Seventh Rural School Planned for 1998--see p. 2

NEWTON/SAN JUAN DEL SUR

SISTER CITY PROJECT NEWSLETTER

WINTER1997

SISTER CITY PROJECT NEARS ITS 10th BIRTHDAY

Depending on how you count, 1988 will mark the end of ten years of involvement with our sisters and brothers in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

Highlights of that period include:

--the construction of a playground at the in-town pre-school, as well as two model houses to encourage schoolteachers to remain in their profession

--new pre-schools or primary schools built in the rural communities of La Cuesta, Miravalle, Ostional, Monte Cristo, Escamequita, Capulín, and (starting this December) Las Parcelas

--complete renovation of the big Luis Alfonso Velasquez Primary School, including raised walkways and fruit trees

--Delegations from Brown Middle School, Newton South and Newton North to visit and work in San Juan (digging drainage canals and painting schools)

--The mayor, superintendent of schools, healthcare workers, teachers and student runners from San Juan visiting Newton

--Connections forged between healthcare professionals in San Juan and their counterparts here, including delegations from the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Project Stretch (dental outreach) of Natick, and nursing students from Simmons College doing hands-on work in San Juan.

--Dozens of individual visits by Newtonians to San Juan, many of whom have done useful work and/or financed projects (like the group who paid for the electrification of a large pre-school last year)

--Installation of several low-tech “rope-pumps” to give rural communities clean, easily-drawn water

--Yearly shipments of children’s books, computers, clothes, school supplies, toys, medical and dental equipment, paint, etc. that involved spectacular children’s shoe drives by the kids at the Underwood School, and enough modular blocks made by the woodworking shops at Newton North and Bigelow Middle School to furnish every pre-school in the 200-square-mile San Juan school district, a project financed by a grant from The Foundation on Racial, Ethnic and Religious Tolerance.

--The Underwood School Book Fair this year netting $800 for schools in San Juan, and the Brown Middle School P.T.O. contributing $200.

--Arranging for a series of college (or pre-college) students to spend long periods in San Juan, teaching English and working in Public Health

--Connecting a group of small business people in San Juan with a low-interest revolving loan fund that made available to them much-needed start-up and expansion capital. The group has now founded a Credit Union....

And this is just a partial list!

HATS OFF TO ALL THE CITIZENS OF NEWTON, SAN JUAN DEL SUR AND ELSEWHERE WHOSE GENEROSITY AND HARD WORK MADE THIS DECADE OF SISTERLY LINKAGES POSSIBLE!

* * * * * * * *

LAS PARCELAS CHOSEN FOR 1998 MAJOR PROJECT

HELP UNDERWRITE THE NEW SCHOOL IN LAS PARCELAS!

Your dollars go a long way in Nicaragua: $25 buys 6 bags of cement; $50 buys 1,000 bricks; $100 buys 10 twelve-foot sheets of zinc roofing. If you’d like to avoid being called during our Phonathon (or if you’ve been called already) why not slip your annual contribution into the mail today: c/o Betsy Barker 49 Woodcliff, Newton Highlands, MA 02161. ¡Muchas gracias!

South of San Juan is the isolated community of Las Parcelas whose dark, stifling, dirt-floored school has been such a disaster that most parents have stopped sending their kids--during much of the school year the floor turns to mud and the children get sick. In 1996 we promised to do something about the floor. But when our trusted master-mason Julio Pizarro gave the school a thorough examination earlier this year he discovered also that there was no real foundation and that the walls had no reinforcing against earthquake tremors. So in consultation with superintendent Roger Lesama, we’ve decided to pull down the old school and put up a new two-classroom building (with earthquake protection) in its place. Margaret and David Gullette will meet with members of the community right after Christmas to plan the new school; ground will be broken before the New Year.

GRANT SOUGHT FOR LITERACY PROJECT

Working closely with Rosa Elena Bello in San Juan and Dr. Patricia Claeys in Belgium, Margaret Gullette has written a grant proposal to fund a project using the already-existing system of promotoras de salud (paraprofessional healthcare promoters) to become literacy teachers in their communities. Anyone with ideas about funding sources should contact Margaret, 965-2164.

NEEDED: A VOLUNTEER WITH IMPORT-MARKETING SKILLS Rodney Barker has been working with various craftsmen and artisans in San Juan del Sur over the possibility of importing crafts--including the famous Nicaraguan rocking chairs called abuelitas (little grannies)--into the US. He has found an exporter in Managua who is willing to take care of the shipping to the states, but we still need someone with marketing skills who would be willing to take samples around to stores in the Boston area and negotiate import deals. This would be an ideal project for a retired business person with patience and experience. Know anybody? Call Rodney, 244-6949.

DR. DAVID AROND and his daughterELISA worked again this year in both San Juan and Ostional, providing pediatric consultations and developing ongoing family health projects. Last trip they brought with them $10,000 worth of donated medical supplies for the people of San Juan.

SURFERPROF: DAVID MANSBACH REPORTS FROM SAN JUAN

David Mansbach of Newton, taking a year off between high school and college, has been living in San Juan del Sur and working at the high school. Here are excerpts from his most recent e-mail letter:

Since arriving a month and a half ago, I’ve taught English to every student at the Instituto (San Juan’s main high school), and have also seen many in quite different circumstances: surfing after classes or on weekends, at birthday parties and about town, and tutoring and giving extra classes to a few. Though I only recognize one or two dozen by name, they have no trouble recognizing me and seem to have told the rest of the town to call out a warm greeting whenever I pass them.

When I arrived here, the school’s English teacher, Juan Rodriguez, had moved to Costa Rica, and taking his place were two others: a young lady with very little teaching experience, and an older man with much more, but also with many health problems. Both speak limited English, and as a result we’ve worked out a way to team-teach. I read things out loud, write and present dialogues, and try to get the students over their shyness of speaking English. The students at the Instituto are notoriously talkative during classes, and it’s always as much of a trial to get the 30 to 40-student classes to quite down at the beginning of class as it is to get them talking again in English. When I’m not doing this in a class, the other teacher is explaining grammar to them, going over exercises, or helping ,me try to quiet them down...

The English program at the school is really in poor shape: the teacher has a textbook, and spends much of each class copying the textbook onto the blackboard so the students can copy it into their notebooks. Even when they have copied it, the textbook is only in English and confuses many of the students. The teacher gives vocabulary and exercises, but does very little oral work. It was a shock to some students to actually hear the language when I came and started doing spoken work with them.

Many students seem very uninterested in English, but a minority are rabidly interested, and take in what little we go over in class and more. Often when sitting with the other surfers in the water during a lull, they’ll ask me what time it is in English, or try to talk about the waves with me in English. It’s encouraging, but also frustrating that some 4th and 5th year students can do no more than ask me how I’m feeling.

Aside from that, though, there’s plenty going on in the little town. When I was here last February I didn’t realize that there are dozens and dozens of young surfers in town. Still all male, unfortunately, but enough to make up a field for a tournament the other week. 20 kids and 20 boards piled into a truck to go to Playa Remanso, and despite all the shouting and bumping, no one actually got hit by a branch or fell off the back. Once in a while I’ll see a student in the water who wasn’t in class that day, and from my look they’ll know to go to class the next day, or at least to surf the other end of the beach from where I am.

The Fiestas Patrias--Independence Day--celebrations fill up San Juan with vacationers, and all the San Juaneños resent the crowd but at the same time enjoy the revelry. They’ll often stop complaining bitterly when invited to have a drink with the tourists, then celebrate with them for a few hours before going back to complaining. I was lucky to be counted as a local this year (I had been here two weeks) and got to join them in complaining about the invasion of Miami Boys with Jet-Skis, though there’s no denying the bars and hospedajes [hostels] need the business.

The big news from the alcaldía [mayor’s office] is the city anthem, flag, and symbol competitions. The finalists in each category are on display, and anyone who wants to see a dozen flags, most of them green, white and blue-striped, a dozen shields, most incorporating fish, battle commemorations, and fishing boats, or a dozen non-rhyming tuneless poems, is welcome to come by. Many do.

Equally big are the four Spaniards from Torreolla [San Juan’s Spanish Sister City] in town to do labor on things like building the park in Barrio Pedro Joaquin, and then to relax a bit on the beach afterward. They seem to have a dozen large projects lined up for this month, and I’ll let everyone know how everything turns out.

It’s Saturday night here and, as always, there’s a loud dance party at the Escuela Integral. I’m too tired from surfing to dance, but I can hear the music fine from my room in Carlos Guzman’s house. Many people know Prof. Guzman and what a helpful, hard-

working guy he is, but not everyone knows he’s also a good cook, a funny companion, and between him and his mother, Doña Teri, there are enough stories to fill up my months here, and more. I think I’ll go listen to a few. So long, David

€