We Care About the Kids in El Pantanal

Jose De La Cruz Mena is becoming a more adequate environment for the Children of El Pantanal. On Friday, we delivered the school 2 brand new beautifully handcrafted wooden book shelves. The director of the school had made it clear to us that his biggest desire was to have a place to put all the books that had been donated to the school. So the director was extremely appreciative of the donation and requested that we place a plack on the book shelves with the name of our project "Si Quieres, Pueden Reir". This is so that the students of the school remember that our project has helped their school tremendously. We will of course follow through with this request.

This Tuesday, we will be returning to the school with a group of 30 students to do some serious volunteer work. Our plan for that day is as follows- 1 group will be planting trees around the edge of the fence to promote shade for the students. We will be buying trees that do not require a lot of water and thrive in the tropical conditions of Nicaragua. The second group will be collecting garbage in El Pantanal with a group of designated students from the school "Jose de la Cruz Mena". This is a great learning experience for the students from the USA because they will get to see how people in El Pantanal are living and will have a chance to improve the environmental conditions. It is also important for the Nicaraguan students, as there is a severe problem or lack of consciouness towards the physical environment. This beautiful country is ridden with garbage because of the simple act of littering pretty much everything. We hope to promote the simple task of placing garbage in the correct place (not in the streets, trees, gutters, ditches ect.) Our third project is going to be a murale that both our American students and Nica students will be doing together. The murale will be placed on an obvious wall in the school, so that the kids in El Pantanal can remember this day. I will be writing about this day, after it occurs, and I will be positing many pictures!

I also want to especially thank a fellow named Karsten from Denmark who not only donated a very generous amount to us but encouraged his friends at home to donate. Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity. His passion to help others is extremely obvious and we all think very highly of him. Que te vaya bien.

Que tengan un buen dia.
Kathryn, Andres, y J.C.