Life in Puerto Cabezas

I have not written anything on the blog for a while, so I figured it was time for an update.  Since my arrival in Puerto Cabezas I have been fairly busy all the time.  I have been settling in, spending a lot of time with the kids in the orphanage, especially the high school guys.  Many of them remember me, and there are a lot of new kids as well.  Most of the kids that I remember from my last visit are still here.  We play soccer almost every day, and there is something going on at the church almost every day. 

Yesterday, Tuesday, was the Nicaraguan Independence day, so I went to “el estadio” to see the festivities with five of the high school aged girls.  All of the schools in Puerto Cabezas had bands and dancers, and the stadium (it is a baseball stadium) and the field were both packed.  People were climbing on top of the stadium and outfield walls in order to see the performances.  Verbo (the school at the orphanage) was the second to last to perform out of about thirty schools, so I was there from 8 am until 2 pm.  It was a great experience, and I have some pictures and videos that I can hopefully load onto the blog so you can all see what a Nicaraguan Independence day celebration is like.

Pastor Earl left for Managua on Monday, and I am hoping that while he is there he will be able to get some seed and fertilizer so we can begin to do some work around the orphanage.  I have a spot picked out to plant some trials, and we are also going to plant the outfield of the new baseball field with some Seaspray Paspalum that Scotts donated.  Next week I will begin the project in Batana, and once that begins I will be going there every day for a couple of weeks.

If anyone wants to donate money to these projects, the easiest way is to write a check to me and give it to my mom or dad; the money will be used to buy materials for the Batana agricultural project and the baseball field project.  If anyone has questions about specific things, they can either email me at fricker01@hotmail.com or comment on the blog posts.

Con mucho amor,

Austin