So much for so little

Dateline:  1242 marbles

This week has been another amazing study of contrasts in Nicaragua.  As you may have read in my last post, we spent Sunday at a high-end horse event.  It could have been in the poshest part of Atlanta, except of course for the unique Nica attire!

So midweek we visited a school in the Pantanal barrio of Granada. This is one of the poorest slums in the country.   This barrio started during the revolution as a make shift refugee camp.  There was no planning, no infrastructure, just tens of thousands of poor people fleeing from a civil war and/or trying to improve their situation in a city.

We visited Education Plus (www.eduplusnicaragua.org).  It was founded just a few years ago to serve the kids in the barrio.  One of the most interesting aspects of Nicaragua is the significant increase in public education.  Love or hate him, Daniel Ortega, has made a huge push to create public primary schools in reach of every child.  No easy task given the remoteness, jungles, mountains and poverty.  However, it is happening.

The public schools are a work in progress.  There are virtually no books.  There are merely rooms with a "teacher" at a whiteboard.  I use the word teacher hesitantly, because most have no formal education.  It is a prized job that pays well, almost $800 a month!  However, a poor nation has to start somewhere and it is happening.

Education Plus set out to supplement the existing school.  Nica kids go to school half day.  The older kids take the second shift of the day.  The idea was to teach english to the barrio kids to give them a leg up.  While this is certainly going on, they soon realized many of the kids were illiterate in spanish.  They were way behind reading and writing in their own native language.  Add to that, they were hungry and many malnourished and some suffered health issues.  Before you get to judgmental of the Nica's take a visit in our schools and you will see the same problems.



The slums of Pantanal - the "house" on the right is nothing but plastic sheets

This organization is doing amazing things.  We walked the barrio with the director and kids and parents streamed out of the shacks to greet and hug him.  The love and respect was genuine.  The school serves about 190 kids a day.  They provide a meal and 2-3 hours of supplemetal education for the kids. They have teams of doctors and dentist that assist twice a year. They do this all on a budget of approximately $40-50,000 per year.

 How do they do that?  They have an incredible number of volunteers.  Most of them are GAP year Europeans.  A gap year is the between high school and university.  It is tradition in europe for the student to take a break from school and many travel.  I think this is a tradition our American students would benefit from undertaking.



Gap Year volunteers from Germany

 There were approximately 18 students from 8 or 9 countries (Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Russia and even an American or two) on staff the day we visited.  These students really love on these kids for 1-3 months. Education Plus will take a volunteer for a day, a week a month or a year.  They are incredibly efficient. 

Oh how I wish ever American student and parent could see how these people live.  How they survive terrible living conditions, fight for education and seem to be the happy and content in life.   These kids had huge smiles on their faces and just wanted someone to love and hug on them.  At the end of the day this is universal for all kids, rich or poor, Nica or Norte Americano.

 


Older Kids with a perm teacher and GAP year volunteer

 
PS. One of the interesting perspectives I have picked up is the use of the word "American".  While we use this word to us a refer to us -  a US citizen, the Nica’s are slightly offended by this use.  They too identify as Americans.  After all they are part of Central AMERICA.  They refer to the United States as Norte Americanos.  I am not sure how our Canadian friends feel about this, since they comprise most of the land mass of North America.