Goodbye Jinotega

This picture is my favorite of the trip. I´m not sure how, but it conjures up in me how I feel about this VISIONS experience. Those three young women looking out into the San Gregorio countryside, carrying their piocha, machete and shovel with immense possibilities in front of them.
The trip is now in its final days. The kids are gone, back to their lives in the states and Holland. But I am still having anxious dreams about forgetting them in random places. The other night in Granada I almost walked out on the street because I thought the noise on the street was our Blandon bus. I was sleeping at the time by the way, luckily a new Hostal friend was there to rein in on my craziness.
We came close to finishing up our project. A few more pipes need to be laid. We spent our last fews days at the worksite building a dam at the spring. It was an amazing feeling working side by side with 20 from our group, and 50 nicaraguans, passing rocks one by one and stacking them to build the dam This picture was of our walk up to the Spring, we followed the path of the trench we helped to dig.
This trip has been fulfilling on so many levels. It all came together for me on our last day in San Gregorio, our little farming community outside of Jinotega. The whole community came out to say goodbye to us. That was my favorite day. It reminded me so much of my little pre-schoolers in Head Start. It was such a beautiful experience seeing my High School kids interact with the children of San Gregorio. This little girl Natalia became good buddies with Cara, one of our rock star participants. Natalia would periodically unbutton her pants to pull them up past her little beer belly and then rebutton them. It was hilarious to see, especially when she did it right in front of the whole group during Jose Maria´s speech to the community. (the leader of the water project) We did a three legged race, water bag toss and potato sack relay. The highlight of the day was definitely the dizzy bat relay. We gathered all of the prominent men of the community, the leaders of the clean water project, and created relay teams with our VISIONS kids. The women and children died with laughter watching their normally stoic fathers, husbands, uncles dizzily run towards the children. In the background of this photo you can kind of see the dizzy Nicaraguans run toward the children.
Leaving, like any ending, is a pesada thing.
Throughout the trip I was never sure how connected our group was feeling to our new Nicaraguan friends. In my second blog I posted a picture of a boy named Jeyson. He was our across the street neighbor, 16, already expelled twice from High School. At that point in the trip, he had followed us up the hike to the cross. I remember wondering what Jeyson was thinking at that moment, looking down on his pueblo. Was he optimistic? Was he already disillusioned about what his prospects in life were?

Throughout the trip, the guys especially befriended him in street soccer games. Jon, our director decided to invite him with us to the worksite. The relationship slowly evolved to the point where he was part of our family. Watching our group say goodbye to Jeyson was a touching moment. The toughest guys in our group fought back tears, including Jeyson. At that moment I realized how much our group had connected with Jinotega, it felt so good. It reminded me back to my first VISION trip with St. Thomas. One of our group members brought a quote I had previously never heard, but have heard in many places and in many forms since. ´If you have come to help me leave, if you have come because you realize my liberation is wrapped in yours, stay´. What Jeyson brought to our community was equally as powerful as the positive influence we had on his life.
Our last days on the trip were beautiful. We were able to go zip lining through the Nicaraguan rainforest, and then spend the rest of the day relaxing at a crater lake outside Masaya.
Our final night was in Granada. We needed to leave by 3 AM, so most of the students decided to not sleep, which meant that I also needed to stay up. We dropped the kids off, and took a taxi back to the beautiful crater lake, the best decision we could have made. We stayed at Crater´s Edge, a hospedaje run by a Vancouver woman. We truly had no worries, lunch and dinner was served on baskets lined with banana leaves. The most comfortable chairs I have ever experienced were calling me. That is my idea of vacation, one hundred percent. It gave a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the experience was had just gone through.

For any VISIONS Nicaragua participants who read this, I want to thank you for your extraordinary level maturity and kindness. Throughout the trip we as leaders acknowledged amongst ourselves how lucky we were to have been given such a great group of young adults. I wish you luck in all your future endeavors.

I´m transitioning now to vacation, and as I mentioned before, I´m having a little difficulty letting go of the trip that just was. Today I will try my hand at surfing for the first time, so excited!! Jon Larsen, I found your dragon on the beach today...

More than anything I know this, I want more Nicaragua. Hopefully if the stars line up, this will be the first of many trips down to this hidden gem of the world, and I would love to share it with anyone who is interested.