To the editor:

Earlier this year our island hosted a delegation of medical professionals from our sister island of Ometepe, Nicaragua. Later this year and early next year, the Bainbridge-Ometepe Sister Islands Association (BOSIA) is planning to send two delegations to Ometepe.  We are inviting anyone who may be interested to be part of these delegations.

A Coffee Delegation will visit Ometepe for 10 days in late November and early December, during the coffee harvest. We will stay at a coffee plantation, pick the coffee fruit and follow its processing into coffee beans.  We will meet the farmers and families of the two cooperatives that produce BOSIA’s Café Oro de Ometepe. Due to the quality and diversity of it natural landscape, Ometepe has been designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, and we will have time to explore it’s natural as well as its cultural communities. [Delegation leader: Don Duprey (donduprey@gmail.com)]

The Special Needs Committee delegation will take place during the last two weeks of January 2015.

Several activities are planned: a photography project with deaf children; a conference with people from the broad special needs community on Ometepe; massage therapy training for blind and deaf children; and mobility and orientation workshops for the blind.

In addition members of the delegation will have some time to visit some of the other sister island projects on Ometepe and to explore other parts of the island. [Delegation leader: Dale Spoor]

Please contact the leader soon if you are interested in joining the delegation.

DON DUPREY

Bainbridge Island