Sunday, April 14, 2013

Day 13: Jinotepe

Our tour of Nicaragua continued on Saturday with a day in Jinotepe. Jinotepe is up in a mountain and considerably cooler than the rest of the country. Our first stop was a quarry owned by a couple of the Rotary members. They mined rock that was compressed volcanic ash. And boy was it dusty.
The mines and machinery were very impressive. The owners have an amazing vision and really understand the economic impact of their business. Instead of using more machines to load and stack the slabs (which are available), they create employment by continuing to use people.
The owners also replenish the land back to it's natural state by replanting trees. They hire only women for all of the packaging of soil and planting of seedlings.
Following the mine, we went to a facility opened by a couple from Tulsa, Oklahoma. The facility housed girls who had been sexually abused and were taken out of their homes. It was another hard tour. Rotary was helping with the project, as were mission groups. During this particular day, a group was there from Mississippi helping with some renovations and the board of the project was visiting from Tulsa. The owners of the facility definitely had amazing hearts. The buildings reminded me a lot of Boys and Girls Town. They had a school for those not able to go to public school and even had adult education courses for older girls who had not had an education. The girls' ages ranged from very young to young adults. They even had some small children and babies there who were children of some of the girls who had been impregnated by their abuser. Those situations are hard to see no matter where you are. It was good to see such a progressive and much needed center to help these girls. I think this facility really hit us all very hard. There are places everywhere that need assistance but I think we really saw not only the need for this one but really felt they had a strong mission and plan.
Another city, another cathedral. This one had amazing woodwork on the inside. A wedding was getting ready to take place so we just briefly walked around the building.
We were able to walk around the city a bit and go to local markets. We then went to a member's house for dinner and our presentation. It was nice to get to be a bit more casual for this meeting. Our host club gifted us with Rotary Jenotepe baseball caps.
Our host in Jinotepe was Letzbia. She is a super interesting lady who spent over 30 years in the US. Her daughter and family currently live in San Francisco and we will actually be there at the same time later this summer. Letzbia is a Nicaraguan who was married to an Italian man. Now that is a blend of a woman! Her house in Nicaragua was gorgeous and filled with art and artifacts from her travels.

And for those following my feet saga, I woke up today and they were completely back to normal. I think two nights in air conditioning helped considerable. Not only did we have air conditioning for two nights, but in Jinotepe we had hot water! Most of the time hot water is not necessary and a cold shower is often welcomed after a hot day... but, oh to the em gee did a hot shower feel good.

All of my weird skin rashes are healed up, as are Paul's wicked mosquito bites... just in time for Costa Rica.

 

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