Catching up

Hi all! Besides not having much time, the blog site has not been so cooperative, so I apologize for not  catching up sooner. The last couple of days of work have been phenomenal as has been the entire week. The Helping Babies Breathe team has had some great classes, the teachers are delighted with how their days have gone and were brought to tears when watching the scholarship students implementing the teaching strategies with the little ones in the community after they had taught them to them just that morning. We had a wonderful day with our friends in Santa Celia and many tears when we left them yesterday. The asset mapping work we did was amazing, went just as it is supposed to and our Social Work team members were speechless at the end when we realized how well the process worked. You all know that for our 3 Social Workers to be speechless is amazing in and of itself.  We had dinner one night with 4 members of the local Rotary Club including the outgoing and incoming presidents. It was a fantastic connection as we have received money from local clubs for our work here. They also went to the Helping Babies Breathe training yesterday to see how that works. We have great photos of both events and will share them with the Rotary at home which will help us to receive more funding for this program through local and International Rotary grants. The Rotary members here are delighted to stay in touch with us and want to partner with us on our work. We also made another connection with Peter Schaller who we have met previously. He had worked with Rainbow Network for several years, lives here now and is working with another NGO here. He came to dinner with us one night as well and is very interested in partnering with us also. Some amazing connections were made this week. This morning we pack up and leave the hotel by 9am, do some things in town then head out of Matagalpa. We plan to stop for coffee and then at the Masaya market before returning to Managua. The medical team is at the hospital this morning, then a stop at Fara Clinic and La Casa Materna. I will also visit Fara clinic this morning to see all of my friends there. So, our work here is mostly done. This has been a fabulous week with an amazing team. We thank everyone at home for their support.