shop till you drop

Hello All!
Today we enjoyed a day away at the Masaya handcraft market and surrounding shops.  Many different and unique handmade items were there for perusing and purchasing.  Since we went on Monday (instead of Saturday, as origially planned) the market was nice and quiet.  After a morning of shopping (until we were quite literally dropping) we enjoyed a deightful meal at one of the restaurants at the market. 
We loaded onto the busses after lunch and headed up to the ziplining course! What an amazing experience! For many of us, this was our first time ziplining.  We found out that we have some daredevils in the group.  Even some of our more "wonderful" people (as Peter would say) went ziplining.  And if it weren't for Toyin, Freeda would've bowled over a tree! On the course, you could fly like a superman, with an instructor holding up your legs behind you.  We could also hang upside down by our harnesses'.
After the ziplining, we took the jeeps up to the coffee plantation on Masaya Mountain (which is a semi-active volcano, in case you were wondering).  The view below was BREATHTAKING! Fresh ground coffee was enjoyed by most (not me, for I detest coffee). 
Finally, after an amazing day, it was time to pack ourselves and our new treasures onto the bus to head back to the orphanage, where we were welcomed back by our amazing cooks! 
For supper, we enjoyed a delicious meal with our translators who helped us out during the clinics translating...obviously.  Donna and Cathy presented our translators with gifts of gratitude after supper and we then enjoyed each other's company while playing games and got a great group photo. 
After the translators cleared the building, we practiced our skit/song for the performance we have to make to the pequenos at the end of our time here, which is approaching much to quickly. 
Tomorrow we look forward to meeting Dr. Silvia (the Dr. at NPH) and organizing and packing up the rest of the medication we have.  Lauren will be going back to one of the clinics that we went to.  There, she will be providing information to a family that has a son who is congenitally deaf.  Hopefully, they will accept the information and we can help this little guy learn sign language!  There is a tentative meeting set up with the director of the co-op for deaf and mute people in Granada.  Others of us will be teaching english to the pequenos and handing out more school supplies. 

Since it sounds like we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, I'd better get to sleep!

Here are some pictures before I sign off,

Sherry enjoying a smoothie at lunch

Shannon

John 

Peter

Lauren

Freeda

 

Toyin

Maggie

View from Mount Masaya

 

Goodnight,



 

Janna DeWeerd