Nicaragua $1 U.S. Dollar = 18 Cordobas Capital: Managua

We had a wonderful time in Nicaragua. It was the least touristy and commercialized compared to the other ports-of-call, which made me love it all the more. We docked in the little town of Corinto which really reminds me of my mom’s home town of Acaponeta, Nayarit in Mexico.We visited a number of towns during our visit: Leon, Granada, Masaya, and Managua. The towns of Leon and Granada were beautiful. Very colonial with breath-taking colors and architecture.Each of these towns had the typical plaza which is very common in most towns of Latin America. We listened to marimba music (similar to a wooden xylophone), guitars, and singing while we had a yummy lunch. We visited a live, active volcano called Momotombo.Cory and I were lucky enough to visit a school on our last day where he was able to sit in on an 8th grade math class, and I was able to sit in on an 8th grade English class! It was so much fun meeting the students and teachers.How lucky we are with all our facilities at B.E.!

We met a sweet boy who walked around with the group we were with when visiting the school. Many of us asked him why he was not at school and he had a number of different answers for each of us: his teacher is sick, he doesn’t own shoes so he can’t go to school, he’s going tonight, he’s going tomorrow. We found out later (by talking to a family who owns a market in town)that this little boy doesn’t have a home, he lives on the streets, he doesn’t know how he got to Corinto, he doesn’t have family in the town, and he cannot go to school because he doesn’t have a house or family in Corinto. He never asked us for anything, just kept us company. This little boy is 10 years old, his name is Rudy...