Triathalon

NCA hosted the first ever triathalon last weekend. This was an event several of us have talked about for some time. It gets complicating to plan something like this here, but it finally happened. We had about 50 participants; mostly students and some adults. It was a mini triathalon: 200m swim, 10km bike, 5km run. The event brought out lots of families for the afternoon. It was a huge success! It was neat to see some of our not so athletic students persevering through the race and not being satisfied until they crossed the finish line.

I loaded these pictures in reverse order. So you can either scroll to the last picture and then go back up or just think of them in reverse order. Once again Carey and I participated in this event. The swimming portion of the race was the most intimidating for me. I actually swam a greater distance overall in the last month than I have the in last 10 years.

Derek coming in to the finish line.

Morgan coming in from her bike ride.

And they are off!!

First group getting ready to head out.

Visitors

Over Thanksgiving my brother came down for a week long visit. In the picture below we were hanging out and exploring a coffee farm in the mountains. We also participated in a bike trip for 2 days. I don't have any pictures of the two of us on the trip since Wayne was so far ahead of me. The bike trip was a fundraiser for the Luke Society in Nicaragua. There were about 30 participants. My roomates went on the trip as well. Here we are just before crossing a river. There were many of them to cross on the trip.
Here's one of the breaks about midway on the trip. The picture below is a "Where's Waldo" picture. There's something Christmasy in this photo, can you find it?

And, my other visitors for the month of November was a work team from Jarvis. Here we are at the edge of Volcan Masaya. It was fun to hang out with so many Canadians. I really enjoyed my time with all of you! Thank you for blessing Nicaragua with your visit.

Not a Thanksgiving Meal

At recess on Wednesday about 20 students suddenly went stampeding off the soccer field and around the school buildings barreling after an iguana. Somehow they were able to trap it under a box where one of the workers picked it up. They were so excited to have trapped their prize. With so much excitement and kids around I was afraid the iguana was going to fall over and die, but he hung in there. Here are some pictures of two of my students holding the iguana. Some people in Nicaragua make a soup from iguanas. Apparrently it tastes like chicken, but I've never tried it.
Last week I also saw a huge parrot hanging out at the top of a tree on campus. It was making the really loud noises, but thankfully flew away before class started. It's amazing how much wildlife we see around the school even with all the kids around.

Jarvis Crew comes to Nicaragua

It's been fun to have a team from Jarvis in Nicaragua. They are working with Worldwide Christian Schools. I've been able to join up with them several times. The picture below was taken on a non-work day. The team is standing in front of Volcan Masaya. It's been a real treat for me to spend time with the team and it's very refreshing to be around Canadians again. I thought I'd add this picture of the Dutch monkey too. It's eating a peppermint and quite enjoyed it even though it was a little hard to chew. It took two of them before he would get off the boat.

Simple Machines

Here's a glance at what we've been doing in fourth grade to learn about simple machines. Making a water wheel as an example of a wheel and axle.
Balloon Powered Cars to understand the 3rd law of motion. This has been my all time favorite activity to do. It was so much fun to see the variety in cars and yes they did work. The one that went to farthest went over 25 feet.

This student invented a creative way to keep the ballon onto the car; others used tape.

Hot Wheels Lab to study motion, distance, and inclined planes.

A funny activity to watch that has to do with force, motion, gravity, ping pong balls, and straws.

Not in My Backyard

So here is my Friday in photo form. After school there was a crowd forming outside the gate of the school. These boys who live near the school had caught a boa constrictor near their house. I can't imagine finding this in my backyard. I hope I never do! I'm pretty sure Abi and Laura are thinking the same thing. It was Friday afternoon so we made our own Twister board from construction paper. Lots of fun! These kids were super flexible.

Mimio Classroom

After sending out my last newsletter, some of you asked how it is having an interactive whiteboard. This has been a great investment on the part of the school. I use it often as a way to get kids attention. In our unit on Science we would start each lesson with a little 3 minute video clip about some insect or spider. In Math there are many great interactive games to practice multiplication. When the students break into groups one of the groups is at the whiteboard. In the picture below is a lesson on irregular plural nouns. Other students are working at their desks while groups came up to play this "Who wants to be a millionaire game" to practice making irregular plural nouns.

The equipment didn't come without its hiccups. I waited several weeks to get a second video card so that I would be able to see the picture on my computer screen and the projector at the same time. We also had several days without power. This could be frustrating because in the morning I would get all the activities to use for the day ready on the computer. Then by 9:00 the power went out for the rest of the day and all that work was gone. More recently though it has been working smoothly and the students really enjoy seeing what I'm going to put up on the board.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family in Canada. This year in Nicaragua we didn't have regular classes, but we did have a teacher workday. That means I was able to escape a little early and join the other Canadians in Nicaragua for a Thanksgiving celebration.

At the teacher workday we always have a parent of one of our students lead us in devotions. The pastor that lead us that morning talked about thanksgiving. Little did he know how appropriate it was for me being Thanksgiving Day. He used the story of Jesus feeding the 5, 000. We all know the story of Jesus telling the disciples that they need to feed the people before they leave to their homes. The disciples did the calculations and could clearly see that the 5 loaves and 2 fish were not be enough. Jesus takes this poor man's meal, looks up into heaven, and HE GAVE THANKS. With much love His Heavenly Father looked down at His Son giving thanks for this meager meal and responded by making it sufficient for the whole crowd. Sometimes we look at our things thinking it's not enough and that we need more. If we stop and give thanks, the Lord can multiple what we have to be enough or just give us a heart of gratitude.

As I said after the teacher workday we ate a Thanksgiving meal together with other Canadians. There were about 35 of us all together. There wasn't a turkey to be found in Nicaragua so we went for the ham and chicken option. After sharing a time of thanksgiving, we played some hockey. The pictures above were taken at about 6:00pm but at this hour it's already dark in Nicaragua. We used the car's headlights to light up our game.

Independence Day

My niece Annika has 2 Nicaraguan outfits that she loves to wear. One of the two is the traditional Nicaraguan dress. She loves it mostly because when she twirls around the dress spins too. The other day I was telling her that on Friday all the kids at my school would dress up in their traditional clothes and dance. I promised her that I would take some video of the dances so she could see the beautiful dresses in Nicaragua. So this video of our Independence Day program is just for you Annika. Hope you enjoy!

Rainy Season

This year in August and September we have had a lot of rain. Many days I look outside and think, "Is there space for one more raindrop out there?"

In Nicaragua, we often see a unique drainage problem at this time of year that causes fast moving water to gush down streets. Sometimes the water doesn't have anywhere to go because drains are clogged up with trash.

Many areas of the city were not well planned when people started building homes and so there are no true roads and walkways often lead you to the front door of someone's house. The rain flows down the walkways and right into people's homes so they are standing in a foot of muddy water.

In other areas a hill that was formerly covered in trees is now cleared and people have built their homes on it. When the rain comes there is nothing left to hold down the soil so a rush of water and lose soil can become a very dangerous situation.

Many homes have been lost in recent rainstorms. I've heard several stories of clothing and other things getting washed right away never to be seen by their owners again.

Thankfully at NCA we have worked out some of these problems, but from the video below you can see we still have some work to do. The water that is gushing over the walkway in this video has now been rerouted to a different location.

Moldy Mess

After a great time in Canada, it's good to be back in Nicaragua. It's also been great to hear that there continues to be plenty of rain; hopefully making up for the shortage we had last rainy season. A number of reasons factored into me finding my car turned into a mold farm. Early on in my study of science I learned all about what makes a great environment for mold. My car was parked under a tree in the shade for about a month. With all the rain we've had, it provided the perfectly damp, warm, and dark area for the mold to take off. And take off it did! I've never seen so much mold in one place! So... it was war with the mold and I believe after a couple of scrub downs, a trip to the store to buy cleaners, some fresh air, and sun, I have won the war.

Adios mold! After the war on mold (below).

FYI: I filed these pictures into my Crazy ol' Nicaragua picture file.

Ontario Time

The rest of the summer was spent in Ontario with family. There was lots going on including visiting churches, playing with nieces and nephews, camping, week at the cottage, tie dye, candy game, blowing bubbles, canoeing, constructing a sand sculpture mermaid with Rachel, fishing, shopping for the new school year in Nicaragua, s'mores, sweet corn, Dr. Pepper, lots of time with family and much more. It was a great couple of weeks except that it sped by so quickly.

This is my youngest niece, Anna. She just loves her little potty.

Nephews Austin and Jordan on a hike through the wetlands of Turkey Point.

Happy Birthday to Beppe!

One of the many fist caught by the kids at the cottage. Funny they love to catch fish but don't want to get near them.

Bubble Time!

Back to Houston

My time in Canada began with a week long trip to Houston, BC. I enjoyed reconnecting with friends and loved life in a small town again. It's been 6 years since I taught there at HCS. That means that the last class I taught in Houston graduated this year. I was able to attend the graduation; what a treat to see how those 6th grade kids have grown up to be bigger kids.

Celebrating Canada Day at the park in Houston.

Michaela and I joined the Tuesday morning group of ladies who hike each week. It snowed, but not to worry I was wearing a tank top, T-shirt, long sleeve shirt, jacket, and hoody. That's right 5 shirts, it was just right. We hiked to Crater Lake and caught a glimpse of some wildlife and flowers struggling to get through the snow.

An evening with Mr. and Mrs. Gesch from Quick, B.C. Enjoying an after dinner walk.

Mr. Gesch paid the kids 10 cents for each log they moved from the shed to the garage. Great workers!

Plugged In?

Here's a photo entry of our retreat this year with the 4th-6th graders. It's hard to believe that this is the 3rd year we've done this retreat. I continue to be motivated to plan this event because of the shine in the kids eyes as they participate in all the activities. It has also proven to be a time when quieter students have really come out and shone.

The photo above shows kids getting ready for a boat race. They had boxes and a roll of duct tape to build their boat. Each team had about 30 minutes to construct their boats. One group even made a surf board this year and was quite successful.

So in the barrel is a bunch of cow manure and water. Students here are learning how the trapped gases can be used to make a flame. Later students roasted marshmallows over the poop flame.

Water Energy. Students constructed a water wheel from cardboard and used them to haul up a small bucket. This became a race to see whose waterwheel could haul up the bucket the fastest. Record time was in the 2.5 second range.

Solar Power. Being close to the equator we have some great sun time. We took advantage of it by building a solar oven to bake cookies in. Depending on when the cookies were put out into the sun depended on how baked they got. I'd say it was pretty successful.

Wind Power. Students are walking out the height of a windmill and it's blades to understand how large and powerful these structures are.
A quiet time of silent prayer and reflection before the next chapel session.

Awesome Deals

Going to the grocery store here is quite entertaining. Even though there is less selection on the shelves, there are some really fun deals you can find. As shown on the picture below, if you buy a pancake mix you get a pen and pencil for free. Who knows how the two products relate, but it's FREE. My favorite was when a food product is taped to toilet paper or some other non food item. A friend of mine had mice eat a small bag of rice that was attached to her toilet paper because she put it away without detaching it.

Middle School Retreat

Volcan Maderas

Tini adding her rock to the post of burdens.

Team Red reaches the summit first. Sweaty, tired, and hungry but everyone did amazing.

Our very brave youth leaders plan a Middle School Retreat every other year which goes to Ometepe Island to hike Maderas Volcano. Ometepe is an island in Lake Nicaragua and Maderas is one of the two volcanoes on the island. We took 31 middle school students on this adventure. This could well have been the hardest thing they have ever done in their life.

The adventure brought out many spiritual lessons on the trail and upon reflection that night around a campfire. We started our hike at 7:30am and reached the top at 12:30pm. Each hiker was encouraged to take up a stone which would represent a burden they would carry up the mountain and leave at the top. Depending on the size of the rock, the weight of it in our backpack could also be a constant reminder of that burden and our need to give it over to God.

Many students mentioned that along the trail they were sure they wouldn't be able to make it. We celebrated the fact that all 31 of them started the trail, made it to the top, and made it down again my 5:30pm. That's not to say we didn't have some sore muscles, blisters, and a few scrapes. Since our students could conquer a volcano, we encouraged them to think about what other goals, battles, or challenges God might have for them in their lives. Just as they became discouraged on the trail, in life there will be obstacles too, but we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who gives us strength.

The students hiked the volcano in groups. There was a lot of teamwork and cooperation needed in this area. In each group there were those that wanted to race ahead and those that lagged behind. At the beginning of the trail there were two boys in our group who were almost throwing up and really suffering physically. They just didn't want to continue and were really discouraged. About half way up the volcano and after a good rest they took the lead and took on a whole new attitude. They were know helping their team over difficult climbs and were setting a good pace for the group. It was neat to see the transformation.

Visit from a Brother

It was also a great blessing to have my brother Tim visit for a week. Tim works for Worldwide Christian Schools and came down with one of the WCS teams. I was able to spend several evenings with him. It was fun to compare and contrast Nicaragua to Zambia. Perhaps Nicaragua will grow on Tim enough for a return visit.

I learned from Tim that an African custom is to bring a chicken to honor the leader in a village. So, Tim wanted to bring a chicken when we went to visit a Nicaraguan family. There are lots of chickens around but can you really just scoop one off the road and keep driving? Not when its the food of a family who doesn't have a lot to begin with. We stopped at a random home on the side of the road and asked the people if we could buy one of their chickens. They were very kind about our strange request and soon we were off again with a chicken in the car. Below is Tim presenting his chicken and explaining the Zambian tradition.