En el Norte

Well, we have been traveling now for several days with Eric and Emily all around Nicaragua. Right now, we are in Esteli, which is a city in the Northern part of Nicaragua, very close to Honduras. It has been quite a few days since my last entry, so I will catch you up on what has been happening with us! I´ll include just portions of my entries, so as not to make this too long.

Unfortunately, I am at an internet cafe, so I can´t include pictures this time.

Day 22 El Transito, Nicaragua Tuesday 06.28.11

The women came today to work on their bags. Eric designed a wallet for them make and they did such a good job executing his design! I also showed them my sketches for future embroidery ideas, and I think they liked them. THeir embroidery is so neat and I really think it would sell well in teh states. I am planning on buying one of their embroidered bags for myself.

Day 2 at the library was another hit! We had 25 kids show up! 3 volunteers were there today also. The kids shuffled through the books, pulled out their favorites from yesterday, and read until we closed at 400. It is so wonderful to hear their sweet voices reading aloud. Most of the kids are still at the age where they have to read aloud to work through the words... I love it! We had about 5 highschool kids there today, too. I think more older people will come once we have established teh lending system, which should be up and running by August.

Scott made us some delicious hamburgers tonight! Perfect meal for our last night at the beach house. We will be leaving tomorrow afternoon for a 10 day adventure across Nicaragua!

Day 23 El Transito and Leon, Nicaragua Wednesday 06.29.11

Waiting for a bus to Leon! We went on our last walk down the beach early this mor4ning, then headed over to Julie´s. I spent most of the morning until lunch putting together the women´s Facebook page. It come together so nicely! There is an album for the process of making the bags, and an album with a photo and the stories of all the women. The name of the page is ETCA threads, so check it out!

We enjoyed our last two meals cooked by Dina today. That woman has skills!

We went for a walk up North on the beach with Julio, a local boy, this morning. Julio has been such a sweet friend to us on this trip. He is slightly feminine and LOVES Lady Gaga. We were joined by little Jona, his sister Joanna, and their aunt. Jona and Joanna were constantly filling my palms with broken shells.

Day 24 and 25 Leon Nicaragua Friday 07.01.11

We arrived in Leon on Wednesday around dinner time. We found a nice, quiet hostal, Tortuga Booluda, and got ourselves a private room. We found a restaurant that we really enjoyed, El Mediterraneo. Wow. Great food, good service, and nice cocktails.

We woke up Thursday morning at 530 to leave for a 2 day hike up Volcano Telica, which just errupted 1 month ago... Our packs were loaded and heavy and our bodies were already starting to stink the instant we put them on. The first 2 hours of the hike took us through a beautiful ravine with tall, mossy rocks and large twisted tree roots towering above us. The ground was covered with a very loose, black, sandy soil that litterd our shoes and covered our ankles. The next hour was more flat with lots of green ground cover and a trail no winder than 10 inches.

Our head guide got sick right about then. Vomiting and diarrhea.... She couldn´t even hold down water. Our second guide made the decision to turn back, as he was afraid she would get dehydrated. We knew that was what was best, we but we were bummed. Needless to say, our hips are bruised and our clothes REEK.

I will write the rest of our adventure in a second post! Pretty good stories to come...

With sweat on my back,

HK