and to hold birthday parties. We finished the floor and roof while we were down there and had extra time and money left in the budget to build and buy the supplies for a water tower to be added. As the city water in Masatepe is not very reliable, if you want to be sure you don’t run out, you need to have a reserve onsite. We were able to get them this giant blue reserve that will automatically refill when the city water is running, so they don’t need to worry about getting water trucked in during the days when the water is off. Currently, people will order a water truck to come in and fill their rain barrels as it doesn’t rain very often, and the barrels are not connected to the city piping, so it doesn’t refill automatically. This will no longer be a frequent expense or concern for the church community. Which is very exciting. Especially since their rainy season is not very rainy. 

While we were in El Pochote, we had the opportunity to play with the kids in the community, create giant outlines on paper for them to colour in, play soccer and freeze tag and climb to the top of mango trees to pick out the best mangoes. The kids showed me how they bite through the skin of a mango, peel it with their teeth and then eat the middle. Nothing like biting into a mango like you would an apple. Except it is a lot messier. The kids were awesome to hang out with, and they taught me some Spanish and they learned some English. And at the end of our time in El Pochote, we filled a pinata and they all had a field day beating it to pieces and collecting the candy, even grandmothers got in there and were pushing kids out of the way to get candy, which was quite comical. 

During our time in El Pochote, we assisted one of the grandmothers in the community in building pinatas. And by assist, I mean she taught us how to do it right and would frequently correct us if we didn’t do it just so. Her pinatas are incredible and some of them are 3-4ft tall. So we were happy to learn from the master. Pinatas are how she makes a living, so having 6 extra bodies to build during that week allowed her to make enough to pay for medications and groceries.

The other ladies in the community, on the Friday before we left, all came together and taught us how to make tamales. Everything down there is cooked in pork fat, which is $ 2 US for a 2l jug of pork fat or $ 6US for a single stick (not block) of butter. Needless to say, my stomach is happy to be back in Canada. But wrapping the tamales up and seeing the whole process was very cool. 

The hotel we stayed at in El Pochote is on the side of a supervolcano that collapsed in on itself. So when you’re hiking through the trails nearby, the walls you walk by are all old lava stone cause you’re essentially hiking into what was the supervolcano. Right next to the supervolcano was another volcano (it’s the land of lakes and volcanos), which is normally open for touring, but it was too close to an eruption, and they think it’ll be erupting in the coming weeks or months that they closed it down. So it was both cool and nerve-wracking to know we were next to a soon-to-be erupting volcano. 

While we were there, the missionaries we were staying with took us on a few touristy outings so we could see and learn more about the culture of Nicaragua. We went to Masaya, Caterina and Granada which is one of the oldest cities in the country. It was renamed Granada in 1524 by an English military member named Francisco Cordoba (the man behind the name of their currency). So we saw a lot of old architecture, giant churches, stone walls, and beautiful colours. While in Caterina, another team member and I were able to zipline through the mouth of an active volcano. While in Granada, we went on a boat tour through Lake Nicaragua, and I got to feed a monkey an Oreo off the edge of the boat. The monkey lives on a small island in the middle of the lake. The island only exists because a volcano nearby had erupted and melted a bunch of land, and when the water returned, the crevices created a slew of little islands, most of which are owned by North Americans or rich Latin American families and have giant homes and water garages for their boats on them. One of the islands is an old fort that was utilized by Sir Cordoba, and it is now a historic site, like Citadel Hill. 

At the end of the trip, we spent three days in Managua learning about an organization that helps children get sponsored. This means that you can pay $50/month to sponsor a kid, and that will help their family buy school uniforms because all public schools dress in uniforms, food, school supplies, medical supplies, birthday presents, and other little things as the kid grows up. The sponsorship goes a long way in ensuring the kid doesn’t get trafficked for money or is missing out on essentials to grow up healthy. It was great to go through the Nicaragua HQ for Compassion and see the process, the dedication and the legitimacy of it all. They hire locally in the community, and a few of their staff members are adults who were sponsored growing up and, through sponsorship, able to stay in school and get the education needed for the job. It was awesome to hear their stories and to see that the program works well. Some of our team members were already sponsoring children in Nicaragua, and Compassion set up a day trip for the kids and their parents to come into the city and meet and hang out with us at a resort for the day. So we played on the playground, played soccer, went swimming and had a blast meeting the kids and their families. 

Most of Nicaragua does not know how to swim, so while we were with the kids from Compassion, I was able to teach the youngest one (7 years old) some swimming lessons. She didn’t speak any English, and I don’t speak Spanish other than “Mi espanol no es bueno,” for which most shake their heads, smile and understand that my Spanish is a work in progress. But it was very cool to teach swimming just through actions and a few helpful sentences from the interpreter. It was her first time in a pool, and she did great. She even trusted me enough to take her into the deep end. 

Also, Nicaragua has way better tree forts and climbing trees than we do. 

All in all, it was an amazing trip. I learned so much and am excited to edit all the images and share more in the coming weeks.