ONE WEEK for kids and a solo Mom at La Mariposa Nicaragua

Trash. Energy. Water. Meat.

It’s impossible to stay at La Mariposa and leave unchanged unless you are completely indifferent or unwilling to see your own role as a consumer.  This shift began before we left our house from a one line sentence Paulette penned in the FAQ section of the website.

“And please don’t encourage too many aluminum-wrapped snacks- the rubbish is non-biodegradable!”

We go through a lot of snacks like a lot of other people do who have young children and as much as we’ve bought organic or have sworn off plastic for our kids I’d never given thought to the idea that I’ve been piling up eternal trash at breakneck speed with the aluminum-lined snack packages.  I plan on spending the next weeks giving hard thought and research to alternatives. Any ideas?


Like for so many around the world who have infrastructure challenges, waste disposal is not a sure thing for Nicaraguans. The impact? People tend to use their surroundings as a trashcan. It’s painful to see, I’ve seen it before and it never gets easier to see swollen diapers in a waterway, snack packages shadowing out grass patches on the town turf or barbed wire fences cradling so much trash you can’t make out where the ground begins. 

The upside? Our normal relationship to trash is a relationship of near invisibility other than for the family members charged with wheeling it to the curb. 

What’s next? First off, I’m going to ask Paulette to give a kids-tour of the operation- what will they see?

-solar array 

-water tanks (to say water is scarce is beyond an understatement- it makes flush toilets seem the Anti-Christ- in fact, latrines are the norm. . .we’re still working on that one!)

-worm bins

-ecological outdoor stove (La Mariposa tries to burn as much as possible)

-rice husks used for the chicken coop

-2 organic farms to supply the vegetables and fruits prepared for the guests
-leaving and planting as many trees as possible on the property including leaving the fruit for the birds and insects. We saw this honeycomb today in the trunk of a tree which has been left standing:

-ox poo bought from the poorest man I’ve met


Don Pablo lives right around the corner. I met him because Baby-O wanted to see his oxen being strapped on to the cart, they were going to pick up firewood. He noticed and gestured for her to sit on his colt’s back. Bambi, a beautiful black colt was painfully skinny, I could count every rib and practically make out her internal organs to boot. As I negotiated the multiple different types of animal poo I waved at the women lining the house that was 5 feet away.

Don Pablo has to be around my Dad’s age, with 1:4 Nicaraguan men working either in the U.S. or Costa Rica it has no doubt left a heavy burden on the older generation.  With a flick of the hand he and his million dollar smile along with the rickety wooden cart were off.

The subject of trash just won’t go away. When I was a little girl I remember traveling to Mexico and seeing kids crawling through mountains of trash. I’ve never forgotten it. It looks like this:

Photo by Venetia joubert sarah oosterveld

I’m checking into a Granada dump project to see if there is a way for us to help. Kids as young as 3 spend hours every day picking through trash, often with bare feet. They do this to support their families with scraps of food and if they’re lucky, a bit of recyclable material that can be cleaned and sold. At the big dump in Managua more than 1600 people a day work the dump, it’s been estimated as many as 500 of those people are children. Another 500 work as cleaners cleaning materials like copper, aluminum, iron, bronze, plastic and paper which can be sold. Here’s a quote from a Mom who works the dump:

“We used to eat at least twice a day. Now we are hard-pressed just to make soup, so the children can be fooled into feeling full,” said Santos, who works with her partner and their 3 children under the age of 13 scavenging among rotten food scraps, dead animals, cans, glass, dust and dirt.”

Speaking of eating, other than our outing to the Laguna when J consumed two bowls of chicken soup, we haven’t had any meat served to us. With so many chickens waddling around us each day and seeing just a handful of cows grazing on the town turf  it’s easy not to miss meat. Paulette’s two chicken coops would be decimated in a week if we were to have chicken served to all of us guests. 




Our food order at the laguna took about an hour to prepare. I realize now a chicken was likely being butchered in that time. 

Paulette’s work is an example of how each of us can make a difference if we want to. 


Her mission to employ as many locals as possible is an obvious gain. But, her work to reforest her land with native plants, trees and systems is no less powerful.  For example, her choices to use a traditional security system with these thorny plants instead of barbed wire. 




The latter provides no habitat for lizards and countless other critters. Most locals have ripped out this traditional 'fencing'.  I cracked up when she told us that she shows her staff how she, a 60 year old woman, can easily make it over a barbed wire fence, it must be a sight to see. One leaf at a time, animals find a sanctuary and the planet gets a break. From the shade-grown coffee 







to the frog pond, 


everything around La Mariposa has a purpose to restore a balance while taking less and giving more.







My hope is that we, by staying here will leave changed in that way: take less, give more.