Living with a family in Achuapa

You may have gathered from previous blogs that Sabrin, one of the Venturers from Alpha 7 is here with us at Fieldbase. Unfortunately she has injured her knee and so has been talking it easy and helping out with everything here at Fieldbase. We thought we’d make the most of her whilst she’s here so she has written an insight into what it’s like to live with a family in Los Playones in Achuapa in Nicaragua…

Living with a family in Los Playones, Achuapa, Nicaragua

From the moment that Alpha 7 arrived to the small, remote community of Los Playones, covered from head to toe in a mixture of dust and cement after a two day bus journey, we were welcomed with open arms. Speaking as a venturer that spent a week hobbling around the community on home-made crutches, I can whole-heartedly say, and I think I speak for the whole Alpha 7 lot, that we were left in the care of incredibly accommodating people who made every effort to ensure that all of our needs were met.

We settled down to our first dinner with our new ‘Mummys’ and ‘Daddys’, consisting of rice, beans, tortilla’s and a traditional local cheese. We were greeted by a total of seven children and lucky enough to be one of the only houses in the community with a well. Our bedroom also functioned as a corn store, and most of the time, as a chicken pen.

We awoke far before the crack of dawn, to the crowing of the many cockerels, and headed for a thorough wash at either the well or a nearby stream, before settling down to breakfast and, if we were lucky, a chance to help make the tortillas (which happens to be a very specialised art) or milk the cow. We would then begin our day of hard manual labour, digging wells and reinforcing them with bricks and cement, or in my case dishing out large and constant doses of moral support, but never without regularly returning to our households for lunch, coffee and often a mid morning drink.

After the initial shock from the tremendous quantities of food, and a few failed attempts to feed excess tortillas to the numerous dogs, cats, chickens, pigs and cockerels, we managed to settle down into our new lifestyles. The discovery of the tomato ketchup hidden away in the kitchen allowed us to add our own western touches to the food, making the transition a whole lot easier. Besides the standard rice and beans, we were sometimes treated to local delicacies including fresh fish from the Rio Grande or, if we were really lucky, a very fresh Iguana.

Over the next few weeks, we were inundated with numerous marriage proposals from local children, treated to the sweet sound of local songs (we were lucky enough to have a budding pop-star in our family) and bombarded by local children running up to us and screaming ‘Chele,’ which is anagram of the Spanish work for Milk - ‘leche,’ and essentially means ‘white’ or ‘foreigner.’

The Alpha 7 group will no doubt leave the community of Los Playones with plenty of lifelong memories and friendships, new skills, a greater understanding of varying global cultures and the ability to cook up a classic Nicaraguan feast, if they so please, for many years to come.

Szeman and John are also back from their road trip to visit Alpha four and so we also have a slideshow of some of their pictures…



Finally, a round up of what all the other Alpha groups are up to…

Alpha one are in the Corcovado National Park enjoying their very well deserved day off. So far they have seen lots of monkeys, wild pigs and a small snake. Today they are off to see if they can find some of the bull sharks that sometimes swim into the estuary – although don’t worry, I doubt they’ll be taking a dip!

Alpha two are making their way towards their stop for the night at Delicias and are now just two days away from the beach!

Alpha five are packing up their jungle camp today in preparation for a trip to the beach to over the last few days of phase one

Alpha seven are back to work today and looking forward to the arrival of the Bravo one team who should be arriving about five o clock this evening with much needed chocolate and Pringles!

Alpha eight have been busy bees! They had their visit from Bravo one yesterday so I’m sure they are all filled up with goodies from the shop! As well as the building, English lessons, learning to make tortillas etc, the team have also found time to paint a giant caterpillar on the side of the school, whose body has twelve parts so it can also be used as a calendar – pics to follow when Bravo one returns!

Alpha nine will be finishing off the foundations for the Comedor today, are still lugging more wood, and will hopefully be able to make a start on the floor later on today.


Tomorrow our final road trip will leave to drop off the last of the food to Alpha two when they reach Playa Hermosa and hopefully our intrepid Nicaraguan explorers in Bravo one will return with some much anticipated photos from Alphas 5, 7 and 8. Sorry we haven’t been able to get any photos of those groups up yet, the projects unsurprisingly don’t have computer or internet access so we have to wait until the Fieldbase teams have visited them and come back with the photos – rest assured that as soon as they’re back in the office we will be pouncing on them for photos before they’ve even had time to ask if anyone’s put the kettle on!!