Trip Report, Day 1 Afternoon: Ciudad Sandino
"Chuck" Charlie Sauer
Ciudad Sandino is directly west of Managua. To get there, we backtracked on Carretera Panamericana part way toward Managua, then headed northwest on the Managua-León highway. In Ciudad Sandino the roads were usually very rugged and rutted. Nelson and Keith manuvered the trucks in places I would have thought impassable. At times the dried up creek beds looked more passable.
Our first stop was in El Tigre for a community bank board meeting in preparation for a new micro-finance distribution. A small sundry shop run by one of the loan recipients is in that building.
In 2002 my father contributed funds for a group of Rainbow houses which are named "Colonia La Paz". Until last week, my mental image of those houses was based entirely on the photo at left. When we arrived at Colonia La Paz last week, only the sign fit that image. In five years vegetation had grown up around and over the homes. The owners had painted, furnished, maintained and expanded. I felt indescribable gratitude. However, one home was dwarfed by ad hoc expansion to house four families totaling 17 people. Nelson said there was adjacent land owned by Rainbow. I committed funds for four new houses there.
Even more gratifying was to see the success of the people in some of those houses. First we visited a woman making and selling beautiful dresses on a treadle sewing machine. An outdoor school class cheered as Keith told them they were the most beautiful children in all of Nicaragua.
We went back out on the rugged rutted roads to the Ciudad Sandino network office, which includes one of the Rainbow dentists, Dr. Carmen Ivett Picon Morales. At first Dr. Morales' exam room was dark because the power was out. Eventually an emergency generator solved that problem. Across the street we met in the national Rainbow office. It too was operating on emergency power. Even so, the broadband Internet connection was working and we could phone back to the States for free using Vonage.
That was the end of a long, inspiring day. We drove back to the hotel to prepare for an earlier start the second day.