ICS blog

With every week comes a new adventure with its own life enriching experiences for the British and Nicaraguan Team.  

It was another week of hard work, fun and new experiences shared between the Brits and Nicaraguans. We put together a series of questions which we used during our visit to the community of El Jocote, surveying the local families with the aim of finding ways in which to potentially improve the area. Problems identified within the community include:

The journey for WESM ICS volunteers continues! On the 4th of February, ICS volunteers visited Nasambe youth group and spoke with the Chairman, Isaac Chipululu. The purpose of the visit was to check up on the youth group after their involvement in a tea planting special project which took place with previous ICS volunteers in 2014. During the visit, Fwasani Mhango (National volunteer) asked a few key questions about the tea fields to investigate how successful the project was.

Sapitwa Bee Keeping Association (SABA) in conjunction with Mount Mulanje Conservation Trust (MMCT) and the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM) organised a tree planting launch on Friday 30th January 2015 in the area of Chief Nkumba under the traditional authority Njema in the Mulanje district. 

Its week 6!  We are officially more than half way through our ICS Nicaraguan experience and all the groups are getting just that bit closer to reaching our big target to build 30 eco latrines J The passing of mid-term has made the reality of returning home start to sink in for most of the UK volunteers, and many of us have already discussing our excitement for our end of term trip to Ometepe! We all want to make the most of our 3 remaining weeks in Masaya.

It’s safe to say that there are a lot of cultural differences between Nicaragua and the UK. Their vast array of festivals put us to shame, the climate is tropical in contrast to England’s dreary winter months and, the food, let’s just say they’re mega fans of their carbohydrates. But there’s one thing in particular that you simply can’t escape, music. Every day without fail, the radio accompanies the frustratingly loud rooster at 4 am in the morning. During construction music will always be playing and in the evenings the night is simply buzzing. whether in the street or in central Park.

As we near the end of our first week in Masaya, all the volunteers of Cycle 10 are settling in nicely to the Nicaraguan way of life. The preliminary stages of our work in the nearby community of El Pochote have been completed, we have all found new friends in the form of our Nicaraguan counterparts, and our bodies have just about acclimatized to the carbohydrate-rich diet (they like rice, a lot).

“Will be good friends”- words written for one of the UK volunteers by a Nicaraguan counterpart at the end of our training week. Whilst certainly cheesy (and possibly presumptuous) this note embodies the warmth and friendliness with which we have thus far been received in Nicaragua. It is an incredible country; tropical climate (despite the fact that we're still apparently in winter), beautiful people and stunning scenery.

With our art and work, with our sweat and passion for what we do.  We will show to the world that only together as colleagues, friends, brothers, and sisters; we are able to make changes in the world. Organised, we can make a difference for our beloved land that gives us all without expecting anything in return. 

Before we reached our destination we were still unsure at what we would find. We were aware that we would be working in the environmental field in the community of Santa Marta but knew nothing more about the community that would be home for 3 months. So, even though we had been prepared to be ready for practically anything, there were still many things about El Salvador that impressed us at first impact.

First of all, we were pleasantly surprised by how friendly and open the people were.