Ocotal

In addition to the English classes and business development initiatives Geneseo is working on in El Sauce, the College is working with the mayor, residents, organic farmers, craftspeople and others in the region to develop tourism.
Other remote communities have been successful and so can El Sauce, says Kellan and Yacarely.
People from those communities say El Sauce has more to offer in fact — the Los Peroles river we swam in last Sunday, a train line that is now a trail running north to south on the edge of town and the mountain communities of Ocotal.
Kellan and Yacarely are spearheading the campaign and have the support of all the leaders and community members.
Yacarely recently won a Millennium Challenge Corporation grant for $10,000 in supplies for Geneseo's business development plan. It is all happening in collaboration with the leaders in Ocotal; the entire community really.
Kellan and Yacarely are helping organize the first tours of Ocotal. The first tour is Friday, for a group of about six people from the Ciudad Hermana organization in Rochester, N.Y. including Tim McMahon. We just ran into them in a cafe. They are in the city one hour now.
Tim is one of the Geneseo residents who helped start the El Sauce relationship with Geneseo.
On Friday the Rochester group will go to Ocotal and tour an organic coffee plantation, ride horseback through the mountains and have lunch with a family.
I will go there Monday with Kellan and Yacarely and Irene, of the Peace Corps, and a brigade of leaders from El Sauce, including the mayor. They will meet with the coffee cooperative and decide who to add to the tourism initiative. On Wednesday, we will climb the 1,900 meters again to meet with the women who make pine-needle baskets and spend the day interviewing Ocotal residents.
In the future, they will build small bungalows for tourists to stay in and a tourism center where baskets and other handmade goods will be sold to help sustain the economy there — all on land generously donated by a resident.
It's a very poor area and people don't have much. In the beginning, tourists will stay with host families, much like we are in El Sauce. That way they also get to experience a typical Nicaraguan day with, I am told, amazing sunsets and a view from on high on top of the mountain.