In June of 2008, a group of eleven of us Americans went on a Mission Trip to Nicaragua.
Seven of us were from Heritage Presbyterian Church in Mason. I am writing this a few days after our return, simply because I would like to share a little about the wonderful work that is being done at Samaritano Mission; and I want a way to remind myself of the good times with the group, and the meaningful experiences with the Nicaraguans.  I want to have this to share with someone if… in a few years into the future, (say in 2010 or 2011), I  might decide to go back; and I might want to convince someone else to go with me. Below are some memories and impressions to go along with the 117 digital photos that I took on the trip.  Some of the “facts”, given below may be not be precisely accurate. They are simply my memories and impressions.

The purpose of  the trip was to support “El Samaritano Mission”.  This mission is small, but extremely effective in helping the people in Managua that it is able to touch.  The mission is guided by Dr. Nour Sirkir and his wife Carolyn Sirkir.  We provided labor to paint at the Samuelito School, and to paint one of the two Samaritano guesthouses.  At the Samuelito School, we also did gardening, planted bushes (periwinkle, boxwood, and beaugenvilia (sp?)), weeded, raked, and cleared debris. We also went to two of the hospitals in Managua to distribute layettes to new mothers in the maternity wards.  Also, we served by spending time with the kids doing fun projects.   

The group was composed of seven of us from Heritage Presbyterian Church in Mason, Ohio, and four more who were organized by First Methodist Church in Milford, Ohio. The visit occurred in the period from 6-21-08 through 6-29-08. 

Managua is the capital and largest city in Nicaragua.  Most of the 1.3 million people in the city live in poverty.  The conditions can at times bring tears to your eyes.  Yet the school kids appear clean, healthy, and happy.  I am hoping that persons who read this will consider becoming a sponsor of a child in one of the two Samaritano Schools ($25 per month). 

The trip was fun!  These experiences were priceless:
Getting to know the ten other “missionaries.”
Doing daily morning devotions with the group.
Doing the fun projects with the kids at Samuelito.
Eating two meals per day on the patio.
Sightseeing on Saturday, 6-28-08, highlighted by our trip to “Monkey Island.”   

The Samaritano Mision has three primary mission sites in the Managua area.  Two of these are in Nejapa a community in the western outskirts of Managua.  The community has lots of trees, but no lawns.  The roads are mostly dirt, but some are paved.  The roads wind through the trees, in a rather random pattern.  To the sides of the roads, usually about twenty yards away, you can see the homes.  The typical Nejapa home has poured concrete walls, a corrugated meal roof, windows with bars but no glass, out-houses, electricity, but usually without running water, and always without hot running water. 

In Nejapa there is a small Samaritano Compound, which has a medical clinic building, and an outpatient surgical building, and the Sirkir’s home, and two guesthouses where “missionaries” like us can stay when we come to Nicaragua to work.  Dr. Sirkir is now in his late 60’s so he now spends more time guiding the foundation, while leaving a major part of the medical practice to his employee, Dr. Hernandez, a young female Nicaraguan.  Most of the medicines available to the practice are donations from the United States.  The typical charge for a visit to the clinic, from a local person looking for medical services, is $2. This $2 (40 Cordobas in Nicaraguan money) is designed to cover the cost of Dr. Herandez’ services. If this clinic were not there, most of the people of Nejapa would have no reasonable access to basic medical services. 

About a mile from the clinic sits the Samuelito School.  The property sits on several acres, so there is room to expand.  And the school is expanding.  Right now, it has grades “Age 4 Preschool” through Third Grade (5 grades).  The plan is to add one grade per year up through Eleventh Grade.  In Nicaragua, students typically graduate after the eleventh grade at about age 16.5 or 17, instead of after the twelfth grade at age 17.5 or 18.  Also, the term kindergarten is not used.  Five year olds go to “Age 5 Preschool”, which is about the same thing as kindergarten.  At Samuelito School, the younger three grades go to school from about 7 am to about 11 am.  The older two grades go from about 12 noon to about 5 pm. The younger kids get a meal before they go home.  The older kids get a meal after they arrive.  There is a “picnic shelter” at Samuelito that serves as a church on Sunday mornings.

The Emilia Sirkir School is in a very urban area of Managua called “Santa Rosa”.  Santa Rosa is on the eastern side of Managua toward the airport, in contrast to Nejapa which is on the western outskirts.  The area is not very pretty, and like most of Managua, it looks very poor, old, and not well maintained.  To me it classifies as a slum area. The buildings are usually only one story tall.  The homes in Santa Rosa are similar to the homes in Nejapa, except for the fact that that they are packed next to each other, and are usually not under trees.  This school is on property which has about 60 feet of frontage on the street, and goes back maybe 120 feet.  In other words, it is small.  The entire area is paved with concrete and stone. There are four separate, but connected buildings. The “front yard” has a stone floor and is covered with a picnic shelter type of canopy.   There are about 12 computers, old by our standards, all donated from the US.  A nice new kitchen has just been constructed. 

This school goes only through the ninth grade.  Kids have to transfer to other schools to finish their last two years in order to graduate from high school.  The graduates from Santa Rosa almost always do very well in the last two years at any other school that they may go to, and usually finish near the top of their new classes. 

The schools give music education a priority.  The music teacher (Rigoberto) is obviously a talented and popular figure.  The children sang and danced for us on Teacher Appreciation Day (Thursday, June 26th) at both schools.  They did very well and I was impressed with the dancing abilities.  A lot of the girls had folklore dresses, which were usually white with colorful embroidery, and with long full skirts.  We in turn sang to them.  We sang, “You Are My Sunshine” in both English and Spanish.
A little girl named Franci was my favorite dancer. Her partner in her dance was a pretty girl dressed as a boy.

Several of the other “missionaries” in our group, are sponsors for one or more kids in one of the two schools.  And there are lots of other sponsors, back in the US.  These sponsors are needed in order to keep the schools running.  Our group feels encouraged to look for and find more sponsors to maintain the expanding work of the schools. Sponsorship costs $25 per month.  Donations of any amount are accepted.  It was special for some of our group to meet the specific child that they sponsored. Donation and sponsorship money go through a non-profit organization in the US, so that they can be deducted on US Income Tax.  This used to be handled through the N.I.C.E. Foundation, but was recently turned over to a Foundation in Austin, Texas.  However, new sponsorships are supposed to be through “Fort Lauderdale, Florida”.  Yes, I am a little confused, too. I have a form to fill out and mail if you want to donate or become a sponsor.

You can tell from the photos that the Samuelito guest house is really nice. There are twenty bunk beds so it can sleep 40 people, but if there were actually forty people, it would be crowded.  There were 2 rooms with 6 bunks each, that could sleep up to 12 in each room; and there were 2 more rooms with 4 bunks each, that could sleep up to 8 in each room. In the middle of the house, there was a kitchen and a common area with chairs, a lockable storage area, a guest refrigerator, and a washing machine.  There were several nice hammocks on the front porch, and there was a big beautiful back porch with tables and chairs for our meals.

Like the entire guest house, the washing machine had only cold water.  All showers were cold water only.  Due to the plumbing, we had to put any used toilet paper in the plastic bag lined garbage can, and not in the toilet or the toilet would clog. We had a bat that flew around in the guesthouse almost every evening, but he did not bother us.  We had several gecko lizards, that watched our evening meetings while sticking themselves vertically on the inside walls of the guesthouse. We always had several centipedes, voyaging across the guesthouse floor.  The flying insects were not too bad, although I was bothered by gnats at our Sunday morning church service, and we were all bothered by flies at one particular lunch meal we had under the shelter at the Samuelito School.  There are scorpions in Nicaragua, but we did not see any on this trip.

 The small guest house out back would sleep five.  We painted the entire inside of the small guest house. It is a nice house, but the tile floor needs some re-grouting and it also needs caulk in several places, to make it more liveable.

The airplane trip to Nicaragua was uneventful for most of us, except for Amy. Amy Marks, was coming from Binghamton, NY.  Her first flight was delayed, making it impossible to make flight connections.  So, she stayed in Miami Sunday night, 6-21-08. Her aunt, Diane Marks, volunteered to stay in Miami Sunday night also, instead of proceeding on to Managua with the rest of us.  One of Amy’s two suitcases never made it to Managua, and she was able to get it in Miami eight days later on her return trip.  Amy was a wonderful sport about this inconvenience.  Her late arrival and her missing suitcase did not dampen her spirits one iota.   For the rest of us, we spent about 2.5 hours on the way to Miami, about 5 hours on layover in Miami, and another 2.5 hours on the way to Managua.  When we got to Managua, it was dark, but there were young Nicaraguan children there without their parents trying to sell candy or just to collect some spare change from us.

We went to church, and heard Dr. Sirkir preach, while Carolyn translated.  We went to a park in Managua, on a hill, which overlooked downtown Managua and Lake Managua.  This was beautiful.  We had an excellent lunch at Asado de Chalmo.  We visited the lakefront where Managua meets Lake Managua, and walked to the plaza where Pope John Paul II, spoke to the Nicaraguans, about fifteen years ago. That is where Tony, Amanda and I met Karen Maria Espinoza, an eight year old girl selling little boxes of candy by herself.  She was the first of many young children that we encountered outside of the airport, that did similar things to make money. We visited the Palacio Nacional, which had a museum, and pictures where I learned about the earthquakes that destroyed much of Managua in 1931, and again in 1972. We also saw La Casa de Los Pueblos, and a Cathedral. 

Group B (Vivian, Elizabeth, Tony, Carla, and Nelson) went to do gardening and painting at Samuelito.
We were helped by Harold Thomas, Francisco and Fidel.

Group A (Amanda, Amy, Bethany, Diane, and Alice) went to give out layettes to new mothers at the Velez Paiz, one of Nicaragua’s hospitals.

Group A returned from the hospital, brought us lunch, and then worked with us on gardening in the afternoon.  The four young adults put a nice ring of rocks around each of the five trees in the front of Samuelito School.

I could not help but notice that the kids at the school looked happy; and clean and sharp in their uniforms.  This surprised me a little, given the fact that the homes that they came from looked so primitive. 

Group B went to Calderon Hospital, and Group A did gardening at Samuelito.  (At both hospitals, the conditions were very crowded compared to American standards.)  Group B came back and then both groups joined at Samuelito and made butterfly masks at Samuelito with the kids.   Later, Group B painted the small guesthouse at Samaritano. 

Group B went to Velez Paiz Hospital to give out layettes.  Afterwards, one new mother pursued us to the parking lot with her new baby in her arms to get a layette. We came back to Samuelito School and made butterfly masks again with another class. This was great fun.

We visited  Bradley House, a place where handicapped kids can ride horseback and get other needed therapy.  Then we went to the PM classes at Samuelito.  The kids sang for us in the their folklore costumes and then danced.  Then we did face painting and made beaded necklaces and bracelets.  After this we went back to Samaritano and toured the Sirkir’s clinic which sees 1500 patients a month.

Thursday was Teacher Appreciation Day.  We went to Samuelito and the kids sang and danced for the teachers and us. Then for the first time, we got to go to the urban Santa Rosa School on the east side of Managua.  The kids there also put on a song and dance program for us and the teachers.  We ate with the teachers at the school.  After the program there was a receiving line in which the kids came by and gave hugs to the teachers and us.  Amy, Tony, and I took a walk after lunch, and before the afternoon program, and witnessed the conditions of urban Managua.  Again, the poverty was obvious.

For supper, we went to Casa de Café.  This was really nice.

Group B went to finish up the work on the smaller Samaritano guesthouse.  We pulled all the tape off of the walls, cabinets, and fixtures, and then did touch up painting and clean up. Group A went to Calderon Hospital to give out layettes.   We then went to Huembas Market.  This was a lot like a flea market in the US; however, Huembas had lots of fresh fish, meat, fruits and vegetables, as well as the other things you might see in a US flea market. We found several beggars.  We met Jonan, a local who knew some of our group from past trips.

I learned from Don Victor that a typical salary for a working Nicarguan is 3000 Cordobas per month or about $150. That evening we gave a baby shower for Teresa, one of our two cooks, who was eight months pregnant.  I learned that some folks at Heritage Presbyterian Church sponsor some kids at the Samaritano Schools. These people include Gene Geckler, Rosemary Marshall, Rudy Beaujon, Jane Welty, one of the adult Sunday School Classes, and the children’s Sunday School Class.

On Saturday we went to the Masaya Volcano, went Zip Lining, went to a pottery making shop, and then to Granada.  From there we took boat ride on Lake Nicaragua.  We went to “Monkey Island”.  This was great fun as we fed the monkeys from the boat, and then a monkey jumped on the boat and tore open a package with bread in it, all while sitting on Alice’s lap.  Monkeys love Cheetos.  We saw a beautiful cathedral in Granada, and ate a great meal at El Zaguan in Granada.  We took a long bus ride back to Nejapa, and went to bed. 

We got up and left at 4:30 a.m. and went to the airport.  The trip was over.  We left Nicaragua, but we will never forget it!

 
 

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Thanks to Nelson Kennedy for sharing these photos and captions from the trip.  These are just a small sampling of Nelson's pictures.  If you are interested in seeing many, many more pictures taken by HPC's missionaries, you may wish to click the following link to leave the HPC web site, and visit Nelson's photo archive on Snapfish.com (you will need a Snapfish.com account or be willing to register for an account for free—please note that that is a commercial photo archive web site not controlled or endorsed by Heritage Presbyterian Church).  
Click here to leave hpcmason.com and go to Nelson's Snapfish.com archive.

  

 

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Sponsor a Nicaraguan Child

If you are interested in sponsoring a child in Nicaragua, you may complete the form found at this link: Nicaragua Child Sponsor Form.

(The above form is formatted in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.  If you need to download a free copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader program, in order to view and/or print the document, please click on the link at the bottom of this page.)

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(Last updated:  July 13, 2008)

Heritage Presbyterian Church

6546 S. Mason-Montgomery Road Mason, Ohio
Phone: 513.398.7671
Worship Service: 8:30 and 11:00 AM
Sunday School: 9:45 AM
(During Summer months, single 10:00 AM service and no Sunday School)