We’re back on the road again. We’ve arrived at La Mariposa Spanish School in Nicaragua after an uneventful 14 hour trip, we’ll stay for 3 weeks.
We chose La Mariposa because the kids could receive Spanish instruction in the morning and help out with different chores on their off time. La Mariposa has rescue animals ranging from dogs, monkeys and parrots as well as 2 organic farm plots.
Baby-O is enthralled with all of the animals and they with her.
Helping wash one of the 4 puppies!
La Mariposa provides the meals which are eaten family-style with the other students who have come from all over to learn Spanish. The food has been a hit.
The staff makes special juice for Gigi made with Agave and last night even made her her own agave cake. Paulette, the tour de force behind the school said would accept nothing else but equity for Gigi's dessert experience. It somes up Paulette's politics, spirit and style. We've spent just a little time with her so far but it's clear, she's a visionary and one of the rare who makes impossibilities happen. She employs over 50 locals in an operation that runs like a Swiss train.
Paulette has trained locals to serve as patient teachers. Clusters of people gather all over the property to have their classes.
In the first minutes of our first morning we were thrilled to learn that Zoe from Philadelphia is also 12 a ball of charisma and staying on for two more weeks. She and Gigi were playing cards within seconds. They’re still at it! They’ll be mates in Spanish class, apparently it went well this morning. J was able to hook up with several boys from CA who trooped down to the town soccer place- the basketball court, they played for several hours. The locals were playing each other for money so our guys waited their turn, hopefully we’ll see some international team blending in the weeks to come.
They even play cards in class!
Cards are played even during the break.
La Mariposa is packed with goings-on. Today there was Salsa at 1pm and a talk on the Central American free trade zone at 5pm. This afternoon you could visit a reading library funded by previous students and volunteer to read to the kids. The kids mostly hunted frogs, played cards and got acclimated. Baby-O has a friend too. Jeremy , Zoe’s 4 yr. old brother. While Baby-O took her nap he would run around and call “Baby-OOOOOOO” since he wanted to play with her.
Jeremy doing a play for Baby-O!
Gigi helped feed the monkeys in the afternoon. More on these orphans’ story later.
Everyone has slept like a log, eaten well and reveled in card tricks, the animals and the joy of being in a place that is one in a million. Early report is that La Mariposa is everything I had hoped for- a place for the kids to learn Spanish actively, interact with locals, eat locally, play locally and think globally.
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