Las Salinas de Nagualapa de Rivas de Nicaragua

Saludos a todos!

I would like to welcome you all to my wonderful, small, dusty community of Las Salinas de Nagualapa de Rivas de Nicaragua (or just Las Salinas which is a lot easier). There is going to be a lot in this blog post so you may want to separate the reading into two sessions, if you are that interested in following my blog. Since I don't even know where to start I guess I'll just start by saying a random fact. I have taken almost 600 pictures since I have been in Nicaragua, which has only been since January 15th. I have no doubt that I will surpass the 2000 mark while I am here or maybe even the 3000 mark as one of the projects I am doing in the community is partially based on photography and I have a four gigabyte memory card, which holds about 3500 high quality photos. However, due to the fact that I don't have a personal computer, it is somewhat difficult to get the time to upload all of my photos to the computer so I haven't had the chance to put my photos on this blog. I will definitely put the best photos up on this blog and eventually all of them on facebook.

So speaking of the project I am doing in the community, I am more actually doing a number of different projects. They are all being run through the library I am working at. The library I am working at is about a one minute walk from my host family's house and has been undergoing a few different changes recently. First of all, five old school macs were donated to the library by some organization in the states (I have to ask my supervisor what it is and I'll let you know on my next post) and were just installed the week I arrived in the community. Second of all, the first missionary group to ever come to the library since it was built a number of years ago (again, I have to ask my supervisor and I'll let you know on my next post) was here for three weeks and just left on Monday. Basically this means that the kids who come to this library have been seeing lots of gringos and flashy technology all in a short period of time. The gringas from the Evangelical Christian missionary academy in Arkansas were teaching classes to the kids who come to the library even though hardly any of them spoke a word of Spanish. Although this doesn't make any sense to me, the kids seemed to enjoy it because they received one on one attention from these gringas and were able to learn about five words of English during those three weeks, which I am sure they have forgotten already. I just want to rant for a moment and say that development workers who don't speak a word of the local language should not be teaching English. One, because there is a severe limit to the amount that they can teach and two, because it is a serious waste of time as the ones learning English will forget it immediately as they aren't using it in their daily lives. The only time when teaching English is justifiable is when the people teaching it will be teaching it for a while and those who are learning it can use it regularly, which is not very often in rural communities in the developing world.

So on to where I come into play. The first week starting in the community was really slow because of the missionary group that was working in the library and was taking up all of the time there. However, they left on Monday and I have had the library to myself this whole week. It has been my job to bring the kids who come to the library daily up to par with these computers, which you could imagine is difficult especially consdering that none of them have ever even used a computer before. So I have been working on a manual for them which details everything from what a mouse is to what the icons on the computer are. It's been pretty tedious but hopefully I'll be done with it by the end of the week and library will have a permanent manual in their collection showing people how to use a computer. It's funny that computers are where a vast portion of all the technology that is changing the world lies and billions of people don't know how to use them. I guess I'm doing a good thing by teaching a few people how to use them. Anyways, as I said before, that is not my only project in the community. Currently I'm working on starting a project with the youth in the community based on photography and cleaning this dusty town. The first part is going to document the history of the community by interviewing the owners of the salt mines this community is named after. I will also interview the oldest  members of the community who have seen all of the massive changes in the community throughout the past century. Afterwards we are going to make a book putting all of the history and pictures together to put on display at the library I'm working at. Meanwhile, I'm working on another project with the youth that basically encompasses cleaning up the community and showing pictures of the community before and after the clean up to encourage people to not throw their trash on the ground, which is what everyone does. Basically, my idea is that I believe that one of the reasons as to why so many people throw trash on the ground is that they don't see the community as having any aesthetic value. However, if I teach them about how beautiful this community actually is through photography, then they'll be less inclined to throw their trash on the ground. The youth in the community certainly think this is an issue, but I do need to search for more people who want to be involved in the project. As this idea is somewhat idealistic, you'll probably see some changes in exactly what I'm doing by the time I do my next post. PS if you have any old digital cameras sitting around at your house, the library and I would love to see them. Send me an email at ZOstiller@clarku.edu if you would like more information.

The community sits about a mile away from the vast coast line of the Pacific Ocean where numerous surfer joints lie along the beach. It's interesting because the coast line is developing extremely fast while the community still stays in poverty. In fact there is one place called Rancho Santana along the coast about two miles away from my house that is filled with enormous mansions owned by rich expatriates from the Western world. It's about five minutes walking distance from dirt roads with chickens, pigs, and cattle carts. I guess that is Latin America for you. The beach is absolutely gorgeous though. The waves are up to ten feet high and the beaches are mostly spotless with a few surfers here and there. My host brother took me on a hike up to a ledge overlooking the beach and the ocean where we watched the sunset. If only it was a girl I was with...Anyways speaking of sunsets, I have seen the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life here in Las Salinas. Especially looking over the salt mines and watching the sun reflect in their pools of tide water. My host family is wonderful. I have five host siblings. 15, 17, 20, 22, and 28 so there are a bunch that are around my age to keep me company. I have spent a significant amount of time lying on the hammocks at the house feeling the heavy gusts of wind blow through my hair while I read Acts of Faith, a 700 page epic about aid workers in Sudan during Sudanese Civil War that has kept my attention pretty fully since I got to the community. I have read more than 400 pages since I got here. As for the "Viva la Revolucion" and "Viva Daniel" graffiti I have seen everywhere, I finally figured out why there's so much. The government pays people to paint them on building walls even though the government really isn't that popular. Haha.

I love and miss you all,
Zack