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Day 5
Wake call at 4:45 a.m.; room service breakfast at 5:15 a.m. (The restaurant doesn't open until 6:00 a.m.); and the day has begun for the SCAW team. At 6:00 a.m. we head out for Yalaguina, a small town four-and-a-half hours away through beautiful mountainous countryside.Strange unique sites meet us all along the way: signs indicating armadillo or iguana crossings; a young lad on a bike pedalling down the road with a cow's head on each handle bar; a small gravel runway alongside the busy road with several very small planes on it; rice paddies and cement pads covered with drying coffee beans, the scent of which fills the cool fresh mountain air.
All of this and more fills our senses as we travel along. At Yalaguina the children are lined up and waiting. They sing their national anthem and then we are treated to a set of lovely traditional dances. Due to the lack of space and the ever glaring sun we set up the photographing site against the school wall and the fun begins.
The excitement was obvious by the expressions on their faces, as they saw the bedkit laid out. We danced with the children in the line-up to the background music - that of Nicaragua, a polka and the Pink Panther theme.
Their photos were then taken and off they skipped to get their bedkits. By 4:00 p.m. 625 weary but excited children, six weary but delighted Canadians and two dozen weary but ecstatic Nicaraguan volunteers wended their way homeward from Yalaguina, all to have a good night's sleep.
Thank you and good night from Nicaragua.
Joan Hryniw
for Team Nicaragua 2010
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