Apply to Be a Summer Vol or Program Director!

Passionate about serving underprivileged international communities? Love the Spanish language and want to improve your grasp of it? Interested in children's education, teaching English, business development, nutrition, and/or sports & exercise? Want to take the lead in running, and even creating, service and development initiatives? Come serve abroad with Manna in Nicaragua, Ecuador, and possibly help start a new site in Guatemala!

College senior looking for something different before graduate school or the workforce? Apply for a 13-month Program Director position!

Still in school and looking for an enlightening and fulfilling summer opportunity? MPI Nicaragua and Ecuador take one- and two-month summer volunteers to assist with programs and to learn our communities and countries of focus.

Visit www.mannaproject.org and APPLY NOW!

THANK YOU

Thanks to the efforts of all our supporters, Manna Project was among the top 100 vote-getters in the Chase Community Giving competition. MPI will receive $25,000 from Chase Bank. $5,000 will be allocated to each site's programs. Here in Nicaragua, that money will, among other things, go to the purchase of teaching English as a foreign language books, workbooks, and teaching guides so that we may standardize the material in and quicken progress through our multiple levels of English classes. Some of the money will also go toward the $24,000 needed to keep Casa Base de Salud community clinic in La Chureca open. The remaining $15,000 will go to operating costs, which are often difficult to fundraise for but essential to Manna's continuation.


We at Manna owe a huge thank you to Chase Bank, but especially to all of you who took the time to vote for us in the Chase Community Giving competition.

Returning to Nicaragua - Six Months In

After a three-week holiday break, MPI Nicaragua's Program Directors (PDs) have returned to the Manna house. Returning to a place that is at once foreign and familiar has been a surreal experience. By now, we are accustomed to dodging ox carts, potholes, and horses on the highway. Here, it is completely normal to be offered a duck for 20 córdobas ($1) while waiting at a red light. It is also accepted to ignore those lights when convenient.


Six months in, we know that no explanation is necessary when you don't feel a stoplight clown or windshield wash is deserving of a cookie or a few cents; a smile and a joke will do just fine. We know that no offense is meant by a public observation of weight gained or the shade of your skin, and that none is taken when the answer to a request is "no."


When your instinct is to feel you and your country are judged when you deny a dollar to someone who begs it, you may be called "pinche," or stingy, but follow with a high-five and a laugh and you will find it reciprocated. When a family appears intimidating, know that they would gladly welcome you into their home and offer you the national dish and drink of gallo pinto and pinolillo. If you are fortunate enough one day to find yourself in Nicaragua, save a bit a mental stress and trust in the frankness, the humor, the resilience, and the kindness of its people.

2 Clicks and $25,000!!!

Chase Banks is putting on this competition called Chase Community Giving, in which the top 100 non-profit organizations to earn the most votes on Facebook will win $25,000. This is HUGE. As of right now, we have a definite shot of being within the top 100... but WE NEED YOUR HELP.


Here's what YOU need to do:

1. Click here to become a "fan" of the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook.

2. Click here to vote for Manna Project International.

(3. Or you can just click that handy little button at the top of our blog)


That's all you have to do! One vote really does make a difference. (And if you want to send an e-mail out to any friends, groups, co-workers or listservs who might be willing to vote for us, that would be fabulous!) If we win the 25k, $5,000 will go directly to funding Nicaragua's programs!!

Additionally... since you can vote for up to 20 organizations, we are teaming up with a coalition of other non-profits to cross-promote and increase our chances of winning. This joint effort is sure to give us a leg up on the competition, so please vote for these organizations as well:

Atlas Service Corps

National Youth Rights Association

Think Impact (Student Movement for Real Change)

Service for Peace

Arlington Street People's Assistance Network

Youth Venture

Arlington Food Assistance Center

Thank you so much for your support... we stand a great chance of winning this competition and we can't do it without you! We appreciate your commitment to our ongoing initiatives, as well as your votes!

A Xiloa Good Time

As part of the MPI Nicaragua Child Sponsorship (CS) team, one of my roles is planning the quarterly field trips for participating children and caretakers in our program. The CS program is unique in that we provide opportunities for the children of La Chureca to leave behind the perennial smoke and trash of their neighborhood for an afternoon of recreation and relaxation with their families in a safe, clean place. Earlier this year in late July, we joined the former PDs in hosting a trip to El Salero, the Community Center land on which we run our programs in Kid’s English, Library, Baseball, and Soccer. The day was an undeniable success, allowing the children plenty of time and space to enjoy the great outdoors. I decided to repeat another popular field trip idea last Friday when we brought our children and their mothers to Laguna Xiloa. Last year’s group did the same with summer volunteers, and in light of the MPI Nicaragua 5-year anniversary celebration in which PDs of ages past reunited this weekend in Managua, I thought they might join us in the fun of hosting a trip to enjoy the waters of Xiloa.

Laguna Xiloa (pronounced "Hee-Low-Wah"), site of our field trip last Friday

We arrived at the side entrance of Chureca to meet the mothers and children at 12:45 on Friday, where we awaited the arrival of a big yellow school bus that would take us all to Xiloa, about a 30 minute drive away. Ian and I road up front, took attendance, and chatted with families on the way. When we got to the laguna, we were delighted to see the beautiful open space with little covered areas for benches and picnic-ing. Some of the children and mothers took to the water fairly quickly, while others preferred the grass and the shade. Some of the children had little bathing suits, others swam in their clothing, others half naked. Whatever their manner of taking to the water, the smiles and laughter were abundant. We waded right in with the kids...from the shallow end with the toddlers looking at the minnows rush by to the deeper areas with the more adventurous kids. Mothers swam and lounged in the cool water, where they stayed talking away the afternoon. We were already in the midst of playing with children and visiting with mothers when the PDs of the past arrived to join our festivities. Some of these PDs were acquainted with certain families from years past, and others were members of the board and staff who were able to visit and see one small aspect of what we do on Child Sponsorship. We were all able to learn from the afternoon at Xiloa, and we all had a grand time! I learned that children play tag in Spanish by saying “la landa” and that sometimes it just takes a handhold to get a timid child to enter the water. I found out that everyone needs time to just be - be with family, be refreshed, be safe and relaxed, be a kid, be a mother. On last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I gave thanks for the ability to join these mothers and children in an afternoon away from La Chureca. Reflecting on the day, I am thankful for the relationships I’ve been able to establish through Child Sponsorship, how I’ve seen these children begin to grow, and how the mothers have entrusted us with their health concerns and needs.

Snapshot of the craziness

To put this day into perspective, these children and their families do not have access to complete immersion in clean water. They bathe with buckets and hoses or in sinks (for the children who are small enough). Moreover, I oftentimes walk around Chureca and find recently washed children already dirty from playing outside without their shoes on or from the dust and smoke that fills the air. And although they live next to a huge lake (Lake Managua/Lake Xolotlán), the runoff from La Chureca has polluted it to the point that swimming and fishing these waters is highly dangerous. Many have fallen sick from mercury laden fish, and the pollution is visible as trash and sewage line the banks. The Laguna Xiloa, on the other hand, is a local getaway where the waters thrill and awe visitors. I say ‘awe’ because my limited experience has taught me that some Nicaraguan people I have met who have never had access to a pool or natural body of water (and thus have never learned how to swim) have a healthy fear of water.

Milton views the laguna

It was that healthy respect for water that helped us have a safe day at the laguna. And with a provided snack of fiber cookies, bananas, and juice, the day ended with many smiles and lots of wet clothing!

Jose Manual enjoys the water and a few extra bananas

From Nicaragua to America, Happy Thanksgiving!

Jan Margaret

Program Director

Home Stays, Part II - Reflection on Life at "13.5"

For four days I went nowhere without being encompassed by a tangled mass of arms and legs and hugs and kisses and shouts of children ranging from 3 to 14 years old. Welcome to 13.5! I stayed with Tatiana, Gerald, and Maycol, three precious children from my English class. Everyday, they play with their extended family members who happen to ALL live in barrio 13.5, so my homestay brought back memories of growing up around my very large and noisy and wonderful extended family. Every morning the children walked to the local Catholic school while I stayed home with their mothers. In the afternoons, madness ensued upon the chavalos return. These children play with an unmatched enthusiasm.

From tree-climbing and mandarina-picking to pickup games of baseball and soccer, these kids don't stop. I was especially touched when they wanted to play Memory with Spanish and English words, something we often do in Kid’s English to practice vocabulary. Tatiana cut out squares of paper and wrote the spanish vocabulary while I wrote the english...pretty soon, all the cousins were learning how to say gecko, shark, dog, and duck (we're studying animals in kid's english). I can't claim that keeping the pace with such a lively bunch of youngsters didn't absolutely wear me out, but I will say that being around so much joy and energy perked up my mood and helped me focus on the good in life. For a week, it was like I could go back to being a kid again, surrounded by family and laughter and silly arguments and lots of gallo pinto.

In addition to taking me back, this week was a chance to get an inner look into the daily life of members of the local community. From sunrise to bedtime, I experienced life through the eyes of 13.5, a life which entailed cousins, playtime, clothes washing on the pila, singing our respective national anthems, and very cold bucket showers when the water ran low.

Jan Margaret Rogers

Program Director

Home Stays, Part II - Reflection

Sometimes we whine about the Manna House, which is actually palatial compared to the way most people live. We miss hot water, air conditioning, bug-free living, dryers, dish-washers, TV, and our own rooms. We spent the last week sharing houses the size of our rooms… much of our community lives with dirt floors, latrines shared by twenty people, bucket showers, and cooks over fires. I think homestays have been the best thing we have done yet, we solidified already close and solid relationships and also just had a really good time. The people in the community have become family and friends over the past few months.


We really were challenged by much of the homestay, the dichotomy between how we live and how they live is impossible to convey. As we discussed and wrestled with this I think we came to the ultimate realization that the critical difference between me living a more sparse life and the lives of our community members: For me, it’s a choice. For me, I choose whether or not to buy a new dress in order to save more money for sponsorship funds. For me, I choose whether or not to go to dinner out or eat more cheaply in my house. For these families, such a choice does not exist. No matter how much I restrict myself I will never understand what it is to live like these families. No matter how long we stay we will never fully understand the reality.


It was a great week, for many of us the end of homestays came too soon. I really do believe both we and our homestay families enjoyed the experience. It was great to spend day-in and day-out with the people who have become our families here.

Lauren Page Black

Program Director