Getting by, with a little help from friends

Just like the song.

"Although you Rochestarians didn't all meet him, I want to also recognize Adam Davis who came from SUNY Geneseo to work on his own project with 4 Walls. He helped a young man named Pepe replace a huge, crumbling adobe wall and then donated new beams and rafters to replace some rotten ones over Pepe and his mother´s kitchen. Adam raised all the money himself and made a great contribution to 4 Walls. Thank you!!"

This came today via e-mail from Meghan Haslam, the Peace Corps volunteer in El Sauce who started the 4 Walls Project. Volunteers from Rochester and Arizona worked with her a few days while we were there and this is from an e-mail she sent them.

Adam indeed raised money for 2 walls — about $500 — through family, friends and his brothers of the Crows fraternity. Like all of the 4 Walls Projects, it was purely funded by people who banded together with a little to make a big difference.

I took this photo of Noel, Adam and Pepe Blanco a few hours before they finished the brick wall. I was pulling double duty with cameras — one for videos and one for pictures — so I could snap one of them looking at digital images of their work.

More needed training for Cerro Colorado

The basket makers of Cerro Colorado will soon receive more training to hone their craft and production sizes, efficiency and other skills.
Geneseo's program is also teaching women in the Las Minitas community of Ocotal down the mountain — where Alfonso and the other farmers are launching tourism — to make baskets as well.
This is Angela, showing off her finished set of set-inside baskets.

An important initiative that's working

Yadira Castillo holds the pinky-thick bundle of pine needles against the body of the basket she has already finished, wraps deep red thread around it and pulls tight. Wrap, pull tight. Wrap, pull tight.
Seven layers in, she has several hours of work left to finish her latest masterpiece, made of needles shed by the tall pines that grow on the mountain and nylon that Kellan brings from Léon and Managua every few months.
She has lived in Cerro Colorado for eight years and before that, another remote community. There is no public transportation to the top of the peak. When the women of deliver their finished baskets to Kellan in El Sauce, they walk down a path three to four hours or fill a recycled sack and ride down on horseback.
From the main church you can see the area of Cerro Colorado — somewhere in the woods in the highest point of the peak — but most people, even in El Sauce, have never been here.
Castillo and the other women and their families raise beans, corn and other small crops for subsistence and sell some of the extra. Kellan figures they make about $500 in the dry season and make it last through the wet.
Kellan helped arrange the women to be trained in basket making by artisans in Manuel Lopez, as a way to be more independent and earn their own incomes and supplement for their families.
Some women are just learning and the baskets are a little lopsided; others are large as basins with patterns of green, red, yellow and close-fitting tops. The more experienced women are helping to teach the newbies.
The Wizard of Clay in Honeoye, N.Y. buys some of the baskets to sell and Kellan has found another buyer in Texas. A friend of a family member saw them, he said, and loved them so much she wants to stock some.
Yacarely and Kellan have also begun to create marketing brochures for the baskets and identify markets in Managua and Léon. Geneseo senior Chad Salitan spent several weeks last year trekking up to Cerro Colorado to take pictures and devise the initial marketing plan.
"We want to find markets in the United States, where the women can sell the baskets at a higher price," says Kellan.
In the Managua tourist market, we spot a purse made by Yadira and her friends selling for about 300 cordobas — $15. I also see El Sauceno coffee in a fancy bag — another new market Kellan and Yacarely have made.
It's all very small scale; the hope is to expand the markets and the price the women receive for the sales.
It's a good investment. Pine trees grow naturally in Cerro, so it's a renewable and free resource. And, they don't have to harm the tree. They collect the needles that have fallen. The only cost is the thread. Kellan shops around for the best prices in the city and then sells the thread to the artists at cost.
Any money made from the sale of the baskets goes back into the kitty. The hope is to make this a sustainable project so the women see it's profit worthy and that they will decide, in time, to carry on on their own once they've established larger and more lucrative markets.
Maybe alumni who own shops or business students can help with identifying importers or markets, Kellan says.
So far the basket program has offered much hope to the women of Cerro Colorado.
"With the income we're going to have, we're going to be better because we can use that money to buy medicine," says Feliciana. Often, their families don't have any extra money after eating to buy medicine or visit a doctor. Beningna says her husband does not make enough money selling crops from their farm.
"There's a lot of opportunity," says Angela, an older woman who is hosting the meeting outside her home. Kellan and Yacarely are talking about the upcoming Cristo Negro and tourism fair and the baskets they are making to sell at the booth. "We can have material and we can use it, no problem."
It's a real opportunity, says Catalina, for women like her, who have no husband. "The money I get from this is helping me care for my family," she says.
Traditionally, the men are breadwinners and women care for the home and family. Typically, the women don't have money of their own. Yacarely also sees the basket initiative as a way for them to become more independent and have their own source of income. It's vital for women like Catalina.

The simple life

On Meredith's final day with Yuritza, the remote community outreach nurse, we rode the bus a half or so outside El Sauce and then walked about an hour down a dirt path to a cluster of homes. We found Burnia at home, a young mother with a son and daughter. It took an hour for word to spread that we were in town and soon her family room was full of new mothers and their babies and some older children who needed a check-up, who had infections and needed antibiotics, had hernias from lugging wood ...

We all gathered in Burnia's room. As they waited for their turn, I contemplated how much "stuff" I have cluttering my apartment and how they made use of so little.

The contents of Burnia's home:

• 2 hammocks strung across the family room with rope
• 3 plastic buckets
• 1 bed
• 1 cracked mirror

• 5 stickers over the bedroom door, peeling off
• 4 plastic chairs you may have on your patio
• 40 planks of wood stacked and doubling as a chair
• 1 handmade wooden bench
• 1 table
• 2 election posters
• 1 plastic pitcher that has seen better days
• 1 pot, charred black
• 4 plastic cups
• 1 car battery that looks like it powers a TV
• 1 teddy bear table cloth
• 5 pairs of shoes
• 3 shirts, all with tiny holes
• 1 yellowed baby blanket, the design worn off
• 2 barrettes
• 1 jar of nail polish
• 1 stick deodarant, which tiny Marco is using as a drum on the dirt floor

Sonia, Meredith's host mother

Sonia Rocha has welcomed 11 Geneseo students through her home's front doors, cooking and cleaning for them, offering them a room of their own and company while they are in El Sauce.

The company and being able to know about their lives are the best parts, she says.

"It's not just the American culture but other cultures, too, because they have all been different places," she says.

Meredith spent last spring studying in Spain. El Sauce is much different; the people are more welcoming and laid back. She says she doesn't need to worry about saying the wrong thing or making a social faux pas.

Like the other host families Kellan and Yacarely arrange for students, Sonia is paid about $12 a day. It includes three meals per day. Kellan has a small pool of families to work with, honed from his own experience coming down two times before taking over full time and others' experiences. He says they choose the families who like to spend time with the students and really want them there. They are not necessarily the "best homes" in town, but the best matches.

"They come to help the poorest people of El Sauce," says Sonia about her affection for the program.

Sonia has lived her entire life in El Sauce and knows the needs. Most work is needed in the country she says, like the communities Meredith is visiting with the healthcare worker. There's a lack of health care, she says, and safe water. Most people drink from community wells or collect water in pails from rivers and streams. Many of the patients at the El Sauce health center have stomach problems from bacteria in the water. Living without plumbing and in rough conditions are the toughest on young kids and the elderly, says Sonia; there's no real system to help older people.

A retired librarian, her husband, Alberto, works in the mayor's office, with a master's degree in cattle production. She usually doesn't eat with Meredith but always sits down to talk about the day and exchange ideas.

"They come and they look at things differently," says Sonia. For example, one student made the simple observation that five or six people live in two or one room in homes; the homes aren't big enough for the size of the family.

"I've lived here my whole life. That's how I grew up. I never looked at it that way, but after they said that, I thought, well, I guess they are right."

She says she tries to share typical Nicaraguan culture with Meredith, especially the diet. She likes to make "indio viejo," or "old indian," with hand-ground corn and pulled beef and other things they always eat.

Kellan also stayed with her, years ago. Now they are close friends. He's actually moving in to their house next door so he can have a friendly neighbor and more time to visit. Sonia knows the Geneseo program well.

"It is very good because all of the programs you have are not lucrative for you, but good for the people," she says. There are several nonprofits working in El Sauce but some seem to have an agenda or work for what's good for them instead of designing programs based on what El Saucians say they need.

On top of the "mirador" in Ocotal

Alfonso lent me his hat at the lookout, or "mirador," in Ocotal, on the highest ridge, with pine trees, a narrow and rocky horse and walking path and a view of hundreds of miles. To the east, it was endless plains and mountains.
Everyone should be able to have a picture like this, I think.

Ileana, one of the first English students

When the six Geneseo students came to her restaurant door, Ileana Rivera wanted to help them but didn’t know how.
They stood outside; she wondered why they didn’t come in. When they finally entered they waited in the middle of the room, whispering and talking to each other. She knew they didn't speak Spanish. She didn’t know a lick of English.
“They were just standing in the middle and I thought, ‘What am I going to tell them?’” Ileana remembers. “Then I approached them and made a lot of hand gestures.”
She managed to figure out that they were waiting for her to tell them Cafetin River’s was open and for her to push tables together so they didn’t have to split up. In El Sauce, people just stroll in and take a seat. Since most businesses are in people’s private homes — sometimes with the living room attached — the Geneseo entourage weren’t sure how it worked. Ileana realized she was in a cultural divide but couldn’t communicate to alleviate their stress. It was, as they say, an “a-ha moment.”
“I knew that at least I needed to start on the basics to communicate,” says Ileana. “I have my business and I need to have a good service. I felt really embarrassed because they said later that they were not well attended. That’s when I started to think I need to learn English.”
Another time, two Geneseo students came for lunch. She couldn’t understand what they were ordering, “so I just made them what I think is best. Everyone likes chicken,” she says. That turned out better. They loved it.
Ileana was one of the first residents to come to Kellan’s English classes in El Sauce in 2006. There was no Geneseo office on the main street then. The mayor, Ervertz Delgadillo, offered the meeting room in the government office for nighttime classes.
English classes were offered off and on, according to availability, until last May. Now they are full time, and Ileana is in her chair three times a week practicing her present tenses and making presentations about her life, Nicaragua and sometimes, singing songs to perfect pronunciation.
She laughs, along with her daughter, Melba, who is leaning on the cash counter as we talk in the rocking chairs, and says: “My family tells me an old parakeet can never learn to speak.”
It’s really hard to put the words and sentences together in conversation, says Ileana, but she’s come a long way. If we were to walk into Cafetin River’s now, she can talk with basic words “and give you what you need.”
“She didn’t know anything when she first came,” says Kellan. “I think she knew ‘Hello.’”
With more Geneseo students coming to El Sauce and more volunteers for the 4 Walls Project, Ileana sees it as a vital business investment, too. If visitors are looking for a place to eat and hang out, and the other owners can’t communicate and she can, they will come to Cafetin River’s.
She’s learned several times that you need an advantage to make it in El Sauce, where unemployment hovers at least at 40 percent. Ileana and her husband, Zidar, were married when she was 16. Her first daughter, Jahoska saw first light, as the El Sauce people say, when she was just 17. They were butchers, killing the cows and selling their meat on the same day in a small “carneceria,” or meat shop. At first they were one of only a few meat shops. When more moved in, business slowed. They sold cream and cheese instead. The same thing happened.
“We would have a lot of loss, with cheese that didn’t sell going bad,” she says.
Ileana experimented with her oven and found a new talent. Baking.
“When I learned that it was good and the bread was delicious, I took the bread to a family member’s store and sold it and bought a bigger oven,” she says. She sold more and took a lot of custom orders. “No one has taught me how to do it. I did it on my own. I can learn it myself.”
When the cheese went belly up, she opened Cafetin Rivers. That was eight years ago. The Riveras make it work, supplementing the income with her cake and bread orders. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can order dinner too. Ileana is famous for her “muy rico” food. Very rich.
Always laughing and having a good time, Ileana asked me to please visit her sometime when the interview was over. On Thursday, she spent the morning cooking a special lunch for us. Instead of eating in the restaurant room, she set a table in her own home with a big dish of cannelonis Nicaraguan style — with a sweet tomato-cream sauce stuffed with chicken, pepper and salt. We ate two helpings before dipping into a pudding dessert.
Ileana has been with Kellan since day one and promises to stay with it.
“I don’t want to get tired of going to class because I really think I’m going to learn,” she says.