Orientation in Esteli

I'm back in Managua today after a pretty successful and productive day in Esteli yesterday. We had our big orientation/training session with all the cooks and administrators from Fabretto, and everything went as well as could be expected. Turn out was good - we had about 20 in all. Everyone arrived at around noon, we had lunch delivered, and then the Director kicked things off by stressing how important the nutrition program is to Fabretto. After that, I ran through the presentation for about an hour, and my Spanish held up for the most part. Then we had a discussion, which was a lot less controversial than I was expecting (we'd heard there were some administrators coming with complaints, but few actually ended up speaking up).

Finally, two of the cooks I've worked with a lot in San Isidro (where I live) did cooking demos. One made salpicone de soya, which is a typical dish here that's normally made with ground beef and flavored with onions, peppers and lime. That was really tasty. The other prepared the dehydrated beans that we get as a donation. A lot of people told me at the outset that these beans tasted really horrible and that the kids wouldn't eat them, but I think it was just a question of preparation because the ones yesterday were outstanding (and everyone agreed).

A few other highlights/interesting bits from the day included making yet another Wisconsin connection, and the ride home. On the first topic, I was introduced to the new English teacher in Esteli for the first time yesterday, and he had a very unique story. It turns out he moved to Wisconsin (specifically, Waupaca) when he was in high school on a scholarship, and ended up meeting someone there, getting married, and starting his family in Waupaca. He lived there for something like 20 or 30 years, but then something happened with his Visa this year (I didn't get all the details there), so he had to move back to Nicaragua. His family will be coming shortly after. The most interesting part of the whole story, for me, was that while his English was very good, it was funny to hear the mix of Nicaraguan and Wisconsin accents overlayed on it. He definitely sounded like someone from 'up nort' in Wisco the way he pronounced Waupaca and a few other words. What's also funny is that I probably sound the exact same way...

The other funny part of the trip was the ride home. Esteli is, by bus, about 2 hours from Managua. However, we had the 'good fortune' of having a Fabretto truck available to get us home. Unfortunately, we crammed 10 people into this truck, which ended up being pretty tight. Also, we made stops for food on the way home, and then ended up driving everyone to their houses directly. The first person we took home lived way out of the way, and to get to her house, we ended up first driving through a market (which was a disaster) and then on these extreme back roads that I'd never seen before in Managua. We were bouncing all over the place, and I think it added an extra hour on our trip. What should have been 2 hours ended up being 4.5. It was a long day!

Today is another day in the office, and then I'm off to join in on Kelly's knitting group. She's having a party because it's the national day of women, or something like that, so there will be cake! Then this weekend I think we're going to the beach, so I'm sure I'll have more stories on Monday. Happy weekend!