Veintiocho de Junio

This morning Adam, our housemate Teddy, and I walked a half an hour to one of the schools where Adam teaches music. The small 3-room school tucked down a dirt road is painted light blue and white and has a single swing set which is also painted light blue. As we round the corner we hear reggaeton, a popular type of music that sounds like Latin rap, attempting to project through the speakers of a very small boom box. On the sidewalk four young girls dancing clearly in ways they had seen on television. The small audience sits in miniature chairs around the performance and is very attentive for young elementary children. They are having a Maestro Felizidad (Happy Teacher Day) celebration All of the kids are dressed nicely. Some of the girls are even in frilly purple and yellow dresses.

Here, many aspects of life are nice on the outside; the clothing, the homes. But as we get to know the locals, the poverty becomes more apparent. In the main neighborhoods of Granada, the colonial homes, rows and rows of them, with their beautiful ironwork and colorful facades are just that – facades. Behind the giant double doors, bright red, blue, yellow, green, one enters into a meek cinderblock room with a dirt floor and a few wooden rocking chairs for furniture. Though the children are dressed nicely, they are seen in the same outfit nearly every day.

Off of the main paved roads are several dirt roads where the majority of the poor Nicaraguans live. One of Adam’s schools is located down one of these dirt roads near our home. This afternoon we walked down this road to visit the students (who weren’t there due to a short winter vacation) and got to see several of the shacks and the families who occupy them. The homes on the dirt road haven’t the colonial facades. Some have no facades at all.

Every day, as Adam puts it, is Take Your Kids to Work Day.