Building with Books- Yameleck Tabora's Trip to Nicaragua

     In February during the mid-winter vacation I went to Nicaragua, with the Building with Books program, to help build a school in a small village called Las Trojas. Las Trojas was deep in the mountains of Nicaragua near the boarder line of Honduras. It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, in a place no one would ever think people lived. After assigned host families to stay with I fell into a routine. I woke up to roosters and ate the traditional meal Gallo Pinto (beans with rice) for breakfast, which was also my lunch and dinner. After I ate I went to the work site with the fellow villagers and began to shovel dirt and mix cement. For the first week we leveled the ground, which was a hill. Once the hill was down we set up the foundations and the school began to take shape. Once my work shift was done I climbed back up to the village where the children were waiting to play with me. I taught them English games, like ‘Duck Duck Goose’, with the little Spanish that I knew. Once I was too tired to play anymore they asked me for English phrases. I remember on one occasion they asked me to write translations down for them so I took out a colored pen and wrote. The room filled with gasps of the bright pink ink coming from my pen. “How pretty!” they exclaimed. After the reaction I took out my other pens and let them have fun writing and drawing with them. I later gave them to my host brother as a reward for showing the most interest in learning. My host brother was only about ten and cared more for education than anyone I ever met. His name was Osmar and he only spent two weeks of the month at his home. The other two weeks he went to a coffee field, which took him eight hour to walk to, where he worked picking beans for less than ten dollars a month. He used this money for school supplies. Once he returned to the village he attended a one room school where one teacher taught four different grades at the same time. I was surprised how small and crowded it was. The school taught up to the fourth grade, after that if a child wanted to continue their education they would have to walk four hours to another village. My parents always told me about children like them, but it was such a different experience to meet them in person. I want to give children like Osmar so much. He impressed entire BwB team. He was video taped and interviewed to tell his incredible story. In the interview Osmar told us to deliver a message to New York children blessed with conveniences like an available school in the neighborhood and money to buy books: “Go to school!”