Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Day 20 February 17, 2009 (Tues)


Today, yes this is tuesday finally. We took a field trip to Santa Maria and Leon. Santa Maria is a town that was built after the major mudslide. They said it rained for like 10 days straight then one day all the mud just started coming down the hill and burried people and killed so many. It's illegal to go live on the mountain now though some still do. This happened October 1998 and they just had a memorial this past october marking 10 years. Really sad. We talked to this one woman about her story. She survived because she was at work in Managua which is about 1 hour away or so. In the mudslide she lost both parents, 4 kids, a few brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, in-laws everything. Only one son survived and the mudslide broke his legs so he was stuck for hours. The story was absolutely heartbreaking. When she got home, everything was gone. The son that did survive was carried out in a cart full of dead people, he was the only one alive. He, to this day is terrified and refuses to sleep in Santa Maria so he moved to Managua. Everyone who lived in the town lost someone in the mudslide. I took a few pictures of the mountain and you can still see the path of the mud that slid down. A bold reminder...


Leon was really cool. It is much calmer than Managua. We ate lunch there and it seriously was the longest I have ever waited for food EVER. We ordered and sat around for the longest time then I look up and see our waitress walk back to the restaurant with grocery bags in her hand. She had to go buy our food and we had already been waiting forever. Then we had to wait for it to cook. Now mind you, this is not a busy restuarant. The other people that were there were men and all they had was beer. Being here definitely teaches one something about patience because you can't hurry things up...they just happen whenever they happen. Not very North American at all...haha.


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