NICARAGUA

The Soccer Girls in Nicaragua

Some of the BYU Women's soccer team had the opportunity to go to Nicaragua and do some service.  Before the girls left on their trip, the team had been gathering shoes to take to Nicaragua.  The girls went with some other sports from BYU, and spent a few days painting, and hanging out with the kids.  All the girls said it was an amazing experience, and they all had a great time.  

Andrea Willis and Karen Cook

Andrea Willis: 

Our trip to Nicaragua was an incredibly eye opening experience and definitely not what i was expecting! The first whole day we were in Managua and learned all about Cause For Hope and their main goal of helping the people to become self reliant. After some meetings we got the chance to go out into the city to visit some businesses/families that Cause For Hope had helped to start. Most of their businesses were just little things like selling vegetables or little convenience stores or even selling banana chips. One of the places we visited we had to walk through sewage and trash and even dead animals to get there. Most of the houses were made of cinderblocks, had tin roofs, and most of them had no running water or toilets. Luckily our hotels were quite nice or I might have died! The next day we got to go to Chinandega to help the people there. We were all split into different teams to help different people and their businesses. My group which included Jen and Mckinzie Olson got to help a man named Hugo. Hugo fixes motorcycle motors and we had the task of helping him to increase his income and savings. The things we did to help him were to paint his house to help it stand out better since very few houses on his street were painted. We also helped make him a sign and made him some business cards and stickers to give to his clients. One of my favorite parts of the trip though aside from the business aspect was going to the orphanage and spending some time with the girls that lived there. They were the sweetest girls and even though we had some difficulties understanding each other it was an awesome experience. Even though we went to Nicaragua with the intentions of doing service and helping the people there we were the ones that benefited the most. We learned so many things from the great people of Nicaragua and won't soon forget this experience!