Rob Colquhoun

Nicaraguan Diary 27^th August- 12^th September

 

By Robert Colquhoun

 

Participants on Trip

 

Robert Chan, Physics Phd student from Warwick university

Robert Colquhoun, seminarian at Valladolid

Martin Darden, Law student at LSE

Fr Joe Evans, Priest of Opus Dei

Frank Fields, Ernst and Young risk management accountant

Viran Gunasekera, Doctor

Dave Kennon, Car financier from Bournemouth

Alessandro Maiano, Italian student studying law at Kent University

Roy Paul Mukkan, Warwick university student/Singaporean military service

Mordi Muorah, Doctor

Alwin Ng, Imperial Mechanical engineering student

Manny Wey, Doctor

Alvaro Tintore, Organiser of trip, numerary of Opus Dei

 

Typical Day was as follows (with many variations) –

Mass 7.50am, visit to the blessed Sacrament.

Breakfast 8.25am

Faff 8.40am

Work 9.30am

Angelus noon

Lunch 1.30pm

Football 1.45pm

Work 2-5pm

Put away tools, football, faff 5-6pm

Talk 7pm

Rosary 7.30pm

Spiritual Reading 7.45pm in car

Supper 8-8.30pm

Faff, internet, beer 8.30 onwards….

Chat, Examination of conscience 9pm onwards…

 

Sunday 27^th August

 

After a prompt Mass at Netherhall at 2.30am, we departed to Heathrow by taxi to join the gang at terminal 2. Not all were there as Alwin went via Costa Rica. Courtesy of Air France we had a quick stop off at France after a stingy breakfast of a muffin. We changed terminals at CDG nearly losing Fr Joe and with a quick transfer we went to Houston on a Boeing 777. Unfortunately we were all sitting on different places on the plane, but there was a decent entertainment system on the plane, with a TV for each seat. The films were Sahara, Miss Congeniality 2 and some rubbish French films. The meals were much better and we had a bit of turbulence. At Houston after an hour wait we got harassed as usual by American Authorities who automatically presume you are a terrorist if you are even flying through America. After some human refuelling with fast food, we got on a half empty continental Plane with 3 hours to get to Managua. Million Dollar Baby was showing, a better film than on the previous flight. Alvaro had a conversation about what to do if you jumped out of the aeroplane. At Managua, there were hundreds of people at the airport, but alas they were not willing to great us. Some of our bags were still in Houston so we passed the message on that we had a problem to Houston. We were greeted by Roberto Rosales, our host in Managua, who took us to a particularly pleasant Opus Dei centre in Managua were we had a decent sleep on a 2cm mattress in a classroom. We found out that England’s victory was nearly complete in the cricket. So, after a long journey we were all pretty knackered and collapsed.

 

Sunday 28^th August

 

After a relaxed start to the day we had Mass at 9am in the impressive chapel there with air conditioning on at full blast. The humidity of the country was noticeable as soon as we walked out of the terminal last night. Fr Joe then gave a meditation on the themes and ideas of Pope Benedict at World Youth Day and some of the ideas of Josemaria Escriva. Religions could not be laissez faire things and you can’t have a pick and mix religion. It was very hot in the garden. We had a cultural experience by visiting a fast food mall for breakfast before we ventured into the culinary realm of Nicaraguan food. Juanco then took us to a hill with a good view of Managua. There was a black simple statue of Sandina. Apparently people used to be tortured up on the hill under the Sardanista government, but today it is only a tourist spot with people abseiling down to a lake and some old antiquated tanks that were a present from Mussolini to the government. We were about the only tourist in Managua. Then we went to the city centre, there was a Cathedral but it was in ruins following the earthquake here. The other Cathedral in town was a horrifically modern Church that actually looked more like a Mosque, financed by the man who made millions from Pizza Hut in the US. The earthquake of 1971 had destroyed the city centre and to be honest it was more of a waste town. Many streets have no name. Some kids had made insects out of palm leaves and were trying to sell them by latching on to us for 15 minutes. After a while we then drove avoiding the potholes to Grenada, a beautiful colonial city by the lake of Nicaragua. We had a fine lunch at a fish restaurant and most of us had a Guapote- a fish that resembled a piranha. Viran had the audacity to choose a regular (which was a large) which was enormous. After this we had a quick tour around some snazzy islands on the side of the lake, and we also passed a fairground. We saw many herons and the domineering Volcanos in the background. You could see it was raining heavily in the far background, while it was sunny where we were. It was the winter and hence the heavy downpours every other day. Apparently Nelson once tried to invade Grenada, but due to sickness (probably Malaria) he returned. Garibaldi had also lived in Grenada. We stocked up on some bare necessities of western consumerism in a supermarket on the outskirts of Managua, before heading onto Diriamba. There we checked out the local Church for the next day and had a fine supper in our eating house in Jinotepe. We had a mighty fine house to stay in all with beds and it was courtesy of a woman who in her life had looked like Elizabeth Taylor. But it turned out we were not alone as our friends joined us. Cockroaches, millipedes and flied were also keen to share our accommodation and therefore a battle was on.

 

Monday 29^th August  Martyrdom of St John the Baptist

 

First day of work today! We had a casual start and did not leave the house until 9.30. We met up with our builder Mario, our guide for the project. He ran a school teaching people agricultural skills to apply to work and we picked up the necessary tools after a bit of a wait – we got buckets, spades, pickaxes and long poles. It was swelteringly hot already and just to stand in the sun was working in itself. Then we hit the school – a primary school with the most basic of buildings – there was a dusty courtyard, about 4 classrooms and at least 40 kids in each class. There were 8 swings, a big puddle in the area and some very basic smelly loos. Sometimes other town kids would come along and play in the school playground. Our first task was to clear the grass from the new wing which had walls up but no roof. We got rid of most of the grass, putting the remains around the corner. We dug a first latrine – Roy, Veron and others were the hard men in digging the depth. The earth was then put in the classroom to level it out. We got a tube and filled it with water to measure the height of the ground in the new block. We pushed some kids on the swings and had a decent lunch with sweets and bread. I gave the leftovers of the sweets to the kids. The afternoon was more relaxed and there was less work to do. We had a small game of football with the kids. Some of the kids had bloated bellies, especially Manuel and I am sure some of them had worms too. This means they were probably suffering from Malnutrition. We then had mass in the Church in Diriamba- I did the reading. We had to wait a while in before the previous Mass finished and someone thought they saw some bats on a tree but it turns out they were black plastic bags on the trees! The Church was quite simple but still with quite a few statues. We had a delicious supper – the meditation was on the saints – the true reformers and the sanctification of the Workplace and of everyday life. Some people went to make phone calls and check the Internet, like Frank who needed to contact work. We killed a few cockroaches and protected ourselves against evil bugs. The loo now looked like a swamp it was so dirty, and the house got progressively dirtier with the lack of any clean women around. I fell asleep fairly quickly.

 

Tuesday 30^th August

 

A lackadaisical start to the day as we were a bit late starting. We had Mass first thing in the morning and the breakfast went on, before we got to the school for 9.30. We had to disturb a class to get our tools and carried on a latrine in the school grounds. We also started on 3 new latrines- all in the poor residential area surrounding the school. I was doing a latrine with Robert and Fr Joe, and also Victor the unemployed member of the family who had been in the army who lived in a garden shed. It turned out that this was the bandidos latrine and these people weren’t as pleasant as other people, probably because they were dodgy. The father was a taxi driver I think. Due to the fact that the soil was soft we finished our latrine by 1.30, in time for lunch before you needed to put stones in. There was a bit of water trickling into the latrine but we managed to cut this off at source. The others were much slower. Frank’s latrine had only dug 60cm, but when they came back from lunch, the mother had dug what 3 of them had done in 3 hours!!! I handed some sweets to the kids at lunch – I am not sure whether it is really bad for their teeth though. Robert and I then moved 21 big stones to Frank and Daves latrine, but we had to put them in the house otherwise they would be nicked to pay for drugs (and only sold for 40p). There was so little in the house it was unbelievable. Then we had to move concrete into the classroom. Martin managed to drop his concrete and as it was in a big paper bag it went everywhere. We had a good game of football with the kids, we me being competitive Dad. Alex hit the ball full pace at a seven year old, so I wasn’t the only one trying hard! The score was undecided but I thought we won. We finished work at 5.30. The meditation was on the rich young man who went away unhappy. Part of that talk was to do with possessions – partly because of wrong mentality – of not wanting to hear what Christ said to him. We listened to the Holy Father’s message to young people in 1982 when he came to Britain on a tape in the van, which Father Joe listened to when he was 16. In the evening we stashed up with some beers for the house, and had a good chat. Some of us said the rosary (which was said everyday) and some stayed up to 11.30 talking about British inefficiencies and the NHS. There were some dangerous dogs outside that bite so you needed to be careful. Veran loved the way he could connect with difficult kids by playing football. The four kids next door were very sweet, especially Brian and they normally came to say hello.

 

Wednesday 31^st August

 

We had a meditation at 7.45 in the house on the subject of possessions, mortification and poverty/ simplicity which followed on easily from the talk of the rich young man in the gospel yesterday. Possessions possess you if you have a possessive attitude on them and being has supremacy over having, against the consumerism and advertising seductions of the day. We had delicious pancakes for breakfast and the usual Indian noise from the minibus told us that Hiro had arrived to drive us. He was our quiet but cheerful bus drive that liked to read the newspaper La Prensa. The Indian noise sounded like an Indian screaming and changing pitches every few minutes. We already had changed vans. Apparently an enormous storm had hit New Orleans called hurricane Katrina and the whole place was in disarray. We did a workers warm up to stretch our muscles with Frank and then we had some time faffing around. Most people had the confidence to do the cementing themselves by the end and the latrines continued to get deeper and deeper. Lots of kids shouted “Mesame” in order to get us to push them on the swings. The builders who were on the project had made good progress by doing most of the roof of the new classroom. Frank came up with a plan of how to complete the work by the end of the two weeks. Lunch was hot dogs and it was really hot as I was sweating profusely by now. Poor Alwin had got a hand mark which wasn’t tanned on his back (was this my Fault?!). There was a family of 5 girls right next the first latrine in the village who were very sweet and they sang the Nicaraguan national anthem to me. In he afternoon we made good progress, although the bandidos latrine proved to be a little difficult as the residents were so dodgy we weren’t sure it was worth building a latrine for them due to their attitude. We finished at 5 and we had football of 4 big guys against a team of little brats, after that we had a more organised 5 a side game. The latrine in the school was getting pretty deep by now and it was lucky no kids fell in. Frank’s audacious plans for work looked possible by now. Fr Joe was feeling rather ill. He had found two new recruits Miguel and his brother from the village he visited on a previous trip here. Mani had arrived at 11 and had been working in the hospital in the paediatrics department all day and he met us for lunch. Mordi meanwhile had got lost in Houston sending his bags down the wrong shoot. Some went to an internet shop whilst others went to clean the house. It looks like Michael Owen has really gone to Newcastle which is really amusing because it is not a good team. Mordi actually arrived today in the evening and we heard his stories of staying in Houston and then going to Guatemala for the day, and we had some beers.

 

Thursday 1^st September 

 

Alex had his first visit to the throne room to rule as he proudly announced in the morning (Actually his first visit was on Tuesday, and this was his second visit!). The topic of the meditation was on the Mass, on transubstantiation and the nuclear fission that takes place. We proceeded to finish the first latrine in the village; meanwhile the other 2 teams were struggling because they were trying to dig up earth that was more like rock. But the team of Martin, Alex and myself was fairly unbeatable. Franco and Dave were having communication difficulties with their family – who by now wanted to marry their daughters of to them. They also washed our clothes, which were filthy. Alwin and Robert were down at the last latrine with the ungrateful lots. Father Joe was ill today and decided to stay at home- the first victim of Deli Beli. We finished Aurelio’s latrine and put the last stone’s on. Manuel was his kid and he obviously had worms, never wore a t- shirt was always filthy and always smiling. Had a game of football at lunch and then two hamburgers each. It rained tropical storm style in the afternoon, which did not help affairs. Roy chased a kid who fell over and hurt himself and everyone was picking up the kids and scaring them. We had Mass after waiting ages for the Church and then we were really late for Supper. Alvaro said we had surpassed our contract with the driver, but he was too kind and took us home. Alex jumped off the bus saying, “Father, say Grace!” in order to counter our tardiness! This was to everyone’s amusement. We discussed football tactics and moved all the tables together in a sign of unity of the group. We got back to struggle opening the door due to the lock being very flimsy and after 20 minutes we were delighted not to have to rough it for the evening! Hiro got some oil and helped to sort it out. Had some beer in the evening and the usual rosary and prayers.

 

Friday 2^nd September

 

We said the rosary first thing at 7.15. We were getting to work later and later each day. It was pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast again- which must be hard to find and expensive in Nicaragua. We were still discussing football tactics for the epic match tomorrow against a village team. The dream team (Alex, Martin and I) started a new latrine not far from the school. By Lunch we had already dug the customary 1.2 metres before you have to put the stones in. There were a new bunch of kids to play with (75% of the population is under 30). There was one kid who had sliced part of his leg open with a machete (only slightly) and Mordi and Mani our residential doctors sorted him out later in the day to stop it being infected. Frank nearly dropped a big brick on Dave! It was tune sandwiches for lunch and beer and the usual legendary football game of Alex’s team against me. In the football game later in the day Alex had the 2 girls on his team who were actually quite good, and he eventually played with 8 players against my 5. Roy and Viran broke their bucket just as we had done the previous day – it was quite easy to do when jumping down 2.5 metres deep as you jumped on it to get down the hole. In the afternoon 5 of us started new latrines quite a way from the school. Alex and I were digging and it was very soft and the hole filled up with water so we abandoned ship and started a new hole. When the van came to pick us up it got stuck in the mud, there was a big up and down and it was quite scary going full speed with all of us in. Hiro thought that he could drive it anywhere, and he would probably drive up Everest if we were in the Himalayas to drop us off. It took 15 minutes to get the wheels out of the mud and to stop them skidding. We had mass and then Supper and a polemical discussion of what to do on Sunday.

 

Saturday 3^rd September

 

We had a half-day of work today, Mass in the morning and then we hit the site. Alex and I dug a new latrine yesterday, but today I helped Alwin and Robert at the bandidos site. They had a sweet kid called Francesca who Robert took lots of photos of. The problem was the latrine was rock hard and if you could a quarter of a bucket in 10 minutes you were doing really well. Robert and Alwin had got it down to a fine art though. Picked up my pristine clean laundry only to make it just as muddy in the afternoons epic encounter with the locals. It was quite a drive to get to the pitch and we picked up kids along the way who were to play. Father Joe never made the match as the locals had kidnapped him. The match was somewhat ruined by the heavy storm and very strong rain meaning the pitch was so slippy that if you did not have studs on you could not keep your grip. There were 2 cows on the pitch and a horse in the corner. At one classic moment in the game, a cow ran across the pitch and terrorised our defence leaving an open goal and I can’t remember whether they scored as a consequence. I also had a great run of 20 yards before falling in a puddle and going straight on my face. Martin also fell over at another point, heading the ball away with his face. By the end everyone was filthy with dirt and soaked through, although it did dry off in the second half. We ended up losing 5-3, but they missed a hatful of chances, apparently it wasn’t even their first team line up. Alvaro was clearly our best player. Robert had filmed the match in parts.

 

Our line up was:

                        Martin  Viran

                        Roy                  Alvaro  Dave

Hiro     Robert  Alex                 Frank

                        Mani    Alwin

 

Later Alvaro gave a talk on the sacrament of reconciliation, which was impressive, from its biblical basis to the human need for confession and absolution of sins. We had a few beers in the evening. On the way back from football we got stuck in the mud with the minibus and we all got out to push. The talk by Father Joe the day before was on Fruitful love as understood in service and truth.

 

Sunday 4^th September – Memorial of St Gregory the Great

 

Some early birds had prayer in the morning and then morning Mass. After breakfast we had a 40-minute relentless faff at the house. We went to Managua to pick up Roberto and then we headed to Leon on some surprisingly good roads. At Leon we had a look at the Cathedral which was a huge colonial building, looked very poor on the outside, but on the inside it was beautiful and pleasant. There was a sign where JP II had visited in 1983 and there were stirring paintings of the Stations of the Cross and the walking on water. A Bishop was saying the rosary with the congregation in the Cathedral whilst we were there. WE had lunch in the square of chicken and pasta and some street children had befriended us. It was blisteringly hot. We had a look at the statue in the main square of a freemason who had his back on the Church but had died a supporter of the Church. Leon wasn’t how I remembered it at all 3 years ago, and it was a pity we didn’t go to the Rubio Dario museum, as he is the most famous Nican. Leon had apparently completely changed locations a while the people had killed the Bishop for supporting the Indians. We had a look at another Church, and then we headed for the beach. Saying the rosary on the way, we eventually got there over an hour of travelling. The road was pretty dodgy for the last 20 minutes so there were clearly no tourists around. There were some big waves around and we spent 40 minutes in the sea being tossed and turned. We also had a great game of football on the beach and the sand was not too soft but as ever with beach football it was still tiring. There was a lobster boat in the far distant. Even though the sand was brown, it still had potential to be a tourist resort, but the infrastructure was non-existent and being so underdeveloped it had no chance. He took 3 1/2 hours to get home and we went via Managua. I had a good listen to Alwin’s romantic songs on his minidisk. Alex was feeling pretty ill and Martin had given us a wonderful display of what he had eaten in the day by puking all the way back to Diriamba.

 

Monday 5^th September

 

We had a talk on the nature of the Church in the morning from Father Joe, reflecting on its Catholicity, universal nature and about it being founded as an institution by our Lord. Mordi and Mani had spent a lot of time doing their presentation last night and set off very early to the hospital. Alex was unwell and victim number 2 of Deli Beli. He had got a bug last night and spent the whole day on the sofa guarding the house for us. We had a basic breakfast of bananas and cakes and got to the school fashionably late at 9.45. Marin, Viran, Roy, Mario and I headed off to the latrines far far away to carry on. I helped Mario put in the stones, but was quite tired, even though it was Monday. The others dug the new hole hopefully with no water filling it this time. Mario had great precision and skill in his work in placing and cementing the stones and I was very impressed. He was also slow and methodical but got the job done. I put all the local children in the wheelbarrow at one stage in order to dispose of them as they kept on coming back for more games. There was the sound of music in the background, apparently a school band preparing for national day. There were also a few ghetto blasters playing the gasoline raggaeton song. Frank and Dave had built a serious rapport with their family, despite their lack of Spanish, as they were still on the second latrine digging out rock. At some stage earlier in the week the woman had got annoyed because they thought they had lost the trowel and went on a magical mystery tour with Fr Joe around the village before finally telling him that they were looking for our trowel, not hers! Everyone’s beards were coming along nicely. But Fr Joe and the Doctors were not participating in the shaving strike and the Chinos beard growth was quite slow comparatively (they were not in serious contention). Dave was by far in the lead with quite a length. Martin was also doing well and Frank had loads of stubble. Alex had some bum fluff.

            In the afternoon, eating lunch on the minibus, we met the British Ambassador to Costa Rica and Nicaragua at a disabled school in Jinotepe. We had quite a wait and it was a very well endowed school thanks to the British government. They had workshops there, painting and clothes making to do for 25 disabled children. The Press Officer Bruce Callow might come to Netherhall to say hello when he comes to London. Everyone there was very nice, although it was not obvious what quite we were doing there. We went back to the school, but it was raining and after doing very little work we played football in the rain and went home earlier. Supper was delicious as usual as it was chicken. We had a conversation about smuggling drugs into the UK and saw some of Robert’s photos on Mordi’s computer. Some went to the Internet and Mordi and Mani prepared another presentation in their busy schedule. Fr Joe had also visited Villages and been with them around places. Alex was feeling a lot better when we got back.

 

Tuesday 6^th September

 

Mass in the morning, and Roy had his slippers stolen from the Church by an allegedly pious man passing by! Had a great faff getting back into the house and waiting for people to get organised. Working on the far latrines today, got stuck on some very hard rock at the bottom of the hole. The 3 children next door were very badly behaved and I had a water fight with them. I dribbled around lots of 10-year-old kids and scored lots of goals at lunch time like usual playing football. Alvaro gave a talk on the sanctification of the workplace and work in general. I continued to read perspectives in theology by Fr Edward Holloway- it was not that good. In the evening quite a few of use went to the Internet café and Martin managed to fall over flat on his face in the middle of the street on all fours. This was much to the amusement of Dave who laughed for the next 30 minutes. Mani stitched his wound up back at the house. Fr Joe entertained us with some of his jokes: The rabbit with Mixamitoasties, the circumcised fly and hell drink mixture at the bar. His acting on his jokes was great. Mani talked about how there were too many people to see him and they wanted to patients too quickly much to his annoyance. He said that some doctors tie down their kid patients in the operating room in a cruel way! That had recently changed though. Had a good chat with Roy late in the evening as he was always out side smoking. Alvaro was doing the accounts into the night and he had clearly put quite a lot of work into the trip as everything had run well. Martin was not feeling to well and was out for the rematch of the football on Thursday – or so he thought. Alex said he had 9 blisters in one day because he was such an amazing worker. The doctors had met a major in the town today. The Doctors yet again were preparing presentations in order to teach the local doctors on how to improve their methods of paediatrics.

 

Wednesday 7^th September

 

Talk at 7.15 by Fr Joe on Mary and her position in the salvation of the world. She is the mother of the Church and of all believers since Jesus said, “behold your mother” on the cross. The magnificat is testimony of her position in the Church which we say every day at 12 and she is blessed from Gospel narratives. We had sugary bread for breakfast and porridge. At work we continued 3 latrines, one was going slowly and the other hit rock big time. The gasoline song sounded good and oil prices have risen sharply so I don’t imagine anyone likes petrol much at the moment. Tuna and Pasta for lunch and then it was back to work. Fr Joe and Robert went to a village and we were down on the workers front as there were not that many left. We listened to Josemaria Friends of God on the tape as spiritual reading for the day. There was no man of the house in the latrine we were digging as he died 2 years ago. It was one small shack for 6 people with minimal space and comfort. We had a votive Mass and there was a slightly mad guy in the Church- thankfully he went away. The school building was almost ready to be painted. In the evening we had a good meat supper and a guy from a Nicaragua promotion investment agency ProNicaragua gave a talk, possibly in an attempt to get investment for his country. He didn’t sound too convincing. By now we knew the dire nature of the economy and the lack of prospects for the young despite his attempts to tell us that there was potential in Nicaragua. The poor guy had water dripping on his head before he tried to talk which said a lot for Nicaragua’s development. Apparently the EU puts pressure on the country to adopt anti life measures. The Miss Nicaragua competition was developing in La Prensa, the national broadsheet. Still wondering what is happening politically in the country? What happened to that coup d’etat? What is this German Aleman guy doing hanging around politics here (joke)? Lots of talking and there is all talk about those going home and going back to work at home on Monday.

 

Thursday 8^th September – Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 

As normal quite a bit of faffing in morning. We had prayer very early in the morning and then went to Mass at the Church. A few people missed it as they were still in bed. We had a half-day of work in essence as we got to site at 9.30 and played football at 5.30 back at the village. I worked with Fr Joe and Martin on the far latrines that we had almost finished. Fr Joe got his shoes mended for 70p really professionally. The holes for latrines were virtually on non-porous solid rock and the only method was to dig a trench and then hitting it with pieces on a now blunt pole. Some work! The gloves were the most minging horrible things as they were rubber and full of sweat. It was horrible putting them on, but if you didn’t, you would get blisters. There was an annoying boy who we tied to a tree and to see if they would rescue him. The other children did have a sense of camaraderie and came to rescue him immediately. They should have been at school for their two hours of school a day in an Erikson style rotation system at School. We lost to Northern Ireland 1-0 oh dear. The kids at school harassed us for lunch like usual. Fr Joe gave a talk in the school on sexuality in one of the classrooms, so it was like we were back at school. It was on complementarity between man and woman, marriage, love, contraception and homosexuality. We had 1 1/2 hours of work in the afternoon before we played against the same team in an epic rematch of Saturday. In the end we drew 2-2 and Fr Joe Scored as did one of his pals from the village, after a goalmouth scramble. We kept our feet and they scored a thriller from out of the box to lead one nil in the first half. We only played 30 minutes a half. Dave and Viran did not play. Fr Joe was our man down the right but struggled in the conditions but scored a decent goal set up by me. We could have nabbed it at the end, but it was not to be. They had lots of chances but Hiro in goal was a hero. No cows to split the defence this time but they had left their cow pats. In the evening we did loads of packing and a big chat.

 

Friday 9^th September- Memorial of St Peter Claver

 

Last day of work today. A very slow start and did not get there until 10.30am, after Mass and pancakes for breakfast. Dave had recruited a highly useful local lad who allegedly had built a latrine 20 metres deep by working 16 hours a day for who knows how long (the statistics sounded unlikely on this one!) 3 local ladies had also written us a 3 page thank you letter that was extremely kind of them and very sweet and full of praiseworthy comments. Both the kids in the house of my latrine had malnutrition and probably worms so if this one latrine could do some good it would be good. Mario still had quite a bit of work to do in concreting up another 3 latrines, and build the covers. We gave his son the football. The major part of entertainment came in the afternoon when the school put on a show as a kind of thank you for our endeavours. It involved all the kids standing in a big square. First we heard the national anthem, sung to us by 4^th, 5ht and 6^th grades (we applauded them and they applauded themselves and got told off). One of the older girls invited half of us (Alwin first) to do some raunchy dancing embarrassingly in front of everyone for a few minutes. Then we saw some traditional Nicaraguan dance from a young lad who thought he was Jack the Lad and two girls with long dresses that they held. Then 3 young girls came to do a basic dance before we had the old man and the old woman. The headmaster and Alvaro, our bearded leader gave a talk. We were then presented with beautiful dolls as a thank you - it was very special as they were so ornate and decorated. We handed them lots of sweets and there was a small riot in the fight down to the last sweet as we hurled them in the air after everyone had had one. We went back to the house after such an emotional goodbye and even to Erica. There was not water in the house as someone left the reserves on. Then it pissed with rain and we had a shower outside instead, with some funny pictures as a consequence. A new craze started, the Texan ‘tache – Alvaro, Dave, Frank and I decided to ditch the beard and have ridiculous moustaches on the way home. We finally cleaned up and Mani and Mordi appeared because we were so late. It was also Alex’s birthday and we signed a card for him and he got a great cake for supper. We had a meaty meal and sung happy Birthday. WE got some flowers for the two helpers to say thank you and one of them was really impressed because she had never had flowers in her life before. We drove to Managua and overtaking lots of lorries on the InterAmericana (which is single lane) got to the centre late. After seeing some of Robert’s 600 pictures Fr Joe also gave a great talk on the Apostolate, on who is to do the work of Christ if nobody else is. Some guys did some painting at the school and got covered in white paint, especially Robert and Martin! Overall a great day.

 

Saturday 10^th September/Sunday 11^th September

 

We all went to the airport and said our goodbyes after a successful fortnight together. There had been good unity in the group and no troublemakers or complaining at all. Frank, Alvaro, Dave, Alex, Mordi, Robert all got flights while the others were left waiting a day. We got a Takky Tica flight to Miami where you had to pay for food, but at least the flight was only 2 hours longs. At Miami, we contemplated going to long beach but we didn’t have the time. Then it was Air France in a horrible flight to France. I was stuck next to some screaming kid all the way home. Grrrrrrrr. It was Madagascar and Herbie the Beatle as the films. Then we had a quick change over in Paris and went to the beautiful new terminal there which looks like a train station. We saw some horrible pictures of hurricane Katrina that has been the non-stop story in our absence. At Heathrow a few more goodbyes and the end to a very successful trip….