Blacksmiths, Monkeys, Massive Flooding...

Today was our first real day exploring Nicaragua. We started off with breakfast and class in the morning. Then we went to lunch at a buffet style restaurant, which cost a whopping three dollars. The food once again was delicious. After we ate, we drove to el Ciudad Sandino and visited a trade school that teaches blacksmithing. A guy from the US started it about two years ago. Now he has several guys that make all sorts of awesome creations. Below is a picture of the blacksmith shop.

The guys gave us a demonstration and then Kate made an S-hook of her own. The blacksmith center was in the same area as a school, so children were watching us. Here are the first two that came to observe.

Later, we went to another NGO called the Jubilee House. We looked at all the things they were doing to create sustainability in Nicaragua. They had gardens where they trained the vegetables to grow up instead of out to save space. They also had a lot of textiles. They were even constructing their own textile building.

The center also had lots of monkeys roaming around. One of the monkeys climbed around freely and was very friendly to us. The other one was on a chain because it kept breaking into houses and stealing food. They were trying to chain it to be a tree monkey not a house monkey. The first one was so friendly that it crawled all over the car.

We went to a clinic down the road to see what it looked like after touring the land near the Jubilee House. By the time we left, it was pouring rain. And by pouring rain I mean the whole area we were in was flooded. There were dirt roads and the water was up to about knee height. We started trekking through the flood in Chris's SUV, but the others were afraid to go in the water in a Toyota Corolla. We had to turn around in the flood and go back to them. The man with us from the Jubilee House jumped in the Corolla and drove through the water. There was so much muddy water that we could see it splashing higher than the roof of the Corolla and all the tires were submerged. We got to what I'm guessing was an intersection and there was a taxi stuck in the water, a bus, and a truck. All of a sudden the bus looked like it was coming right towards us. Then it started honking incessantly. Chris quickly steered out of its way and almost into the truck. He had to turn quickly the other way to make it away from the truck. All in all it was only about five seconds, but after we passed the truck the water level got lower. Now I know why there are so many SUVs in Nicaragua.