A perfect world

Optimistic right? Sometimes it feels that way here though. It´s wonderful. Preschool is going really well and classes are going great too. I´m even picking up two more english classes and I´m helping a bit with a baking class on Thursdays. I want to start another English class in Jalapa too because there are a lot of people who want it but can´t because they´re working during the day or live to far away. So I figure if I have one later in the day, either at my house or Alejandra´s, we can offer one more. It´s great to stay busy. Of course, we still have the weekends off, which is nice.

A Perfect Preschool

Okay, that´s an exageration, but it was catchy, so why not? The preschool is finished and beautiful! I love it. There are two teachers, Dina and Rena, who are very awesome and open to a lot of learning and suggestions. It´s just a lot of fun in general. We also have had verry successful English and Art classes every afternoon. Everyone is very excited to learn and expand their horizons. Hopefully we will be able to offer more classes later too. All in all, amazing!!!!!

Trabajando en el Prescholar

So preschool started without any problems (more or less) on Wednesday. It rocks, and is a lot of fun. I´m working with two fabulous women. We don´t actually have everything ready for the preschool at the moment, but we are going to pull it together and make it look perfect over the weekend. Gabe and I go to gather the last of the things we need for it this afternoon. So far we´ve just had class in the big chairs and it´s the cutest thing in the world to see these tiny kids with their feet dangling in too tall chairs.

Leah and I also started registration for our classes. I´m offering English and she´s offering Art. We got quite a few people, so it´s bound to be interesting at the very least. We regiseter again tomorrow for a lot longer. It´s good stuffs ^_^

Sorry!

I know I haven´t updated in a loooong time. Julio pointed that out to me the other day. The funds are check and operation preschool in Libano is a go. It´s aweeeeeesoooome! School stars on Monday or Tuesday and I´ll be working with one other woman in the preschool every day. We currently have 28 kids enrolled and I can hardly wait. I´ll take pictures what it´s completely done and post them when I return to the US, don´t worry. All for now, sorry it´s short.

Great news!

So guess what!?!?!? Even though we didn´t raise $15,000, it´s ok! We have altered our idea a little bit and now it is muuuuuch cheaper. There is an extra room we can use in the school, so we don´t have to build a whole new building. It will take less time and isn´t as hard, which means we don´t have to worry about labor as much either. Now, we just need like $3,000! How awesome is that?!? We are still a bit short but every penny will help.

We need: $3,000
We have: $1,461

Not too shabby right! Please donate, it´s for a great cause.

Estamos Aqui!

We are here!!! It´s awesome and beautiful and I just loooooove it! We´re still getting everything in order, but we arrived on a weekend, which is a bad time to start anything. Come Monday, I start work with PIEAT, we have our meetings, we get all that last minute stuff in order and we are good to go! I don´t get to work in the preschools until February 15th, but until then, we´re going to get everything in order to start work on the day care and prepare for classes when they start. I know I´m teaching an English class and a computer class as well as working in the preschool, and I´ll probably teach an art class with Leah as well. This place is so magnificant! The keyboard is kinda weird though. Some of the keys are in the wrong place :P

Night before departure

Today is my last day in Michigan! Actually, I suppose tomorrow is, since my flight leaves at nearly 8 in the morning. All my bags are packed and I'm ready to go! Our good friend Julio is picking us up from the airport in Managua tomorrow. I am so excited to be there again! I'm especially excited to see my host family: Ceyli, David, Kevin, and Johanni.

I also got the go ahead from the education department in Jalapa to work in a preschool, which is a big part of what I want to do while I am down there. School starts February 15th. Until then, we have plans to build some ovens for our host family as well as for Alejandra, a woman who will be like a mother to us while we are down there.

We still haven't raised enough funds for the daycare, which makes me worry. We are going to go ahead with the building of it and hope for a miracle I suppose. I sent Ty, the guy at AACC who deals with all the donations, an e-mail so that can learn the address as to where to send money. I can only hope it will all work out.

Funds needed: $15,000
Funds raised: $2,000 (estimate)
Still need: $13,000
People to donate $5: 2,600

Fundraising

Alright, so here's the situation: In order to afford building the daycare, we need to raise $15,000. Leah's project costs money too, but she has been totally on it and already rose the money that she needs. She does have a few more supplies if anyone can donate though: Markers, colored pencils, pencil sharpeners, glue sticks, scissors, sewing thread, sewing needles.

To make that is not as very difficult as it may seem though. All checks are written out to AACC (American Association for the Care of Children). As it is an organization, all donations are tax deductible. If a return address is included, I will send a little paper to you that you can use for your taxes next year. I'm not asking anyone to donate $15,000; no one has that kind of money just lying around. I like to think little though: if 3,000 people can donate $5, we have made our quota! How awesome right?

So of course, until we leave, a big part of this blog is to keep everyone who is interested updated on how the fund raising is coming. If you are interested in making a donation, please contact me privately at Krnsctt@gmail.com. Sorry, I don't want to give out my parent's personal address on something as viewable as a blog.

As of 1/14/2011:

Made - $0
Need - $15,000
People to donate $5 - 3,000

Leah and Gabe have raised money already, but I don't know exactly how much, so I'm not counting it at the moment. They estimate about $2,000, but we still need a lot, so I'm hoping we can raise a lot!

Brief Summary of what is up

I have been to Jalapa, Nicaragua twice now, both times being in 2010. My ECE professor, Debbie Young, has gone both times with me and instilled this passion in me to help the innocent children around the world. I'm starting in Jalapa because that is where I have connections. Later in life I hope to expand to other parts of the world and help there too.

Anyway, the first time I went to Nicaragua it was in March as part of a class I was taking at Naropa University. We did more than I could probably ever say while we were there. We all lived in pairs with locals to get a real experience of what it is like to live there. We stayed for two weeks. We held workshops and taught locals how to grow and care for gardens so they could have nutritious, home grown food. We also did house visits and learned about the local's needs. Our technique is called PAR - Participatory Action Research. We go down with an idea, but hear from the people there what they need, instead of imposing what we think they need upon them and forcing them to be dependent on us and other people from the United States. We also helped build a school, although most of the work was done with the help of another student who was there for an entire school semester. This school just opened in September! The experience was amazing, life changing, and beautiful.

The second time I went to Jalapa was in November over the week of Thanksgiving. On this trip, it was two college students, a high school student, a dentist and his friend, and a computer technician and his wife, as well as Debbie Young again. This trip was only a week long but a lot was accomplished. The dentist, James, paired up with another dentist, Sandra, in Jalapa and every day they went to another part of Jalapa and the surrounding area to see anyone who felt they needed to see a dentist. For the more extreme cases, they went back to Sandra's office in Jalapa and worked on people's teeth there. This was all done free of charge to the locals! The only thing the locals had to do was attend a workshop that educated them on how to properly care for their teeth. Once they had seen the dentist, they also got a toothbrush. Part of the workshop also told them how to make their own toothpaste from baking soda and water so that there is no dependence on other people to bring them toothpaste every couple of months. These workshops were given to them by the wonderful member of PIEAT, who I will tell you all about at another time.

While all this wonderful stuff with the dentist was happening, the computer technician was well at work. He taught anyone who wanted to attend his class how to put computers together, fix them, and work the basic features. Being able to use a computer is a huge privilege to the people in Nicaragua and one we were happy to educate them on. A lot was covered in just this one week, and before we left they could access Windows or Linex, depending on what they needed, and had knowledge of how to gain access to basic Windows software. The two college students (myself being one and Gabe being the other) also helped in an English class.

Now all of the above was accomplished in one week, two at the most. Now I, along with two other students (Gabe and Leah), are taking a semester off from school and going do Jalapa for four months to accomplish a number of things. This blog is specific to follow my journey, but all three of our lives will be very connected for the next few months. There are a number of things we have planned gfor our four months down there. I plan to teach an English class, teach a computer class, work in a preschool, participate in home visits with PIEAT to build relationships in the community, and help Leah and Gabe with their wonderful projects as well. Leah is working to implement art and self expression as a part of every day classes. She is bringing beauty to the community and will also be painting a large mural on one wall of the school with them. Gabe is working towards building a daycare so that the young women who have very young siblings or children of their own still have the opportunity to go to school. The daycare is attached to the school so that the girls can drop their siblings or children off, go to school, and then pick them up at the end of the day. These projects are very important to us and the people of Jalapa who deserve beauty and education just as much as anyone else does. In order to afford this amazing opportunity for them, we have to raise $15,000 and we will be able to accomplish everything we plan to and then some.

A very important part of what we do is to make everything sustainable. We want the organization and the education to keep running even if no one from the United States never went down there again. We can't send toothpaste to them every four months so that they can brush their teeth. We want to give them the means to use what they have regularly in order to make things they need. We want them to know how to use a computer and be completely self sustainable. It isn't about us fixing things for them, it's about supporting them in fixing it themselves.

Sorry, I guess it wasn't so brief.