Expanding the focus beyond water systems, BOSIA supported Rosario Paisano’s workshops empowering Ometepe women through education about contraception, AIDS, domestic violence and other topics.

New types of partnerships began to develop. For example, contractor Steve Deines led a small delegation that worked alongside community members from Sintiope to build a classroom with funds from Bethany Lutheran Church. The ensuing relationship was so strong that the Deines family returned to build a fence around the school in 2000, again supported by Bethany. [Seabold delegation year?] When Seabold Methodist Church needed a new roof, the congregation raised extra money for a roof for El Madronal’s school. Later, a Seabold delegation traveled to Ometepe to meet their sister church in Balgue.

This year, The Traveler began a tradition of dedicating 5% of it December profits to purchasing books for Ometepe school libraries.

Since the first student delegation in 1990, Susan Koch, Magaly McLoughlin, Nancy Quitslund, Jim Starrs and other brave chaperones sheparded scores of Bainbridge youths into the homes and hearts of Ometepinos each spring. Every year, Ometepe families introduced small groups of high school students to their way of life and changed the young people’s worldviews forever. This year for the first time, many more students applied than the organization could accommodate. Hillary Benson, a delegate in 1997 and ’98 spoke for all student delegates on the topic “Things I Want to Remember.”

  • The stars – so many, so close
  • The big, fat pigs
  • The amazing hibiscus …
  • Never knowing what time it is because everyone gets up at 4:00 to get their work done before the heat rises …
  • All the breezes but no cool air
  • The beautiful roosters
  • All the naked kids
  • The antennas on the cockroaches that go round and round at night in the latrines …
  • The grandmother with all fifteen kids living within 100 feet of her home …
  • Beans and rice, rice and beans …
  • Everyone bringing me mangos after they learned I like them …
  • All the geckos (lizards) on my bedroom walls …
  • Smoky kitchens from open cooking fires …
  • Private guards with guns in front of restaurants and gas stations in Managua
  • Wondering how people buy property or receive mail
  • Not knowing how this will change my life.