In FOUR short days and I will be back in the United States. I can't believe how fast our semester gone, really, but we did so much and learned lots in the process. This past weekend was spent finishing up final projects and papers and hanging out with our families. Today we had 2 of our presentations, our hour long partner presentation for history and our worldview presentations. Megan and I presented on Nicaraguan Immigration to Costa Rica and we had a lot of fun making our presentation and presenting it creatively to the class. The worldview presentations were based off of our 10 page papers that we had written and just had to be a 15 minutes of creatively presenting our worldview or what we have learned about worldview this semester. They were all a fun time, and I managed to win BINGO, pin the tail on the donkey, and Jeopardy...we had a good time. Tomorrow we will have our culture presentations in Leon and then Wednesday we will have our goodbye party with all of our host families. Wednesday is also a very important holiday for Nicaragua. Griteria (or Purisima) is a Catholic holiday where they pretty much celebrate the immaculate conception of Mary. People go around on the streets and sing songs and get candy. Pretty much thats what we have been told it is, but it will be interesting to actually see it. We've been told it can get pretty crazy as it is the biggest holiday of the year. Some of our families are not ok with this holiday because they are evangelicals and these two religions are not always fond of each other and often don't celebrate what the other celebrates. Its been very interesting to observe over these couple of months. Thursday we will get picked up around 9 am to head to the Nehemiah Center for a day of debriefing. Friday early in the morning we will head to the airport and then 3 long flights later we will be in the Sioux Falls airport by 7 pm. These next few days are going to go by fast but will be a good time to reflect on the awesome experience we have had here. I'm going to miss a lot of things (a big one is the weather because it is currently snowing at home) yet I am also really excited to get back home to a lot of things I have missed. It will be bittersweet leaving I know it, but I am constantly reminded what a great semester it really was! See you all in 4 days, I can count that on one hand :)
Cara.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
"Soy creativo, soy hijo de Dios"
(the title of my blog was the arts camp theme, translated it means--"I am creative, I am a child of God")
The theme for the week...
opening announcements and such...
music class...
the modern dance class...
in arts and crafts class they made drawstring bags...
in drawing/painting class they painted their faces like clowns one day...
fun games, this picture makes me laugh. They had a string tied to their teeth with a marshmallow on the end and they had to try to eat it without their hands...
the workers handing out food. That orange liquid in those bags in carrot juice which is actually pretty delicious. Also, juice in bags is really common in Nicaragua. You bit off the corner and drink it from there...
(Me, Libeth, and Marlen) we had fun sometimes too :) ...
chavalos (children)...
the folkloric dance class was so interesting to watch...
Wow this week was crazy and fun all at the same time. I got to help out with the arts camp that is put on by 3 organizations: Food for the Hungry (where I have been interning for the past month), BuildaBridge, and the Nehemiah Center. This “Campamento de Artes” was 5 days long and we had 75 kids in total that attended. Food for the Hungry had picked kids from 3 of the communities they manage and signed them up for this week of camp. There were 5 subject areas that were offered and the kids were randomly assigned to one at the beginning of the week and they went to that same class every day. There was music, arts and crafts, drawing/painting, modern dance, and folkloric dance (the typical Nicaraguan dance). This was a different setup than I had ever seen at a camp before but very unique also. It was very neat to see these kids improve throughout the week and the final presentation was the ultimate show of what they had learned. I had helped create the decorations for the camp the past week which was a ton of work, but so worth it to see it all in place. It definitely made each room more fun, so the hard work paid off! We came early Monday morning to set up the decorations and then were ready for a long week of learning. I was the official photographer for the week so that was my main duty. I also helped out with handing out snacks, joined in the games, and just did whatever was needed when I wasn’t capturing the moments. The kids were at the camp from 1 to 5 pm every day so it was quite a long time to keep some kids’ attention, but I think that overall the kids were very well behaved and engaged. It was a good time to interact with the teachers and other workers of the camp. Many came from the Nehemiah Center and others were teachers that they found to help for the week. We had lunch altogether each day before the kids came so that was a nice time to interact and have a little fun of our own. On Thanksgiving Day we even went around at lunch and said what we were thankful for. There was another North American in our group so us 2 explained what Thanksgiving was in our country and thought it would be fun to celebrate it even in Nicaragua. Overall it was a great week and definitely one I am glad I got to participate in.
Next week is the last week of interning and since I have all my hours and then some I won’t need to go to the office as much. I will probably go a couple days to see what they need help with and then say adios. The countdown is at 14 short days and in that time I need to write three 7 page papers and work on an hour presentation with Megan. I have a lot of work yet to do but it will get done with only a bit of procrastination. Also with next week being a bit more free than the past 2 weeks I will get to help out at my host home more. My family has been saying that I spend too much time in Chinandega and that I am a Chinandegan not a Leonian any more. Ha, they are only kidding, but it will be good to have more time with them as it is the last full week we will have at our host homes.
I am anxious to be done with exams and to be back home. It will for sure be sad to leave my host family who have really been a blessing to me these past 3 months. Our despedida (goodbye party) with our host families will be bittersweet yet many memories are to show for our great semester. Well its off to the beach tomorrow for the students and I to celebrate many things: Thanksgiving, snow in the Midwest and just being in Nicaragua obviously. Ha, it will be a great time and I will definitely miss being 20 minutes from a beach when its about 20 hours from my home in the U.S. Hasta luego amigos.
*Also, the song of the week was based off the verse Phillippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”…in Spanish it is “Todo lo puedo en Cristo que me fortelece” so the kids sang that in the form of a song although it didn’t have any other words than those in the verse so we had it stuck in our heads the entire week! They would come in to camp on the bus and be singing it, it was super cute.
PHOTOGRAPHY.
The kids in line to wash their hands before a snack...
Cara.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Pura Vida
Pura Vida, which is the slogan of Costa Rica means pure life. We headed to this beautiful country just to the South of Nicaragua this past week. We got to be students, tourists, and to relax and enjoy this place on our week long stay.
We got to view a beautiful rainbow one afternoon...
visiting La Carpio neighborhood, we all got sunburnt this day because we didn't remeber the elevation would make us get burnt faster...
tortillas for 50 colones (500 colones=$1)...
they had green Volkswagen buses for public transportation everywhere, they were nice looking...
a view of downtown San Jose, there was a lot of diversity of people here...
some of the group together at the central park...
on our little hike...
We got picked up around 9 am on Saturday morning to head to Managua to the guest house we were going to stay in that night. When Maynor and Alicia arrived, we headed to pizza hut for lunch! That was a great start to our day, as after this we headed to Mambacho volcano for a canopy tour, aka ziplining! It was a great time, something we had been looking forward to all week. It was about halfway up the volcano located on a coffee plantation so it was a very neat view. We went with our group and about 6 other people and there were 11 different checkpoints we landed on. The last one we did a freefall type thing to get down which was a great thrill. Alicia was waiting for us at the end and we got some coffee at the cute little shop before heading back to the guest house. We had to stop at the “gringo” grocery store so we could have snacks for our long bus ride to Costa Rica that next day too. We got back around 5 so we just hung out that night. Malorie, Lisa, and I played Spanish scrabble while watching wheel of fortune the Spanish version, so we had a pretty nerdy Saturday night as well.
Sunday morning we woke up and quickly got on the road so we could arrive at the TransNica bus terminal on time and get all checked in. We were on the road heading to Costa Rica around 7 am! It was a long drive with one 15 minute stop for food, and then the border crossing which took around an hour (which was a pretty short wait according to Alicia). We got to Whitworth University campus, in San Rafael, Costa Rica around 6 pm, and had supper pretty short after. The food was delicious as this campus is very organic and “green” so their food showed that for sure. This University is based in Washington but they have this smaller campus in Costa Rica for their students that study abroad. It is a very neat place up in the mountains, so it got pretty cold at night and in the mornings. It was a nice cozy place to come back to though and they had hot showers so that was a plus. That night we just hung out and went to bed on time as we were pretty tired from traveling 8ish hours in a bus.
Monday we had our worldview and societal transformation class with Jim. This was our debate where we had partners and discussed Marxism, Post Modernism, Keynesism, and Neo-Liberalism. It went well and we had a good time fending our points looking at how these economic theories could help a developing country such as Nicaragua. I don’t think anyone won, but I think we got a good idea of how each of these theories have good ideas about how to help economics but that they might not actually work that well in practice. That afternoon we watched a video about Costa Rica and how the immigration problem has affected the people living here as well as how Nicaraguans feel being in a foreign country. It was a very interesting introduction to the topic that we would delve into later in the week. Maynor, Curtis, Lisa and I went fishing in the pond right on campus that afternoon which was super interesting because we had sticks for poles and pork for bait. We caught about 7 fish in total so that was a good time! That night we played a game called curse, which is super hard to explain but it definitely made us laugh a LOT!
Tuesday we got to visit an organization that was working in a community called La Carpio, which is made up mostly of Nicaraguan immigrants. We got to learn a bit about how they serve the community and got to play volleyball and basketball with the kids that were there for awhile. After lunch we headed out into the poorer area of that community and interviewed the people living there. It was a very interesting experience as many of them immigrated for better jobs and essentially a better life but they weren’t doing much better than they had been in Nicaragua. It was sad to see them not really trying though, as many of the women and men had jobs, but didn’t seem to want to try harder for a better life for their kids. It is kind of like the fatalist view that we have talked about many times that Latin Americans sometimes experience. It is the view that their situation isn’t going to get better so its no use trying to do something about it. I think many of the Nicaraguans that migrated to Costa Rica even have this view and it is a really hard mindset to break. Interviewing these community members was very crucial in learning that as most of the people that immigrate to Costa Rica find better jobs and such, many people who aren’t motivated to will fall back into their old ways of living. This organization, Christ for the City, has many outreach efforts that attempt to motivate these people to strive for a better life. There is also much crime that happens here because the youth don’t see a better life for them. The man we talked to, Cesar, a pastor and well respected man in the community is very passionate about this community and said that he has seen improvement in the past few years but that it takes a lot of work for people to see they can make a better life for themselves when it is just easy to keep the life they have always known. That night we had a presentation given by a representative of the housing ministry in Costa Rica. He talked a lot about how Costa Ricans act towards Nicaraguans and the stats of this phenomenon are. It was a very informative time and good to hear it from a higher authority and what hopes they have for the future of the immigration issue.
Wednesday we headed to downtown San Jose and looked around and did some shopping. It was a very interesting feel for a city in Latin America to feel so much like an American city. Many people had told us that this city was very Americanized and so that was very interesting to see. We stopped at McDonalds for some fries and Mcflurry’s just because we could. Costa Rica in general is a lot more developed and urbanized than cities in Nicaragua, mainly comparing it to Managua. It was cool to walk around the city though, and visit the markets because in a lot of ways you could just tell it was a Latin American country. We went to the museum of gold in the afternoon and then visited the Artesania market in the afternoon. It was good to go out into the city and get a feel of what it was like. We also got to drive through the large University of Costa Rica, which was very beautiful. It was interesting to find out that it cost about $4,000 a year but that made it a lot more competitive to get into. When we got back to the campus we played ultimate Frisbee, which turned out to be quite tough with the high altitude. The elevation in San Jose is higher than Denver, Colorado to put it into perspective. We still had a good time playing ultimate, and the dog on campus named fejou even joined us at the end. That night we had a fire inside and roasted marshmallows, which was a fun random thing that we hadn’t done in awhile.
Thursday turned out to be pretty rainy and foggy so that ruined our plans to visit Volcano Poas in San Jose but we went on to visit a zoo and waterfall not too far from there. It was called the Peace Waterfalls Ecological Center and it was about a 3 hour tour seeing all the animals and then the couple waterfalls at the end. It was a very nice, clean zoo and the coolest animals we saw I think were the frogs. We were in an open area with poisonous red frogs and the cool colored frog that is typical of the rainforests. That was awesome to see, and of course the other animals such as the hummingbirds, jaguars, monkeys and oxen were neat as well. It was a rainy afternoon but a great time to go to the zoo which was mostly sheltered. We ate at a nice restaurant after the waterfalls right at the center which had delicious fresh strawberry juice as their specialty. It was absolutely delicious, their food was too. We returned to the campus and that afternoon Sara, Lisa and I explored the mountain and went on a hike. We thought we knew where we were going but kind of ended up at a random road. So we got to see a nice view and then we headed back to the campus. We didn't come back without some interesting experiences though. One of which was about 5 guys hanging out around the fire probably smoking something and yelling unintelligible words, we didn't encounter them luckily that would have been a different story. We also walked through a person's yard, and kindly apologized after walking through their area with baby cows and me having to pick up fejou, the campus dog that decided to take our hike with us. A branch fell on Lisa's head also, and we had to walk through a bunch of really high weeds. It was an interesting time for sure, but we were glad we did it.
That night and we joined in on an English class that a few Costa Ricans were taking at the University campus. It was a fun time because they were talking about songs in English so we had a fun time introducing typical North American songs and talking about them. That night we didn’t sleep because we were going to leave for the bus terminal to head back to Nicaragua at 3 am. Most of us stayed up, watched Hot Rod the movie, played Uno, and listened to music videos until that time came where we had to pack up and head to the terminal. It was so early but it almost didn’t feel like Friday because we hadn’t slept. We spent a lot of time waiting at the terminal and then waiting at customs, but we eventually returned to Leon at our host homes at 4 pm. I was so tired at that time so I gave my host family a rundown of the trip and then took a nice nap until supper.
Our trip was a great break from classes and everything and next week we start our 3 weeks of service learning which for me will be continuing to intern at Food for the Hungry. The last week of November is the art camp for the kids that I am going to help decorate and plan and also I will be the official photographer for the week. So up until then I will be planning for that and doing whatever needs to get done so that that week will run smoothly! We have about 4 weeks left here and so it is down to the lasts. We have our exams the last week we are here, which is the first week of December which is also the same week we have our goodbye party with our host families. It is going to be weird leaving here because we have made so many relationships and ties to this place, but it will definitely be great to see family and friends back in the U.S. and to be back to the cold weather? Well not sure about that part, but I will be ready to be back home in about a month :)
Some photos:
SO READY for some zip-lining!...
SO READY for some zip-lining!...
This is part of the beautiful campus of Whitworth University...
Rachel's photo of the awesome frog we saw at the zoo, my ultimate favorite...
Hope you enjoyed my blog, 27 days till I'm home in case you weren't already counting down :)
Cara.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Dale pue
This past week, October 18, 19, and 20 I interned at Food for the Hungry again in the middle of the week and I got to go out into a few other communities again and help the social workers with whatever tasks they had to do in the specific communities we visited. At one community we went to the school as the kids were getting done with class and got to help kids write their potential sponsors letters telling a little about themselves. That was interesting as a few of the kids weren’t old enough to know how to write very well so I had to basically tell them every single letter to write! Ha, I also got to talk to a bunch of kids that day and one in particular that was very interested in using the English he knew talked to me. He wanted to learn more so I taught him some words and phrases and he was very happy to learn. One sad thing that happened in one of the communities was a 3-month-old baby had died only a few days earlier. We heard from another family as we were walking around that day and so went to visit that family. Rosaline, the social worker I was with at the time knew the family a little so she got to comfort them. It was interesting though that when we got there the casket with the baby in it was right out in the open and people were coming to say their sympathies and view the baby. It was a sad thing but a very communal time for the people to be there for the family in this hard time. Also, on Wednesday I was working with Nancy and Meybelline and as we were riding in the taxi to the community we compared our skin colors and I am tanner than both of them. They are both Nicaraguan and have dark colored hair, but pretty light colored skin. It was just interesting that I as a North American had darker skin than the two Nicaraguans whom are normally pretty moreno, dark skinned. We all found it pretty funny!
Some pictures..
Alejandra and I played in the rain one day...
making food with Zhenia, or rather watching her make it, ha...
so ready for the dessert...
me making tiste, a very typical Nicaraguan drink...I had to crush the sticks of tiste with my hands to make it into the drink and then we added a whole bunch of sugar, haha...
Cara.
Our weekend was pretty chill as we watched a few movies on Friday night then on Saturday for lunch we got to cook with our professor, Zhenia. We went to the store and picked out some food, Zhenia mostly picking out the ingredients and cooking it, with us helping with a few things and watching how it was done. It was a delicious meal and we got to hang out with her for awhile at her house which was super fun as she’s a crazy fun Nicaraguan about 24 years old!
Sunday my family didn’t go to church, but Alejandra, mi mama and I went to a baby shower for one of my host cousins in the afternoon. It was a very fun time, with lots of food, games and laughter. The word for baby shower is the same as in English so that was a fun fact! It was a lot similar to a North American baby shower in the feel of the party but men and kids attended this shower instead of just women.
Another random observation: When you are trying to get someone to be quiet there is a specific sound that you make such as shhhhhhh. Well the type of “shh” we do in the United States is different than in Nicaragua. Here it’s more like a “ssss”. Our sound is like the ‘s’ at the beginning of the word shower, and the Nicaraguan way of saying it is like the beginning of the word sister. It has no different meaning, just a small difference that I thought was interesting to note because it definitely threw me off for a little bit the first time I heard it.
I was reminded of something really cool as I attended a bible study group this Saturday night with mi mama, Alejandra, Christian and only one other person. It was a really simple time where we sang, prayed and talked about a few bible verses. I first thought it was kind of weird as there were only 5 of us there and 4 live in this house, but then I thought about how cool it actually was that we could worship God in what first seemed like such an insignificant way to me, but was actually exactly right. We worshiped God just as we were for His sake not our own, not worrying about external appearances. My family here, and other Nicaraguan Evangelical Christians have impressed me in their strong outward faith. I have seen this present in the politics here, or rather in the abstaining from getting too involved in politics. As the election is the 2nd week of November, a lot of people are not for one candidate or party because they don’t see any of the leaders being a strong President for this country. It was frustrating at first to hear people explain they didn’t care who won, “Dios es mi Presidente” (God is my President) they would say. It was kind of a depressing thing and at first it was hard to see a lot of people really pessimistic about the future of their country and really not having hope in any of the Presidential candidates. I then saw that this only made their faith in God stronger as they did not trust their country leaders, they knew they could always trust their heavenly King. They praised Him louder as they were unsure, and I was impressed. I think this is a very important thing to learn from these Nicaraguans. North Americans take politics too seriously sometimes, and as it is a very important thing to be a part of, maybe in some ways we could learn from Nicaraguans. To an extent we should have a say in worldly leaders and should care about how our nation is working in regards to politics, but in most ways we should learn to give up the areas that we can’t control to God. He is our ultimate leader, and sometimes I think we forget that, me included. I thought this was a great reminder to me and something very important to constantly remember. Some pictures..
Alejandra and I played in the rain one day...
Cara.
Friday, October 14, 2011
being Jincho is the life..
It is October, normally fall in the United States, but I was just in the Caribbean for 5 days…it was an experience and I can’t believe we are back already! It has been nice to be back with my host family because we had been away for awhile. They seemed to be worried about me a bit because it rained in Leon the 5 days we were gone and us students went by ourselves and that always worries our families here a bit. Ha, so needless to say they were excited to see me in one piece when we got home on Thursday night.
Being jincho in Big Corn Island is what we did best…this is the Nica way of saying being chill, Maynor taught it to us. We got there early on Sunday morning after leaving Leon around 4 am and then getting to the Managua airport around 7. We didn’t wait long after we got to Managua to board the plane and it kinda made sense when we stepped onto a 14 person plane! It was definitely a different experience, very packed in there and no flight attendants. Ha. We had a great view, the clouds were beautiful and it was crazy when we flew over the ocean, it was something I had never done before. About an hour plane ride and we were landing onto the island! We stepped right off the plane onto the ground, something you only see in movies, and a taxi from our resort was there to pick us up. It took less than 5 minutes to get to La Paraiso (Paradise) our resort for the week. We got checked in and then just explored the place which was right on the beach…how awesome! The water right away looked very clear and so different than I’d seen it before. It was a little rainy right when we got there so we just hung out that morning/afternoon and eventually decided to swim in the rain because we were so excited we were actually there! We then decided to explore the island a little more—its 12 km around which is about 8 miles, so not big at all. We rented a golf cart and had a map and went around the whole thing. A few observations we made about the island was that it was a very chill place with not too much going on, the people were a lot darker skinned than people on the pacific side of Nicaragua (which meant we stuck out even more with our white skin!), there weren’t many other tourists because it is the hurricane season right now, and the ocean water was so clear all around the island! Our golf cart decided to be a little difficult and stopped on us twice but that just made the journey a little more exciting. When we brought the golf cart back we stopped at a beach that looked nice and the water was super calm so we swam in it for awhile. It was such a nice night and a great start to our vacation! We got back and showered then figured out the internet and used that for awhile, which we were really excited about because we don’t have internet all the time in our host homes in Leon. We slept great that night after watching the movie Bridesmaids!
Monday came and we slept in a bit and got up and had breakfast (cinnamon french toast and pineapple that is 10x more delicious in Nicaragua) and hung out that morning-reading, walking along the beach, and using the internet. We had lunch at the restaurant right at our resort called the Bucaneer and then headed out to the awesome beach we had discovered the night before. It was a chill day, and the water was again super calm. It was also clear and we got to see a few starfish, which we flipped upside down so we could see them turn back over, it was very neat. It was great also to just float atop the water because there were no waves and the salt water allowed us to float easily. We stayed there for awhile, and hung out on the couches that were on this particular beach! We were pretty much the only ones on that beach besides a few other people that came later in the day-it was the life. That day was Canadian Thanksgiving so we celebrated with Curtis by dressing up a bit and then eating a nice supper at the Bucaneer that night. It was a good time in the words of Curtis.
Tuesday was similar to Monday; we hung out at our resort that morning and had an early lunch and then headed to the same beach for awhile. It was a little windier than the day before so there were more waves, but it was still sunny outside and not much to complain about. We headed to an outdoor restaurant on the beach for supper with our swimsuits still on. We were the only ones there partly because it wasn’t tourist season, but also because it was 5 pm and people eat supper quite a bit later in Nicaragua in general. It was nice and quiet place and we got to see the sun set right from there, so beautiful. I ate a breaded fish fillet and got to try a piña colada too, a typical Caribbean drink so that was fun! We played some cards that night (scum with Curtis’ rules which was actually pretty fun) and went to bed on time.
Wednesday was different in that we got to go snorkeling in the afternoon! It was a bit windy but the places we went were actually quite calm and it was totally worth it. We went out on a fishing boat just around Big Corn Island (there is a Little Corn Island as well which is obviously smaller, but we never visited it) with 2 guys and one of their sons. It was an interesting ride because the waves of the ocean were quite different than at a lake, much more intense and I had never experienced ocean boating before. We first stopped at a location with a sunken ship and looked around there awhile, seeing lots of different colored fish. The water was super clear and so we got to see them up close and personal! We saw lots of “Finding Nemo” fish and our guide pointed out a sea cucumber, rainbow fish, stingray, and many neat shells and coral to us! We got in the boat and went to two other locations to view the marine life, and we were out for about 2 and a half hours. It was a great time, and we wished we could have done it for longer. We ended the trip by boating around the rest of the island, encountering many large waves and getting soaked but that was all part of the experience! Snorkeling was definitely a highlight of our trip and that night we played some cards and hung out more. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean 4 that night, which we figured was quite fitting because we were of course on a Caribbean island.
Thursday was our last day on the island, so we hung out, finished our books, played in the ocean one last time and said goodbye to the beautiful white beaches and clear water, which was definitely a little sad. We hung out in the airport for about an hour before we boarded our slightly larger plane than last time of about 30 people. We also stopped in the Bluefields airport which is on the east coast before heading to the Managua airport. Another beautiful flight, this time with a sunset. We arrived in Managua around 5 pm and in Leon around 7…I briefly told my family about our trip then headed to bed for the night after unpacking from an unforgettable chill mid semester break!
Today was a homework day as I definitely didn’t do any of that on our trip. It rained again, so it has pretty much rained all day every day this week my family said, which is quite a bit more than the 10 minute rains a day normally. I think Alejandra and I are going to watch the Little Rascals movie tonight so that will be a good time! Next week will be a normal week again, but it was nice to have a few days to recuperate back to normal life after our super chill Caribbean vacation J
PICTURES of the beautiful island…
Cara.
Interning at Food for the Hungry
Well the week of October 4 is the week I started my internship at Food for the Hungry. I was super nervous to start there just because I was unsure what I was going to do and how I was going to do it without knowing much Spanish. My first day was Tuesday and I traveled from the bus terminal in Leon to the Chinandega office with Marlen, an FH worker early in the morning. It takes about 45 minutes to get there and we took a 15 passenger van type thing (they call them short buses) and we arrived around 8 am. I met the people in the office, they all seemed super friendly, only 3 of them speak English, and then right away went out with Marlen to a community. We got there and right away I noticed some white people and it was a church group from Grand Rapids, Michigan…what a small world they even knew of Dordt! I chatted with them for a bit and they were in Nicaragua for a week visiting a few communities to see which one they were going to help sponsor with their church back home. We got to see the school in that community and then Marlen and I did a few family visits there. There were about 90 families in this particular community. We got to give out Bibles to some families; one for the parent and a story Bible for the children, it was really neat to see them receive them because most of them voiced that they had attended church but not had their own Bible ever. Marlen also asked some questions to the parents of the kids in the child sponsorship program to see how they were doing to give an update to their sponsors. I didn’t understand all of it, but I picked up bits and pieces of what their conversation was about. Marlen also helped explain to me better later, still in Spanish though, ha. We ate lunch with a family, and then headed back to the FH office. The road to the community was about 10 minutes long and super bumpy and rough, so that was an interesting time. Back at the FH office, I got to translate child sponsor cards for the rest of the day. These cards were from the sponsors so I had to translate from English to Spanish, which was pretty difficult, but Nancy, a bilingual worker at FH, told me she was just glad I was here because they were really behind in translating so I was helping whether my translating was perfect or not. That was good to know. I worked until 5 pm, and then left on the bus back to Leon with a few other girls from the office. The bus didn’t go right to the terminal in Leon, so Meybelline, another intern at FH who only speaks Spanish, had to explain to me that the stop I got off at was 2 blocks from the terminal. She didn’t get off at this stop, so I was pretty much on my own from there. Once I got off I was dumbfounded because I did not recognize where I was, but soon enough I started walking and after asking which way the terminal was I found it and from there I knew where to go. It was kinda scary for a little bit being somewhere I really did not recognize, but I guess its good for me to learn on my own! I got home and was super tired but hung out with my family a little, but went to bed early that night.
Wednesday came, and I got up bright and early to head to Chinandega again. I pretty much translated child sponsorship cards all day, but this time they were the cards from the children in Nicaragua, so I translated from Spanish to English, which was much easier for me and it definitely was good practice. It was kind of a long day, but the others in the office were fun to randomly chat with and observe. 5 pm came and I was ready to head home. I did some homework that night but was again super tired so went to bed early!
Thursday I again went to Chinandega (I will be going to the FH office for 3 days a week for the next 3 weeks). I went out to another community with Libeth, a social worker at FH, and we did lots of walking that day! Ha, other than walking we visited with families, teachers, and children just getting a sense of how they were doing. I think they had worked in this community for awhile now, as many of the people knew Libeth and she knew many of them as well. It was quite a large community with over 70 families. For awhile in the afternoon we went around to a couple families getting information about their child that was going to be put in the child sponsorship program, so we took a picture of the child, had them write a note and draw a picture to their sponsor and got information about their family for records. It was a fun time, and I got to listen in and see how they did this program. One family that we hung out with for awhile had a few rambunctious kids and so I entertained them while Libeth got the information from their mom. I taught one of the kids the alphabet and he was showing me his drawings, it was adorable. Libeth also introduced me to a few of the teachers of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders in this community that I will probably work with to do art with the kids in a few weeks. It was overall a really fun day just hanging out with the members of the community, and learning what all is done in a typical day for a social worker at FH. It was a very valuable experience, and I am learning a lot by just talking in Spanish with the social workers so far that I hope I will learn even more throughout the rest of my weeks interning there. My bus ride on this day was a bit interesting as well as I thought I knew my way from the first day I did the same thing but I took the wrong turn as I was walking back to my host home and was lost for a bit. It was crazy because I didn’t know where I was at all but I stayed calm and eventually recognized the intersection I needed to cross and I was so relieved that I had found it! I think I will know my way for next time for sure!
My three days of interning at FH were very tiring and so Friday was nice to sleep in a bit until we had class in the afternoon. Also, Friday morning I woke up to find a chicken with a bag around its feet chillin in our kitchen. I was surprised to watch mi mama take it back to the back room sink and bring it back with no head or feathers. They informed me that it was “una gallina sin pelo”, a hen without feathers. I laughed and then at lunch on my plate was the leg of that same chicken which was live in my kitchen only a few hours earlier, funny how that works. Another story of my family’s differences here was when I started to get a stuffy nose and sore throat my family told me that I should not take a shower at night. I asked why that would matter and they told me that as you are really hot during the day and then take a cold shower after that, it is bad for you because of the extreme heat and then cold, and that is how you get sick. So, I didn’t shower that night to put their superstitions to the test, but I didn’t really believe it would work because I have always showered at night and have just now gotten sick. It was just different to hear this being something that they believed was a reason people got sick, because it doesn’t make sense to me at all and isn’t even given a thought in the United States.
I don’t have any pictures of this leg of my journey, but my next blog will be of Corn Island and I will for sure add pictures of that beautiful place!
Cara.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
more gallo pinto..
Last week we had another field trip, this time to rural Nicaragua to learn a bit about how the farming goes in this part of the country. It was us students and Alma, a lady who works at the Nehemiah Center that traveled to Jinotepe on Tuesday morning, about an hour away to an organization called Fundacion de San Lucas. This organization works with many small communities around this area; helping families start their own farms (by loaning money for them to start and educating them on how to organic farm), working with the local youth in a few neighborhoods and a variety of other groups of people. A few people from this organization took us to a land bank where farmers are given their own land to farm. This is a very exciting thing for these farmers and their families because it isn’t often that they own their own farms.
Many men in rural Nicaragua live on farmlands and work them while most of the profit is given to the rich landowners who own them, and there is not much left for them and their families in the end. So the families that we visited here actually had just recently moved to their farms within the past 6 months, but were very optimistic about their lives and what they could do with their own land. Our drive up there was very interesting as we took a truck because the roads to the farm were mud and very rough; like huge holes in the roads and many streams we had to pass through. We were glad the guy that was driving seemed confident because many times I wasn’t sure we were going to make it! When we arrived there we met the family that we would stay with that night; it was Hilberto and his wife Marta and their 4 year old son. They were very welcoming to us and wanted us to learn about what they were doing with their land and there plans for the future; they were very proud and optimistic. They had a very beautiful view of the mountains as well, and the stars at night were SO clear. It was a very developing area, but they had done a lot to the land already with only being there for a short time. The house was very tiny, with a room for the kitchen, beds, and then a small porch area. The floors were mud and the shower and bathroom were outside. It was pretty much like camping, but a great experience. Soon after we got there, we helped with several projects around the farms that Foundacion de San Lucas was helping the farmers with. We first helped dig up topsoil for a few planters where they were starting tomato and pepper seeds. We turned tires inside out, filled them with dirt, planted seeds in them, and then built a stick table thing to prop them up high so no animals could get them. The other project was a water filtration system to turn their dirty laundry and dishwater that drained off into usable irrigation water for the fields.
After these projects were finished we got the chance to meet the other families in this community; there were 4 in total. This community was pretty new and the longest anyone had lived there was 6 months, so everything was just developing but very exciting to see their new lives and what they are going to do now that they have their own land. Many of the houses on these farmlands were very small and the one house that particularly stuck out was on for a family of 5 people. It was a one-room area; I don’t think it even counted as a house. Granted these people had only been here for a few months, but they were definitely scraping by each day. Their lives will definitely improve with the profits they will make with their farming, but those conditions were still hard to see.
After supper we were all pretty exhausted and as the sun goes down around 5:30 pm, it was no use staying up too late because the sun also rises early, which means people get up with the sun! Sure enough we got up around 7 am, ha. It was an interesting night because Malorie, Megan and I shared a bed and it was basically a comforter on a bed frame…not exactly comfortable, but we made it work and it was only one night.
After eating some breakfast at the farm, we trekked once again on the rough road back to Jinotepe. Our afternoon was spent in a different community in a more urban area at a center for youth to hang out that the Foundacion de San Lucas also puts on. We got to play games, compete in ping pong games, and make bracelets with the kids who came. It was a great time just hanging out and attempting to talk to them. Ha. Later we got to attend a soccer tournament, which turned out to be way more intense than we imagined! I guess we should have expected intensity from Latin Americans competing in any type of soccer game. It was a good time, a few younger kids teams and many teenager teams; most of them guys but all of them amazing at soccer! Curtis played on the San Lucas team but us girls opted not to join the intense game. It was awesome to watch. Later that afternoon we headed back to Leon to our host homes. It was such a fun trip in which we learned a lot but also got to have a little fun interacting with people in the different communities we visited.
It was nice to be back at our host homes that night and to get some sleep! The next day, Thursday, we made a few visits around town for our classes. In the morning we went to the Museum of Myths and Legends in Leon and then in the afternoon we attended a Catholic Mass. Both were very informative but not worth writing too much about in here, lol. I already have to write papers about both of them!
Our weekend was definitely an amazing worthwhile one. We didn’t have class on Friday so the other students and I decided to head to Granada for an overnight trip. Granada, like Leon was one of the first cities in Nicaragua. There is a bit of a rivalry between the two cities because of their past, but it was a fun city to visit. It was a lot like Leon, but more touristy as we noticed in the higher prices of things and the amount of white people we saw compared to Leon. We pretty much spent the day walking around Granada, shopping around and stopping at random fun places. We didn’t have much of a plan for the weekend so that was a little fun to just kinda do wherever looked good. It helped that people on the buses watched out for us as we probably just looked like we had no idea what we were doing, and we pretty much were very successful at finding awesome fun. For the night we spotted a brochure for a tree house hostel type thing. We decided it looked sweet and right away called to reserve a spot! That was a great life decision. We had to walk a little ways basically in the jungle to find it but it was so awesome when we did. The people that owned it were very indie/hippie type and really chill. They were fun to hang out with for the night as they spoke English and were very friendly. We got to see an awesome sunset way up there, eat supper, and just chill in the outdoors. The next day we got on a bus that took us to Laguna de Apoyo, a gorgeous crater lake with clear blue refreshing water. We spent $6 to hang out there for the day and we got to use their kayaks, tubes, and rafts. It was a great relaxing day and we even got a little tan to show for it! We sadly headed back to Leon that night, as we could have easily spent another few days there. We were quite tired by the last bus trip as we counted up to 11 buses/taxis we had taken during 2 days, very exhausting but so worth it! What an adventure to remember.
Well mostly the rest of my semester (except the last 3 weeks which will change to working at FH 5 days of the week) will consist of 2 classes, History and Worldview, in Managua on Mondays, and Cultural class on Fridays in Leon. In the middle of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) I will be interning at an organization called Food for the Hungry based in Chinandega. This organization works a lot with kids and making sure they are living in safe conditions (http://www.fhi.net/fhinicaragua/) and getting good nutrition to grow up healthy and strong. I will be helping out in any area they need while I am there for about 5 hours a day. I will most likely go out on home visits with the workers to get a sense of what type of social work they do. I am very nervous about not knowing too much Spanish and having to communicate with the workers and the people we visit but am mostly excited to learn more about this type of organization and to practice my Spanish through that hopefully! I know that I also will be able to work at the arts camp that they put on during the last week of November for kids in certain communities. It is a great time to introduce them to art and being creative as it is a great way to stimulate these kids that might not get much of that in their homes. I think God placed me at this organization for a reason, and I am really excited to explore that reason. I ask for prayers though as this is very much out of my comfort zone. I will update on what I am learning and participating in as much as I can!
So here I am a third or more of the way through my semester, I can’t believe it. Next week the other students and I are heading to Corn Island on the east Caribbean side of Nicaragua for our semester break! We are super pumped to have a week to hang out at a beautiful location and once again marvel at how awesome God has made Nicaragua and its people and how blessed we are to be here. We will definitely enjoy it for everyone back in the Midwest gearing up for the cold and maybe snow soonJ
PICTURES::
at the farm on our trip, chillin with our awesome work boots on...
Cara.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Community Development Trip
Well this past week we went on our Community Development Trip to Somotillo, which is about 4 hours north of Managua (20 minutes from the Honduran border). We had class in Managua at the Nehemiah Center on Monday morning so we were picked up at 6 am from Leon Monday morning to get to there on time. We had our history class in the morning and our worldview/societal transformation class in the afternoon. We just hung out that night and then the next morning had our worldview class again with Jim, our professor that took us on the trip. We left in the afternoon and it was the 6 of us students, 2 other girls that are interns at CRWRC, Maynor, our professor Jim, and Roger, a community development worker from the Nehemiah Center. It was a fun road trip with everyone but the roads were pretty rough. The roads in Nicaragua in general have many potholes, crazy drivers, horse traffic, stray cows and horses, and water covering parts of the road when it rains. So it was pretty dark by the time we arrived at our place for the night (which had air conditioning and hot showers; a stark change from the humid hot air and cold showers we have had for the past month!).
Wednesday morning was when we began our community visits. Our first stop was El Ojoche, a community just east of Somotillo. About eight years ago the small neighborhood began the community development process. It was very poor, but has gradually improved throughout the years. Many people grow their own food to sell and produce goods for the market. The community is affected by emigration though because many of the men have to leave during the dry season to get jobs in Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador because there is not much work in the communities during this time. This is a very common concern throughout communities across Nicaragua as the women are often left to care for their households for 6 months or more, the kids also being left without a father, while the men find work elsewhere.
The next community we visited, El Jiñocuajo, was also in the process of development and doing fairly well. Their next project was to add more grades onto their school because they only had up to 3rd grade, thus many children had to walk a long way to get to school if they even went. This community was also deeply affected by emigration, as the men often go to other countries to seek work.
We visited another community in the afternoon called Sagrada Familia. Here we witnessed the beginnings of community development, as a development agency was working with the people that afternoon. We got to listen in and hear the agency prompt the community members to talk about what their situation was and what they were going to start doing to improve it. The approach they were going to use, they told us, was an asset based approach where they would look at the strengths of the community to see how they could focus and build upon those to help improve the community instead of just fixing the things for them. The people in this community were very divided and it was very obvious even in the way the two groups sat on opposite sides during the meeting. There is a lot of work that still needs to be done in this community and it was sad to see how this group of people, but it was cool to see the hopeful beginning of something better for them.
On Thursday we left Somotillo and drove about an hour and a half south to Chinandega. There we visited El Limonal, a community that is built beside and basically in the Chinandega dump. The people relocated here after Hurricane Mitch because their homes were destroyed. This was the worst community we saw and many of the people and kids sort through the garbage to find recycling to sell. This is sometimes the only work they can find. This is obviously very disease prone for these people, and they have had many problems with sickness and stunted growth in their children. The kids there were very precious, and seemed like a lot of fun. The kids looked pretty young, but we were told later that they probably were older than they looked and most of this is due to poor nutrition. We spoke a bit with a representative of Food for the Hungry, who explained the work they do in the community. They mostly work with the leaders of the community to ensure that there are medical supplies and that the children have enough to eat and are going to school. They also make visits to families to ensure the children are being looked after properly and educate them on how to better care for their kids. This organization is a lot about educating the people to make better decisions and allowing them to treat their problems themselves. It is hard though because many of the people are just wanting handouts and to be given food and clothes. A lot of development and care is still needed to help this community to get back on their feet, but I think FH has started the right way.
The last community we visited was one also affected by Hurricane Mitch. It is very sad all of the natural disasters that ruin communities, and force them to start over in a new area basically impoverished because they have absolutely nothing. The women that talked to us in this community were very fun and loved to chat about their community although the area they fled to after the hurricane was a very destitute of any resources to produce any sort of income. They were struggling to find work as there community was far from many areas of work. The kids in this community were adorable and fun-loving, they were so happy to see us and all gathered around the van to say goodbye as we left.
This trip was definitely a very educational one for us. It was so neat to see these things first hand and it will be so cool to learn more about the programs and theories of development and what it truly means to help a community in need. It was very depressing to see these communities in such impoverished conditions, but I think that these community development programs are definitely necessary to get these groups of people started on changing their ways of life.
We have our Rural Nicaragua trip this week which we leave for tomorrow! We will visit a few rural farms and learn about how they are developing and also going to stay overnight there and work on them on Wednesday. So I will have to write again to say how that went, until then, here are some documentation of our trip this past week....
we are talking with community #2 here...
this is at community #3 when they were breaking out into groups...
community #5, the most run down we saw...
the adorable kids at this community...
so precious, it was sad to see them in such poverty though...
the trash dump right next to this community...
the last community we visited the kids were super excited to see us...
Cara.
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