Most of the GSLIS girls and boys were up early to head out by 8:15 on our first book mobile trip out to the campo (countryside). We had a tasty breakfast made and served by Roxana, the hotel’s mistress of all things breakfast, sister to Edwin, and mother to Luis Carlos. After the feeding frenzy and a delectable cup of the SJDS Biblioteca coffee farm coffee (you too can enjoy this tasty coffee for just $10 a bag, and have the double satisfaction of knowing that you are supporting the library. Contact me, or any of the trip participants, and we’ll hook you up.), we headed to the library, which is literally a stones throw from the hotel. Jane gave us a tour, and we piled into the back of our sweet ride. It has leopard print seats! As has been covered before, the best way to get around Nicaragua is in the back of a truck. While I was initially apprehensive, the leopard print seats combined with the wrought iron people-cage and fresh breeze convinced me to give it a whirl. And whirl we did, hair blowing in the wind as we bounced joyously down the road to our first visit.

Biblioteca Movil + GSLIS = Riding in style, photo by Lauren

The Or-aguan Trail

After bumping along country roads, fording small rivers (otherwise known as creeks), and passing several teams of oxen we arrived at our destination: Oregon. Kidding, I actually never found out the name of our site, which is a shame. If anyone in the group remembers and wants to correct me, by all means chime in! Anydoodle, our first trip out on the SJDS Biblioteca Movil took us to what is normally a two room, open air school house. Since the schools were all still on vacation, we had to squeeze in through barbed wire to get into the schoolyard.

One room of the open air, two room school house that was our site visit

From what I gather, when the book mobile goes out to schools, there is usually quite a crowd because there is a whole school full of kids jonesing for their literary fix. Since school was out, it took a little while for kids to trickle in, long enough for me to have one of my most terrifying bathroom experiences ever. It involved a tin floored latrine that kind of buckled when I stepped onto it, a seat that might have been designed for children, and hearing an animal in the bushes outside (it turned out to be three somewhat little piggies). Visions of Slumdog Millionaire were dancing through my head.

3 little piggies go to school

Once kids started turning up, we started chatting them up, asking what kinds of books they liked or getting them to read to us. While we had our smallest turnout, the kids were all eager to see the books and sweet enough to talk to us. Nelly, another SJDS librarian, asked me to read Cordoroy again, which I did, before suggesting a pick up game of soccer. Erikka, Jeremy and I took on a team of three boys. While I’d say two of the three were no taller than my hips, and the other was wearing flip flops, they gave us a run for our money!

Soccer

On our way out, a local woman and her kids came running up late. Very kindly, the staff took out the books, and let them take their pick before sending them off with a snack. It made me really happy when the mother chose a book for herself; it may have been a kids chapter book, but it was a book nonetheless. In a country where much of the adult population came of age in extremely tumultuous times and is consequently illiterate, this was a very hopeful and heartwarming thing to witness.

Gringobus!

On our way to SJDS, we stopped in Granada for a delish lunch and jaunt around the town. I lived life on the edge and tried two Nicaraguan specialities for lunch. I had the coyolito, a drink that is certainly “muy sabroso.” It is made from a berry of (I think) a cactus fruit, and is a bit spicy and almost gingery, but is still sweet and refreshing. Two thumbs way up! I also tried the guapote, a fresh water fish that lives in Lake Nicaragua/Cocibolca. It too was muy sabroso, especially accompanied by the live folk music performance with which we were serenaded. For desert, we had a dance performance by Erikka and Edwin, Nicaragua’s Lord of the Dance.

Nica Lord of the Dance

The Chef, forgetting to grill my lunch

We had a bit of time to wander around the town before heading back out. Granada is beautiful architecturally, and was clearly a popular tourist destination.

Granada Cathedral

Granada is known for its beautiful doors. Color me jealous! I want doors to my house that look like this!

Excitingly, as we sat in the shade of the cathedral listening to the music from the service after our frantic shopping endeavors, the Bibliobus, a German-Nicaraguan library endeavor (serving primarily prisons) that apparently predates Jane’s SJDS Biblioteca Movil project, pulled up down the road! We took off on a hunt for the founder, who turned out to be a spry 80 something year old German woman, who was as perky and adorably motivational as you can imagine! Since she spoke no English, and we spoke no German, I think that her Bibliobus project serves prison communities…but I could be totally wrong!

Bibliobus

Our goose hunt took us to the local art school, where a few of us wound up getting some beautiful paintings by a student. I purchased one called “Sirena,” or “Mermaid.” Also nearby? A donut shop. Erikka gamely tried the Boston Crème and gave it a big thumbs up.

What could that be?

Erikka traveled to Nicaragua from Boston JUST for this Boston Creme!

We piled back into our van, now driven by Miguel, since Richard was unavailable. Miguel is just as lovely and has beautiful eyes (I said it! You all thought it!). We did a quick drive down to the shore of the lake, but ultimately decided that we’d rather head straight to SJDS rather than take a boat trip at twilight (Edward Cullen was unavailable). Allegedly, there are fresh water sharks in the lake, but they are close to extinct. I was okay with not using myself as bait to test the theory.

We arrived in SJDS at our home away from home, Hotel Villa Isabella shortly after dark, checked in, got a little dolled up, and headed up to the Pelican Eyes resort for a traditional Nicaraguan happy hour night cap, featuring Flor de Cana, juices of sorts, and a florescent green cherry. MMmmacaus!

Mmmmmacaus!

We spent the night in Managua again on our way south, which meant that we were able to get in a site visit to Tipitapa, a community on the outskirts of Managua and another Wisconsin-Nicaragua partner library. I have to say, this was probably my favorite site visit of the trip, for a number of reasons. We were warmly welcomed by Dona Rosa, the librarian whose house is also home to the library, her young assistants, Karen and Carla, and a bunch of children who were at the library. Through the volunteer staff’s hard work, persistence, and dedication, the site has prospered and has been really valued by the community.

Dona Rosa welcomes us to Tipitapa

It seems like Tipitapa is a site that really gets it; there are a wide range of books in Spanish for kids of all ages, and they are all about the subjects kids actually want, like dinosaurs, animals, magic, etc. I was pleased with the diversity in the collection too; while this is clearly a library mostly for children, there is consideration for all reading levels, including adults. Jeremy made the excellent point that the bookshelves are on a level easily accessed by children.

Courtyard in the Tipitapa Biblioteca

Lauren reads a story in Tipitapa

One of my favorite moments of the entire trip occurred in Tipitapa when I was checking out the book room with some young boys. Fishing for questions I could handle asking in my bumbling Spanish, I settled on asking them to show me their favorite book on the shelf was. My little posse of boys eagerly started looking through the shelves, and one of them made a grab for a book. He pulled it down and thus began one of the more amusing conversations I’ve ever had in Spanish; it was about “dinosauros,” (I think you can all handle the translation on that one). Dudes, I have trouble pronouncing dinosaur names in ENGLISH. Throw in some accents and rolled r’s in with 13 to 15 letters, and voila, here comes Tiranosaurante Rex. Luckily, the language of little boys is universal, so the roars needed no translation, and nor did the mockery of me when I told them that my favorite dinosaur is the triceratops (sorry, no translation. Also, admit it, I know I’m not the only one to have read Homer Price and the Enormous Egg and fantasized about having my very own pet triceratops!), and a picture of a T-Rex eating a triceratops was instantly produced.

Outside of this, the library is clearly a library with the goal of serving the community in mind. The kids feel comfortable here, evidenced by the fact that they all had no problem marching right into the book room and browsing leisurely to their hearts content. The women who work here know the children by name and are equally respected by the kids, who were actively engaged in a number of activities (a passion for crayons, like little boy language, seems to be universal). Moreover, the kids here were super friendly to us, despite their initial shyness, which to me indicates they felt comfortable there, even with all these day-glo white strangers talking at them in gibbersish.
While helping kids make Cordoroy calendars, I had the singular pleasure of meet a boy with perhaps the best name ever…Maverick. For those of you who don’t know, one my all time favorite movies hands down is Topgun. I contemplated asking him if he had a best friend named Goose, but figured I’d play it cool and settle for photographic evidence of my encounter with Maverick. I attempted to take a picture of him with his calendar, which had his name written across the top. Tragically, the writing didn’t turn up in the picture! You’ll just have to take my word that there is a boy by the name of Maverick living somewhere in Tipitapa, Managua, communicating, keeping up foreign relations, and maybe even requesting a fly by.

Maverick!

I’d also like to add that Dona Rosa showed some of us a slide show she’d put together of a project the volunteer librarians have taken upon themselves to start. They have started doing a pseudo bookmobile of their own to the dump in Managua, which sadly has a community living in it, and a good number of children. She showed me pictures of the holiday party that they threw for the kids, which included a small gift and snack for the kids. It’s kind of incredible that these women do this; the sites we visited on the trip could probably be considered as being below the poverty line. Yet these women who already selflessly volunteer their time, go far and beyond their responsibilities and are working to bring literacy and books to the poorest of the poor in Nicaragua. To say I’m impressed and a little bit awed is an understatement.

Cordoroy Calendars in Tipitapa

As we hit the road, we were showered with hug and kisses from the library staff, the kids, and the adults there. Dona Rosa told us that we should consider the library ours too. I have to admit I got a little misty! All in all, it was a great visit, and I hope that Tipitapa continues to do the fabulous work they have been, both inside and outside their community. They’re clearly doing something right!

Our day started off bright and early in Chinandega with a walk around town before we headed out to the visit a site on our way back to Managua. We had heard that there were two crocodiles in a park, but our waiter told us that they had been deemed too dangerous for children (uh…yeah?) and were no longer there. It turned out to be a great morning for a wander about town, despite the lack of reptile watching opportunities. We somehow wound up timing our early bird stroll perfectly to run into a group of tourists of a certain early bird age, who may or may not have been on a bus tour from a cruise ship. I think our lady-bunch got the best end of the deal, as we were treated to a show of traditional dances, and had the freedom to wander around the town of our own accord.

Oh snap, free show!

Folk dancers in Ameya

After observing many a Nicaraguan woman wearing some super-stylin’ aprons, I decided that I, too, needed one, and managed to find a beaut of an apron in a little store on the same street as the folk dance.

Don’t hate the player…

I’m super pleased with my purchase, even if I have a sneaking suspicion that the store owner may have sold me his wife’s favorite apron while she was out (or something). It comes with ruffles, three pockets, ribbons, and looks even more stylin’ in person. It was only $10, but will bring me ten years of joy. It’s okay that you’re all jealous; this piece is priceless.

We headed out to the local library in Chinandega, which is a Wisconsin/Nicaragua partner library run by Dona Malva, a former school teacher (I think that was her story). The Chinandega library was interesting, and our hosts were very gracious and proud of their library. I don’t want to judge it unfairly, since we were there on a day the it is usually closed on and to boot, during a vacation. I noticed that the collection was different from what I saw in other places; some books looked like they’d never been touched, others appeared out of date, and others were clearly a little too well loved, and most seemed to be nonfiction books. I read Cordoroy for the second time to an audience of middle school aged boys, which was a little different. It did seem like they had never really been to the library before; Dona Malva didn’t know their names. I found it kind of telling that when we left, the boys all surrounded the van not to say goodbye, but to ask for money, a striking difference from the other sites.

However, I was super impressed that the boys were attentive and polite; my guess is that the average pack of 12 year old American boys would have written me off on around page one of a picture book. It was clear that Dona Malva and co had put a lot of work into getting things set up “just so,” for the visit though, and I’m trying to keep this in mind when I think about the library. When does a youth library EVER have the books lined up perfectly? Ummm…NEVER. Spooky. The library building also doubles as a place where women can go to learn how to sew using machines, which was kind of cool, except we were interrupted before finding out more about the lessons (cost, materials, etc.), so I don’t know if it is a community service or what. In general, it was a solid visit, with good people who may just be a bit too focused on collection development over community need. And, retrospectively, I’m sure the Chinandega staff were nervous about impressing us and the SJDS staffers, which probably didn’t give us an entirely accurate view of how things actually are there. However, in awesome news, Jeremy now has a pack of Nicaraguan teenage fangirls with headquarters in Chinandega. How do you say “Tiger Beat Magazine” in Spanish?

Pictures from Chinandega:

Chinandega Library

Inside the Chinandega library

Chinandega storytime

Dona Malva

Hotel Camino Real, aka our Managua home base, has a delish all you can eat buffet in the mornings, and may be the reason why I went to a third world country and gained 45 pounds. HCR also has a special feature I discovered early in the morning on day 2 whilest following a very interesting sign on an exploratory jaunt around the premises:

What could this be?

Venados!

Yeah, that’s right. Deer, or venados, si se habla espanol. Wee, knee high deer to be precise. And not just deer…

Hello, dinner

One big, loud, pavo, or turkey si se habla ingles. No deets on his presence were available. HCR is also attached to a casino with a giant neon pharoh head on it, appropriately titled Pharoh’s Casino. I contemplated gambling for the first time here, but the waves of cigarette smoke and video slot machines kind of turned me off. I’m mostly disappointed I didn’t get a picture of it. I suppose my pic of Senor Pavo more than makes up for it though!

After partaking in some buffet breakfast gluttony, the GSLIS crew met up with Heydi, SJDS librarian and total sweetheart, Noelia, another SJDS librarian sweetheart (and only 19 years old!), Luis Carlos, Edwin’s nephew and a SJDS guybrarian (16 year old, but so mature we didn’t realize this until his mom told us later in the week), and Richard, our awesome driver. We piled into our 12 passenger silver chariot, bound north for Chinandega, with a CD filled with soft rock 80’s songs serenading us. The road took us past Lake Managua (or Lake Xolotlcn to the locals; the names are apparently interchangeable), and past several volcanoes we spotted in the distance, which incited a camera flash riot in the back of the van.

Volcanoes on the road to north

We arrived right around lunchtime in Chinandega, and went to Subway. Something to take note of in Nicaragua: restaurants, even fast food ones, are…not fast. Not even medium speed. Even at a fast food sandwich shop, it took close to an hour for our 15 person group to all get served. This meant we were running kind of late, and had to jet almost immediately off to our first site visit at Ameya.
Ameya is a small village on the outskirts of Chinandega. From what I can gather, the villagers are primarily farmers, making a living off the land. Jane planned a snack of chocolate milk and Nutragrain bars. She told us that for many of the kids, this could have been their only meal that day; giving the kids a nutritious yet delicious snack was more of a priority that stunning them with sugar.

Our arrival was a bit overwhelming for our GSLIS gringo pack. We pulled in to a crowd of close to 200 children dressed in their best, partaking in some sort of dance contest, and quite possibly the most frightening clown I’ve ever seen.

Enjoy those inevitable nightmares!

We were introduced with a warm welcome and promptly thrown into some field day games. Erikka may have lost the potato sack race to children half her size, but a little boy lost his pants, so I suppose his pride might have been slightly more damaged than hers.

Erikka’s race

Rounds and rounds of field games later (egg races, wheelbarrow races, musical chairs, etc.) we got to my personal favorite part: story time! For the majority of you who don’t know me, I’m an aspiring youth services librarian, currently holding down two jobs in libraries for teens and children. I did a little bit of majoring in Spanish in college back in the day. Ergo, one of my biggest interests in the pursuit of my degree/career/happiness is the development and furthering of Spanish language youth programming. Ergo, I was excited for this part of the afternoon.

The SJDS Biblioteca picks a book of the year each year, which is read at the main library and is also brought to all the sites visited by the book mobile. This year’s selection is Cordoroy, and past selections have included Ferdinand and Clifford. I was definitely nervous when Jane asked me to do the reading. While I’ve done story hours, my experience would best be described as limited…limited to groups of 15-20 at the most, not close to 200, and also limited to the English language, not a language I was three years rusty in speaking or even understanding! Despite my jitters, the kids were wonderful and respectful, and the reading went really well despite my few stumbles over words; some kids got so into the story they crowded around behind me to look at the pictures up close.

Yikes!

We transitioned into a raffle to distract the children while we prepared a snack for 200, which involved making chocolate milk in a water cooler and then rationing it out into 200 servings. Who says math isn’t useful to librarians? Yeesh! Luckily, it was easier than it sounded, the only nervewracking part being when we finally served the snack and were almost bum-rushed by lines of the cutest and best behaved rioters I’ve ever seen.

Bags and bags and bags of milk

It was a great day and visit. Jane left several boxes of clothing for the future distribution in the community, and several boxes of books as part of her library in a box starter kit. The kids left with a good snack in them and with new stuffed animals they’d won in the raffle or games. Our GSLIS group left feeling that we’d helped do something really fun in a community that probably doesn’t get to let their hair down very often, and help generate excitement and interest in reading, which will hopefully get the Ameya library off to the right start!

To those who don’t know me, my name is Steph, and I’m a 1/3 of the way through my degree at GSLIS. I received the Nicaragua travel fellowship (thanks, guys!) and am now blogging about it to you, captive audience! After spending a week and change in beautiful, sunny, friendly, lovely 90 degree Nicaragua (can you tell I’ve fallen in love much?), our rowdy band of 9 future librarians has returned to Boston just in time for the arctic cold snap. This is simultaneously bad and good; bad for the obvious “I can see my breath inside” reasons, and good because it’s motivated me to scheme up ways to get back to Nicaragua and San Juan del Sur asap. If I happen come off like a crazed fangirl for the project and/or Jane Mirandette, I’m not sorry. It is a fantabulous (this may not be a real word, but it certainly is a fantabulously descriptive one) thing, and Jane is an incredibly hard working and motivated inspiration for a starry eyed babe-rarian like myself.
To start my posts, I’ve decided to give a brief overview of the entire trip, possibly adding some thoughts in after. And by brief, obviously I mean it’ll be around 45 pages long…but I’ll try and rein it in and save some deep and meaningfuls for later in the game.

Day 1, or January 4, 2009

I left bright and early on a cold winter morning for Logan, convinced that my connection to Managua through Miami was going to be cancelled or something. A not so small part of me is convinced that MIA is actually the Hellmouth, due to numerous security screw ups, delayed flights, overbooked flights, cancelled flights, extended stays on the tarmac, constant construction, lost luggage, vampire sightings etc. Also, in this fantasy, obviously I am Buffy. But I digress; those are thoughts for a whole other kind of blog. After arriving on time at MIA, six of us met up and continued through the twisting and turning maze of terminals, and after a bit of a wait, made it onto our flight to Managua. The temperature upon arrival? 90 degrees farenheit. Hoorah! Jane (my newest girl crush), the founder of the San Juan del Sur (henceforth SJDS) Biblioteca project and Edwin, one of her fabulous staffers, met us at the doors and promptly ferried us to the Hotel Casa Real in Managua, where we swiftly shed winter wear in favor of summer frocks and the like, and decamped to receive our itineraries by the pool. Jane gave us the run down, our tentative itinerary, and some beautifully decorated goodie bags that contained maps of Nicaragua, tissues, and my new best friend, hand sanitizer. We ate dinner there, right next to the pool. I tried the churrasco tipico, which was delish, but didn’t know until I had a bite left that the sauces on the table were actually to put on the meat. Le sigh! Live and learn.
Since we had three more people arriving later in the night, we had planned on taking the hotel shuttle over to the airport to pick them up. A minor glitch occurred when we realized there was no shuttle; we were unaware that it was a holiday (still not sure which one). Jessica and I jumped into a cab and scooted down the road to the airport, where we had a momentary panic after seeing nobody in baggage claim and discovering that we were in fact late. Luckily, Lauren, Erikka and Charlie were just outside the gates at another entrance. Phew! Crisis averted, we headed back to the hotel, where I promptly passed out.

Pictures later, when I master the art of adding them.

On the second day of our trip, we went on the bookmoblie to Pochote, located about 90 minutes south of San Juan del Sur, near the Costa Rican border. We stayed for a few hours, reading to the children, playing games, and talking.

My primary goal while in Nicaragua was to show the workers at the library how to use LibraryThing.com and begin inputting the books in their collection. I got a good start on the book collection while I was experimenting to see what issues might come up.

I also created a PowerPoint to introduce the basic features of LibraryThing. This was used for a brief presentation at the ANIBIPA gathering which I was unable to attend. The PowerPoint will probably also be helpful as a reminder for the library workers as they continue. Another guide on ‘troubleshooting’ in LibraryThing would also be useful.

That may not sound like too much work, but it was plenty! Quite labor-intensive. Otherwise, I went on the mobile library a couple times, made a lot of great contacts, and even got to enjoy a bit of the laid back Nicaraguan lifestyle!

There are many wonderful projects going on in San Juan Del Sur. These are sanitary water filters made at the Newton Workshop for Appropriate Technologies. In addition to Library Jane’s network of librarians and educators, we have met so many people engaged in public health service, environmental projects, adult education, and more. SJDS is an ideal location for field work, research, thesis projects… and surfing!

Lydia mans the “circulation desk” at one of the Movil stops. Heidi organizes library cards, and shy little girls chat with us.