As it snows in Maryland, we're enjoying the amazing weather here! Our day started a but late considering the Nicaraguan time culture. Once we left we stopped at a local market that sold items anywhere ranging from food to construction tools. It was interesting to see how all the locals were able to gather in one location to buy their essentials for daily life as well as luxury items. Our next stop was the Masaya volcano. Although the sulfur was heavy, the view was breath  taking. After, we drove and finally reached Granada. The city is so beautiful. This city has much more color, even with it's buildings. Once we explored our villa, a few of us decided to take a boat tour of their islands where the elite population from Managua have vacation homes. It was interesting to see the contrast between the locals and the grand houses. The culture here is significantly different; our tour guide explained how they're main job is fishing, with minimal to no exports and cannot afford motor boats so they must manually row their boats for miles. It makes me grateful for the programs and opportunities that the US offers employes, in comparison to these third work countries. The culture here has expanded my horizon greatly from the simple things such as their sense of leaving time to the comfortableness wealth disparity.
Overall, this has been an eye opening, amazing trip.

Joshua Herl

 Nicaragua Blog: Sunday March 16^th

Today was a fun and eventful day that began with a buffet in the morning to get everyone ready for the important day ahead of them.  After a late breakfast, all of the students got back into their respective groups to work with their assigned entrepreneurs.  Then after few hours of working diligently with the entrepreneurs, everyone sat down for a delicious buffet lunch that was catered by the Camino Real Hotel.  Everyone then got back to work and put the finishing touches on the presentations that were to be presented on the issues the entrepreneurs were facing and how each group worked to help solve these issues. 

The first group to present was Zama, a business that was selling shoes made of recycled jeans and tires.  The group helped create flyers and business cards so that they could marker their product to potential customers.  The scone group presentation was for a device that made holding a basket for coffee bean pickers more ergonomic and efficient in holding the beans.  The group set up a very informative website that focused on sharing the entrepreneurs story and explaining the efficiency of their product to individuals associated with the coffee bean industry.  The next group presentation was focused on assisting individuals from Honduras that were trying to preserve documents that were tarnished due to inclement weather.  The group brainstormed and concluded that setting up a new major in library sciences that specializes in preserving documents would be an effective way to save the important historical documents.  The final group to present assisted two doctors that created a medical lift device that helped pick up patients at a hospital.  The group found that producing the lifts in Nicaragua would be more cost-effective compared to shipping the devices from Esteli, Nicaragua.

Every single presentation was fantastic!  One could really see that each group became very close and was able to craft a plan that would be beneficial to each entrepreneur.  Then there was a ceremony in which each group was congratulated on their efforts.  After saying goodbye to the entrepreneurs, we all went out to eat and sightsee at a newly built pier.  Although some groups ate at different places, the consensus was that the dinners were delicious.  Most of us then relaxed by the pool after returning to the hotel, because we knew we had a long and exciting day ahead of us on Monday.

The First Day!

Monday, March 15, 2014

Today was day one of our class here in Nicaragua and all of us were eager to begin working on our projects. We started off the day by traveling to Universidad Americana (UAM) where we were scheduled to meet our groups that we would be working with.  Once we arrived at the university we had a brief introduction meeting where we got to know everyone.  We not only had students from UAM, the university we were at, but other students from the Universidad Nacional Autonomia de Nicaragua.  After the meet and greet we broke off into our groups to begin working on our projects.

Our class has a total of four different projects here in Managua.  Each of these projects has 3-4 University of Maryland Smith school students, 1-2 UAM business students, and the entrepreneurs, which are students and graduates from UNAN. Our group is a little different.

Our team has a very unique opportunity working with the Honduran Ministry of Foreign affairs and faculty from the Universidad Nacional Autonomia de Honduras to help them find funding for a project.  This funding will be used to help them restore many different historical documents that have been damaged by past hurricanes and have recently been discovered.  We spent most of the day researching different funding options in order to put together a list of various funding sources that the Hondurans would be able to try to obtain funding from.

                Since the reason why we are here in Nicaragua is to learn, I want to take some time to reflect upon what we actually did learn today. The day was full of many different experiences, but the most valuable lesson we learned was introspective. We truly learned how different it is doing business in a different country with a different culture, and how difficult it can be when one is used to his or her own cultural norms. Cultural differences are discussed every day in our classes, but actually having an experience that occurs from cultural differences is when one truly has the opportunity to learn and see how he or she would act. This is when one learns the importance of being flexible, and being able to adapt the any situation at hand.  When one is flexible, one is able to handle any situation smoothly, and without flexibility handling situations can be extremely stressful.

                We arrived in Nicaragua expecting to work with a group of entrepreneurs that were developing a new product for the market here, but that did not end up working out. Thanks to the flexibility that was demonstrated through our faculty we were able to begin working on this extremely interesting project with UNAH and the Foreign Ministry of Affairs of Honduras.  We spent most of the first day scrambling in order to adapt to our new project, since all of the research we had done was for something in a completely different field, but this is all part of the learning experience in a study abroad program right? 

We are extremely excited to see where we go with our new project, and even more excited to see what else we will learn in the coming week!

From Oxana:

Do you not want to study abroad?

Who would not like to study abroad? I just wonder... I cannot find any reason why every student would not wish to study abroad for at least a short period of time.

                From the time that I moved to states, I realized how diverse, interesting and exciting some places, people and cultures can be. Even though in this country we are lucky to be surrounded by this variety, there is nothing better than travelling to a foreign country (or sometimes just a different state), meeting people that live there, getting to know them, understand their culture and where they come from. And every single place and person have something unique about them, something that you could have missed if you did not get to know them. I hope that one day I would have had traveled to many countries, and have got to know and understand many different cultures.

                This is just one of the reasons why I decided to study abroad in Nicaragua. The opportunity that we are given to make a difference for a small entrepreneur, to utilize that valuable knowledge obtained from the Smith school, and apply it to real world businesses, makes me impatiently look forward to this trip. After all an education is not only about receiving, it is about giving back a little more than what was offered to you. And I hope to make a difference for those micro entrepreneurs that are brave enough to build and develop their business in a small, developing country.

I know it will be a great experience that will create a lot of memories. My only worry is the length of the program. I am afraid to not have enough time to practice and improve my poor Spanish language skills. With that being said, I will take the most out of this trip.

Please Support our Fundraising Efforts!

Season’s Greetings everyone! Our trip to Nicaragua is only a few months away and we are very excited! With the holiday season just around the corner, we are kindly asking you to make a donation to Hester J. Hodgdon Libraries and support our fundraising efforts for the San Juan del Sure entrepreneurs. 

The Hester J. Hodgdon Libraries is a Colorado-based, tax-exempt, foundation created to support the San Juan del Sur Biblioteca in an effort to promote library lending programs in Central America. In addition to its ongoing work in San Juan del Sur, the program has developed a variety of protocols and materials for new libraries, and its “library in a box” program has helped service groups, church groups, and individuals to establish more than 54 new lending libraries in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica. The significance of these efforts lies in the fact that historically libraries in Central America do not loan their books and there is little or no access to books and information for any but the very wealthy. 

All donations are tax deductible and can be made through this link: http://www.librariesforall.org/?Donations. This page asks for donations to the Hester J Hodgdon Libraries for All. Please earmark the donation under the name “UMD entrepreneurs”; this will help differentiate our group’s donations from library donations. We can then use a portion of the proceeds to support the San Juan del Sur entrepreneurial efforts! We hope that you will support our cause this year! We wish you lots of happiness this holiday season and hope that you have a wonderful new year! Thank you!

Welcome!
Welcome to the University of Maryland Nicaragua Spring Break 2014 Study Abroad blog! The students will update the blog daily when we're in Nicaragua. We're working on fundraising for the entrepreneurs we're going to be working with.  In Managua, we'll work with students and faculty from UNAN on these projects:

1. Hot box, a lunch box to keep workers’ lunches both warm and safe. The group is hoping to sell to factory owners to use as rewards for workers or as a general benefit.
2. Carrier for coffee bean workers. This team has designed ergonomic carriers (male and female designs) for workers on coffee bean plantations to hold up to 30 pounds of coffee beans. 
3. Recycled shoes.  These shoes are made from tires and old jeans.
4. Portable medical lift. In Nicaraguan hospitals, families of the patients provide the care that is provided by nurses in U.S. hospitals. The hand-crank lift allows a patient to be moved in bed, allowing easier care. 

 In San Juan del Sur we'll work with the following entrepreneurs:

1. Bruno Antonio Pomares Herrera. Wedding planner and dance troupe coordinator.
2. Mayra Perez, Spanish language school owner.
3. Yessenia Luna, Fashion show organizer, make up artist and nail technician and baker.
   
4. Ruth Perez and her business partner, Mirna.  They are bakers and have a small snack stand at a local school.