I Choo-choo-choose Chinandega
Originally posted on
Simmons GSLIS Dispatches from the Field
Day 2, or January 5, 2009
Hotel Camino Real, aka our Managua home base, has a delish all you
can eat buffet in the mornings, and may be the reason why I went to a
third world country and gained 45 pounds. HCR also has a special
feature I discovered early in the morning on day 2 whilest following a
very interesting sign on an exploratory jaunt around the premises:
What could this be?
Venados!
Yeah, that’s right. Deer, or venados, si se habla espanol. Wee, knee high deer to be precise. And not just deer…
Hello, dinner
One big, loud, pavo, or turkey si se habla ingles. No deets on his
presence were available. HCR is also attached to a casino with a giant
neon pharoh head on it, appropriately titled Pharoh’s Casino. I
contemplated gambling for the first time here, but the waves of
cigarette smoke and video slot machines kind of turned me off. I’m
mostly disappointed I didn’t get a picture of it. I suppose my pic of
Senor Pavo more than makes up for it though!
After partaking in some buffet breakfast gluttony, the GSLIS crew met up
with Heydi, SJDS librarian and total sweetheart, Noelia, another SJDS
librarian sweetheart (and only 19 years old!), Luis Carlos, Edwin’s
nephew and a SJDS guybrarian (16 year old, but so mature we didn’t
realize this until his mom told us later in the week), and Richard, our
awesome driver. We piled into our 12 passenger silver chariot, bound
north for Chinandega, with a CD filled with soft rock 80’s songs
serenading us. The road took us past Lake Managua (or Lake Xolotlcn to
the locals; the names are apparently interchangeable), and past several
volcanoes we spotted in the distance, which incited a camera flash riot
in the back of the van.
Volcanoes on the road to north
We arrived right around lunchtime in Chinandega, and went to Subway.
Something to take note of in Nicaragua: restaurants, even fast food
ones, are…not fast. Not even medium speed. Even at a fast food
sandwich shop, it took close to an hour for our 15 person group to all
get served. This meant we were running kind of late, and had to jet
almost immediately off to our first site visit at Ameya.
Ameya is a small village on the outskirts of Chinandega. From what I
can gather, the villagers are primarily farmers, making a living off the
land. Jane planned a snack of chocolate milk and Nutragrain bars. She
told us that for many of the kids, this could have been their only meal
that day; giving the kids a nutritious yet delicious snack was more of a
priority that stunning them with sugar.
Our arrival was a bit overwhelming for our GSLIS gringo pack. We
pulled in to a crowd of close to 200 children dressed in their best,
partaking in some sort of dance contest, and quite possibly the most
frightening clown I’ve ever seen.
Enjoy those inevitable nightmares!
We were introduced with a warm welcome and promptly thrown into some
field day games. Erikka may have lost the potato sack race to children
half her size, but a little boy lost his pants, so I suppose his pride
might have been slightly more damaged than hers.
Erikka’s race
Rounds and rounds of field games later (egg races, wheelbarrow races,
musical chairs, etc.) we got to my personal favorite part: story time!
For the majority of you who don’t know me, I’m an aspiring youth
services librarian, currently holding down two jobs in libraries for
teens and children. I did a little bit of majoring in Spanish in
college back in the day. Ergo, one of my biggest interests in the
pursuit of my degree/career/happiness is the development and furthering
of Spanish language youth programming. Ergo, I was excited for this part
of the afternoon.
The SJDS Biblioteca picks a book of the year each year, which is read
at the main library and is also brought to all the sites visited by the
book mobile. This year’s selection is
Cordoroy, and past selections have included
Ferdinand and
Clifford.
I was definitely nervous when Jane asked me to do the reading. While
I’ve done story hours, my experience would best be described as
limited…limited to groups of 15-20 at the most, not close to 200, and
also limited to the English language, not a language I was three years
rusty in speaking or even understanding! Despite my jitters, the kids
were wonderful and respectful, and the reading went really well despite
my few stumbles over words; some kids got so into the story they crowded
around behind me to look at the pictures up close.
Yikes!
We transitioned into a raffle to distract the children while we
prepared a snack for 200, which involved making chocolate milk in a
water cooler and then rationing it out into 200 servings. Who says math
isn’t useful to librarians? Yeesh! Luckily, it was easier than it
sounded, the only nervewracking part being when we finally served the
snack and were almost bum-rushed by lines of the cutest and best behaved
rioters I’ve ever seen.
Bags and bags and bags of milk
It was a great day and visit. Jane left several boxes of clothing
for the future distribution in the community, and several boxes of books
as part of her library in a box starter kit. The kids left with a good
snack in them and with new stuffed animals they’d won in the raffle or
games. Our GSLIS group left feeling that we’d helped do something
really fun in a community that probably doesn’t get to let their hair
down very often, and help generate excitement and interest in reading,
which will hopefully get the Ameya library off to the right start!
