June 17 2015

At breakfast today we had banana pancakes (shoutout to Jack Johnson)and some bomb jugo (juice). Today we finished painting the school casas at NITCA. The dirty, dusty, crew (Dirty Dan,the christian brothers, The N Team (Nate and Nev)) put tiles in the ceiling. We had two fiestas (not siestas)(jajajajaja)equipt with piñatas (one of which resembled Tree DD (Theresa Dolan Dixon) while the other was Minnie Mouse).

Isaacs personal experience: As I arose to the call of Dirty Dans (Mr.Dan Dolan) morning wisdom of a Navy Shout, I was alarmed but ready to impact individuals with a positive tude. (no sass) My favorite part of the day was when I was painting the side of the peach trap (INSIDER ALERT LOLOLOLOOLOL)I caught the attention of a goat that was tied up near a tree. The goat was very inspired by my actions and gave me a nahhhhhhhhhhhh. I felt the power, it felt the power, Nevy felt the power. We all felt the power. Overall it was a great day and we made some beautiful kids happy and we gave them something that we often take for granted, even if its something as simple as paint on the walls.

Mauras personal experience: Today i got to stay behind with Bridget and paint a mural for the QA house. I had an overall relaxing day. I painted Malala, Nelson Mandela, and MLK with corresponding inspirational quotes.

For dinner we had steak, rice, and vegetables with pineapple rice smoothie juice. Christian Macintosh got the Lizard (Gus) today for his hard work.

June 15 2015

Our first technical day in Nicaragua, we were given a brief synopsis of the history in Nicaragua and its culture from Professor Aynn Setright. There isn't much to say about Nicaragua's history before Columbus' arrival in 1503. Fun Fact: Columbus wasn't exactly the nicest guy on the block. After his arrival, the Spanish Conquistadors killed most of the natives that they encountered. They killed approximately 75% of the population in just a brief amount of time. The time then shifts to Nicaragua being controlled by everyone but themselves. They never experienced peace, either. Most of Nicaragua's history consists of one war after another. They were given "freedom" from Spain when they essentially collapsed in the 1820s, and two political parties emerged, the liberals and the conservatives. These two groups then proceeded to fight over who was in control. Sometimes, the liberals were in charge, then the Conservatives revolted and everything would flip. With this constant battle, there was never a true capital set. The liberals chose León in the north to be their capital and the Conservatives chose Granada, which was in the south. This continued until 1852 when Managua, where we are, was set at the new capital, right in the middle of León and Granada. After that, things don't pick up until the United States decided they needed to get involved. In 1909, they decided that they were going to occupy Nicaragua. Like most things the US did during this time, it failed. Augusto Nicolás Sandino decided he didn't like the US, so he and 30 other men decided to fight. With the use of guerilla warfare tactics, they forced the US Marines to leave in 1934, after being there for nearly 25 years. Sandino was praised as a hero and decided to run for president. However, the US wouldn't allow that. Right before the election, Sandino was assassinated and the man behind it, Anastasio Somoza, became dictator. For the next 50 years, Nicaragua was ruled by Somoza's family. After the devastating earthquake that occured in 1972, money was sent to Nicaragua for relief aid. But it didn't get there. The person in charge, one of Somoza's sons, took the money for his own personal gain. That invoked outrage in Nicaragua, starting another war to get rid of the Somoza dynasty once and for all. In 1990, they did just that. They, the people of Nicaragua, were finally free. For a country that isn't much bigger than New York, their history is pretty detailed. Aynn spoke to us for around two and a half hours about the history of Nicaragua. We then proceeded to eat lunch where we had chicken, pico de gallo, fried plantations and rice. Here's us enjoying this scrumdiliumptous meal.

After that, we hopped on a bus and traveled downtown to see the sights and sounds of this bustling city. We stopped in the main center of downtown, right outside of a museum to hear a brief description of some of the events that occured there.

Then, Chrissy busted out a sweet rendition of a "My Personal Revenge" by Tomas Borge Martinez (look it up, it's really good) right next to his grave site in Managua

looking picturesque in front of his grave. We then proceeded to a stadium dedicated to Dennis Martinez, which was right next to a memorial dedicated to the revolt that took place to overthrow Somoza.

After that, we went to Papusa's to eat papusas. They were delicious!

Here's Mrs. Dixon looking excited with our mission leader Nevil, with Luis, our bus driver in the background. He was great at simulataneously amazing us and scaring us. We then proceeded back to the house to type this post. Picture montage of our first two days :

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