San Juan del Sur Day School Archives - the 1 less traveled by

February 22, 2018 By Jenna Reid 43 Views

Trip to the Women’s Jicaro Artisan Cooperative

I had the pleasure of chaperoning my daughters class trip to Cooperativa de Producción Artesanal de Mujeres Jicareras. Located about 40 minutes from San Juan del Sur Day School in a small town next to Rivas called Buenos Aires. The artists there gave a great presentation of the process of creating beautifully hand crafted cups, ornaments, and beverages out of the jicaro gourd.

We arrived by bus to a store where they sell & showcase the handmade jicaro products

We were given a short presentation about the process of making jicaro products

The kids got to color after the presentation for a little bit

We then went to a home nearby where we were given a full demonstration of the process, starting with the jicaro tree.

Azalea was very happy with her tiny jicaro that she got to pull off the tree herself.

We were shown how at first they boil the jicaro in water with ash.

Then it is cut open at the top and the inside mulch is scooped out with a small metal spoon.

Finished product - beautifully handcrafted cups

Delicious jicaro drink made with the mulch inside, sugar, and cinnamon..

I'm Hidden

February 14, 2018 By Jenna Reid 843 Views

A letter to my 6 year old daughter

I made an email address for my kids and I send them emails every now and again. Every year I make sure I send them an email around their birthday that captures the previous year and what are life is currently like. Here’s my email to Azalea this year:

The 6 Year Old Princess

My Little Wooski,

Oh my goodness have you’ve grown this year! So many sleepovers and after school “play dates”. And, you finally did loose a tooth! Actually two, the two bottom middle ones. The Tooth Fairy brought you $C150 ($3). The second tooth went missing, but wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy and she put money under your pillow anyway.

We’re still living in Nicaragua. We’ve moved into the house we built. Grandpa stayed with us the first few months so Titus & you shared a room. When he moved into a place in town, you didn’t want to switch rooms so you still share. You seem to like it. Its a big messy room full of toys. We don’t have much furniture yet, so you & Titus roll your scooters around the house. We have a bunch a chickens and baby chicks wondering our yard. Raising them has taught you a lot about life & death. We also are sometimes a kitten orphanage. There’s never a shortage of pets around.

Your best friends are Aryel, Thalia, and Chloe. You are all constantly making plans to hang out with each other. You are a kind and thoughtful friend, everybody likes you. You are really easy to care for when you have friends over. You’re starting to do imaginary play. I’ve even heard you playing with Titus this way. You have to tell him what to say, but he goes along. He’s such a good little brother, he loves you so much!

You sort of repeated kindergarten this year at San Juan del Sur Day School, not because you were held back, but because they were more strict on age. You have a wonderful teacher, Lisa who is also my friend and Chloe’s mom. I’m so proud that you are learning to read and write. You have started to show a big interest, asking what things say and for me to write sentences for you to copy. This year you are reading the little books yourself that Teacher Lisa sends home.

You still LOVE art. You draw pictures all day long. You love to make people presents with your art. For your birthday you got a lot of art supplies and you have made very good use of them. One of the best things I’ve ever bought you is a stack of computer printer paper. You go through pages daily!

You also love to dance and sing and put on shows. We have a speaker called “Alexa” and you can push a button and tell it what songs to play. I think you really like to be in charge and make requests. You are still in dance class with Maggie at MÚÚV Dance & Yoga and she says you are doing very well. You recently gave Titus an adorable ballet lesson. I’ve attached the picture. You also just started taking soccer lessons once a week. It was supposed to be just for you, but Titus has joined in and you two seem to be having a lot of fun together.

Your favorite color is still rainbow. Your favorite foods are hot dogs from a can (*yuck), candy, Ritz cheese crackers, candy, fish, and candy. You really like sweet things. I’m constantly telling you that everything you request to eat has sugar in it.

For your birthday this year you wanted to invite boys & girls so we had a “Roller Party” at the Comunidad Connect Sports Park. Everyone brought their skates, roller blades, bikes, and skateboards. Titus got a wheel with flames cut into his hair for you b’day. You requested rainbow cup cakes again, so Daddy ordered them from a local baker. We ordered a bunch of pizza from our friend, Gaspar’s pizza place, Don Monchis. We invited a few of our Nicaraguan friends, but mostly it was kids from your school that came. It was a very easy and fun birthday party. You got a lot of presents and you were very happy. Your favorite present was a baby doll that Grandma Moo gave you. She made all sorts of clothes for her so you change her in the morning, give her baths, feed her… G’ma gave you a 6 week art class session at The Art Warehouse that you love going to.

I wrote you a birthday message on Facebook. I often wonder if Facebook will still be around when you’re older so that you can see all the pictures of you I have posted. I write a blog about our life here in Nicaragua and I will always save that for you to read later. Anyways, here’s what I wrote on Facebook:

Happy 6th Birthday To My Spunky Little Princess!
You’re my soft place to land when I’m down & my source of energy when I rise. You used to think I knew everything & now you are wise.
You are the beauty I longed to be & the creator I never was. You’re my partner in silliness & my enemy because,
You challenge me in ways I never knew could be.
You have my heart & an unbelievably kind soul. You’re growing up too quickly & I’m getting old!
I love you to the moon & back sweet girl, please forever stay bold.

I love you so much my Sweet Princess. You are strong, fierce, and funny. I have enjoyed every minute of watching you grow.

Love,

Mommy

September 21, 2017 By Jenna Reid 64 Views

Gringo Education Options in San Juan del Sur

From an article I wrote for centralamerica.com

How To Educate Your Kids In San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

The most common question I get about living in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua is about schooling for the children of expats.

I always try to give an honest and unbiased explanation of the three most popular options that foreigners have to choose from. These options are San Juan del Sur Day School, Escuela Adelante, and home schooling.

Some expats choose to send their kids to one of the local public or private schools, but they are a small minority.

March 30, 2017 By Jenna Reid 1 comment 214 Views

LIVING IN NICARAGUA FOR TWO YEARS

Wow, has it been two years already? This last year has really flown by. I remember there being almost painfully slow times in the first year, but that was not the case in the last year. We have a more solid footing in our community, in our friend group, in our work, and in our routine.

Both kids go to school until afternoon, leaving me time to focus on what I want to do. At first with my new found freedom I immersed myself with “work”. I started working as a Project Manager for my husband’s website development company, Señor Coders, I blogged more, and I volunteered more. Then I realized one day, that that’s not what I wanted to be doing with all my free time, I really wanted to get back into exercising regularly. I started going to the gym a couple days a week, we take boxing now a couple days a week, and I run more often. I’ve allowed myself the flexibility to be more spontaneous with my time, like taking a random hula hoop class.

We found a great solution for babysitting, so we feel like we have more freedom to go on impromptu date nights and overnights without the kids. Something that I’ve learned as I watched families return to their home country earlier than planned, is that taking advantage of the inexpensive labor here is important in making Nicaragua manageable. Life here can be more complicated and navigating a third world country is not easy, so not having to worry about cleaning the house or watching the kids full time is not only a luxury, but often times seems like a necessity. Being able to afford help in the home is a major perk of living here and those who do not indulge tend to have a longer list of cons of living in Nicaragua.

I’m more comfortable with our Nicaraguan life style. More at peace with the bumps in the road…. Literally, we drove a few bumpy dirt roads over the weekend and on Sunday night our brakes weren’t working properly. Now used to these types of hiccups, my husband and I discussed our plan of attack. How to get the car in the shop, how to get the kids to and from school, etc. Its a discussion we’ve had many times that used to stress and frustrate me. Now I’m comfortable hailing a cab and I know the best places to catch them and how much I should pay. Some even know me now and know where I live. The kids are used the taxi etiquette of trying to all squeeze on one seat so Mommy only has to pay for one person. My husband, Kharron, knows exactly where our mechanic is located in Rivas, knows the mechanics phone number, understands his Spanish, and knows where to catch a collectivo taxi back to San Juan del Sur. We’re a smooth running, disaster management, machine now.

Of course what’s really marked the last few months of this last year is purchasing property and building a home. This leap of fate has tied us further to Nicaragua, expanded our Spanish vocabulary, and brought a huge challenge into our relationship. Everything from setting up a Solo 401k, to looking for property, designing our home, finding a contractor, digging a well, and now construction, has been arduous. Often I feel overwhelmed and under qualified. I push on, making decisions on things I know nothing about and trusting that Kharron’s online research & my gut feeling yields the right results.

To be honest, we bit off more than we can chew and our finances are thin. We used all of our retirement funds to build the shell of the house, but now we have to use our own monthly income to finish the inside and landscaping. Our plan is to make the house livable as soon as possible and use the money we will save on rent to finish the house. I am not looking forward to the stress of living with no closets or cabinets and a construction site for a front yard, but the payoff should be worth the misery. It will be a humbling experience for the whole family and reinforce some life lessons that were part of the goal of moving here. Learning to live with less.

Mostly because of the slow finishing of the house, we decided to stay an extra year in Nicaragua. We had planned on moving back this July, but now we will use the next year to complete our home to a rentable standard, decide on a career for me, and work on making Señor Coders a viable business that can sustain us in the United States. I feel a bit bittersweet with this decision. I do not feel like I am finished with my life in Nicaragua, there is still so much I want to see, learn, and accomplish. I want Titus to be old enough to remember his life here and the people who cared for him. We had a rich life in California and I do miss it. I still miss my friends and our neighborhoods and the weekly get-togethers with people I love and who love me. I was foolish to think I would make the same close relationships with people here as I have in the US. Those types of bonds take time, more time than I will have in this country.

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

So onto and into the third year we go, ready to be stretched and forever changed.

January 12, 2017 By Jenna Reid 273 Views

Dinosaur Park in Nindiri

Azalea’s school, San Juan del Sur Day School, has been studying prehistoric times. They’ve learned about cavemen, fossils, and dinosaurs. The teachers of the classes for kids ages 3-5 decided to take a trip to Parquesaurio de Nindirí to see the local park that had 5 dinosaur statues in the grounds. I jumped at the opportunity to volunteer to chaperone.

We took the one and a half hour trip in a rented big, air conditioned van. It was a great field trip! This community park is open to the public with no entrance fees, and has the added bonus of these giant dinosaur statues. It is situated about 30 minutes outside Managua, so a great stop if you are making the trip to and from Managua to San Juan del Sur or other more Southern towns. I also hear that the dinosaurs light up at night!

November 7, 2016 By Jenna Reid 438 Views

Does Nicaragua Celebrate Halloween?

No, but San Juan del Sur does!

The October festivities started the Friday before Halloween with a watermelon carving PTO fundraiser. Pumpkins are harder to find, and watermelon is not only easy to carve, you also get to eat the insides! The proceeds went to fund scholarships for local kids to attend San Juan del Sur Day School. If you’d like to donate for that cause, please click here. Obviously providing excellent education for our adopted country is important, but it is also important that our kids socialize with the local people & envelop themselves into the culture. I believe the more a person travels, the more tolerant they are to people’s differences. Tolerance & kindness are important attributes that I want my kids to learn.

Anyway…The event was held at a restaurant, Bocadito, where families and people in the community came to carve a watermelon and enjoy a plate of tapas and a sangria for a good cause.

Pumpkin carving is something I do every year, so I pre-planned my, er, um, I mean Azalea’s creation. Many said that we cheated by bringing props, but Zombie Elsa was a hit with the judges, so say what they will.

On Halloween a group & I had organized the annual “Dulces y Disfraces” (Candy & Costume) event. Through October we asked businesses in town if they would volunteer to pass out 100 pieces of candy to 100 kids. The library kept a sign up list for 200 kids. Then we made 2 routes of businesses leading from the library to a restaurant called Crazy Crab. At Crazy Crab we set up a haunted house, 2 piñatas, and a Halloween music playlist blasting for the kids.

After the event we ate at our friend’s delicious restaurant, Jicaro Garden. Kharron & I dressed as backpackers in tank tops from Sunday Funday, the pool party crawl that backpackers flock to San Juan del Sur to attend.

November 2nd every year is Día de Los Muertos. The Nicaraguans celebrate it by going to the cemetery where family & friends are buried. They bring the deceased person’s favorite foods and spend the day cleaning, decorating, and spending time around the grave. It is truly a special day here to honor loved one who have passed.

Family Photo with Cascada Blanca in the background

November 4, 2016 By Jenna Reid 23 Views

Trip to Matagalpa

Azalea’s school had a “rainy season break” so we decided to make the best of it and took a long weekend trip to see Matagalpa and the famous coffee plantation & hotel, Selva Negra. We invited some new friends who seemed to have like minds, the same slightly twisted sense of humor, and kids with similar ages.

We left San Juan del Sur at 6am on Saturday, hoping to have a full day The 4 1/2 hour drive North was a little long, but breathtakingly beautiful. Rolling green hills and the sight of coffee beans drying.

We reached Selva Negra at 11am and decided to see if we could get an early check-in. With no problem at all we paid for our 2 nights upfront and were given 1 key to the 3 bedroom “bungalow” Grethel. We quickly unpacked and headed to the restaurant for lunch and some running around. We were all pleasantly surprised – the food was not only delicious, but also a reasonable price and there was a huge playground next to it that the kids loved!

For dinner we went into the town of Matagalpa and as suggested by a friend, we ate at the restaurant California Happy. It was really delicious! I think I’ll dream of my taco salad for the rest of my time in Nicaragua. We then went to Kiss Me for ice cream dessert. The decorations are insanely cute, but to be honest, we weren’t impressed with the ice cream or the service. Plus, our 4 year olds ordered “chocolate” but we were not told that it was actually chocolate cafe. I realized this only after licking a little off my daughters cone before it melted onto the floor. Luckily the coffee did not have an affect on our tired travelers and they went to bed with ease.

The next day both families went on a 30 minute horseback ride through some of the coffee bushes. It was a little scary with the little one’s because the horses loved to trot, but for some reason I couldn’t stop laughing. 30 minutes was the perfect amount of time.

Once back we quickly packed to go see Cascada Blanca. I read that there was an on-site restaurant, a cave, and place to swim, so we packed accordingly. Someone with kids had suggested it, and after doing some research it seemed doable with little ones. It was about a 30 minute drive from Selva Negra and was so worth it! We had a great afternoon exploring and could have definitely stayed longer if the toddlers didn’t need naps.

When we got back to Selva Negra we were all in need of a shower, but the water pressure in our bungalow was non existent in the shower. Our friend, Jason went up to the reception to ask if we could use another bungalow’s showers. The offer for us to move to another cabin and after checking out the 5 bedroom, 3 bath kid paradise, we decided it was worth the effort to move. Casa Bosche has a long hallway that the kids loved running up & down.

While moving our car loaded with all our stuff, my husband miscalculated the width of the driveway in the dark and one of the wheels of our car went off the edge. The men try to fix it that night, but decided it was a task better done in the daylight. With the help of a few Selva Negra employees and the winch on Jason’s SUV, our car made it to four wheel on ground safely.

After freeing our car and breakfast our friends got on the road to take advantage of their littlest’s nap time. Kharron used the Wifi in the restaurant to get some work done and after we did one last walk around the property to get some of the kids energy out. Selva Negra is truly beautiful and we look forward to another trip to the chilly mountains.

October 17, 2016 By Jenna Reid 13 Views

Try Something New – Atol de Elote

Azalea’s school, San Juan del Sur Day School, had an end of unit event on the same day that Nicaragua celebrates the Corn Queen. In honor a family had prepared atol for sale for only $C20 (less than $1). I got to watch as they put the pink mixture of pineapple, honey, & cinnamon on top of the warm, custard-like drink. Kharron thought it was so delicious, that I had to go buy a second cup!

September 3, 2016 By Jenna Reid 7 comments 2142 Views

Living in San Juan del Sur

Why we live in San Juan del Sur

We have been contemplating buying property and building a rental home here, so this topic has been on my mind quite a lot lately. With a large impending decision like this, I have been weighing the pros & cons of choosing San Juan del Sur as a permanent tie… So, I thought I’d write about it.

When we moved abroad, our plan was to live in San Juan del Sur for the first 6 months and after learning some Spanish and understanding the country a bit more, we’d relocate to the more northern and less tourist town of Miramar. We were told by a friend who had been living in Nicaragua, that because of the large Expat population in San Juan del Sur and Granada, those cities would make for an easier transition. We wanted to live by the ocean, so San Juan del Sur it was! After the 6 months went by in a blurry flash and still flailing at Spanish, we found we had already started making friends and and a life in San Juan del Sur. We made the decision to stay.

We have a friend who runs a surf camp called Casa Sirena Surf Lodge in Miramar, so we visit often. Every time we go an air of tranquility rushes over me. I have a great fondness for that tiny fishing village that is probably today a lot like San Juan del Sur once was. I had to think long and hard about whether purchasing up there would be a better investment and location for our family’s second home. In the end we have decided San Juan del Sur is the most logical spot for us and with Miramar’s consistent surf and a major paved road connecting it to the university city of León and capital Managua, its only a matter of time before its gentle pace will too speed up.

Here are some of the reasons we choose to live in San Juan del Sur:

Beaches are Everywhere

San Juan del Sur is full of uncrowded beaches. In the year and a half of having lived here, we still have not been on every beach. In fact, we went to a private bay for the first time last Sunday for a BBQ with friends.

International School

This was a big one for us, as our children grow older the need for education will become even more important. We are confident that not only will San Juan del Sur Day School be around for many years to come, we also love the education Azalea receives there. Because of the large Expat population here, there are even more schools popping up. Titus will be starting at Escuela Adelante next week and I believe it will continue to grow and prove to be a wonderful bilingual school.

Diverse Restaurants & Food

It might sound trivial, but I don’t think I can survive solely on local Nicaraguan food. Here in San Juan del Sur there are different flavors of restaurants opening weekly. We have a Peruvian, Indian, Thai, Falafel, Mexican, Canadian, Mediterranean, Spanish, German, and of course North American. We have a few shops that specialize in selling imported food products like alfredo sauce, Franks hot sauce, rice & balsamic vinegar, cheese, cereal, bagels, olives, spices, Doritos, alcohol, dijon mustard, quinoa…things you never even thought about not being available. Our food menu always consists of some Nicaraguan dishes and a healthy mix of flavors from around the world.

English Speaking Spanish Teachers

One of the major reasons we moved to a Latin American country was for our family to learn Spanish. There are not only a plethora of Spanish teachers here in San Juan del Sur, but because of the tourist influence, many have seen the value in learning English. This makes the answers to questions about the rules of the language clearer.

Our House Cleaner Juanita

It has become a priority for us to make sure that our house cleaner, Juanita, never has to worry about finding work again. She has been with us since our first day of living in San Juan del Sur and we care about her, and her family deeply. She treats our children as if they were her own and our children treat her like a member of our family. Juanita is very honest, always removing money out of Kharron’s dirty clothes pockets and placing whatever the denomination is on our counter. She knows where all our valuables are, maybe even better than we do. Whether we buy a property or not, we will somehow ensure Juanita’s future. If we do buy the property, then she will manage our vacation home and her husband will be our “cuiador”.

Friends

We’ve met a lot of like-minded people in the one and a half years we’ve lived here. Although most of these people are Gringos, we have also made close friendships with Nicaraguans. When moving to a foreign land, I have found that friends you can trust are even more important than they are at home. When your car breaks down in the middle of the night on a quiet road, you need someone. When you go out of town, leaving your pets for a few days, you need someone. When you’re kids have taken every last bit of your patience, you need someone. Besides the friends we have here, in San Juan del Sur there is an amazing network of Facebook pages. You can ask any question and strangers will give you an answer.

We’ve been here awhile

Navigating a new city is hard anywhere, but doing it in a foreign country and in a foreign language is a daily struggle. We’ve finally started to figure some things out. I can now offer information when someone posts a question on Facebook. We have a mechanics (actually 2), a wood guy, and someone to help with bank runs and other odd, but complex errands. We’ve worked out a network here and starting over is a task to great for me.

There are many amazing cities in this beautiful country we live in, but San Juan del Sur has proven to be the best fit for our family. Part Gringo, but still mostly Nica, this town has so much to offer. San Juan del Sur will always and forever remain our second home.

May 23, 2016 By Jenna Reid 13 Views