Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 15, 1990                   TAG: 9004130265
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ELAINE VIEL SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

BLACKSBURG LEARNS OF LIFE IN ITS SISTER CITY

If they lose it there will probably be no replacement, said Gary Hicks, a Bocay resident and the liaison between the towns of Bocay and Blacksburg.

Hicks, a native of California, has lived in Central America for 15 years. He moved there to operate a farm he owns in Costa Rica.

Hicks and his wife, Lissette, are visiting Blacksburg as part of Sister City Week, which ended Saturday. They will remain here through the coming Saturday.

Last week, Hicks met with town leaders, members of civic organizations, schools and churches to help the people of Blacksburg learn more about their sister city.

He also wants people to know the story of the pencils is only a small chapter in a book filled with such tales of need.

There is a dentist chair in Bocay, but no equipment, Hicks said. There is a hospital built by a Spanish Basque community, but no furniture and few pharmaceutical supplies.

A dying person could be brought to the hospital, Hicks said, but unless someone can pay for the patient's food while he is being treated he will not eat.

Until seven years ago, Hicks said, Bocay "never even had a road."

In northern Nicaragua near the Honduran border, Bocay was one of the areas hardest hit by the Contras in their fight against the Sandinista government.

In 1988, flooding from Hurricane Joan severely damaged the school, he said. What is left of the building is "not an adequate place to study." There are holes in the walls and roof and only very basic supplies.

The Blacksburg Sister City Committee wants to raise $25,000 to rebuild the school, according to the Rev. Woody Leach, the chairman of the committee. With that money, the committee thinks it can build a six-room school of concrete and wood.

The school project came about, he said, when several people from Blacksburg went to Bocay last summer and asked what they could do to help. The answer was a new school.

Bocay has 2,000 residents, Hicks said, but within the surrounding area the population is about 15,000.

Hicks describes Bocay as an "old western" looking town with dirt roads and simple wooden buildings. "Everybody rides horses," he said. "There are no vehicles." People there "cook on wood fires."

It is an agricultural region and Nicaragua's "richest coffee is grown in the mountains." The farmers typically grow rice, corn, and beans.

In Bocay, he said, it is important to the town residents to have Blacksburg as a sister city. And, Hicks added, "Blacksburg is always a pleasure to visit . . . [there is] a lot of support here."

Leach is hoping that the support that Hicks talks about will show itself in the school project.

"If we could just find 1,000 caring people in Blacksburg who would give $25, we'd have it."