New Year in Nica

30 December 2009

The end of the year finds me exactly where I started this year: in Cedro Galan, Nicaragua. A whole other year has passed and seems to continue racing onward with such speed that all I can do is jump into the current and ride the waves of change.

Though I left Nicaragua four months ago, as I walk around my old neighborhood El Planetarium I feel as if I had never left. Visiting friends from the community feels so natural and normal that it is as if I have just had a weekend away. Of course, there have been small changes – a new house on the corner next to El Farito, a baby who has learned how to walk and talk, graduations from high school and elementary school and the passing of other grades, kids who have grown a couple of inches, but overall friendships have come back with ease and conversations are interesting and full of both fun and serious topics.

It has been amazing to see and play with my dogs again. I was afraid they wouldn’t remember me and in turn spring at me in full attack mode, but they remembered me and are so affectionate that I can hardly leave them. I went for a run with Cola this morning and saw the same guards at their posts in front of the houses in my neighborhood. We greeted one another and they even remembered my name! The two yippy dogs are still at the top of the hill, and still don’t realize that Cola could swallow them whole. Walking in the neighborhood felt so good and right that I struggled at first to put my finger on exactly what it was… and then it came to me: home. This place is home. Everything about it calls to me, and I love it.

Home for the Holidays

Dearest friends, family, and followers,

The last couple months in Nicaragua were incredible, albeit busy. We were able to train our new group of Program Directors, and I was able to stay behind an extra month to help them with their transition. I am very proud of them and know that they are doing a great job, what a wonderful group!

New and Old Manna Program Directors in El Farito, our after-school class hub

The last month of my time in Nicaragua was filled with joys and sorrows. Joys sprang up as I was always, always visiting families in our communities, getting to know them better and better. I was involved in so many parties and celebrations that the world seemed to spin like the hundreds of piñatas I helped to break open, scattering its candies to eager hands. In this midst of all the mirth, I found the sorrow of having to say goodbye to my friends and to families that had become like my own family.

My "second family", sisters Olga and Dayana and their mother Lorena

I returned to my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a few months to see my family, visit my home church, and watch seasons pass as I have not done for years. Though it is a much different world than Managua, I find it has its own hidden treasures: the red leaves in my front yard, the way my dog smells of autumn when he trots into the house, waking up to the comfort of the room I occupied since I was 3-years-old, and the list goes on. I'm excited for the Christmas season to start with all its lights and decorations.

My next step will be to go down to Guatemala, where I will be volunteering for yet another year, this time as a Project Coordinator and English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher for an orphanage called Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (Our Little Brothers). I am very hopeful of what this new year shall bring, and can't wait to get back down to Central America!

Spring Updates

Dearest friends, family, and all other readers: my deepest apologies for the lack of writing over the past months. They have seemed to fly by for me, and before I knew it, it has become June and I haven't written a post since February! There is so much to write about, and yet, so much remains delightfully the same.

There have been a few new births in the Chiquilistagua and Cedro Galan neighborhoods (the primary ones that I work in throughout the week), one from the family of our gardener, security guard, and friend; another from a family I would consider one of my second families here in Nicaragua (I claim two families as my own in the deepest love and devotion); and finally one to a girl from our soccer team who has honored me with the role of being the madrina of the child - that is, the godmother/sponsor. It feels as if the additions of these new children are additions of my own family. I love them all dearly, though they are all hardly a week old!

The girls' soccer team has really taken off - with anywhere from 15-25 girls showing up on Fridays to play soccer in a non-pressured setting and make friendships with girls from different neighborhoods and friend groups. Watching the girls go from fighting to forming deep friendships has been extraordinary, and I thank God for the patience and endurance He has granted both myself and my teammate Christina throughout the months. The friendships we have formed with these girls has changed my life in profound ways, and has challenged me more than ever to scratch through the surface of friendships to the great and frightening depths that make relationships stronger. It has been hard, but worth it in all accounts.

My literacy group is so much fun - with two new members (our first boy, Alex!) we have really had to challenge ourselves as a unit, the older girls helping and learning along with the two newer members. Sometimes things work out smooth as silk, other times we have a bumpy, bumpy ride. Overall, they have learned a lot. We are currently doing a unit on machismo (chauvinism), asking questions of the media and reading a book about a girl growing up in Morocco under a restricting lifestyle. The conversations have been thought provoking, especially with the addition of Alex. Their insights never cease to amaze me.

Kids' English classes have finally calmed down a bit - we now have a steady 6-8 members (before it was anywhere from 2-25 kids... and completely out of control). The students are very smart and eager to learn. Quiet Rebeca has turned out to be the star of the class, and has thus grown in confidence. We are currently working on pronunciation, which the advanced students have told us is the most difficult part. And I believe it, after really looking at the English rules and lack thereof in regards to pronunciation.

I have recently joined a gym here in Nicaragua, and I love it. Every morning Maddie and I get up at 5:30 to go to spinning class. Our instructor Roger is awesome, and forgiving when we just can't quite get the positions correctly. It is great to go to class and talk to a different set of people, people who enjoy working out and are rather jolly for a 6am spinning class sweating our brains out on the second floor of the gym - this part open air for the breeze to pass through. After the first day, two gentlemen asked Maddie and I to join a competition of spinning this coming Saturday 27 June. How does one have a competition on stationary bikes? I have no idea, but it should prove to be interesting and quite exciting.

I have had quite a bit of time to read lately. The book I am currently reading is called Velvet Elvis: Reshaping the Christian Faith by Rob Bell. It is utterly fascinating, and has my 100% of my attention while I read it, as well as in the minutes following each segment. I often don't want to put it down, but force myself to just to think about it, think of the implications it causes, and pray about it. Absolutely fascinating. The one passage struck me immediately, as I thought about a real place that I know of and work in at least three times every week: La Chureca.
The passage:
The word "hell" is found fourteen times in the Bible, twelve of those occurrences being found in the teachings of Jesus. The word hell in English is the word gehenna in Greek. Gehenna is a reference to the Valley of Hinnom, a ravine on the south side of the city of Jerusalem. This valley was the site over the years of many violent and horrible deaths, and it came to be viewed as cursed. By Jesus' day, it had become the town dump. Garbage, trash, wild animals fighting over scraps of food, a fire burning - a place of waste and destruction. Some referred to it as the place with the gnashing of teeth where the fire never dies. So when Jesus uses gehenna, it is loaded with meaning and visual power - everybody knew what he was talking about. Velvet Elvis: page 57
A place of constant fire? Fires spontaneously combust due to a mix of chemicals and heat, as well as the fires lit by those who work in the dump in order to facilitate finding of the more valuable items. A place of violent and horrible deaths? I have heard tales that leave me near tears at the way human life can be so tossed around. Garbage, trash, and wild animals? Just look to the picture above, which doesn't include the dogs, pigs, cows, and other animals that scavenge on the municipal dump.

On a more positive note, other books I have been reading include the Twilight series (it was irrisistable), Belong to Me, The Sun Also Rises, The Prodigal God, a book called La Cancion de Amina, The Kite Runner, and The Land of a Thousand Splendid Suns. These are just a few amoung many.

As my Spanish gets much better, my English seems to decline. My apologies for phrases that might just seem a little off - they might be a Spanglish version of English. However, this increase in Spanish has allowed a new level of communication and friendship between the communities I work in and myself. We can talk about complex issues, funny stories, and sometimes even jokes (though Nicaraguan humour still goes over my head rather often).

Many other fun and exciting things are happening in Nicaragua, but as the gym calls me in less than 8 hours, I must be off to bed. Thank you again to all of you, for supporting me in various ways. It means the world and more to me!

A Day In The Life....

Well, I realize that I have never really written about what I do day by day. I have given snippets, but nothing to describe my day to day affairs. As I am currently on a mini-break in Michigan, visiting friends and family for 11 days, I think now would be as good a time as any to describe in detail my daily life:

Mondays:
Monday mornings should be relaxing: I am at the Manna house until about 1pm, generally throwing together my lesson plans for the day. At 1:30 I teach a literacy class in El Farito in Cedro Galan to 4 very bright girls ages 10, 11, 12, and 14. Generally we start with logic puzzle, then do some journal writing, then reading (currently a version of don Quijote designed for 10-14-year-olds). Lastly, we play Scrabble if we have time (and I am sorely abused if there is no time! The girls LOVE the game, and are very good at it!). The class lasts from 1:30-3pm, from which I walk about a kilometer to pick up my young students for English class. Altogether, we walk 2.5 kilometers to the Chiquilistagua library where we have our class. That class has anywhere from 5-13 students, ages 5-12. The picture of the three boys in the blog entry below shows three of them - Lester, Maycol, and Gerald. The class goes from 4:30-5:30pm. If it is light outside, the children are able to play on the playground afterward, if not, I drive them home in the Nissan Patrol. From there, my evening is full of picking up and dropping off students from our various evening English classes - Intermediate English in Chiquilistagua at 6pm, and Beginner English in El Farito at 6:30pm. Monday nights are a time for "family dinner" - one Manna member cooks for everyone, and we all eat together around 7pm. Immediately afterward, we have our Monday night meetings, where we talk about all our programs, keeping one anther up to date on progress and difficulties in the program so we can rejoice together or give advice and ideas on how to improve them. After this meeting we generally break into other meetings and work on lesson plans for the next day and for the week.

At the end of every month we have parties for the literacy and math kids, sometimes at our house, sometimes at the cinema, sometimes in educational locations like museums or historical locations. And sometimes we rent a blowup water slide like in this picture with Dayana and Damaris, two of my students.

Tuesday:
On Tuesdays we have to be up and out of the house by 9am. Tuesdays are a day to visit La Chureca, the city dump. We are there from 9:30am until about 11am, as we are not allowed to stay much more than that due to health concerns. The government declares that workers are only allowed to stay in Chureca for 4 hours or less because of the hazardous environment. This makes my heart ache, as I know many of the families I know and love have no choice but to stay in that environment. In any case, the Child Sponsorship team splits up into two groups of two, and covers the two "neighborhoods" of Chureca. This way at least one set of us is able to see each family once a week. Smaller groups also allow for more intimate talking and getting to know the real needs of the community and the families, rather than only a quick overview of the child's health. At 11pm we leave, retrieve our mail from the post office, and head back home for a quick lunch. Then I go on to comedor, a program designed to feed the children of Cedro Galan on Tuesdays and Thursdays in El Farito. The children start by singing a prayer of thanks, then lining up to get their food. We assist the very young ones with getting their food, and talk with all the children while they eat. Afterward, I wash dishes while some children can earn "Farito dollars" by drying the dishes. With these "dollars" they can buy different things from the "Farito store" - pencils, notebooks, marbles, soccer balls, headbands, action figures, etc. This helps the children learn the importance of working. The Farito dollars are a hit, though I think there might be a black market for them... In any case, after Comedor we are about to start a "homework help" session where we can get to know some of the kids in the community who do not attend our classes, and be better equiped to assess the needs of the community. At 3pm there is a drama class, which though I did not attend it last year, I will be helping to lead this year.(our classes all start next week). At 4pm I generally start my run to Chiquilistagua for the Women's Health class. Class begins in the ranchón at 4:30, starting with yoga and moving to an upbeat exercise class doing kickboxing, marching, and general working out moves to the sounds of upbeat pop music - both in English and in Spanish. One must be over the age of 14 to join the class - and we get a variety of women. It shocked me the first time I saw a woman in a full sweatsuit - trying to lose weight by sweating more. Fascenating. Class ends at about 5:45pm, and we rush home to shower, eat dinner, and head out to Advanced English class at Farito. This is a group of about 20 people who come from all over to have a class taught predominately in English. We work on reading, writing, and communication. The class is always lots of fun, and we learn just as much Spanish as they learn English, it seems, because lots of the words they don't understand in English, we (or maybe just me) don't understand in Spanish. So we both learn together. The class is done by 8:30pm on a regular day, but we generally hang around afterwards, just talking and having fun together. From there it is on to our house, where we do prep work or play until we go to bed.

Wednesday
Wednesdays are much like Mondays, except that in the morning the Child Sponsorship team heads to Chureca for the weekly Health talk held by MINSA, the Ministerio de Salud or Ministry of Health. We are in charge of taking attendance (women must attend at least 3 of the 4 charlas each month in order to recieve the milk for that month) and listening to the suggestions given by MINSA so that we can encourage them in the households on our weekly visits. My favorite part of this time is playing with the children who are too young to be in school. They are always dressed in their best and freshly bathed, and always looking for fun. My arms are rather sore when I leave, after much throwing and whirling and twirling and jumping. When we get home between 10:30 and 11am we excercise or prepare for our classes and/or shower. Showering is pretty important after spending time in the dump :-) Then I have literacy at 1:30, Children's English at 4, driving and helping from 5-7, then back home for prep work or other administrative tasks or meetings.


Thursday
Exactly the same as Tuesday, except the drama class is creative arts, and I am not involved in it.

Friday
Mornings we are able to sleep in or do whatever, because Fridays are our prep days. I plan my lessons for the next week and grade the papers of the past week. At 3pm I have women's soccer practice, which is tons of fun. My roommate Christina and I train about 15-30 women and girls to play soccer in a non-competative practice. We have fun playing games and doing interesting drills and scrimages. It has been one of the more rewarding programs, and keeps me in practice so I don't entirely lose my skills!

So that was my general work week. Weekends are used for rest, travel, and playing (sometimes catch up work). All in all, my weeks are wonderfully varied and lots of fun. Thank you again to all who help support me in my work!

Bringing in the New Year, Nica-style

As some of you may know, I decided to stay in Central America for the holidays. All of my coworkers left for the United States around the 15th, while my Vanderbilt friend Tony and I hopped on a bus for Tegucigalpa, Honduras. After 7ish hours in a bus where we were 'fortunate' enough to watch Lethal Weapon I and II (who picked these movies, anyway?!), we deboarded and found a taxi for our hotel - Hotel Granada. Hotel Granada claimed to have hot water, but, well, we are in Central America so sometimes things aren't as advertised. No worries, as I don't have hot water in the Manna house either, this was no big shock. So from the hotel we decided to wander around town a little bit. We were situated near the central park (parque central), so opted to walk down there, hoping for an ATM or two. Unfortunately, the first two did not have any money in them, but we found one and thus began the system of withdrawls that has drained my bank account. The reason I went to Honduras was to visit a girl whom I have been sponsoring through World Vision for 4 years. It was wonderful to meet her and her mother and little sister, and though she was a little shy, she warmed right up to me and was soon chattering and running around just as a little girl should. I was very happy that my Spanish skills have been much improved, for I was able to understand and talk with the family and the World Vision staff with no difficulty. It was interesting to see how another non-profit works, and I was able to ask many questions in our 3 hour car ride to and from Tegucigalpa to the meeting place in southern Honduras. They are moving toward a stronger emphasis in community development, which will help the families to develop and in turn, the children. I was able to share ideas with the country director and he with me on the best tactics to do this, and the ones that haven't worked for us. It was very interesting.
The next day we headed out to the ruins of Copan, the only Mayan site in Honduras, and the best preserved of all the sites. It was beautiful to see, especially after having taken an anthropology class on Mayan civilization. It was a wonderful day, walking around in the beautiful tropical air through a vibrant jungle.
A couple days later we returned to Managua. I was pretty excited, and couldn't relax the whole way from Tegucigalpa to Managua... in anticipation of seeing my friends, my house, and especially my dogs (I love them so much!) It was here in Managua that I spent Christmas, at the home of the family who allowed me to stay with them for a week in November. Here in Nicaragua they celebrate the holiday on Christmas Eve, or "Nochebuena." And in the house I went to, they celebrated with Bachata music (a fun type of music to dance to - two steps to one side, then lift the inner leg, and then back.. and with a partner. I promise it looks much prettier than described), lots of shouting, an 11:30pm dinner, and shooting off any kind of firework or mortar gun in sight. So dangerous, so fun. I taught some of the kids how to dance bachata and just talked with my friends and the different families. We finally left at about 1am.
The rest of the days I spent visiting in the community, seeing my friends in Managua, and doing a bit of traveling. Unfortunately, I had my first accident - in the beautiful colonial town
of Granada. I was lost, on a busy street near the market, trying to avoid people and potholes and cars, and in my attempt at avoiding the first two, the tail end of the micro (16 passenger van) clipped the back bumper of a truck. For a second I must have been in denial, thinking it was the huge pothole I had hit, but alas with the truck driver honking the horn behind me and the police man rapping on my window, wishful thinking only lasted about 10 seconds. Long story short, I had to pay $30 to get the man's bumper fixed. Beyond that incident, travels were basically smooth sailing. I was able to go back to the marvelous Laguna de Apoyo - the volcanic crater lagoon in which I love to swim.
For New Years I went to my favorite dance club, and danced the night away with a few of my Nicaraguan friends as well as the other Manna member who stayed in Chiquilistagua (one of our communities) to care for one of the missionary families' homes. We brought in the New Year with lots of fireworks and hugs and wishes for a great new year.
And so far, it has been an amazing new year. I've been able to stay overnight at another community family's home - a woman named Lorena and her daughters Jennifer, Olga, Jensil, Alba, and Dayana. Dayana is in my literacy class, and Olga and Jensil come to our English programs. I really love their family, and hope to get to know them better as the year progresses. Now almost all our group is back, along with the addition of two new members: Kyle Bartelson and Josh Eddings. And in a week and a half I will be heading to Michigan to visit my mama and my brothers for 11 days. I am very excited about the trip, though I had to advise my mom to bring my boots and huge winter coat to the airport, as I don't have winter clothes in Nicaragua.
That is all for now, I hope that everyone has had a good holiday season and a great beginning of the new year.