For my international friends

Hola mis amigos,
here you can find reports about my stay in Matagalpa, written in English.


!Be quick to observe, but slow to judge!


 Hi there,
now I am in Nicaragua for already three weeks and finally managed to write down some first experiences. Well, just to let you know I am all good and happy!
Even though the long flight was quite tiring and exhausting. Especially in Miami, as one of the appointees didn’t want to let me and my friend on our flight to Nicaragua. He sent us from one functionary to the other, saying that he couldn’t accept our Visa, which was not true. It took me a lot of talking to convince him and to make clear that we had all the acquired papers. Then finally after approximately and hour or so he did let us through. But by then our flight was nearly of to Managua. Which means that me and my friend had to run through Miami airport on socks, since we didn’t had enough time to get fully dressed and organized after the security control. What an experience!
But we got here safely and by now I have kind of started my new life in Matagalpa.
Matgagalpa is a rather small city, located in the middle north of Nicaragua. It’s nature is beautiful and the city is surrounded by many green mountains and exotic plants.
Everything is so different here from what I am used to and every day I discover new exciting things. Life seems to be happening on the streets here as music is always playing somewhere and people are just hanging out in the streets. It is all very noisy here, it can get really hot and the the streets and houses are nearly all run down and or dilapidated.
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America and nearly. Half of the population lives from less than 2$ the day. The poverty is clearly showing and I am always shocked when I see little kids with rags and no shoes, working in the streets or asking for money. But at the same time, most people here are very cheerful, happy, and very friendly.
At the moment I am taking Spanish classes, which is really good. The teachers are great, I am improving my language skills day by day and it is great fun to learn Spanish while sitting under Palms and trees or plants I have never seen in my life.
Next week I will start working. I am going to be teaching English and PE in a primary school. I can’t wait to give my first class! The teachers and the students at my school are very nice and welcomed me warmly with various songs. It was hilarious when they had to guess where I am from. The best guesses were China, Korea, Managua or the US:-)
I hope that you are all doing fine and I will try to write more as soon as possible!
Besos Maren



Hi everybody,
just thought it would be time for a new report from Matagalpa, since so much has already been happening here!
Things are pretty good. I am getting used to everything and day by day I am improving my Spanish skills. My teacher is very nice and it is fun to learn Spanish, while sitting under banana plants.

I started working in the primary school a few weeks ago and I do enjoy it very much. Even though it is still hard for me to understand the kids, as they are always talking incredibly fast! But they are so so cute. Every day they ask me approximately hundreds of questions about God and the world, they hug me heaps, want to hold my hand and even give me their cookies and breakfast, although they do not have much themselves.
Usually I am helping out in different classes. I help a child for example when it has difficulties with the given task or I help correcting their homework. Besides I am observing the lessons and try to figure out what the teachers teaching strategy is. So often there is none in Nicaragua and I am also free to decide what I want to do with the children. The other day I gave my first P.E. class to a second grade class. It was great, they did listen to me and we had great fun playing and running around. But when I tried to explain a game, which the teacher always made us play in Germany, they were totally confused and didn’t really get the sense of it. Oh well, but I am looking forward to be giving more and more classes in the next few weeks coming up. It is a great challenge and experience for me!

Matagalpa is not a very big city and basically consisting of two main streets, a white cathedral and two tiny parks. The city is surrounded by many green mountains, which is great for hiking. We have been there on trips several times and the nature is very impressing. You can see butterflies in every single colour, wild monkeys and the most beautiful flowers. There are also a couple of waterfalls around here, they are amazing.
Every weekend there are concerts, drama plays or movies on here in Matagalpa, which is quite nice and a great possibility to meet heaps of people.
Besides I have already travelled quite a lot in Nicaragua. It is a beautiful country indeed! And very diverse, there are Vulcan’s, large lakes, the ocean with nice beaches and these many green rainforests.
I have been to the pacific, that was awesome. The waves were huge there and the sun was really hot!!
We have also been to Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua, Granada and León. Managua is a weird city, it is big but there is now centre of it. It is busy, loud, chaotic and quite dirty. In Mangua it is possible to see  horse traps beside expensive cars, which just shows how wide the gap between the really rich people and the poor ones is in Nicaragua.
Granada is quite a beautiful city and was strongly influenced by the Spanish colonial time. Léon is known as the University city and has quite a lot to offer.

I hope that you kind of got an idea about what Nicaragua is like for me at the moment.
Hope that you are all well and happy,
Besos Maren