By Maria Patricia Somarriba

On Friday, July 31st at 6:30 a.m. while on a recent trip to Nicaragua to visit my family and Pan y Amor, we received a very alarming telephone call.  As we sleepily wondered who would be calling so early in the morning, we heard the news  Managua s Mercado Oriental was burning. My mother Charlotte, who serves as director of Pan y Amor, was informed by telephone that both the school and the boys home were in the path of the raging fire and would surely be destroyed.

We ran to the TV and discovered that every channel was reporting the same terrible news: The market had been burning since 6:00 p.m. the night before. The Managua fire department valiantly fought the blaze and called for reinforcement fire trucks from surrounding cities. We could see that these brave men were going to have a hard time controlling the fire because due to hand-me-down uniforms, a lack of equipment and hoses with poor water pressure. We saw hysterical stall owners trying to douse the flames with buckets of water in order to rescue any merchandise they could from the flames.  We checked in with our boys at the home to make sure that they were safe and had a plan for evacuation and waited to see what would happen.

Later that day, the fire finally burnt itself out. 1302 stalls were burned to the ground, which left thousands of people without a source of income because 5 to 7 people worked at each one. Fortunately, both the school and the boys home survived the fire unscathed. The fire came within two blocks of the school, and the boys from the home had been put on alert to be evacuated if the fire of smoke were to come too close.

Pan y Amor is safe for now. Unfortunately, the destroyed section of the Mercado Oriental is already being rebuilt to become yet another fire trap.  We have known for some time that Pan Y Amor could not remain at its current location due to a reduction of power service in the area by the authorities that came as a result of illegal connections and a lack of payment of services from the stall owners. Ever since the fire, the school no longer has any power and functions with only 4 ½ hours of power provided by a generator installed at the school last year.

The center was originally founded in the Market area in order to get market children who are there with their parents or work as vendors or messengers to attend school. This is one of the most dangerous areas of Managua because prostitutes, vagrants, thieves, pedophiles, drug pushers, and users surround it.  Despite the fact that moving the school might cause some difficulty for these children to attend, we feel we can help compensate by helping more of our students cover their bus fares. There are currently no city or government authorities interested in regulating the growth of the market, which has in turn led to the sidewalk in front of the school being taken over by stalls. Once again, we find ourselves on the verge of being engulfed into this ever-growing mass of informality.

Over the years, generous contributors have made it possible for us to build Centro Escolar Pan Y Amor into a model school. 300 of Managua s poorest children are provided with an education consisting of a 10-hour school schedule, nutrition, health and dental care, and technical training at an older age that gives them a shot at a bright future of good jobs and decent wages.

Now we have another, bigger challenge.  We want to assure Pan y Amor s bright future by moving to a wonderful piece of land donated by a generous contributor, where we plan to build a bigger and safer Pan y Amor. We are planning a new school, day care and boy s home in a safe area where our children will be able to develop in a healthy environment

For more information on how you can help make this project a monumental success, please contact me at soma1780@bellsouth.net.