Our visit to El Mozote was hard, emotional, challenging. We stood around a plot of earth where hundreds of children were massacred by a cruel sector of the Salvadoran army, whose members were trained in the US. It was too much for some of my students to handle. The place is now full of beautiful and humble memorials, a wall of victims' names, a garden for reflection, some marble tiles with the names and ages of the endless list of children who died that day. There's not really much to say about this day. It was sad and brutal. I'm glad we went, I'm glad I learned about the event, but mostly I wish I could have stopped it. I wish I could stop a lot of terrible acts, and it's disempowering to know that there are many histories like El Mozote's that have been written and are probably being written right now.

The next day I focused on my epic bit through Honduras. See the little bit between El Salvador and Nicaragua with "Choluteca" in the middle?

That's pretty much the little bit we crossed on the way to Nicaragua. First, I love a good Honduran accent. Second, I know so little about Honduras I was hoping for a typical meal or legit road stop. But no, we pretty much breezed through that little bit in 3 hours with one uneventful ghost town-like gas station pit stop. The highlight was my changing $2.75 into some odd amount of local currency, Honduran lempiras, and the money exchange guy laughing at me and saying, muy poco muy poco. And buying a popsicle from some guy who asked me if I'd been to Mexico. I kept talking to him to soak up that Honduran Spanish. Good stuff.

We entered Nicaragua at El Espino and took 4 taxis that wizzed down the highway in the late afternoon through the very beautiful countryside of Nicaragua. From what I have seen, it is quite lovely here. We got to Somoto and boarded a bus to Estelí. We are going to be in Estelí for the next 10 days or so and my kiddos are going to be in home stays and Spanish classes.

Our first impression of Nicaragua was not so good however. Someone robbed the daypack of one of my students. In daylight, in the central park, while the group was technically "watching" our stuff. Then we went to a hotel that was sub-par and in a lame neighborhood. We ended up leaving that hotel for a backpacker hostel which, although backpacker-y, much cleaner, safer, and centrally located. There we rested last night.

Unfortunately one of my students has had a death in her family up in the US and she is going to spend 3 days going home and attending a funeral. So here I am in Managua accompanying her before she will fly out tomorrow morning. Since the rest of the group is on a 3-day trek... I am here until my student gets back on Saturday. I have plenty of work to do and catch up on, but I also have 3 days in Managua. And I do love me some Latin American cities.

Tonight we ate "typical" Nicaraguan food, in a fancy-ish restaurant. Plantain pancake with beans and fried local cheese on top, a plantain stuffed with local cheese, and a fried tortilla with beans, cabbage and pico de gallo. And in Managua they have these things called fritangas which are basically street food carts with many, many types of fried food and meat. Oh, Nicaragua! I hope to find a nice fritanga of my own tomorrow. Here is a picture, although not my own: