Collegiate Times

San Jose de Bocay is a city of about 5,000 people in rural Nicaragua, but as Blacksburg's sister city, it is a destination for local citizens and their charity.

Nine locals visited in January with a mission to renew relations with the city and find new ways that Blacksburg citizens can aid the rapidly developing community.  

Since beginning interaction with San Jose de Bocay in 1989, Blacksburg has offered significant support for its sister, most notably donating $25,000 for a school built in 1991. Originally consisting of six rooms, it was expanded upon and now offers 750 students a place to learn.

All fundraising and planning is carried out by Blacksburg citizens.

"This is a committee that is not a town committee; it's a community-citizen committee," said town council member Susan Anderson.

The committee continues to support the city in the area of education by offering scholarships to teachers. Then they can make weekend commutes to the nearest university to be certified to teach.

The trips, which are made after teaching for the week, take about six hours and require an overnight stay, according to Mary Holliman, a former town council member who was on the trip.

The scholarships are usually about $4,000, and many have been offered throughout the past 20 years.

"All the teachers that had received scholarships are still in the system rather than using the scholarships as a stepping stone to go somewhere else," Holliman said.

Unfortunately, the school that Blacksburg funded was damaged by flooding two years ago and is need in of repair before it can be used again. The elementary school students are currently meeting in the high school building in the mornings.

The group of nine visiting Blacksburg locals joined local Nicaraguan students to help clean up the school and start the process of getting it back into shape.

In order for the school to become operational again, three things are needed: A stone retaining wall, a fence around the property and a footbridge across the creek to the school that must be repaired. The mayor of San Jose de Bocay said the community will be able to get the bridge repaired, and the federal government will most likely fund the retaining wall. They asked for Blacksburg to think about donating for the fence and continuing the scholarships. The committee is also considering donations to replace books and equipment.

Still, the city is mostly self-sustained.

"People weren't complaining or asking for handouts," Holliman said about the citizens. She described many as friendly and "business-like."

While in Nicaragua, the nine also visited a fair-trade coffee plantation in the mountains, as well as a maternity clinic in which women within two weeks of their scheduled delivery stay in order to ensure they have proper medical care when their babies are born. They also met with the teachers, who were on summer break.

Upon arriving in the town, they were welcomed by an orange and maroon hotel that had been freshly painted in their honor.

Bryan Murray, sophomore environmental policy and planning major, attended the trip with the hope of designing a program to give local students access to computers and learning software. Murray was awarded the Austin Michelle Cloyd Honors Scholarship, which offers up to $13,500 of funding, in order to get his project started.

Although the long-term goal is for the schools to have their own computers, Murray explained that the first step was getting the students access to a computer lab.  The lab, already in the city, would require software for the students to learn computer skills.

In order to protect the equipment, the fence must be built around the schools first to prevent theft or damage.

"I feel like it deepened my perspective about how different people approach the value of education," Murray said. "These kids are really eager to go to school."

He is planning a return trip in the next year to get the project started.

On April 13, the travelers held a town meeting to give a report about the trip, show a prepared slideshow of pictures and discuss the condition of San Jose de Bocay.

Jason Selwitz, their guide and translator, attended the meeting. A similar report will be given to the town council in the upcoming weeks.