By Raúl Gavarrette O.
By the end of 1992 the former Escuela de Español Laguna de Apoyo – later in 1995 known as Escuela de Español Proyecto Ecológico Laguna de Apoyo- started operations. This school belonged to the McKaye family. Beverly McKaye a South African artist became its first Director and owner. The McKaye family had arrived in Nicaragua for job purposes and scientist searches in early 1992 and having plans for living in the country, started searching for a language Spanish school to learn the language as they spoke only English. Since they did not find any school in the area and urged to learn how to speak Spanish, they went to Guatemala to take an intensive Spanish course in a very popular known school in Antigua.
When they came back to Nicaragua, the McKaye family was very enthusiastic with the idea of starting a language Spanish School in Laguna de Apoyo and right after they returned to the country, they started preparation for that interesting project. Locals Lorenzo López, Bismarck Calero, and Cándida López who were already working for the McKaye’s in many different jobs in the property, were then trained to become Spanish instructors by some Guatemalan experienced Spanish teachers for an intensive training workshop, brought by the McKaye’s family.
After receiving the training workshop, those first Nicaraguan teachers became the first three Spanish teachers in the Escuela de Español Laguna de Apoyo. In 1995 and following years more teachers joined among them, professor Raúl Gavarrette who had worked for years as a language teacher in Universities in Managua and had been a pioneer in teaching one-to-one Spanish lessons in Managua in the eighties along with professor Fernando Rodríguez. Raúl Gavarrette along with Bismarck Calero, Cándida López, Lorenzo López, and Beverly McKaye made a perfect team to lead the Spanish school as a successful language school in the Apoyo Lake, Nicaragua. Large groups of volunteer Europeans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden came often to this Spanish language school to study, learn, and enjoy the beauty nature of Laguna de Apoyo, the most beautiful crater lake of pristine waters in Nicaragua.
