Nicaragua Trip

John and I had the opportunity to go to Managua, Nicaragua a few weeks ago with our good friends Bob and B Nesbitt. We wanted to visit there before we leave Costa Rica because some other good friends of ours, the Sharpes, told us about a ministry organization that we wanted to investigate. In English it is called the Nehemiah Center (http://www.nehemiahcenter.net/). We were very excited about what we saw there - both at the Nehemiah Center and the Nicaraguan Christian Academy (where Bob was considering a teaching position). Both places have a vision of helping the Nicaraguans improve the situation in Nicaragua, especially through education.



The day before we left I was a little nervous because we had been experiencing quite a storm, and we found out it was supposed to be a hurricane before it hit Nicaragua. It did in fact cause some severe damage, both in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, but Managua was pretty well spared.



The trip itself was fairly uneventful (thankfully!), though the border crossing was quite a new experience. Bob had acquired the necessary papers for crossing the border at a lawyer's office here in San Jose. We arrived at dusk on Friday and were helped on the Nicaraguan side by a very sweet border crossing "tramitadore" (young men who work for tips), who was about to celebrate his 15th birthday. After going back and forth to several windows, we finally finished up and were able to go through fumigation, and across the border. As we left the border crossing area, we saw Jonathon again, and he asked for a ride to the next town, where we were going. It was a good chance to practice our spanish.

We arrived in the town of Rivas sometime around 8, and Bob found the house of B's nephew, Adam and his wife Rachel, where we were staying. They have an adorable little girl, two golden retriever dogs and chickens and avacado trees in the back yard (see photos). The girls would have loved it. But they might not have liked the cold water shower. Our house in CR has a hot water heater, but many only have hot water on the shower (aka widow maker). Rivas was the first time we stayed in a house with no hot water. Fortunately the weather was quite warm there, so it wasn't really a problem.

The city of Rivas felt like travelling back 20 - 30 years (in Costa Rica - quite a bit more in the US!). The taxis were bicycles and there were a lot of horse carts around. It was quite a bit more quaint than Managua.

We headed up to Managua on Saturday morning. It was an easy drive of about an hour and a half and we headed to the home of the Loftsgard's, where we were staying. They have a lovely home which they built to house a lot of guests (plus their 6 kids). We spent most of the weekend either at their house, or in meetings at the Nehemiah Center, although we did drive out to a market on Sunday afternoon, after having lunch with a large group of north americans at the local (modern) mall. Most of downtown Managua was destroyed in an earthquake in 1972 and it has not been rebuilt. We didn't make it down to that area of the city - maybe next time!!

We stopped back in Rivas for lunch with B's nephew and we had an uneventful trip back to San Jose - though the border was crowded with people returning to Costa Rica after visiting relatives in Nicaragua for Mother's Day - which happened to be the Friday we arrived. For pictures from the trip, go to http://lafamiliamacy.shutterfly.com/action/?a=8CbM3DNm0bMrI&notag=1