Baby Stealing

First of all, I want to say that the title refers to two different things. The last couple of days have been very, very busy as we are all getting used to our centers. We've officially been in Managua for a week now and so much has happened. My legs have been completely eaten alive. It takes all the strength I have to fight itching them.
So far, working at Tesoros de Dios has been very interesting. It is a center for children with disabilities. It's a great community for the mothers because disabilities are frowned upon in Nicaragua. They are looked at as a punishment to the parents for something they've done. You can see how strong the ties are between the mothers at the center. They share the responsibilities of cooking and cleaning the entire place. Each mother brings a different item and they make a meal with all the items. It's a great system. There are some absolutely adorable children there. I've decided that I'm going to steal one of them. I've picked Ramon.

Here he is within Jonathan, another adorable child.

All of us that are working with children have kids picked out that we would steal. I could also take one of the babies at the orphanage that I fed the other day. Her name is Maria and she's three months old. For now, I'll stick with practicing my Spanish with Ramon.
Last Saturday, we went to La Laguna de Apollo and spent time hanging out in the crater-built basin filled with water. While we were there, Chris ran into the owner of his gym, Zack. Zack told us about friends of his who work for Feed the Children. He said they were coming to his home soon and invited us to his house to meet them. On Wednesday night, we went to his house. We were admiring all the beautiful houses and all decided this one yellow one was the most beautiful. Chris said he was planning to model the new Wake house after it. Then he realized he had no clue which house was Zack's, so he called him. Low and behold, the beautiful house was his! So we went in and talked for a long time. Here's the view from his driveway of the city of Managua.


Here's the side of the house by the pool.


Here's the view from his balcony at night.

He lives with his wife Diana, six dogs, several chickens, and an Iguana. The iguana lives behind the waterfall in the pool. We went to dinner with him and the people from Feed the Children. All four of them were very fascinating people. Zack is from Iran originally but lived in the US for several years teaching college wrestling. He has an entire room in his house dedicated to his awards. He and Diana met while she was vacationing in California. Six years ago, they moved to Nicaragua and started a gym. Zack's stories were incredibly funny including the one about how he almost got a plane turned around after September 11 because he was crying over the death of his dog and it scared the passengers. When they asked him for his passport, he showed them his US passport which did not help since it said "born in Iran." Eventually he convinced them that he was simply crying because his dog had died and they eventually believed him. He looks like a really intimidating guy but he's actually not. He's wanted in Iran because he defected. He left decades ago and won't even go close to the country now. Lots more to say, but not enough time. More to come.