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Nicaragua 2005, “Selección Florida”
Volume 7a
Day 9, Satuday, July 16, 2005
By Megan Crumpton, UWG
This morning we had an early start, but we knew it was going to be an awesome day so we were actually OK with getting up for breakfast starting at 8:00am. At a little after 9:00am our huge Mercedes 4x4 Monster Truck showed up to take us to the Finca Hollman to get outfitted for our morning event: The Flying Frog Canopy Tour.
We were assisted into our harnesses, gloves, and multitude of straps and carabiners, and then we headed up the steep muddy mountain to get started coming back down. The ride was rough, but the views at the top were more than worth it.
Most of us had never been on a zip-line before, so we were a little apprehensive about what to expect. But the guys running the tour did a good job of just sending us on our way quickly upon strapping us in so that we could worry about being scared later. Kirstin (with a severe fear of heights) even did the first few runs (of 17) in the “taxi” method (being physically escorted by one of the guys) but was fine by herself after tons of prodding from the rest of us and realizing that it actually was pretty safe. I think we even saw her smiling and enjoying herself by the end of the tour. The views were awesome and zipping through the tops of the trees on these 300m+ wires was an unforgettable experience.
Our 12-year olds tearing up the Canopy Tour
After the zip-lines ended, we had a quick sandwich lunch at the Hollman Finca (Mr. Hollman is the mayor of San Juan del Sur) where we had the chance to play with some caged spider monkeys, a raccoon, a coati, an ocelot, and some deer. The monkeys were incredibly full of energy and provided tons of excitement.
From there we were off directly to the beach. We actually haven’t had much “sun-time” during our days down here, so we were happy to have a chance to get some sun and play in the waves. Our surf lessons had been cancelled due to “too big of waves” so we were also excited to be going to a big surf beach to watch the surfers. The ride to the beach was a gruelling 30 minute drive in the big truck, bouncing in and out of potholes on the dirt road and watching our standing passengers ducking their heads every 10 seconds for low hanging branches and wires. But we finally made it and had about an hour to enjoy the surf and hunt for shells and critters along the beach.
It started to rain on the way back to San Juan del Sur, but that might have been a good thing as it kept the heat down a bit and helped to rinse the saltwater off our bodies. We knew we only had about 20 minutes to get showered, changed, and ready for our big evening Sunset Cruise upon arriving back to the hotel. We were in the middle of jam-packed day for sure.
Our ride to the marina showed up at about 3:15pm, but the new truck wasn’t big enough for all of us so we hoofed in the 10 minutes over the SJDS Port to catch a panga out to our sailing vessel. We were expecting a big boat, and smooth sailing, so everyone boarded the panga ready for a great little sail.
Well, the Pelican Eyes is a gorgeous boat with a great crew, but a super large boat it is not, and the swells were not kind on this night. We didn’t have enough wind to run on the sail, so the engine pulled us out of the bay and into the Pacific where CJ and some others promptly got sick and starting puking over the side. We were trailing lines to catch some tuna or dorado (or something?) but got unlucky there too. Due to the sickies, we turned around and headed in about 2 hours earlier than planned, and a solid hour prior to sunset.
All was not lost however. A large group of us headed up to Pelican Eyes (the restaurant) for one of the greatest meals of our lives. The views were awesome, the sunset had some gorgeous colors, and we had a nice time salvaging the evening. From dinner we even headed into town to dance a little in the street as there was a festival going on to celebrate something that we never quite figured out. All in all, an awesome day!
Nicaragua 2005, “Selección Florida”
Volume 7b
Day 10, Sunday, July 17, 2005
By Chelsea Kirschman, Ponte Vedra, Fl, Nease Volleyball
Today, Day 10, the last and final day, we had time to wander around San Juan del Sur before we left around noon. We loaded up the bus and went on our two-hour drive back to Managua where we would spend the night at Los Pinos, our first hotel. We stopped for lunch at the mall on our way there. Once we left the mall it was a short drive to the hotel. At the hotel, everybody went swimming to cool off. We cooled off and played volleyball in the pool.
Once we got out we had a short amount of time until we had a match to play against the Jr. National team. Our junior team practiced with them as a warm up before the match. Having a little bit of trouble comprehending the instructions, we didn’t do as well as planned. Luckily there was one person who could speak a little English on their team.
Muchas gracias a Rene para hacer el entrenamiento! Rene is the Nicaraguan National Team Coach so this was a great experience for our girls.
After practice we had thirty minutes to cool off before we played our match. We started off an amazing lead and ended 25-18. After our game the “varsity” played the better of the Jr. National team and defeated them in three games.
Later that night, we ate dinner at Valentini’s with the Jr. National team. It started out as a very quiet dinner, nobody was interacting with any of the players but soon it got louder. People were getting food from the salad bar and the waiters brought out soda and water and that was when people started to mingle with everybody around them. Once the pizza was put in front of us we devoured it within minutes. They kept bringing out pizza but people got full quickly. Once bored, Sara brightened everybody up by starting a spitball fight. Everybody got involved and by the end we were all covered with spitballs.
We exchanged e-mails with our new Nicaraguan friends. Once people started to leave, Jenna and Kelly had very little water left and decided to see who could “chug” the rest. Kelly had the right idea when she heard the word GO. Kelly put the rest of the water in an empty cup while Jenna started to drink it all. Jenna started to laugh and poured the rest on Kelly who had leaned back to get away from the water. Of course, Kelly being as huge as she is (she’s itty bitty) she completely broke the plastic chair in half and completely fell on the ground, giving everybody a great laugh and something to remember on the last day. It was an amazing experience and something none of us will forget.
Departure Day, Monday, July 18, 2005
By Tip Top Timmy
Well, the girls have left, and I find myself in the hotel closing out the journal of yet another tour. Nicaragua? Nobody thought we could pull it off, but we did. Ceej did a phenomenal job of getting some great kids (and parents) on this tour, and we had a great time. I don’t’ think I’ve had many groups that complained so little, and when you consider some of the situations we found ourselves in, this is truly amazing. Nicaragua is still part of the “3rd World” (although doing a great job climbing out of that distinction) but we were fortunate to have some great people helping us along the way. I don’t know that I would try to do this again without the help of Rene Quintana (National Teams Coach and Director), Doña Bertha Cuadra (President of the Federation down here), and Benito (our main man down here…) but according to each of them we’re welcome back whenever we can make it.
We played hard through adversities that these girls won’t ever seen at home: concrete floors, leaking roofs, hot hot days, different foods, crazy dirt roads, and even an attack at a red light. But they got better each day and I think learned a lot about themselves as players and people. I’m sure they’re all better players than when they left the USA 10 days ago, and I know that they’ll see their lives in a different way after what they saw down here.
There are two stories that weren’t mentioned in the journal that I feel obliged to share with everyone here:
The Red Light:
Day 4, coming from from Leon, we were driving the empty streets of Managua after midnight dropping off some of our Nica counterparts on our way to the dorms. Doña Cuadra was sitting shotgun in the bus and we were all in the back absolutely exhausted. Our driver Rodrigo pulled up to a red light, and even though he asked them not to, two men starting washing the windshield. We missed 3 green lights while they begged and pleaded for money. They wouldn’t get out of the way even though Rodrigo was nudging them into the intersection and they eventually snapped off a windshield wiper when Rodrigo found a way to get around them. The idiots banged (hard) on the windows as we drove on and threw their squeegies and bottles of water at the bus. It was a scary couple of minutes, but the real story was in the reaction of our hosts. Doña Cuadra was so embarrassed that this would happen in her country that I felt terrible for her. Rodrigo had never had such an experience yet was apologizing profusely as if it were his fault. Each ensuing day I had people begging me to forgive them for the incident, and all of them were so concerned that our girls might have been frightened into never coming back. It’s a shame that some of these rare bad moments often come to spotlight when there is so much good in a country and people as we saw in Nicaragua. And I’m sure that this happens just as often in our big cities in the USA as well.
The Daughter
Day 8, in San Juan del Sur, I received a phone call from an educated-sounding man asking me a lot of questions about where we were and where we were going. I assumed he was a journalist of some sort, but don’t give our hotel information to anyone when we’re on the road. I asked him to meet us at the gym in Managua the following evening, but he somehow found my room in San Juan and knocked on my door at 6:30am! I briskly told him to beat it, but when I awoke naturally at 9:30am he was sitting out front of my room. I allowed him to tell me his story and learned that he has 4 daughters – all that play volleyball – aged something like 9, 12, 13, and 15. One of them was born 33 weeks early and weighed just 180 grams. She defied all medical knowledge and was almost 14 years old. He had newspaper articles and a family album to “prove” all of this. What affected me most was a letter than his daughters had written to me and the USA girls letting us know that their sister would die in less than 6 months without a heart surgery. This was again backed-up with newspaper articles. In the letter the girls informed us that their mother was sick, their father unemployed, and that they couldn’t go to school because they didn’t have money for shoes and uniforms. Also, they wouldn’t be eating that day because their father had used the money to come see us in SJDS and beg for our aide. Well, I didn’t know how to react so we had a “team-meeting” with the parents and those kids that were in the breakfast room. We had all brought a lot of gifts and semi-used items to leave with the volleyball teams, so the girls had little to give. And the general feeling leaned just as much toward confusion and “why is this guy coming to us for help in this situation” as it was to sympathy. We ended up pooling about $20USD to give to the guy, and I asked him to please make sure he got home safely and quickly and with some food for his family. $20 goes a long way in Nicaragua. I’m not sure if we did the right thing or not, but the dilemma surely illustrated the realities of life outside the USA to our girls.
Well, back to a more happy note: I want to thank the entire Sherman family for getting this tour off the ground and running so well in country, and I also want to thank all the other girls (as well as Miss Linda) for being such great sports. This was truly a wonderful group of people. It was a pleasure running this tour, and I also had a great time on the two nights that you girls let me coach. I can get away with a little bolder approach than you’re used to at home, but I’d like to think that some of you will take home a little something to help you keep improving and keeping your expectations high. I know I’ll see many of you again soon, and hopefully the Nicas will find a way to export their #1 restaurant down to Sydney in time so that I can remain your…
Tip Top Timmy
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