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.