El Sauce updates

As the new Scene is prepared to be delivered to SUNY Geneseo's alumni, friends and supporters, we have more good news from the service-learning program and El Sauce economic-development initiatives to share with our 52,000 readers.

Stay tuned to the blog to read more about El Sauce and how Geneseo efforts are having an impact.

• The School of Business, in concert with The Friends Project, a grassroots group based in Rochester, N.Y., arranged for an expert basket-maker to spend a month living with the women in Cerro Colorado. Right now, she is teaching them how to craft more uniform baskets, helping them hone their skills and helping them create more intricate thread patterns and basket designs with the pine needles that fall near their mountain homes. 

It will help the women sell their art for a higher price and compete in U.S. and larger markets.

• School of Business students will explore U.S. markets and importing the Cerro Colorado baskets this fall. The women are busy filling a $1,000 order from Geneseo to get started.

• The restaurant and welcome shelter at the base of the mirador, or "lookout," in Ocotal is nearly complete.

By summer's end, visitors to El Sauce will enjoy home cooking by Ocotal farmers and their families and have a central gathering place for tours.

El Sauce service-learning volunteer Yacarely Mareina-Dávila won a $10,000 grant for the tourism business proposal to buy supplies such as lumber. Nearly $2,000 in private donations were also raised, by friends and family who support the project.

•Allison Kornblatt '10 landed in El Sauce last weekend, June 7, to launch her award-winning dental hygiene program with children in El Sauce — with help from the Nicaraguan division of Colgate.

She has significantly expanded the project's scope with the company's teamwork.

Allison and Geneseo volunteers are visiting schools with Colgate reps, who will share proper brushing technique and a hygiene regimen with teachers. Colgate will also supply toothpaste and toothbrushes, so the kids can brush at school in morning and afternoon. Teachers will continue the education-prevention program.

Allison was able to use her $1,000 grant from New York Campus Compact to buy inexpensive ceramic water filters. This way, students have access to potable water so they can brush.

Originally, Allison was going to provide brushes and paste but families would need to brush at home — oftentimes they don't have access to filtered water.

Imagine.

Our English students give presentations in class to practice. Every day, someone sings. Tonight, Moises surprised us by bringing in instruments. He played the piano and Enrique played the guitar for "Imagine." Everyone joined in.
I admit it. I got choked up.

English class

Meredith, Kellan, Adam and Yacarely with some of our English class. Ileana, in orange and in front, owns a cafetín, or bar and restaurant in town and was motivated to learn English because there have been times when Geneseo students have come in and she couldn't communicate. Manuel, in the back on the right in the orange shirt, is a teenager who rides a bike taxi for work during the week, so he goes to school on Saturday. He hopes to go to America to work. Moses is a musician who wows the class with his versions of songs, Trinidad is a lawyer and engineer. Other students are hair stylists, construction workers, directors of nonprofit organizations that work with cattle, agriculture, nutrition and other improvements and veterinarians.

Breaking news!

Kellan, Yacarely and Irene had a meeting with El Sauce's tourism commission today. I was there when they walked out, elated. The Millennium Challenge Corporation surprised them with an announcement — the corporation is going to pay to send 20 people from El Sauce to a community that has a successful tourism program so they can learn the ins and outs of what to do.
Kellan, Yacarely, Irene, four reps from the mayor's office and 13 people from the Ocotal community will go to San Ramon for 2 days. The corporation will pay for everything.
"It's a surprise. I didn't expect it," said Kellan, adding that he was happy, smiling and giggling when they announced the news. "It's going to give them even more motivation. We've known that people believed in the program, but this is the first time we've really been giving anything."
Until now, Geneseo and the farmers have been doing all initiatives with no investments.
When we tell Mauricio tomorrow he will be very happy. That's him in the photo and we are all going up there to witness the tour ourselves. Mauricio says it was his dream to bring tourism to Ocotal. He donated part of his farm so the community can build a rustic handicraft, coffee and tourist center and cabins. This is when he arrived at the cooperative meeting.

Managua from on high

We arrived in Managua safe, nearly on time, with luggage and started the first morning in Nicaragua right — sliding down a zip line over Mirador de Tipasca, a crater lake in the city.

At the last zip, the guides held onto us so we could fly like Superman, arms outstretched, over the lake at about 20 mph.