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My host family

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

The best part of Ocotal is being able to live with a family and experience traditional Nicaraguan life on a subsistence/coffee farm, where life has not changed much in 80 or so years. When you want meat, you go catch a chicken. They grow most of what they eat, and grow, dry, roast, grind and make their own coffee. Living off the land is literal here.
Every night, we sat around their table and played a game or talked by light of my head lamp.

The view from on high

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Sunset at the Ranchon on the mountain top in El Sauce, Nicaragua, where the Los Altos de Ocotal eco-tourism cooperative members welcome visitors to their farms and way of life, which is a step back into “old world” ways… cooking over fires, mashing corn and hand-patting tortillas at meals, oil lamp and growing and harvesting simple crops with a mind to eco-friendly practices.

You can see San Cristobal, the volcano, here too. So beautiful.

A long walk

Monday, December 26th, 2011

I’m standing on the Mirador (lookout) in Las Minitas, on top of the mountain.

Down there, where I’m pointing, is the school in El Jicote that the kids in Las Minitas had to walk to every day — at least an hour each way — to attend elementary school. Their parents lobbied the Nicaraguan government for four years to obtain a permanent teacher.

For a year, they studied with the teacher under a tree at a neighbor’s porch, until the residents built a makeshift shelter for a school with salvaged wood.

There will be a big celebration Feb. 10 or 11 to open the first school ever in Las Minitas!

The new school is funded!

Monday, December 26th, 2011

Still amazed that we were able to raise $11,000 to help the community of Las Minitas build a new, sturdy and permanent brick school.

One room, brick, with a latrine and enough left over to put in a teacher’s desk, locks and a latrine!

It has been a true community effort – here and in Latin America.

Pablito

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

Three years ago, Emiliano helped me plant a coffee sapling on his small farm up in Ocotal, on the mountain in El Sauce, Nicaragua.

When I first met Emiliano by chance in the street this visit, he asked if I remember him, and my tree, Pablito.

He’s a teenager now by coffee tree standards. I’ll visit next week.

The new coffee bean toaster

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

Last May, we raised money to help the Los Altos de Ocotal cooperative of sustainable coffee farmers purchase a barrel and other materials to make a “tostador.” They encase the barrel in an oven and use the handle to continuously shift the beans inside as they toast evenly.

Before,they did it pan by pan over a kitchen fire.

It is up in the ranchon, where the community has a place for tourists to eat, with latrines and a lookout all over central Nicaragua.

See the entire photo album of its installation.

Bienvenidos, El Sauce

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

Landed in El Sauce on Dec.3. It’s hot, sweaty, dry and it feels like home. The first few hours, buying water, I ran into Emiliano, the coffee farmer from Ocotal with whom I planted a coffee tree 3 years ago. He asked if I remember him – and Pablito, the tree.

By noon, I had seen one of the women from the basket-making cooperative and Gustavo, who has led the fight to obtain a permanent teacher for the mountain community.

In a few days, I will be working beside them to lay the foundation and bend some metal to get started.