The plan is not always the plan

Well I'm sorry in advance as I don't have any La Chureca stories for you. I had arrangements to go there today and even checked in with my ride at 9:00 to be sure we were on. "No Problem, just let me know when your ready to go." Shortly after I see him leaving the property, I ask around and I'm told yeah he left and won't be back until late. Humm. That's how we roll in Nicaragua!

I'm not short on stories so here are a couple. When we returned from Monte Limar on Tuesday, we were told at dinner that two of the teenage boys were caught going through our stuff by one of the cleaning ladies. Apparently they have had some trouble with teams missing stuff and they had not figured out if it were some of the boys or the cleaning staff. So the cleaning staff

fearing for their jobs noticed a boy sweeping our porch. Humm... here's your sign. She walked in on

another boy in our room going through our bags. These are two fairly new boys to the orphanage and when they come in as teens it is hard to break their past tendancies. Luckily I had asked to lock up my laptop and several things of value before we left, and nothing but candy seems to have been missing. The house parent brought

them to us and made them apologize, which in its

self was a painful experiance to watch. We told them that we loved them and that we would most likely give them anything they asked for. We all hugged them and thanked them for the apology. Their punishment was to machette a field today (one of the hottest days) from 8 am to 5 pm with a lunch break. Ayi yi yi! Boys will be boys, but when they are they need to be shown it was wrong. I believe they will think twice before doing that again. These Nicaraguan teens are being raised in ways that gives them an oportunity to break the vicious cycles that continualy curse their generations. A big change starts small, and eventually will make a huge impact.

The other story I will try to shorten a bit due to the length of my ramblings so far, but don't count on that. Once again while we were relaxing by the ocean, a small field fire sparked up at Los Cedros (were had been staying) with the extreme dryness and the severe wind it became a raging field fire in no time. It just so happened that all the field hands had gone home and and all the men were at the beach for the night. The women in the infant orphanage sprung into action. The first thing they did was call the Fire Department, of course the Fire Dept first makes them agree to pay their gas money if they respond!!?? There is something to that mother protection mode, even if the children are not theirs, that makes women supernatural. Andrea, a woman missionary and two or three Nicaraguan nannies pulled small garden hoses while waitng on the Fire Dept. until the fire got too wide for that to work any more. Then to my surprise Andrea began to push down the unburnt field hay with her feet to create a sort of a fire line around the area while the other ladies beat it with palm branches they cut from a tree. The ladies worked that fire for 2 hours before the first truck arived and took control. The FD put the fire out and was paid for their gas money and left. A short time later the ladies noticed a glow out where the fire was and sprung into action again. This time they were able to put it out with out calling the FD again. Ayi yi yi!

This morning one of the Nica ladies who helped with the fire gave all the ladies involved a free peticure (which normally costs $1. US), because all of their toe nails got ruinied during the event. She does feet and nails on the side and works at Los Cedros 6 days a week. The girls got spoiled today because of their herosism, they loved it and deserved it!

Well we fly out in the morning, however I will still be blogging and some will be about this trip. So thank you all SO much for all the support and encouragement and stay tuned for all the latest goodness I like to call the doug blog.

Until next time...

                                                                                                       Roxanne from Los Brasiles