Hello again! Tonight, we will be gracing you with the presence and amazing storytelling of Kiera Castellani and Avery Boulter.
Today’s Nicaragua adventure was all about friendship and community, the setting is a hot, sweaty bus, and a chaotic group of teenagers in an unsupervised waterpark.
Seriously, it was the law of the jungle. Every man for himself. No park staff is to be seen up the waterslide tower.
We received a divine blessing in the form of a sleep-in. We gained an entire HALF HOUR. Those of us who were not awake or would not awake after two solid minutes of good shaking, (ahem…Nichole) were then awoken by the beautiful morning sound of a Veggie Tales Remix, followed by Danger Zone. Never give Mr Beugalink speaker privileges. We then proceeded to scramble for all our clothes and supplies for The Great Waterpark Adventure, ft. our amazing new friends in the grad class of Centro de Fe.
Breakfast, prepared by the lovely cooks here at the Nehemiah Centre, included fried cheese, fresh fruit, fried eggs, rice with beans (a staple here), and the iconic bacon (which was gone before half of us had served up our food). Right after breakfast, the rush was on to make sure we had all we needed for a full day at the waterslides. Some forgot a change of clothes, toilets stopped working, and everything was lost in the general chaos of our preparations.
We had to leave behind some fallen comrades.
Soon we were on our way to Leon, in an un-airconditioned school bus with around 30 teenagers. What could go wrong?
Meanwhile, our valiant team members, Naomi and Nichole, were stuck at the Nehemiah Centre, not feeling well enough to enjoy the day's events. That’s not to say they had no adventures of their own. Lunch for the two included a new soup that neither has had before. Chayote quequisque and squash were a few of the vegetables featured inside. Chayote has a green outer skin, and quequisque looks like raw chicken, and has the texture of a potato, yet tastes like nothing!
Over back on our school bus, we finally arrived at the waterpark. We almost immediately jumped in the water and started playing Volleyball... but Mango. Since you can't very well set or bump a mango, they treated it a bit like a hot potato… but mango. The slides soon opened after that, and most of the morning was spent hurtling down slides and playing Chicken. We laughed and played with our Nicaraguan friends all morning and afternoon. Lunch at the waterpark featured picnic-style sandwiches and watermelon.
After lunch, we all rushed back to the water, where a lovely surprise awaited us. A new slide had opened! But good things never last.
Crash! A pipe that had been slowly falling apart all day fell to the ground and shattered.
For no apparent reason. Absolutely no idea what happened. At all.
The teenagers and the teachers had to walk back down. Long story short, the top slide was closed due to… technical difficulties…
We left Leon at around 3pm and chatted with our new friends via interpreters and google translate. Back at the Nehemiah Center, we ate a delicious supper, followed by team time. we realized that our time here is quickly drawing to a close and several of us began to realize that the last day with our friends tomorrow will be bittersweet. Sweet because of the fun activities we will get to do with them (devos, a talent show, and painting the mural). Bitter because we will need to say our goodbyes tomorrow also.
Well, Goodnight all...
Kiera and Avery
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