This past week included more school cancellations, meetings, and a nice reunion with most of our small business 56 group in the city of Leon and a beach city nearby.
School is cancelled often here. So often in fact, I have been here for 2 months and have yet to have class in one of my four schools because every time class is cancelled for that day. It is commonly not decided if they will cancel classes until the day before or, more commonly, the day of. For example, on Tuesday last week school was cancelled because the parent of a teacher in a school in a town off of the island died Monday (think a school within the district or so, but the school is 45 minutes away – Like Trumbull to Westport or College Park to Rockville). Then on Friday school was cancelled again for a parade on the island. That left me with one class on Wednesday and one on Thursday. Due to my ever increasing down time, I have continued to focus on how I can become more involved in the organizations on the island.
I had another meeting with the marathon group on Tuesday; things are starting to pick up and more activities are being planned each meeting. Progressing slowly but surely.
My sitemate and I went to two other organizations on Wednesday morning, one for a follow up and the other to introduce ourselves. At the first, we were invited to a women’s group meeting on Friday that turned out to be their first meeting and was more of an introductory meeting for the purpose of stimulating and encouraging the women to take action in their community.
The second meeting of the day was at an organization called Triangulo del Sur, owned by one of the wealthiest families in Nicaragua – Las Pellas. They are currently working on several projects, and were super enthusiastic to have our support and tell us all about their business. Briefly, their main project right now is to review and help local business owners put together professional business plans. After the plans are made, the businesses can then earn up to $3,000 for various projects that would improve their businesses. They are working with nearly 200 business owners in three locations in Nicaragua with a budget of $4 million for the next year or so. There is no shortage of work to be done here and, once school is over for the year at the end of October, I will easily be shifting my focus here.
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