harveyc

Beautiful country, but a bit more living in nature than most people would prefer. No electricity, plumbing, or latrine. They walk a mile to get drinking water. When it rains hard the water flows down the hill through their "house". Five people sleep on two pieces of foam. It must change.

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Patty in Wisc

Welcome back Harvey...glad you had a nice & rewarding trip. And to think - how we freak out when the power goes out!

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Got a lite?
Patty




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Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

bencelest

But remember if they have never experience the comfort of a civilization they are happy the way they live. If they have never tasted McDonald or sleep on a bed they would not missed it or looked for it. But I am sure they don't have complex problems like we do. They live a simple life. Their most worry is the food they will eat the next day. And for them that is very easy to do. Hunt for wild bird or whatever is available animal and for staples cut a tubers or edible grass. In our society our most worry is will I get fat if I eat at McDonald. AND BILLS and pollution..and now, economy and health care and war overseas....
I've been there, done that......

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Banana Nut

harveyc

Benny, I am quite certain that this family does not miss McDonald's. But I can assure you, they were not at all happy with their living conditions. They had asked for help and we are now providing it. I'd like to be able to go there to help build a better house but I was told that's probably not very wise (safe). In heavy rains, the floor of this house turns to mud as rain runs down the hill and through their house. But they were very happy to have visitors interested in hearing about their family.

Another girl we ended up sponsoring is part of a family of four that has rented a back patio to live on for the past eight years. They see people living in real houses and would like to have one of their own, but mostly need help for food and school clothing.

One older grandmother we visited along with her 14 year old grandson who was already being sponsored was delighted with our visit. The boy's parents were both dead and the grandmother was a widow and she did laundry to help provide for their needs. She told us that we had brought honor to her home with our presence. This brought a big lump to my throat.

We will be going back, though we don't know when.

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momoese

So Harvey, what was the deal with the oldest son. He's not able to work? Another question I have is do they have their own garden and or animals? If not, why not?

harveyc

Hi Mitchel.

Later on Hazel said she believed the oldest boy to be epileptic. I believe in the video she says that he's not supposed to go out and agitate himself but he does work in the field with his father some of the time. We also heard later on that there are some beliefs about medical conditions that seem odd, so it's hard to tell how serious this boy's condition might be.

I did not see any animals around this families place. The boundaries of their property wasn't clear and I doubt they have enough land for grazing something like a cow and it's more efficient to use grain (corn is grown locally) for human consumption than for livestock feed. We did see people with chickens at other homes we visited (those were all in the city). It would seem that this family could raise chickens well enough and I don't know why they don't. Maybe they ate them when they had no other food. Corn prices are high in the months prior to corn harvest and we were told it's often hard to have enough money to buy food during those months.

I didn't see many gardens and that puzzled me, but I didn't think to ask why they were not common. I did see bananas around many homes with many large mats around the house where we sponsored another girl in another town. Noni was growing in from of another house we visited and there were often other fruits I wasn't familiar with. I think some of the translators may have grown tired of me asking about the various plants! It did not rain much while we were there (two brief downpours) and water supplies are not well-developed, so that may have something to do with the gardening, though the countryside was always rather lush in appearance so I think people should be able to grown some of their own food. I took some Kona Sugarloaf pups, melon, tomato, onion, and pepper seeds to the girl we've sponsored for 11 years to give to her father. I hope he grows them.

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momoese

That was smart to bring them seeds. Are they able to receive mail there?

harveyc

We do mail letters and it is suggested that we only send photos or very small things as the postal service there is reportedly corrupt.

On our last day they had a little bit of time allocated for us to shop for souvenirs. Get took very little time for that, spending about $10, and then had the program director take us to a nearby shoe store so that we could buy some shoes for Claudia (the girl we've sponsored for 11 years) since they said they could get them to her the following Monday. That was the best way we could get something to her. We also left some money with the program director to help out immediate needs for the other two children we sponsored rather than have them wait for our paperwork to go through since the mail service is pretty slow (we mailed a letter to Claudia 3 weeks before we left but she still didn't have it when we got there).

I'll probably do more of the seed thing the next time we go back but I need to spend more time investigating to make sure I'm making good choices.

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harveyc

These videos take a long time to upload, around 12 hours for this latest one which is a video of when we met a young girl and her family. My wife and I decided to help out and sponsor her also. The older sister is not sponsored but the CFCA founder (the older gentleman, Bob, in the video) made it clear to the family that the older sister must remain in school if the younger sister is to be sponsored. The video is long (9:57) and much of it is slow conversation, so you might not want to watch it all. It is fun, though, to see the pride that young Maykeliner (an unusual name even in Nicaragua) takes in her school work that she shows to Bob. Their are also two social workers in the video and the younger guy is someone who has a university scholarship. The "scholarships", as they are called, are required to give back by donating time to help by completing information sheets on families, helping sponsored children write letters, and just checking up on sponsored families.

This family had more bananas than any other family we visited.

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MediaHound

Beautiful, this is very kind of you.

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Apologies in advance if I am slow to reply to your PM. I suggest posting in the forums for support if you need something urgent.

harveyc

Not related to Nicaragua, but I was checking out CFCA's web site and thought others might be interested in seeing some photos of the Philippines where CFCA also has projects:
Photos from the Philippines Around the World with CFCA

I can related, we lost our house to flooding in 1972 just before I turned 15. But it was just an area of 13,000 acres and maybe only a few thousand were directly affected, so there was a lot of help from surrounding areas.

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