school for zambia orphans

Embassy of the United States of America
Corner of United Nations and Independence
PO Box 31617, Lusaka, Zambia
http://zambia.usembassy.gov

The U. S. Democracy and Human Rights Fund (DHRF)
APPLICATION

Available Free of Charge
Open Season: applications accepted on an ongoing basis
For office use only
Rec’d on Resp. Sent on



1. Organization Name: Chitunda Orphanage Community School
(Please attach registration documentation, if registered, but do NOT attach organization constitution.)
Founded on (date): 10/04/06. Is this organization a start-up? No. It started in 2006
Where (City/Town) organization is located: Mfuwe (Province): Eastern
Organization Objective(s): To build a school for 85 children in primary grades and who have lost parents due to aids, disease and accidents. In addition to teaching children to read and write, the school will emphasize education in the sciences – particularly teaching children about the importance of nature to their own future. This school is helping those children who unable to attend school due to loose their both parents.
Activity for which funding is sought. I, Sylvester Mbaama and Manda, both Wildlife Guides at the Wildlife Lodge at South Luangwa Park, had a good time to revisit the newly discovered School known as Chitunda Orphanage Community School on the 26th July 2009 where we had a good time to talk different things with the headman and the school teachers of the Orphanage School.
The headman of the area briefed about the background of the school as follow;
Chitunda Orphanage Community School started in 2006, firstly started as a club for women known as Women for Change. The club did not prosper due to the reason that people who promised to help it with funds did not come back to them.

The headman of the area who is the organizer of the Orphanage Community School tried to follow them up in Lusaka, but all the same things could not work out.
Later on the club, women for change decided to change the project from women for change club to an Orphanage School which started in 2006.

They decided to do so because children who have no parents did not manage to go to these other schools and not only that, the other reason is that the area is a land locked as it is surrounded by three rivers, and during the rain season children may not manage to cross those rivers as they keep crocodiles during the rain season which is very dangerous both for children and old people as well.

The school has 85 children in total and two female teachers.

The school is situated within the area at the village known as Malama village. But very unfortunately those children are still learning under the mango tree as the shelter they have been using damaged during last rain season. But the headman explained that he has organized with his people, has started molding bricks so that they can build a small building for the children.

The total number of Malama village is about 1300 people who stay at that island. These people use water from one of these rivers which surround them known as Lupande River. Having asked the headman where do they get drinking water during rain season? He said that they usually have a big problem with that; they have no option apart from using water from the same river for drinking and for all domestic usages. Attached to this massage is one of the photos showing a river where these people fetch their water from, and during the dry season the dig some ponds in the same river sand and finds water.

Regarding the Education School Garden we all went out and survey for a nice place where we can put our garden and luck enough that we managed to find, we cleared an area only to go back and do the planting of seeds in presence of children.

Good enough that within the same village one of the villagers keeps bees for honey and we have already arranged with him so that we can visit his bee keeping area with the children so that they know how bees can be conserved. Attached photos one shows the bee wave.

All the people where very happy with us and our ideas and we were also very happy to see their warmly welcome and welcomed all our ideas. The headman said that he is very happy to share more ideas and looking forward to working with us.

Note:
1. We have photos to show I, Sly and the teacher at work with children which are available upon request.
2. Woman fetching water from pond dug from river sand
3. Manda and the bee weeve
We have the support of the headman.

Briefly describe the activity for which you are applying. (Please be concise and Do NOT attach any extra sheets or proposals.
We are seeking funding to build a school house as the children now learn under a mango tree. We would like funds to buy chairs and tables so that the children can comfortably write and read. We are seeking funds to buy needed books and other school supplies. We are seeking funds to support living expenses for four teachers. Two teachers to teach reading and writing and two teachers to teach science and environmental concepts in nature, called the Nature Awareness Education Program.

We thinks a three year funding for the teachers and transporation will be wise to be sure that the garden and nature program is well established and the garden self supporting before funding is gone.

Also it is important to note that the Nature Awareness Education Program will be a pilot project for future environmental education programs at other orphan and conventional schools throughout Zambia. The focus of the Nature Awareness Education Program is to educates children and local adults about Nature and demonstrate sustainable garden education (composting, seed collection, nutrition) where people learn to grow food and to eat healthy food.

This is the first school where we will share nature education. We hope to travel to many schools and teach environmental education, but our work will begin at this school. We have spoken to the head man and gotten his support. We enter the village with an attitude of sharing nature's wonders - not telling them that the way they do things are WRONG. We do not want them to turn away from us because they think we are critical of what they do for survival. When we show love and appreciation for nature, the people will learn from our example. Our friend from America has give us environmental education books and we use these activities and lessons from the books and your own extensive knowledge and show people the way to protecting their environment for their future and their children's future!

Who will be the participants? School children and local adults and four teachers
How many (estimate)? Female 45, Male 40
4. Amount of Request: Please note the total amount (in Zambian kwacha) you are requesting from the DHRF. Cost in year one is $168m kwacha, year two $160m kwacha and year three $170m kwacha. The budget in year 1 is primarily for school building and teacher salaries, transportation and the garden. The budget is primarily for salaries and transportation of teachers in year two and three and the cost of serving a growing student population which will double to 160 children by year 3.
5. Contact Information: This person would serve as the Project Manager, responsible for obtaining invoices, receipts, materials, receiving funding, coordinating the work, and seeing that the project is completed on time. (Do NOT attach CV or copy of Zambian ID.)
Name (First, Last) Sylvester Mbaama Telephone:+260 977 193081

Post Address-PO Box, P/Bag, Plot, City/Town: Fax number: …………………………….……

C/o Wildlife Camp, Box 53, Mfuwe Email:
(If any contact information changes, you must inform the small grants office in writing; failure to keep current contact information on file may result in missed funding opportunities.)
6. Proposed Activity Details
A. How does your proposed activity address the issues of democracy and human rights?
Children has the right to education, water and food. No matter in what status they may be, orphans, vulnerable or well being ones. They are able to become someone in life and posses any position in the nation too.
B. What do you hope the activity will achieve?
The school basic education program for reading and writing is essential for any child’s success in the future and the Nature Awareness Program will help children and the local adults to learn more about the natural environment which is essential for their survival. Conservation and awareness education is so very important for animals and people and will teach how they can conserve it. The environment in Mfuwe is very endangered. Gardening practices are not sustainable and the land loses its production because composting and natural fertilizers need to be applied.
C. Where will the activity take place? (City/Town) Mfuwe (Province) Eastern
Venues (e.g. School, community center, etc.) Chitunda Orphanage Community School
D. What is the timetable for the activity (must be under 12 months)?
School term timetable. The program is being provided by volunteers now. It can only be sustained if funding is provided because the teachers for the children must be paid in order to buy food and have a house
E. Have you applied from other funding agencies for the same activity? Yes ………………No NO
If yes, who? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………
When did you submit your application to them? ………………………………………………………………………
F. Provide a line itemized budget for completing your project. Again, be concise and use only the space provided. Do not attach additional pages or invoices/proformas.

Item Estimated Cost in Kwacha
 Teaching supplies 8 m kwacha (year one) 6m year two and three
50 science, 50 history and 50 writing books
50 sets Pens and paper
Black board (2)
Chalk
6 microscopes and slides for viewing
Reading books 50
Library books 200
 School building and latrine 20 m kwacha
 Cinderblock and mud brick enclosure 10m x 14m with thatch roof and broad windows and to have one chalk board, one erase board and one large table for experimentation and situating microscopes.
 Bore hole well Needed for children and village ($8,000 US dollars)
Life Giving Water Charity will fund this cost with funds from the US
 Teachers’ salaries 400 m kwacha
 Four teachers 30 m kwacha One full year each teacher. Suggest 120 m kwacha per year and 400 m kwacha for three years (including incentive raises(
 Transportation for teachers
 Automobile purchase/rental/lease/taxi service for transportation of teachers to school 4 m kwacha per year. 12 m kwacha for three years
 Gasoline and service for leased/rented/or purchased car(1 years)
 2 m kwacha (6 m Kwacha for three years)
 Food and Garden Supplies 10 m kwacha
 Seeds for garden
 Garden tools
 Fence for garden to protect it from animals
 Buckets for water and harvest
 Tools – 10 shovels and picks and hoes
 1 t mealie meal and weekly supply of vegetables for year 1 when garden is not in production to provide Lunch program for orphans
 Misc supplies and contingency 4 m kwacha
Total budget __75 million kwacha_____________
Matching funds from Life Giving Water $8,000
7. Describe past activities, similar to the one to which you are applying, that demonstrates how you or the organization has/has done successfully in the past.
Activity 1: When? From (date) ………………………to (date)……………………………….………………….…………
Where? Wildlife Lodge Mfuwe …………………………………………..………..……………………..
Who were the participants and how many? Sylvester and Manda working as nature tour guides
What was the activity about? Teaching tourists about the wildlife of Zambia and recognizing that the local people do not know about the wildlife and are living in such a way that the wildlife animals and trees and bees will soon be all gone and that the local people will not survive and that the tourism will stop and there will be no livelihood for the people. Sly and Manda now volunteer to present nature programs to the children; but must have an income from the work or they will not be able to support their own families. The Teachers at the Orphan school are not paid and only teach for the love of the children but must also have support to survive to teach them for the future. Experienced teachers and Nature Guides and Environmental Educators will be engaged to do the work described in this request for funds.

How was the activity funded? …Teachers have been volunteering for several years. Sylvester and Manda also volunteer with assistance for books and food provided by a friend from the United States @ $40.00 per month, or $480.00 per year.
Activity 2: When? From (date) ………………………to (date)……………………………….………………….…………
Where? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..……………………..
Who were the participants and how many?
What was the activity about? …………………………………………………………………………………..………….………….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….………………
How was the activity funded? …………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….
Activity 3: When? From (date) ………………………to (date)……………………………….………………….…………
Where? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..……………………..
Who were the participants and how many?
What was the activity about? …………………………………………………………………………………..………….………….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….………………
How was the activity funded? …………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….

8. References: Please list three references and provide a letter from each of them. All references must:
1. Identify their relation to the project coordinator and/or the organization.
2. Cite specific examples that validate the ability of the project coordinator and/or the organization to implement the project.

Attach the letters with this application.
Name 1: Leslie Warren – American Friend and nature educator who met Sly on a safari. Leslie Can be reach at her home in California
Name 2. Colleen Reed, Sly’s employer and supervisor at Wildlife Lodge where Sly is a nature guide and scout.
Name 3: Colleen……………- Teacher of orphans at wildlife lodge and friend of Sly

Your name: (print) Sylvester Mbaama

Signature: Original Signed by Sylvester Date:

Check List
Please be sure that you have attached the following documentation, whichever applicable. Attachment 1: Registration of your organization.
Attachment 2: Three letters of references.

Please DO NOT attach any unrequested documents, such as project proposals, or proformas! Also, do not attach any original documents, as no part of this application will be returned.

Magic of Nica Oct. Nov. 2009

 Leslie’s Notes from Nica October/November 2009


> so so perfect day . Starting with private yoga session and then nestled in
> my
> garden court with young woman leaving today for Afghanistan to work on
> reconstruction. She is not more than 24 and daughter to terry who owns this
> hotel and also continues her work finding thru DNA missing persons from the
> wars
> in Iraq and Bosnia and etc. Inspiring people at every turn. So glad I have
> my
> bike here. Long ride around the lakeshore at lago de Nicaragua, second
> largest lake in the world! lake dying though and meeting with the mayor on
> clean up plans with my project site community at La project
> directors) Granada is really showing signs of eco improvement with the new
> mayor! Germany just gave $20m to clean up the lake though how much will
> actually
> go to the work is unknown!
>
> was three hours north ' up in coffee country yesterday and having an event
> at my
> house soon for investors to buy the virgin forest we explored there and
> save
> it for carbon
> sequestering. in the matins it is cattle and coffee country 0 check out
> Matagalpa on a map. we eat steaks the size of diner plates and it is so
> fresh
> and earthy. the farm? well 120 acres of rainforest preserve and cultivated
> coffee. the coffee is the best I the world and shimmering under the
> rainforest canopy. up in the mtns we ate lunch at a stick shack and prepared
> by a 38 yr old mama with 8 kids, all surviving to adulthood and having their
> own babies now. three generations living in one room 80% of the space
> consumed by the big stone stove that smokes right into the ¨kitchen and
> with
> the rainforest wood creates beans, squash, rice and chicken that are the
> stuff
> of palate dreams. the chicken we did not eat was very grateful and
> friendly....sorry buddy I cannot take you home with me! butterflies an
> howler monkeys, I brought back cuttings from orchids and other unknown
> flowering plants for my own casa ' which I get to move into today. three
> hours back to town yesterday. Javier and Sidney (warren buffet´s staff!!)
> pondering where to begin with the work of nica. president ortega sabotaging
> all efforts - right now a German investment project for wind energy turbines
> and all etc =is being held off shore in a boat because Ortega wants his own
> family to hold the monopoly on energy! he is the worst of dictators. yet -
> revolutionaries live on and so many people sharing the same goals and
> devotion to
> community and earth. just so so happy and indulging in everything from
> daily massages to fine fine rum and cigars. love it here so much. love to
> you all. Met donna who runs the spay and neuter program here for dogs and
> cats...a former peace corps volunteer who never left.. so I will get my
> doggie
> fix thru her rescue mutts.
>
> peter - get lonely planet Nicaragua and you’ll want to read and as we’ll be
> on
> horseback and in the jungle bring tevas or chaca shoes!
>
> LOVE
> ---------- Forwarded Message -----------
>
>>
>> thelma ' pls share with kathy< >>
>> darlins computer and telephone issues otherwise all is so so so good!
>> sorry
>> bout
>> tink tho. it is such a wonder of a world here. my hotel - til my casa is
>> empty of tenants ' is full of parrots and turtles ' and flowers and
>> vagabonds, expats, intellectuals from the
>> world over. owned by a sister pair from larkspur! at the spa down the
>> cobbled block ' a lot getting
>> massages and yoga and feeling as alive as the magical world of nice passes
>> by. gents holding chickens upside down on their bicycles and a parrot on
>> their back with big smiles for the world. little horses pulling loads of
>> rice and bricks on tiny hoofs. families pretzeled on a bicycle and music
>> in
>> the air. rain drops and sunshine. tropical clouds and sunsets. with a
>> crowd of anthropologists having just returned from Iraq where they are
>> exhuming remains and id´-ing dna for families and today Xavier and I
>> traveled two hours north in the mtns of Matagalpa with Danish embassy
>> director of business to business giving and at the coffee mill learning
>> about cupping and coffee tasting. eating such amazing fresh food and with
>> people that are so alive with political and social dreams for nica. how
>> did
>> I hitch on to this magic ride. all is so good. going to see the coffee
>> farm tomorrow and Denmark may take on the investment needed. Granada is
>> sweeter than ever as the new mayor is a young enviro and all is tidy and
>> the lake is being cleaned up. my casa is a bit worse for wear but
>> Wilfredo
>> my friend-contractor is making it right for me again.
 Hello all. heading up to ) thanks to rosy= while she works
the counter, fills shelves via trips in horse cart to the mkt. the sons
just do not even fathom the idea of helping her.... and that is how it is
from nica.

love this place so much. love the window into simplicity that it affords
me. busses, bikes and horses tangle in the tiny streets here and no one is
anxious or angry. street sweepers with their horse carts or carts they
pull themselves tidy up my gutter every day. I wake to the trit trot of
horses and the toot toot of the occasional taxi usually with doors tied with
string and no handles....perfect. love love, leslie
--Darlings....Dining yesterday with ´the girls at after our child´çs
> play water aerobics in a garden pool, and in the company of these
> women whom mirror eachothers´free spirits, wild sides, joy in life
> and all round heartiness. how peculiar for be in the company of
> these quirky, smart, funny independent world citizens...we are like
> sisters in a curious way. i hear their banter and their take on the
> rhythms here and realize that their interpretations and feelings
> match my own of the past three years....the comfort and fit that I
> found here is theirs too because we share some thread of edginess
> and openness. we are home away from home because of the freedom
> and humanity of the lifestyle here. never thought I would have this
> moment...
>
> they are artists, producers, designers, business gurus,,, some with
> spouses some not...they’re creating libraries, building whimsical
> inns, running kayak tours to their private islands. being artists
> and thinkers and writers...from England,
>
> early morning rendezvous with Julio ' environmental director for
> Granada and toured the luscious canyons that enfold the dear arroyos
> of the city. but for funding the plan to remove trash, connect
> sewage from homes to the plant and EDUCATION about not dumping would
> be implemented. I is my niche here to find the funds, dress the
> garbage collectors in protective clothes and the Harvard community
> of la prucia `where I am doing the economic development work will
> provide the workforce. from the headwaters we followed the creek
> as it passed thru this jewel of a city thru the sweetest
> neighborhoods of pony’s and children carts and flowers until we
> found its sad end at the lake. carrying its huge burden of trash
> and sewage. all along our route young and old came out to ask what
> we were discussing and to share their feelings about the litter
> problem. everyone sees the problems and making it a problem rather
> than the way things are done is the key...have wonderful posters
> being made to teach and students are on board too.
>
> wandering thru the flower stalls in the parque later and drifted
> into an alley where astonishing paintings hung and met the artist
> who was previously employed by world vision to teach mural paintings
> all through Europe. my Spanish is adequate now and will be going to
> his studio next week to see more of this primitive and original work.
>
> frank the Dutch guy who sold me my casa joined us and after a decade
> or more of being here he too glows with the joy of each moment as it
> unfolds in this precious society. the ox cart with the square
> wooden wheels and the smiling driver, the children so enfolded in
> love and family. the families the settle on their stoops day after
> day after being together all day and yet spend the evening in love
> and laughter and harmony...we wonder what DO they talk about
> evening after evening¿ let us linger a moment on the edge of this
> warm nest and enjoy the community of it all.
>
> leaving both follow a narrow alley lined in a rainbow of colonial
> homes each with wrought iron and wood of such lovely patina.... and
> in a trashy corner smell bread and nearly crunch with a
> 6´5´frenchman ponytail to his mid back the baker and artist of these
> gorgeous loaves....I fill my satchel and find behind his display a
> French woman at work before a brick oven. she will c cook dinner
> tonight for Shirley chuck and me for 86 cords each...four
> dollars...four courses and she left to go to the market to get the
> fresh cream and veggies...wood fire, no walls, light from candles
> only and miraculous aromas...lovely lovely moment with her planning
> our dinner.
>
> the museum left gorgeous plants in the trash pile and a taxi driver
> loaded them up for me and neighbors brought dirt and my little casa
> has a new succulent garden and it is being warmed now by a sweet
> light rain...
>
> tis perfect here. tis lovely. wilfredo my friend, carpenter and
> magician checking in on my needs and offers all manner of
> enhancements to my dreamy little casa. make a wish and it is
> filled. mention your new pots and black dirt arrives at the
> doorstep, watch the full moon soak the ancient church towers in
> light. bless each breath in this land of loveliness.
>
hi sweetie, thank you for your report and the good news about tennis.
which of the above is your email??
7
hello darlings all. Pretty Bird sits at the tip top of my courtyard tree
and hollers to the avian community besting the chickens and church bells this
morning. with house guests, my idyll and whimsical world has altered a
bit. also, projects are taking wing and taking more time. for instance we
took the chicken bus to Masaya yesterday ' a city that we leveled during
the contra war ..and the artisan center here for ceramica, furniture and an
astonishing range of untilitarian craft. (yesterday I got a mahogany
washboard for my sink,,, all hand carved ridges and a wood plug drain at the
end, lidded bamboo market basket and this is also the hammock center. (send
your orders!) carol and I nibbled and explored and then took a horse cart
to the printer after admonishing him with a mui flaco! (too skinny! all
the horses look like they are famished!)where we right on schedule my clean
water posters were tossed into the horse cart and off we went back to the
main road to catch a bus home. so curious that no money is exchanged...the
printer gave me his bank account number and I am to go to the bank and
deposit the money there! at the bank, the teller requires my address and
here ' because of earthquakes, and hurricanes regularly demolishing
neighborhoods...all Nicaragua uses the description method for addresses...so
I told the banker the little green house four down from the corner, behind
Guadalupe church and with the new plantain tree. and that address was
perfectly acceptable!!!

sweet moments on the street. the shining vender in her ruffled skirt stops
to open a packet of sugared coconut to give it to a homeless person. love
how class consciousness is absent here.

while in Masaya we went to see the artist whom I’d met here last week ' the
one who painted murals in England. remember__¿¿¿ we found his place with a
horse cart transport and indeed his was the house down the mud road with the
two palm trees in the yard...his address. his studied without electricity
and ragged books enclosing articles documenting his other world experience
in London where he toured art galleries. can you imagine...from a tiny adobe
enclave to London and the tTate!! my thought is to have him paint murals on
the bridges with children using the same education that is in the new
poster....clean water is essential for children and all living things...DO
YOUR PART!! We’re meeting on that today

Elizabeth and Paul have been here. we toured the city in a carriage with
buddy Giovanni as our guide. drifted thru the cathedral like monuments at
the graveyard at day of the dead amid families cooking and adorning the
graves of loved ones. so so many died in 1985 - 87 and so young during our
contra experiment.

Rosie my Pulperia neighbor and guardian, mother hen and sweetheart are
feeling unwell. we´´re going to visit the pharmacia today and see what is
up. I think she has malaria.

found a Frenchman making the most exquisite breads. he delivers on Mondays
with sacks of bread flung over his shoulders.

carol is enjoying our garden swim exercise gathering. yoga mornings 6 AM in
the garden, coffee and lovely humanity. my housekeeper invited me to a
concert last night and we took a taxi (with out door handles or bumpers. and
$.50 anywhere you want to go...he could not read the address she had given
me.,...arrogant assumption AHHHH so sorry young man....however,,,after
consulting with folks on the street and with soggy instructions in hand we
carried on in the rain and dark...till moments later we got a flat in the
middle of the calle and the young driver bolted from the car to change it as
we sat...we finally abandoned him and took another finding ourselves
deposited in the dark in nowhere where in the far distance the glimmer of
the divine called us forth to an evangelical gathering that rocked the night
for two hours and we happily waited in the rainy field for an hour while the
chicken bus that brought the people out here had unloaded the first riders
hanging from all sides and came back to get us...fabulous crazy otherworldly
and typical wonderful nica!!

paintings are done and hanging. wilfredo checked the racket on my roof at
night and brought me a little sack. I took it from him and the heat was
amazing. opened it and there were six sadly morte bats. I almost wept!
wilfredo thinks they are awful...they were exquisite and non resussatatable...

love loe to you all and big day Monday in Managua for the water project.
love and xx
 Lovely morning to you all. We’re off to Omatepe ' the magic island in Lake
Nicaragua with two active volcanoes, native culture still thriving, petro glyphs
and artifacts under foot. Two huge towers float in the mist from Granada and
with a four hour ferry ride we should find ourselves at their feet this mid
day and begin an adventure circumventing, surmounting and swimming in over
and around them. very idyllic and tropical. explorer’s descriptions of them
are filled with awe and wonder. sure we´ll find the same as time has stopped
there.

still carrying goose bumps from a wedd ing at the Guadalupe church last
night.
hours long. singing and chanting mesmerizing and the huge arches filled
with
fragrant flowers. so reverential, promise filled, spiritual.

pretty bird had visitors today lores of her own species and she wanted to fly
away with them. the calling and crying was heart wrenching but soon enough
she’ll have her feathers back. till then, she is a charming guest. blue
forehead, red mask yellow head green back and blue.-green wings. my neighbor
has one that comes at his call and conducts worldly conversadt8ions each
morning with all that will listen.

big rain yesterday when we went to study the bridges where my artist friend
Jairo will paint nature murals for me-city. children swimming in a child’s
way in gutters running with who knows what¿¿!! such laughter and
imagination and such resilience!!
--
Endured the trip to Managua ' not because it is bad...just so hard to leave
the life here. met with mayor, peace corps director and others...
Peace corps has the posters now and the project is moving forward with
volunteers takng them and water filters out the the community nation wide.
so happy and sad too to say good bye to eleventh who is leaving nica after her
two yr stint with peace corps.

a cavallo ate my poor little plantain street tree last night! everyone is
resigned. we took Rosie to the pharmacy and are treating her fevers and sore
knees. she is so absolutely adorable and ancient.

love to all...gone for three days at least so take good care and much love
from the lovely lovely land of music, family and art....love Leslie and carol
WizWire CommunicationsHello Sweethearts. We’ve been in the land of butterflies and misty volcanoes
for the past three days living with a splendor that gave a twinge of guilt but
was infinitely delightful too...Belgian dreamers have built an eco paradise on
the flanks of one of the two monstrous volcanoes that make up ometepe, a
sacred place that indigenous souls only used to inter their dead (and the
pre-Columbian petroglyf they created are everywhere as are the fables that
locals hold close to their hearts) but overtime became an agricultural
paradise for a truly communist system of cooperatives where following the
Sandinista revolution all the land was redistributed back to the people with
50% of proceeds going to workers, 25% to roads and schools and 25% to
improvements to the cooperative. it is beautiful dream rising from pain as
Samoa’s 49 yr reign in nica meant the enslavement of all on ometepe and they
worked his vast coffee, banana and rice empire for no pay and had to survive
on his whim...which resulted in people being arbitrarily offed. so so sad in
history, and we sipped cooperative grown coffee from samosa´s former hacienda
and enjoyed a view of a vast freshwater lake sparkling under the volcan´s
shadow and laughing joyful cooperative members raking drying coffee
below...working with song and smiles. we pass them on our jungle hike and
see
them with their reed baskets held tightly to their waists by bunched plastic
bags and filled with robusta coffee that is the best in the world.

natural wonders abound. my favorite was this black mat of long eared
caterpillars matted on leaves and tree trunks and if you say BOO they move in
a
way and in perfect synchrony like a school of fish! so so bizarre.. La La
and
they rise and fall with my sound,,,not individually but as one unit 0 like
the
fish in water. and leaf cutter ants so tiny and carrying huge bits of green
in well worn trails of their creation thru the dense forest and today is the
celebration of their spirit and the spirits of the dead that they nurture in
their underground lairs where the fresh leaf bits they bring down below are
not for food but to decompose and create a fungus that IS their food!!

so many thoughts what the impact of this lodge is on the world of ometepe and
how the workers at the lodge may bring home a few cordovas more than the
coffee cooperatives and upset the lovely balance of equality that there is
in
this land of soft air and butterflies and huge flock of parrots of many hues.

another miracle in the garden so full of flower...elder Jimenez brings me
seeds from flowers he has observed that I admire and we talk in my first grade
Spanish...and learn that he is the designer of these blissful gardens and
lives...of course with his family (when not on this island in the mist) in la
prusia...my Harvard university project site where I am to design the economic
development strategy which I have felt all along must be connected with the
creek restoration projects..reclaiming organic trash and making it wormy and
wonderful for compost and having a nursery to sell lovely and exotic flowers
and plants and of course his family in in la prusia the destitute and hungry
squatter community near Granada...and of course he is alive for this idea and
it all fits so many tiny puzzle pieces fit and form and gravitate to where
is
all belongs and I feel so blessed and joyful. so we will meet in
Granada next week with the mayor and the project that is meant to be of clean
creeks, aware students, beautiful murals and gardens creating work for hungry
and unemployed landless la prusia residents will all flower as it of course
will!!

learned so much of island lore..swam in the pools where the witch lives who
takes away ten years of age in her waters and has a farm under the crystal
waters and casts the spell that hold swimmers forever in the magic of ometepe,
and we studied the birthing rock where pre history women would give birth and
the blood would flow and the baby would rest while the after birth
emerged...and we walked among trees so ancient and huge with arms enfolding
monkeys with startlingly white faces and so many butterflies...

and I find myself saving bits of string, leaving notes on one inch squares of
paper and living so small in my needs as I become what these impoverished and
joyful beings teach me very day. and I have had almost two months here with
out a moment of stress, anger, frustration or hurry. each day unfolds with
pleasures of such a gentle kind and I am blessed to live this.

yoga back in Granada tonight and now a chance to chronicle my pleasures and
gratitude for your interest and love. take care and sweet dreams. love
leslieHi sweetie pies. I had my most riveting narrative almost wrapped up and all
the lights went out! did I growl and moan...naw. tis nica and we just
accept what is and so I resume or reconsider and abbreviate the magical world
I am so very grateful to wake to and spin and dance thru till reluctantly
the day comes to a close....for before light with the bells and parrot calls
and in the before dawn light I open my creaking paired doors to the wonders
of the streetscape and culture that has enfolded me so snugly. There is a
dear surprise awaiting...maybe the family that brings fresh bread shaped
like palms of our hands, or the tiny skeletal aged crone that in her sweetly
ruffled apron and ever tidy cotton plaid towels balances on her head a
hundred pounds of fresh fish and snapping crabs in her bamboo basket, or the
neighbors my be studying my plantain tree for new signs of life or to shake
heads over yesterday’s leaf...lost once again to a marauding night time
cavallo, all the ruffles, and babies, and skipping singing children, gracious
and heart felt Buenos dais--the sing song of the pineapple seller...it is so
precious, so purposeful, each graceful encounter a pleasure to me and a
matter of survival to them as there are no jobs and a crumbling future and
only by their resourcefulness do they find a tiny niche for the item they
purvey...calling out their offerings and presenting them in such tidy
bundles and to think that they were up all the night baking, or fishing or
harvesting because tonight’s meal hangs in the balance. they have nothing.
my trash is neatly explored for recyclables and carefully stacked in a wooden
cart. how can survival be so respectful and honorable...proud, clean
purposeful and they may be college professors or widows or parentless but
never pathetic just purposeful and so full of humor and caring for each other
and honorable in the relationships they have with their clients...

and last night while sipping my tea and gazing at a vast sparking ling sky
before bed when a tip tap at my door reveals Javier, Managua coffee family
and two elderly gents one of whom cradles a big packet which is dramatically
unveiled and there is a Picasso on my coffee table and the gent begins the
saga¨ a post revolution euphoria and the revolutionaries toss the tyrant
samosa´s treasures from his estate windows 40 years ago and so he comes into
possession of this piece of art and I am to verify its authenticity over tea
and rum and sweet lemon cake and coincidentally yesterday I purchased a
litho print of a supposed Diego Rivera and so my house is filled with my new
art and this revered art...bizarre moment,,,,passion and do I know what is
real: then the professor enters my neighbor and he I only learned today is
also a revered artist and his brother is the most renowned artist in nica
today...he weighs in, so I will likely carry the Picasso home for study...

and today in Masaya reviewed final proofs as we have run of 180 posters for
the bridge mural and creek clean up project here in Granada set to go with
new partners and my projects will be presented at the all volunteer
conference for Nicaragua next week in Managua and I am so honored to be
asked to speak. jairo the artist bicycles to Granada meetings from Masaya
11 k away and Julio the city of Granada’s environmental director has secured
al approvals for us to go ahead with children participating, media scheduled
for our debut on Monday and a new recycling program.çç

and my cathedral neighbor and the music and art it brings to each day had
enraptured me...Catholicism is ritual and ancient rhythms.....a day in the
life of my ancient neighbor and its arching towers is a parade of
history...ruffled, lace and frothy white babies and untold generations
beaming pass my door enroute to christenings, followed by grave horses,
draped in white lace and pulling a black and gleaming widowed carriage in
which a casket and 50 formal bouquets and a tuxedoed driver in a top
hat...and then there are still three rich and textured musical and chanting
services to conduct for devoted parishioners each day....

Yoga, massage, acupuncture on the finger, swimming in the garden pool while
above exotic flocks of birds snap their beaks at insects riding on the new
eastern breeze...a gentleness and unhurriedness among people and such
respectfulness to all...classless conscience, kind and genuineness.. we have
such such fun each and such a sense of safety..even as the lights went out
and I walk home in the pitch and all folks moving in groups and the feeling
of security is universal...

I found Harold and his mui museo yesterday and a trove of astonishing art
deco furniture and he is snatching me up to do a buying spree tomorrow as he
is invited to all treasure troves as he and his family have long held the
market on old things...my purchases were delivered this morning by horse cart
on wooden wheels...

love nica. love each day here and to have had two months of no computer, no
clock..(I get to yoga at 7 on the dot just through the messages of the
morning roosters!) and no telephone...thus hardly a need for reading
glasses and such freedom and joy. when I had a moment of fret that the last
of my days here nears...I realize I am soon back and like the other free
souls who thrive as I do ... I will fly in and out like the birds and the
rhythms that I love will continue in my absence and resume for me when I
return effortlessly like breezes do...

and peter comes early Friday with Cassidy and I think I need only open the
door and they will be carried by the sweetness here...we’ll swim in the warm
sea, watch the lava glow at night in a bat cave and kayak the isletas...all
within minutes of my door and accessible by horse carriage or chicken bus...

thank you all for your reading and caring and do share with Kathy miller,
mom, Jody, board of directors and Val, tacy and jill. with love to you and
such gratitude for this time..
--darlins. thanks to all of your loving support for the world, two
wonderful
> > project found their wings today. the water filters you helped me
purchase
> > were delivered to the Peace Corps (finally as I had to journey up into
the
> > mountains to the factory to make it happen) and the PC volunteers will be
> > fanning out throughout Nic to teach folks about the risks of untreated
> > water
> > and help the campistranos adapt their traditional patterns to the
changing
> > condition of their environment. Turned out that the head of the filter
> > factory was really the wizard of oz, a rabid worm composter and cardamom
> > grower, and oil maker and coffee grower and furniture designer, painter
and
> > more.. who has also provided children in this mountain wilderness with a
> > swimming pool, basketball hoops and plenty of love. warren, my yoga
> > teacher
> > and I filled up the back of his truck with 12 foot laurel trees...these
> > are
> > just too big for the cavallos!! I hope! [UTF-8?]Rosie"? son will plant
them
> > tomorrow. the gardens-nurseries in the matins defy imagination...tropical
> > species with such exotic behaviors, smells and colours..
> >
> > but even before that happy event with the filters, jairo (mural artist),
> > julio (environmental director) and I met in my [UTF-8?]æ²,office^^ (Casa
hotel san
> > Francisco (named after the cathedral next door) and owned by the sisters
> > from san anselmo ca. )the ones who work for the UN doing exhuming of mass
> > graves in war zones among other amazing things..) and where i sip coffee
in
> > the garden while doing all this endlessly joyful work...well today we
went
> > to the bank and the recorders office and executed the agreement with the
> > city and the artist and the murals start on Monday! how could one not be
> > emotional when all the stars align to make dreams come true for starving
> > artists, a giant lago tottering on the edge of survival and all the
species
> > with it...and the young man who overheard us shared that as a child there
> > were frogs alligators and iguanas in the creeks which not run like weak
> > milk
> > lined with trash until the gusher storms here wash them sparking ling
clean
> > and send all the gunk into the extraordinary lago...our education program
> > on
> > the bridges, in the schools and on the radio (folks tune in with such
> > devotion to hear live radio theatre and other programs....you
[UTF-8?]canæ"' even get
> > a taxi driver to talk to you if you happen to grab a ride during the
> > theatre
> > hours!)...
> >
> > and before that was the adventure in the market where the fruits and
> > flowers
> > now fill my casa with colour and sweet aroma and a funky injected
processed
> > and utterly yucky tgiving turkey was found at the pulperia for a
ridiculous
> > $60! but ah [UTF-8?]well...weæf»l love it and the preparation with lots
of guests
> > from far and near and peter bringing down the cranberry sauce!
> >
> > so having munched sweet corn tamales and toasty corn on the cob from a
> > charcoal fire in the plaza over a beer and under a hammock moon, then
doing
> > my beloved yoga with warren and telling you this story and thanking you
> > from
> > my soul for your participation in [UTF-8?]it...iæf»l call it a day-night
and have the
> > joy of inviting peter and Cassidy into this world tomorrow morning.
> >
> > thank you all. love, Leslie
> >
> >sweethearts...From my 2nd floor terrace the view over the roof tiles is
luminous in the twilight and tonight even more so with fireworks and
fireflies. the former because tomorrow the virgin is coming and will parade
through the streets on people's shoulders in a bed of flowers followed by an
endless parade of flower carrying admirers, trumpets, and drums. this is the
big event of the holiday season and the city is in preparation all around.

have to hold off on news about the last few days with peter in bat caves,
nose
to nose with egg laying sea turtles, hours of sea play and volcano climbs in
the dead of night and the lagoona swims where warm water bubbles up from the
mantle, ...because the events today today today!

visiting the mural site today on the way out to Mobacho Volcano where there is
a possible environmental learning farm for me..,,,jairo sandino, the artist
friend you've been hearing about and the artist executing the mural...great
grandson of sandino himself! was there at the bridge in company with a
glossy and unbattered SUV parked at the bridge. Alarm bells....political
issues, property issues^^problema++carlos, Gabriel and I began our
investigation...only to find that this elegant gent in the SUV was wanting my
starving artist friend to execute murals at his hacienda AND AND...drum
roll!!! he is the president of the local lions club and on his way to meet
with the board of directors and will ask them for funding for the next mural
on the next bridge site !!! of course if lions club funds the next
mural...rotary club will fall in line and there is no end to the leveraging
of
funding and volunteering that will bring to the project!do we believe in
miracles. indeed we do...why did Gabriel and Carlos and I happen by the
project site at that very moment that the SUV stopped++!!

television and newspaper coverage tomorrow .. I am standing back and letting
this be a LOCAL project with Julio and jairo being the face of the project.
the neighbors in the barrio by the mural are so happy that this is an
education
mural and not another Sandinista political mural. families in their horse
drawn carts, bicyclists and the sidewalk sitting unemployed all give rousing
encouragement. when I visit the site...the neighborhood is all smiles and
support...

Theater Theatro is in full swing in the plaza and Ben and peta are waiting
so
will wish you all the happiest of tgivings and celebrate the life I lead with
such delighted gratitude. may need to extend a few days here as cannot
separate from my magical, fantastical world.

such love to you! Leslie
 Subject: sweetest hearts

it is a balmy Sunday evening and the reverent passion from the congregants
is echoing from the cathedral to my breezy spot in the dark and ancient
hotel Granada...my neighbor across the steps from englesia Guadalupe. I am
fast forwarding to this afternoon and will fill in the miracles of the past
few days while at the airport in Miami. but for now....oh my gosh.

last night I was at a party with Mirabelle, leadership consultant from new
York with English accent and enjoying the grandeur of her newly restored
colonial on the colzada when I met a young woman who is building a five
star, boutique inn on one of the isletas all green, organic and extraordinary )
look up Jicaro) and she is also English. I am buying a little finca here
for an envir center and that saga will follow but because she wants to buy
veggies and fruits off the finca for her organic chef´s pleasures and we
were so very excited to meet, i went to look for where in the heck her hotel
is in the isletas because i thought I knew them so well. as you will recall
there are 365 jewel like islands of jungle and monkeys and mansions at the
foot of volcano mobaccho. mobaccho gave birth to these baby islands in a
burst of productivity a few thousand years ago....so I took my regular bike
route to the isletas where i normally take visitors for a punta excursion and
found a new little jungle enfolded road and at the end was rapture...it was
the image we imagine of creation. exquisite wilderness network of islands,
mysterious birds calling and plunging into the water or walking on lily pads
with red bellies and big beaks...and the stones from the volcano with huge
trees and vines wrapped all around and the perfume of blooming trees.with a
perfect terrace cafe and the staff enjoying huge whole fish as the light
danced on palms, mangroves and waves of bluest...and thick skirted ladies
stood in their wooden crafts and cast little nets over and over again and a
monkey came from the tree and climbed on to me and its long tail squeezed my
arm as its fingers with nails so like our own explored my face and neck face
to face with me. it is all our images of paradise with misty mobaccho
towering above and breezes so fresh and everything green and greener and
unblemished as far as one could see. a chilly cervesa later and after a
delightful visit with all in perfectly understandable but primitive
Spanish...I took off on the bike to find a new route home to my casa and
found that the road I walk every day to the market extends to the isletas
with brahma bulls, flocks of horses and folks of the campo doing the work of
cowboys and trees ten feet around are just footsteps outside of my beloved
Granada. one cowboy had a herd of 15 horses and one lagging with a terrible
limp and I went to donna the vet to see if she will find him tomorrow as he
is so wanting help on this problem and how great to learn where his casa is
in the countryside and explain that I have a free vet all in Spanish! but
still in a dream land of bliss from the past hours I enter the urban
loveliness of the poorer barrio of Granada from the dirt tract and encounter
a wild ruckus....tubas so many tubas honking at a snails pace with drums and
trumpets heralding the virgin’s arrival and indeed---there is her stage all
lovely with food gifts and fruit, palm and banana leaves, and her throne
when the tuba procession of hundreds of devotees reaches this little rise.
I am in love with this life, this place and I want to live forever and ever
amid these gentle miracles of nica.

February is the international piety festival here. an open and loving
invitation to each of you. love and joy from Leslie
Subject: homeward bound

deplaned in Denver last night to 11 degree temperatures a mile high from
the sea and so very dry. hard to imagine a more stunning contrast to my
moist green world in nica.

so many days of magic and the escalators and rush and anonymity of the
airport is another world all together.

the environment of nica is wild west and wonderfully contemporary, Victorian
civility and conservative and indigenous/ethnically pure at the same time. the
music the nicas love might have come from a 1930's Hollywood schmaltz movie
and the way they behave toward one another and me is with the innocent
warmth of another era all together.

the last five days have held more miracles that are recordable. and people
in my company through these days noted themselves that I am attracting magic
moments and interactions in a way that is surreal. take the meeting with
the owner of the finca. he turns out to be the senator for all of Managua
in the nica legislature and we spend two hours over wine and dinner
discussing and debating strategies for deposing Ortega’s government toward
the Sandinista roots from which is has so radically departed. to visiting
the farm where the volcan mombacho looms in perfect pyramid rain forest over
my wildly diverse little plot where nyalee and warren and Amy and I were
escorted by the caretaker to meet wonderous trees of cinnamon, clove, nime
(a cancer cure and the queen of curious fruits!)trees, plucking coconuts
from the trees and dlicing off the 2 inch thick shell to drink the milk
fresh and warm from the sun. but the wonder is that i extended my stay for
a few days (to secure the next mural site and other business) and the
promised visit of Gabriel Cummins coincided with my last day and his lecture
at the yoga studio was all ab out eating living food which my farm produces
in great abundance. his school for organic food and farming education,
healing and meditation is going to be another market for my produce.

the best part though is the daily joy of opening my 12 food mahogany doors and
seeing what the day will bring. and at 4 am each day this week, I have
been greeted with trumpets and tubas..(big white tubas) and drums and a w
oden cart carrying the glittering statue of the virgin mary. the little
troops of musicians and cart pushes come at 4r am to scare off the evil
spirits and then all thru the day the tubas and trumpets continue at every
open doorway and at night, the streets are all hung with little old
fashioned strings of light bulbs and Mary settles in to preside over
singing, community mingling and chanting. six neighborhoods of Granada are
allowed to have this revenant and boisterous activity and curiously I have
come face to face with the virgin five times...during bike rides or other
excursions...I encounter her. that is strange in a city of this size!

neighbors take up a collection to create their event for Mary. the man down
the street from me is the artist for the Mary float/cart in our
neighborhood. I happened into his studio and there were HUGE paper Mache sc
sculptures of Jesus, god, roaring lions, leaping horses and other
gargantuan creations of stunning imagery. the float he created this year
was not only a very lovely 8 foot virgin surrounded by fire bursts - but
also two leaping white stallion horses with all the equipment showing on the
same float...think rose parade and mgm musicals of the '30's!!

Giovanni has been targeted by a witch and tho he weard the ring to ward off
evil spells. the woman I buy fruit from on the corner was miss gay Nicaragua
and last year in desperation she cut off her penis and barely survived and
the whole neiborhood came to help with her medical expenses. Daryl, Amy’s
husband and techie expat here, has movie night on the wall outside wall of
his colonial each Friday evening and at least 150 people gather there to
watch what move he plays for them, we had a western this week but the
neighborhood's favorite movie is one that was made of the folks on the
street...just doing what they do. washing the gutters, selling fresh bread,
making baho and selling with wrapped in fresh banana leaves, playing with
their children and as always rocking in the chairs on the wonderful mile
high sidewalks.

I will so miss this soft air, the sweetness that pervades this culture. I
have seen not one act of aggression, anger or frustration in two months. no
one was mean to a dog, no child was pushy with another child. everyone is
so lovely and gracious to one another. it is just exquisite.

my trash goes to the curb twice a week but is picked thru and reduced by 2/3
by paper, plastic and scrap collectors. when I rush inside to give plastic
bottles to the little family that makes their living with selling that item,
the young son graciously received my plastic and proceeded to proudly
introduce all members of his family who shook hands with pride and purpose.

my little loro parrot has gone to Amy’s till I return and all her/his bird
friends are so upset. what a ruckus.

how will miss my made by hand broom, my parade of vendors who sparkle the
morning with their personality and wares. the ever serious donut lady and
her little girl all aproned in ruffles and so very slim, and my rambunctious
bread lady who benefitted from the tea and ginger I gave her for her sore
throat, and the mild man who knows I do not drink the raw mild but still
gives me gifts of thick cream or cheese most days.

met lily who ran the restaurant lily of the valley in bodgea for years
before coming here. who is a restraunteaur of great renown and such a
gypsy spirit. she helped me find a tenant for the casa for these next few
months, an Italian script writer!

so last visit to the yoga center to do yoga on the ancient tile floors of
the colonial and listen to the parrots and breezes dance in the palms and
ferns. the breeze shares thi8s yoga space with us and is so warm against
the skin.

my yearning to paint is like a craving and I have been producing several big
and very vivid and energized works which are getting good reviews from my
artist peers. I still cannot seem to part with them, so no sales
now...maybe in the future.

the parade of people thru my door every day is a comedy. babies coming
to play with simple little things I’ve assembled for them. bottle caps
and empty yoghurt containers, tennis balls and such. wilfredo my contractor,
waskar my friend and driver and manager and Mary the house cleaner who had
me to dinner in her home of tin and wood on a mud track where I was
reminded how very lucky I am and how much work there is to do, Rosie with
her admonitions about safety and security, Dora and her demand for dirty
laundry and insistence on tending my courtyard garden and on and on. the
characters that enrich my day from pre dawn to dark.

terry and I had lunch at azisi---overlooking the isletas this week and found
that she designed the program to reassimilate children from Rwanda, sierra
leone, congoa and somalia that were drugged and forced to kill. she is the
director of construction for refugee camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and
so adamant that barak is going in the wrong direction there and instead
should just buy the whole heroin crop, burn it and take away the Taliban’s
income source in that way while allowing farmers an income.

good bye to superb coffee, yummy rum, cigars, church bells, glowing sunrises
on ancient colonials, innocence and antiquity. what a blessing each day
has brought to me. and I know that it is possible to find JOY in each
moment wherever we are, but the joys of nica needn't be sought - they
burst upon you like the fireworks that crazily are set off in the middle of
the day! love this place. love the community I have found here and the
privilege of finding avenues to really Do something that the community
itself is so very jazzed about.

thanks to all of you7 for minding my life there while I have been gone and
for receiving me again with the love I count on so truly. Leslie,


Murals Motivate Giving

Hola Leslie,
My name is Michael Howard. I am currently staying in Granada, working with La Esperanza and a couple of other projects. I recently passed the bridge on Nueva Calle and was "stunned" by the beauty and the significance of the art project and its message. Subsequently met Julio and we have talked several times since then. He has explained much to me about his work and the projects he is looking forward to carrying out. All sound quite worthwhile to me and I have been thinking about how I might be of some help. Julio seems to think the best use of any effort and money at this time would be to continue with another mural. He has a location in mind and this Wednesday Jairo (what a terrific young man) is scheduled to meet with Julio and present him with a sketch of whatever concept Julio has discussed with him. Julio thinks that he might be able to get this next mural painted for about $1,300.00.
I don´t know what you future plans are regarding support for this or any other projects here in Nicaragua, but I told Julio that I would be able to pay for half the cost of this mural if you and your organization (or any other source) might be willing to pay for the other half. Julio tells me you will be here in February, but he wants to get started as soon as possible. What do you think?
The artwork is finished and it is bright, positive and and absolutely beautiful and professional. Julio asked me to let you know that this Wednesday there will be a ceremony at the bridge, attended by the alcaldia and various functionaries and related groups, at which time the project will be formally turned over to the government for its care and protection. I can´t tell you how impressed so many people are with this work. It´s a joy to walk past it most days on my way back from work. Thanks!
Looking forward to hearing from you at your convenience,
Cordially,
Michael Howard



Subject: Information about mural in Nicaragua.

Hi leslie, I am Jairo sandino, Pleasure of greeting you. I writing to you to communicate that I had finished the mural, I hope you have already received some mural´s pictures and videos. I want to say that I feel really happy and satified by being finished with succeed the mural.
Many people are amazing at the time they see the mural, some of them said: "This is the first time that granada do something good!!!".

If you have already receive pictures or document from it, I hope you liked it. By the other hand, there are many people who want to keep supporting us, on keep working on the next mural, which make me feel happy.

I think your ideas are having a great impact, in a positive way, in the community. This is already a tourist attraction point, besides there are many people whom take pictures of the mural and they say: "that´s really beauty!".

There is a man called michael, he wants to sponsor us in the next mural.
I hope we can keep working on nexts projects. I am ready to work in it.
I hope you write me, thank you

एंड थें वहत हप्पेनेद?एंड टी

वेल थें and then what happened? Imagine violins and more violins.

Returned very late from the clinic and the trip is trecherous with Brigitte at the wheel of the TOyota FOrrunner with no headlights. Even in this darkness, people are walking along the roadside with sticks bundled on their heads. How many miles did they have to walk to find sticks? They will be sold for $.25 a bundle in the market tomorrow or used to warm their beans tonight. A days journey for whole families...even babes... for a bundle of sticks and returning home so late on such a dangerous track. From my hotel on the hill you can see over the landscape and the hills are stripped bare outside of the town. Ten years ago the landscape was a fantasy jungle with mahogany, ebony, teak of astonishing porportion....i know because you see one now and again...but the lumber giants of the world cut/stole virtually all of them in just ten years...now they are going after the atlantic coast of Nic and then environmental minister of Nic has asked me to help. they "attack" from boats off shore...puttling roads into the Misquito peoples' wilderness and haul out the wood and slip away. piracy of another kind. I am hoping to get on to this soon. the mosquito's 200,000 acres of ecologyical tapestry need an international champion...hoping the nature conservancy or tpl will have an interest.

back to the night. mural done and i could not sleep ..a feeling not unlike when peter and merrill were born. my nerve endings were so stimulated i did not sleep for many days. so i was up writing, thinking of things to share with and learn from V about art, mural work and life. loved the sleepless time and the exhilleration of creating and the time to revel in experience and freedom. Do I reallyu leave tomorrow?

My last coffee in the garden with my spanish work sheets and the birds and flowers and the gracious gentle staff and proprietors babies at play. Morning stroll...V and I explore/share favorite haunts - mine being the saddle-making shop which you reach by steep stone steps so narrow and inside dim but the aroma of leather and the fine tooling, stitching and craft absolutely lovely. Warm hand shakes and my elemental spanish conveys my appreciation and admiration. How i honor the work, textures and craft...V is deeply involved in craft conservation internationally...

Oxen, horse carts and pulsing humanity fill the streets. the L'englasia - church and cappucino, exploring learning, feeling so one with this life and these people. i want to be part of this fabric where there is interdepencance yet every one closes their own loop....from earth to table to earth,...the responsiblity for each element is one's own here...everything has a purpose and meaning.

COnvergence at hotel of Help for Nic and G and P and Javier. I am off with Brigitthe for play time and pleasure time together. She is 29 and I am older than her mother yet we have spent the most delightful week together with shared passions, easy dialogue, insights that make communication so rich...love her so so much. We dine with her mom and sister on the sizziling beef and onions that i so love in the traditional nic,style on the plank.,..a few beers and we are so so happy and fulfilled/

B goes to collect my gear while i linger in town and drift toward the park where a ceramic collection has caught my eye these past days...A tidy elderly lady is selling piggy banks. Her story: she lives in the mountains. there she gathers clay (and there are NO shovels...so how does she do this?( and carries it to her casa and mixes it with sand with her feet in a pit and then expertly crafts these charming crittters hen, ox. goat. pig...some painted...some just fired and natural...all alive with her energy.., she fires them in a kiln of her making with heat from wood she collects and them when the multi firing process is done she hauls them to a road to catch a bus to matagalpa, because the roads are so ragged, over fifty o per cent of her art is broken by the time she reaches matagalpa. wherer she sets up shop on ths sidewalk. she sleeps here on th sidewalk next to her wares..they are easily five pounds each...big and she sells them for 2.00 each.. imagine...

मिशन accomplished

working until dark on a night when thick mist and wind transformed the landscape into something out of nightmares.....yet the parrots still squawk and the congus monkey still howl.----- with Brigetthe´s help the the mural is done and is a masterpiece of love and energy and hope.. if i were a techie i would attach a photo....it is 16 x 10 and full of life of nic. oxen, textures of rainforest and fields of carrots, cabbage and corn....the sky is alive with stars and children dance and jump at play. horses and goats water and wind...all the textures of life are represented....so much fun. up and downt the ladder a thousand times a day mixing paint, imagining the work in my dreams...so saçd to finish but tomorrow i leave this moutain wild and return to managua for home... we´´ll meet francisco and javier for dinner...

today i went to the mçhome of the woman who made me the tortillas yesterdy. she cleans the clinic. in her dirt-mud really - floored home of 26 years.. with a corner buring wood and drying corn, with 15 chickens as guests and with her three daughters...red headed with freckles...we ate squas, fice and cheese in tin plates in a windowless shack....the kitten and dogs, one adorable grandchild and on fresh cotton tablecloth on a rough plank i dined on sumptuous food. they have NOTHING. it is so wet tonight, and my clotyhes feel wet and they live with this with no closets, so linens, they sleep in a hammock (tiny) and isaw one twin sized surface that may be a bed. no plumbing. no toilet. no latrine. they grow all that they eat, they have no electricity so at 6 when darkness comes...they are in the dark and wet and dankness. but the kids are so bright and clung to me at the mural project and proudly showed me the jumble of plants that make up their life and sustenance. the coffee i drank. the tortilla i ate, the beans i savored all were produced here. on her great grandmothers matate she ground the corn and it will be passed on to her daughter. this is poverty and thety have nothing. the pen i gave Kadkan was a treasure. pictures i copied to inspire my mural were treasurtees too.----they y have nothing.

i imagine our consumption compared to theirs... how can i comapoin about the rainfores diaappearing when my consumptioj in a moment surpasses their consumption in a year...is this poverty or living within our limits. remember these children being educated without books or paper or pens...perform better than our own US educated students-.-

the book i gave them with photos for my mural was handled likde a jewel.----had they ever seen a picture book before?
due to the holes in the recycled tin on her roof....the flooer was wet and with the huge rains of the past month icannot imagine the mysery - or is it misery when they have love and duties and survival together....i do not see these stick shacks as poverty any more...i cannot yet get my mind around what it really is...

a fascinating man met this A.M as i was loading my water filters into brigetthe´s truck.. had i done this any other day tghis trip our meeting would not have happened- i am all a flutter. we walk the same path but his is at a scale i cannot even fathom....with art, culture. environ,emnt and philanthropy we speak one language....miracles unfolding...we drove together to the clinic so he could see the mural as he is a painter of import in the U.S- it was hard to part...i wonder what the future will hold---but i am dizzy with feeling.

matagalpa

It must be Monday today????? No sense of time. just teh parrots waking me n the morning and eating when only starving....otherwise too busy with creation...i finish tçup on the mural after seven hour blitz - not stopping to eat, drink or pee. i is so gradifying and intense....and when i finally settle after dinner with friends or a cup of rum...the ideas flood in as to how to improve or what to create in it tomorrow...my mind is skipping miles ahead to consequences and opportunities of creations...

My favorite reading is autobiographical accounts of the wanderings of adventurers...i read them not so musch s a voyer any more but more as a compatriot....for i too am an adventurer. squishing and slipping our way through wet tracks in the matagalph highlands dodging precipeses, pigs, oxen and ramdow horses....ababies and laboring babies...this is true adventure travel....if those loking for adventurif only the tourists of the world knew of this gem....perhaps the economy here would take flight...as it is - it is a wonder that people thrive because they live with nothing - zero and only thru the resourçsefulness , generosity of family and neighbors and the wealth of natural gifts from the forest, they would perish...cahews, bannanas grow wild.

i eat from the the weathered little lady living in the tiny house of sticks for dinner last night. she grew the wheat in her patch of cleared rainforest. she harvested it, cleaned it, boiled it, dried it, ground it with her crank grinder, then used her stone matate and stone pestle to grind it yet again into a fine flous and then adding water - she formed a round and patting it against her thigh - made y tortilla which she then roasted over a charcoal fire and added a chunck of cheese made frmo the mild of her ox....and i eat this astonishing succulent food with gratitude and wonder.

back at my hotel above the village, i enjoy cream for the coffee comes out so thick and foamy it is as if the huge oxen that produced it are just outside the door. so with my coffee and cream i will recount the past two days of magic:

But first - the word ¨third world¨completely fails to describe nic. cic is bathed in the light of the first world. connected to the earh, one with community, absolved of stress from anything but survival. i fell like i am chasing the real world rising before dawn, waiting for the sunrise, capturing color and shadow, seeking weathered of baby smooth faces with their fepth and warmthtrapping the crescendo of light on film and camera, the evolution of lives and contrasts. the wold so richly dimentional and marvelous...marvel...surprising and rich with hujmor and delight. observing the incredible detail of things. be it the texture of a simple door..carved from an ancient mahogany tree, the weave of a panama hat, the wear upon an ancient tile, the melody of converstyion (and it is >NEVER with anger or tears or hurry) i´ve watched the orange ball of the sun disappear behind the royal blue mountains with mushroom clouds heaving and swelling like liquid. All sense of space and distance vanish in the comfort of the senses or that sated feeling when senses are saturated at last.

what does the town center resemble in nic.? like a cavavan of a huge circus - clolorful, noisy, music, busses, trucks mounted with speakers belching propaganda and song, all moving in concert - pedestrians, busses, taxis, bikes, carts, horsemen, hortsercarts, oxen carts. i love to stop at the corner before the climb to my hotel and purchase roadted corn on the cob from the slight woman with the delicate fingers who rasted it over coals all day...eaten like crispy nuts from the cob and wrapped in the husk when she offers it to me HOT for only 20 cents an ear....

the busses are brightly ornamented and colorfully painted and decorated with ribgons, flowerts, slogans and family decals. on roof racks, furniture for market, a thousand pounds of oranges in 100 pond bags, coffee in sacks larger than most women and this is the <¨trucking industry of ic. roady like a slimy roller coaster and folks only waking from the boxes of sticks they inhait without lights, swetrer or latrines and no land for production of any food so out of necessity they prey upon the forest and its rich bounty of congus monkeys, parrots and wood.
What i want to do in my life and the life i am living are utterly intertwinded here and when traveling freely. the the kids restrained me so in africa....i look forward to meeting africa on my own terms in may....for here i really understand the libertate....letting the free spirit soar.

I underatnd that most people never get anything close tho this in their lives. They do not seek it. Why do >I? I care so much about what i am doing each day at home in auburn....However - what i am doing these past 14 days setting my own pace, drining in all that my soul can grasp. i feel that i am in a realm of boundaryness where i believe only a rare few feel secure. When i see the sundown silouettes of children, men, women carrying caskets on their heads these are the images that cause me to send down roots. there is a humanity in the ¨third world¨tht the rest of the world has lost touch with.
Drifeed into a saddle making shop...furnitre shop, i order tables for my new house from a man who can create the m and matching chairs in a shop ith no machinery - only hand toold and wisdom. the horses prance with a high step and cowboys with their traditional hads adorn them with silver saddles and ribbons of lrather. the child pauses to reat near me when i am negotiating a rattan furniture purchase and i ask to shoulder his load...i cannot even lift it. concrete? well over 100 pounds and he only 8 maybe 7-....

coming home from the mural project at the end of day...sometimes i work late and it is dark and sillloutes on the road side are peasants carrying loads of wood on their heads...they have stripped the forest to nothing ut grass within four hours of towm so they muyst use their day walking for wood and returnng at nigth....creating more distance to travel for tomorrow....

it will all be gone is ten years,,,,maybe less. then what? many babies, exhausted soil and no more wood....

the mural is pulsating with life and character. can´t believe i executed this! Brigetthe...my friends, clinic director and most beautiful woman in the world is also an artist and i have forfeited my ownership of the ribbon ovf water and let her paint it but it pains me and i wish i could do it all my self..-...but i would never have gotten it done...so little compromises but overall it is glorious...
today we may finish....sky, middle ground of an oxen, rainforest and a ditant farm....little details and i may have to say goodbye to it.

letting go of art is like sending a child off to college,....the child comes back tho...the art is gone forever. the creative process creates more ownership and it does not have it´s own life path to take...but the possessiveness is similar...strange....
with joy...i close and today we pack up the rest of the water filters for the villagers. we´ve decided to give them to the schools and we´ll see what happens to the rest. like the problem created with sending clothes to africa....who get and who doesn´t. the injectin of the clother(water filter9 CREATES AN ARTIFICIAL IMBALANCE IN THE COMMUNITY. GOOD INTENTION MESSING UP AGAIN....

BRIGETTHE AND I HAVE A SUCH WOMDERFUL COMPANY ---TOGETHER WE ARE AT EASE AND THO WE´VE BEEN SHOULER TO SHOULDER FOR A WEEK....IT IS JUST SO RIGHT....LOVE HER...

matagalpa love

Gotta mean something wonderful to walk out of your hotel room and have a 7" moth floundering on the floor and when you scoop it up and take it out to the garden it flutters away. good omen!

i am awaiting my morning coffee delivered in delicate china with warm thick milk and tiny spoons by gracious staff. the service is getting addictive....hotel living when you are about the only guest with views, gardens and moutain aire....too good.
I needed to report on the Granada twins - children of cousins so sadly born blind. i met them on their morning stroll in the plaza with their nurse. one is a prominant psychologist and the other - the nations most famous pianist - performing on internatonal stages....ah nicaragua.

also in granada i neeed to report on the night of screaming from 1800 when the indigeneous people in agony and frustration over the spanish assault and brutality gathered in front of the church and collectively screamed.....need to research this..what a way for the powerless to be HEARD. also the indigeneous quit reproducing to be sure that their babies were not victims and the population dropped to 10 or less percent of the original sixe through that kind of passive agression...

also needed to report that lovely young women are apparently guests at the finest hotels taking tricks...because in the non economy 70% unemployment - that is the only way to fund their university education.

but on the the immediate story of tçyesterday...i am in the mountains of matagalpa this week -having left granada with Franciaco the director of new projects for that multi national corp....name excpes me at the moment.

Here in matagalpa the air is mountan fresh and the rainforest home to trees 10 feet wide of mahogany, fig etc...

the coffee grown here sparkles in the sunlight under a canopy of bannana ...shade grown coffee still requires the destruction of the rain forest. altho with francisco perhaps my great idea ' to give more ¨certified points¨to growers who protect some percentage of their wilderness and more points in the acreage they protect links up with an adjoinging farmers´protected land....see i can make a national impact...third world is managable..

violance against the rigged election is continuing but not here. mario, genie, francisco and all other friends here chaffe under the sandinista control.-..corrupt, ineffectual and thank god the nic people are so resource full and good to eachother... the biggest victim may be corporations who are blackmailed to even stay in business and profit...well ' that´s another story.

so - the mural is glorious. who would have thought i could do this. i paint from a tall ladder climb down to get a visa perspective on the work and wonder who in the heck painted that ? it is so good and the mountain people come in to watch ' fan me with card board and it is really very satisfyintg.

the mountain people grow beans corn squash cabbage and other lovely veggies and NEVER eat it. they do not know how to use these things. the children have a diet (after nursing one year) of ONLY beans rice and coffee. the reslt is dull minds, listlessness, but the huge eyes and gentle manner is so endearing....brigetthe the director of the clinic is going to start teaching them how to cook and eat the veggies tehy grow...it will be like us learing to eat beetles in aftica....totally culturally foreign

there are also many flower growers in these hills and at the roadside stands,,,,i bought a dozen red roses,. four bundles of exotic and glorius flowers 0 six bunches in all plñuis a huge bundle of sword fern for only five dollars. brigetthe,s car was full of flowers we looked like a car going to a funeral but for our incessent laughter and joy

my spots fro the no see um bugs from granada are all over my torso. the nurses at the clinic where i am painting the mural are caring from me like one of the babies....
´

wine and dreams off my terrace last night with mario and genie and their two kids. the out to dinner at a downtown matagalpa spot = everything looks like it is ready to collapse but we went upstairs on the balcony and had organic beef layed on in slaps on a 5 foot long wood platter organic meat as the cows just eat grass in the hills. the roasted meat surrounded by the sweetest onions and chiles you have ever eated....pico de gallo, salsas, limes, cheese as only nic can make it,. tortilla, ,,minty sauses like pesto texture and i ate enought for six people....traditional nic food....cowboy food...back to genie and marios house for the evening . mario is the old nic family deposed with the first sandinista wave and now back to their coffee operation --esperanza coffee...check it out on the web. cowboys on horseback with their 10 gallon hats all through town on the little cobbled streets.

so off we go now back to the clinic - hoping to nearly finish today.....well maybe on monday....

we need to drive a truck down here for use by the clinic. you or any of your friends want that assignment¨¿´

how i love this place. it is so like africa....but closer. same lovely people. same joy amid poverty...same latitude on the globe.....same love....same music to eniven the soul..

loving every minute here meeting with diplomatic sources tonight on social and environmental issues,.

love you both so much. hope you are happy and i think and talk about you every day

much love