The weekend in Ocotal

On Saturday morning, we headed up to the rural mountain community of Ocotal - about an hour and a half drive from El Sauce. We stopped to visit the Buena Vista school we built last year. Unfortunately, the kids were not in session, but seeing the finished product again was a rewarding experience - knowing the children of this community were attending school every day in the new building with new materials and books. 

As we reached the community of Ocotal, we were met by the tourism cooperative with 16 horses to take us on a ride to a coffee farm. 

We were given a tour by Juan Martinez as he explained the process for cultivating coffee beans. Bethany, the Enlace intern, translated for us. Fortunately, my Spanish has improved over the course of the year, so I was able to understand a lot of the tour before it was translated. It's amazing how muc work is out into producing the coffee beans we use every morning back home. The farmers here do everything by hand, and a lot of time goes into making just one pound of coffee. The community does not have running water, indoor plumbing, or regular electricity (although many houses use solar power now), yet they are able to grow everything they need to survive and make a living. 

After our coffee tour, we headed up to the Ranchon for lunch, some fun and games, and a hike up to one of the most amazing viewpoints I have ever seen. 

They just added these cabins for visitors to stay the night - however, we stayed with host families.

Some of the community members came up to make us dinner. Then, we had a bonfire, listened to Enrique, one of our translators, play guitar, and watched the kids dance and play games together. The kids were especially interested in some puzzles that one of the families in our group brought up for them. It was awesome to see the kids interacting even with the language barrier. 

I stayed the night with Emiliano and his family who I spent some time with when I was down here in August. They made us a delicious breakfast on Sunday, and I got to spend some time chatting with their oldest son, Alonso, who is studying English in Leon - a nearby city. Alonso heads down to El Sauce every Friday night (about 2 hours depending on his mode of transportation) and catches the bus at 6:00 Saturday morning. The bus ride is about 2 hours to Leon. After a few hours of class, he heads back home and returns at about 8:00 that evening. I am impressed with his determination and desire to continue to improve his Engliah language skills. Eventually, he would like to teach all of the kids in his community how to speak English. 

After breakfast, we headed to another house in the community to learn how to make corn tortillas - another amazing process! Following that, we had the opportunity to learn about the group of women who make baskets from pine needles - Fuente de Pino - and create a keychain from needles ourselves. This year was much more successful for me than last year, but I still have so much respect for the women who do this all day long. One basket can take two or three days to create. 

After another lunch at the Ranchon, we headed back down to El Sauce to get ready for the work week. On the way back, we stopped at the other two schools the Lupisellas have built.