motmots for community building

I've been having a long distance love affair with a country for years. The pioneering spirit, rough untouched forests, and simmering politics keep me fascinated with learning about Nicaragua -- well, we're finally going to meet.

This journey has been a long time in the making and is important for so many reasons. Two of our childrens' grandparents are from Nicaragua and this experience should be part of their childhood. They will experience beauty, they will peek at luxury in a foreign land, and they will see tragic poverty. My husband has traveled to the country many times as a child and teen - I have never been.

I'm excited and nervous, the considerations are different than for other places we have been. Here are some things that I imagine might happen:

1. I freak out at the airport and refuse to get on the plane. I am terribly afraid of flying, the last time I was such a stress ball for hours on end that I couldn't stand up straight by the time I got to Amsterdam.

2. I decide we can't go home and send Armando back home to tie up the loose ends. I fall in love with being anywhere new. I have a strange mix of gypsy and homebody, this plays out by having an insatiable desire to move to new places -- I'm thrilled by being somewhere new and I'm "home" at the same time (I'm currently living the longest I've ever lived anywhere)

3. I become overwhelmed by the need to do something - this could get heavy, and I'm wondering how I will digest it. We don't plan on staying in tourist areas, we want to see it all.

5. well, I imagine a lot of stuff......

A little more about # 3 - I was given a pamphlet about a charity called Center for Development in Central America http://http//www.jhc-cdca.org/ I checked them out and it seems like they are doing some very good work. While I was weeding the garden today I was thinking about the beautiful motmot, the national bird of Nicaragua and how I should try to create it in paper mache. The amazing colors are similar to the birds I make now. I've decided to make motmots and donate half of the proceeds to the Center for Development in Central America. On the website they break down some of the costs of helping citizens with starting businesses, converting to organic farming, and community health care - you would be surprised at what you can do with a relatively small amount of money!

The paper mache motmot is being conceived as you read this, I will post some images soon.

Here are some of my other paper creations to give you an idea of where I'm going with this http://http//www.rosemarymarkowski.com/papermache.htm