Franchell at the bus station after our Grenada trip. Damn girl! Why'd you have to go back to Texas? Nicaragua needs your super surgeon skills! And I miss ya!

Cathedral in downtown Grenada

Bird hammocks

Franchell and I decided to take a boat tour around the 365 islands off the shoreline of Grenada last week. The islands were formed by the massive erruption of Volcan Mombacho thousands of years ago, and they are now populated by wealthy landowners, and are even home to a small community of locals, who go to school on an island! This pic is of a group of schoolgirls rowing thier way home from thier morning classes.

Fond nica memories forever etched on Susan's helmit... This was at the airport, where I fully cried when the guys took of for chilly Canada. Who knew I would love them so much?

To all you crazy Canadians: Thank you sooo much for coming to Nicaragua and letting me share this experiene with you. I hope you'll all come back again someday! I miss you! Diacachimba!!

Ha ha! Who could forget the karioke bar??? Poor Vanessa, a local karioke bully came right up and snatched the mic out of her hand!! What a douche! It's ok chica I think your a GREAT singer!!

Oh, and building sand castles of course... How cute is Graeme??

Our trip to San Juan del Sur was the perfect end to a perfect week. We spent 2 days lounging on this beautiful beach, drinking pina coladas, playing soccer and just soaking up the rays. I can't believe the week went by so fast! I miss the guys so much! We had such a great time together.

We were lucky enough to have a famous Nicaraguan ballet troupe perform right in our living room! The night ended with a group dance session to some awesome Carribean tunes! Raquel really rocked the house that night!! Then a few of the boy ballerinas joined us at Rumbass, the local salsa bar, the next night, and twirled us girls around the dance floor! So fun!

Our trip to Katarina included this awesome pottery demonstration by one of the many local artists in the area. This guy pumped out 3 amazing pieces in like 20 minutes!

Hey! We couldn't be expected to work ALL the time!! Meet Tona, Nicaragua's favorite local Cerveza. This was the "table lable" competition, me and Sonya totally kicked butt!! Go team TONA!!!!

Nap time!!

Steve and Rafael - the "Super Bald Bros"

This is our reading week building team - looking rather clean... It was so windy some of the days, that everyone returned to basecamp COVERED from head to toe in sweat and dust! Nasty! We definately appreciated our showers!

The School in the background is called La Escuela De La Exellencia, a project funded by money which was originally intended as aid money for hurricaine mitch victems but was stolen by certain corrupt government officials and smuggled into the USA. Now the US government is working with the government of Nicaragua to put the recovered money to good use.

These are some of the "docs" who came with the group. These guys helped out at the Santiago Hospital here in Jinotepe, as well as the SILAIS Clinic in Diriamba, and the CDC and Childrens Cancer Hospital in Managua... in only 5 days! My hope is that they will not only bring back stories of their experience to Canada, but be inspired to return to Nicaragua in the future and stay longer!

Talia, Steve, Charlotte, Matt and Ryan - a few members of our February 2007 Reading Week Group - hanging out with some local kids. A few minutes after we took this pic, a whole bunch of the guys got in a big circle and did the "hokie pokie" for the kids. It may have been one of the cutest things I've ever seen.