callie's nicaraguan adventure

Nicaraguan Health Care: Where Hospitals are Cemetaries

2009-02-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to write about this experience for the past few months- and each time I sit and put my thoughts into it I find myself too irate to begin. The story must be told to all who will hear, and if you are reading this right now I thank you for your interest in something that rarely affects those in the first world, something that reminds us of the harsh reality of the incomprehensible lack of proper health care in the third world.

November 2008...

One of my best girlfriends here in Nicaragua, Mayerling, waltzes into the room with her own soundtrack which sounds something like a funky rhythmed snare drum. She is strikingly beautiful and her dirty humor and easy smile have filled many a night in our home with light and laughter. Today Mayerling knocks on our front door and enters the house a changed woman, the sexy swagger in her step now turned into a saddened shuffle.

“My grandma is dead.”

Mayerling’s eyes lower to the ground, her voice a flat line wavering with choked emotions.

Mayerling tells us that her grandma, who had been in perfect health at age 70, fell and broke a small bone in her hip the week before. The health center’s ambulance took her to the public hospital in Somoto where she was informed that she needed a surgery. Here healthcare is free up to a certain point, but when surgery is involved the family must contribute a certain amount. Mayerling’s family took out a $2,000 loan (the US equivalent of an entire year’s savings) and paid for the surgery, which included placing pins in her hipbone. The next day, the doctor forced her grandma to walk on her newly pinned hip and only let her rest when she began to cry in pain. The wound became so infected (IN THE HOSPITAL) that the doctor decided to re-open it, clean the pins, and put them back in. It was too late, as the infection spread to her blood and left her in a desperate life-or-death fight. Mayerling heard the doctor snidely remark to one of the nurses that he sometimes “operates on people for fun, not because they really need the operation”. Ethical.

Mayerling’s family decided they’d had enough and attempted to take her out of the hospital but the administration (backed by the doctor) refused the request and her health worsened by the hour. The doctor pulled Mayerling outside at one point and told her,

“Your grandma will not make it out of this hospital alive.”

To which Mayerling replied, “and if she doesn’t it is YOUR fault.”

He laughed. In her face.

The next morning found Mayerling’s grandma on her death bed, the infection having spread through her entire body. The family decided to move her to another hospital by force. The doctor was so angry he told them to never come back; he said if they ever tried to return to the hospital they would be removed by the police. Mayerling got her grandma on a bus headed to Esteli (the second biggest city in the country, which is about an hour by bus from Somoto).

She died in that public school bus.

She died because a doctor (who probably does not have any medical training beyond an “internship” of a year after college) faked that she needed surgery, infected her with dirty instruments, then left her to rot away unattended without an ounce of care or compassion.

Mayerling tells us now that her family wants to sue the hospital but knows that because the hospital is government-backed, there will be no way around the bureaucracy. She reports that this doctor has been denounced by multiple former patients on both radio and television, yet continues to hold his post as the head of the hospital in Somoto. They could file the paperwork, but how will they pay for a lawyer now after they just racked up a $2,000 loan? She shakes her head in disbelief, “my grandma was here one week ago. She was fine. They killed her in that hospital and I cannot do anything about it”.

In the United States, or in any developed country for that matter, this man would be put in jail without a second thought. He would be spending years there, thinking of how he wished he had not laughed in Mayerling’s face about the oncoming death of her grandma. Instead Mayerling’s grandma lies in a shallow wooden cross-marked grave in the pined cemetery in Cusmapa and the doctor resides king of his phony hospital.

The real problem stems from the following:

In Nicaragua the current government (so-called Sandinistas who have nothing to do with the actual ideals or actions of the popular revolution in the 80’s) backed by wannabe dictator current president Daniel Ortega use all of its government offices to back movement of the Sandinista (“el Frente”) party. The doctor publicly announces his diehard Sandinista beliefs all over the same radio waves thorough which his former patients denounce him. He will never lose his job because he is untouchable. He is untouchable simply because of his claimed political beliefs, it has nothing to do with the way he runs the hospital or if he kills his patients on a regular basis.

This is the so-called-Sandinistan way of making Nicaragua a BETTER place.

Ortega does not stop at exploiting public hospital administrators for his political benefit; he also uses nurses, teachers, public school administrators, police officers, and any other person who holds public office in order to make his party appear to be supported by the masses. During the current mayoral elections (in which the Sandinistas refused to let in international organizations to monitor voting procedures- leading many to believe in widespread fraud and corruption) Ortega MANDATES that all government employees protest and march in favor of his government. If an employee is unwilling to participate in Sandinista rallies, he or she loses either a large portion of his or her paycheck OR job.

My friend Kelly, a fellow Fabretto volunteer in Managua will lose her elementary school’s director next year. Soledad is a woman who’s built the school up from the ground. Spending any amount of time at the school it becomes obvious that Soledad is a true community leader. The teachers and students at this school are dedicated, happy, and learning. Yet, Soledad is not a Sandinista. She cannot remain in a leadership position under this government if there remains the potential of her denouncing the government’s actions in any manner. She will be replaced by a Sandinista party member regardless of the fact that she is a GREAT administrator and leader, regardless of the fact that she’s given her heart and soul to this school for the past 10 years. After the elections ended here in Cusmapa, the health center “let go” its’ director and a few nurses, leaving only those who participated in Sandinista rallies here in the village throughout the campaign season. They leave the 16-year-old nurse and the quacky doctor and fire competent nurses simply because of political ideals.

To top it all off, after the Sandinistas won the elections (whether fraudulent or not, it’s been decided and they now hold 86% of the mayoral seats in the country) Ortega mandated that all of the government employees AND their families in Managua (the capital city of 2.5 million) rally in 4 of the city’s central rotundas (where the main roads meet). I passed a few of the rotundas in a taxi last Thursday and was, for the first time in my two years in Nicaragua, completely frightened for the future of this country. I witnessed people waving black and red flags in a brainwashed fervor and masked teenagers holding fire throwers and lead pipes and bricks. Apparently (according to the Nuevo Diario, Nicaragua’s only remaining news source that does not support Ortega) the government is paying ex-gang members to incite chaos and to track and terrorize journalists who oppose Ortega. People are dying and wounded every day in this conflict.

And the conflict is not being raged by the losing party “los liberales”, the party that was ravaged by corruption and falsification throughout the whole electoral process. The Sandinista party incites the chaos, backed with their motto of “united Nicaragua will triumph,” singing “what we want are jobs and peace”. In the echoes of the song of peace Ortega supporters throw bricks at civilians and shout “death to the liberals!”

I am baffled.

And at times speechless.

Especially when people inform me of things like my friend Brenda told me earlier today, that Ortega is now talking of the evils of the internet. He apparently wants to block internet access because it feeds people “false information” about his government. He will intend closing down all the television channels except Canal 4, the Sandinista propaganda channel. Ortega’s blatant hatred of foreigners (especially Americans) may become public policy, blocking many of the aid programs upon which so many Nicaraguans rely for survival. The private hospital where Kelly’s friend Aleyda works is an NGO run by a Dutch couple who are already talking about the possibility of leaving the country next year and closing the hospital.

What I do not understand is how many people in this country cannot seem to make a connection between Ortega and former long-time dictator Somoza (whose lethal 60-year rule caused the revolution in the 80’s which led to the Contra War). Ortega fits into the precise definition of a dictator (autocratic control with use of absolute and oppressive rule) and his current government becomes more and more of a dictatorship every single day (a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a dictator or small clique- in this case his hypnotized power crazy supporters).

How long will it take the Nicaraguan people to see beyond the billboards claiming “upwards the poor of the world” to the reality of a president who cruises the streets of Managua in a Mercedes Benz SUV flashing a V-for-victory sign as he pulls out the democratic rug from underneath this country?

These Days...

2009-02-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

These days…

Are filled with sunshine and relaxation, of afternoon hikes through pine bedded forests, of early bedtimes, of making cookies and cakes with neighbors, spending holidays enjoying the company of my Nicaraguan families, camping in forests and canyons, getting alone-time for the first time in a year, and getting to know both the dark and gold sides of being in a true relationship.

These months…

Are filled with teaching teaching teaching, learning learning learning, of reading mounds of books in the morning sunlight under my orange tree, trips around the country with my dear friend Kate and my brother Cory, heart pounding African drum festivals, beaches and lagoons and monkeys and boating and boogie boarding and adventuring, of fa-la-la Christmas choir concerts, and beach trips with Cusmapan kiddos who’d never seen the ocean, of holding monkeys and ocelots, and watching America finally make a hopeful political choice.

I have not written much these days, I am too busy with life. I go to bed every night thinking of how quickly days pass, at times wishing I could put a halt on this hourglass when I see the grains of sand slipping away before my eyes. I am happy, relatively healthy (though I’ve had a cold for the past two months), and deeply fulfilled by the simplicity of my existence here.

An Election Plea from the World Community

2008-09-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

I write to you from the top of a mountain in northern Nicaragua where I currently live and teach music and critical thinking. I've been here nearly two years, and have seen first-hand the effects of American foreign policy in Central America. We warred with Nicaragua in the 80's and left its' people and economy crippled. Many of my students remember the Contra War because they have older brothers or sisters who lived through it or fathers who were lost forever guerrilla fighting in the mountains. One would imagine Nicaraguans to hold bitter vengeful thoughts of Americans, but that's not the case. My students do ask me daily about the war in Iraq, and one asked me yesterday afternoon "Are we at war with Venezuela?".

My students are not ignorant. This question came from a general perception we've lived up to as far as the rest of the world is concerned. We are a warring people; we meddle in the lives of others without permission. I know this to be far from true, but how can I claim it isn't so when a Spanish friend asks "How the f$*% did you elect Bush a SECOND time?! Wasn't he bad enough the first time?!" and I shake my head. It frustrates me how much our country, my country, embarrasses me. I can no longer watch Bush’s puppet act (no TV news… no loss) but imagine our wide global community having a shared laugh or two over the imbecile we’ve chosen to rule our empire for the last eight years.

When I first found out who the contenders are for the current election I laughed contentedly and thought to myself "no contest!". Now, as the time grows nearer, I am not so sure. I feel a growing wariness about the way things are shaping up, probably due to the dread I feel thinking about Bush's round one and two in office. The idea of his legacy being carried further and further into the future is almost too much to handle.

I simply cannot believe that there are people, intelligent people, who do not see through the dog and pony act of McCain and Palin. Are women who supported Hillary Clinton (a brilliant, moderate, eloquent, experienced politico) ACTUALLY considering giving their democratic vote to Palin (the rifle-bearing, book banning, radically Christian, politically inexperienced hockey mom) because we “feel she understands us”? Where do we get the remotest idea that this woman represents the American woman? Everything I’ve read about Palin consistently leads me to the conclusion that she’s being used as a pawn, a pretty one at that, to sway the evangelical and female voters of our country.

I'm not sure how to say this, because I want to scream it to the world:
"WE NEED CHANGE!!!!!"

If there's one person who can sit down and look at the facts of the last eight years without thinking, "our country has really gone down the drain", I urge that person to send a rebuttal with points covering: defense spending, health care, education, the economy, and general well-being of the American people.

For the sake of our world community, let’s open our eyes. What do we want out of our lives? Do we want to be forever behind walls, dominated by fear of the “other” attacking our “way of life”? There are ways to live beyond fear. Empathy, diplomacy, moderate policies based on fact rather than speculation, and true leadership will lead us to this place. Sticking to our rusting guns will not.

A plea from your fellow world citizens:

VOTE OBAMA!!

I’m traveling 16 hours round-trip to the Nicaraguan/American embassy and spending 20% of my monthly volunteer stipend to do it. You can too.

Coloring Between the Lines: A Raging Commentary on the Nicaraguan Education System

2008-08-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

Education in the “developing world” frustrates beyond belief.

Imagine sending a child to public school only half-day to a school that does not have an outhouse, or books, or a science lab, or encouragement towards your child’s creative capabilities. Picture the disadvantages to women in this education system in which boys are constantly encouraged to be participative leaders and women are kept humble and quiet (*side-note: just like the Virgin Mary).

In Nicaragua, the government cannot (or chooses not, either way you look at it) afford for children to attend school full-time. Therefore, kids here go to school in shifts. Grades 1-3 and 7-8 have class from 7:30 AM till 12 PM and grades 4-6 and 9-11 attend school from 1 PM until 5:30 PM. This means that a child receiving an education here gets less than half of the class-time as a child going to public school in the United States. Beyond that, teachers are given a 10-12 page guide outlining their teaching themes for the ENTIRE school year and then thrown to the wolves (and by wolves I mean teenagers). This outline (I have personally only seen the guide for the teacher of 10^th and 11^th grade history) has suggestions like this:

Week 1 Lesson Plan:

1) World War I

a. Causes

b. Effects

c. Long-term consequences

Anyone who has ever taught or thought about teaching can look at this outline and see a major fault in the fact that, if given to a teacher in a place in which doing research is nearly impossible… the teacher is likely to use one or two sources and make up the rest, missing many important facts, or brush over the whole theme with a few sentences like “yes the Holocaust was important because a lot of people died and Hitler is now in Hell”.

Case in point: when Lauren and I taught about Hitler and Gandhi in a leadership section of our Critical Thinking class, I’d estimate that 80% of our students had never heard of EITHER of them. GHANDI. HITLER. These are high schoolers we are talking about. We’re currently working on simple math word problems and I am consistently shocked to find that many kids who will graduate high school within the next two years do not know how to do SIMPLE math (addition/subtraction/multiplication/division). The logical reasoning simply does not exist.

I will tell you why.

Picture learning everything you’ve ever been taught in school through the following method:

1) Teacher uses meager outline to create lesson plan.

2) Students do not have a book, and are lucky to have a guide for the class.

3) Teacher writes his/her ideas and notes on the board.

4) Student copies these ideas and notes.

5) Student studies these ideas and notes.

6) Student regurgitates these ideas and notes for a test/quiz.

And what happens next…

7) Student entirely forgets what they’ve learned.

8) Student does not learn to formulate their own ideas, to come to conclusions based on what they’ve learned or read… their ideas are the teacher’s ideas and their conclusions are the teacher’s conclusions.

Can you imagine graduating from high school with the type of semi-illiteracy that leaves you unable to spell simple words? I’ve seen teachers here write in Spanish substituting “b” for “v” and leaving the “h” and “s” off of multiple words. Some of these teachers graduated from COLLEGE and can still not spell. It’s culturally considered so unimportant that I often see students spell their name differently every single time they write it (that may or may not be due to the fact that the name which appears on their birth certificate is not spelled correctly either).

Here’s where the lack of creativity comes in. Children are encouraged to be “just like” all the other students – no skies painted green here. Rather than art class, they are given cartoon Bugs Bunny or Winnie the Pooh drawings and told to color between the lines. When Lauren tried to create a giant paper mache fish last year and let the kids paint it, the project turned quickly into the teachers painting one side and students painting the other- one of the teachers commenting “let’s see who does it better” then not allowing a student to paint on the “teacher” side. I may be wrong, but isn’t the whole point of education ‘trial-and-error’?! If kids are never allowed to formulate their own thoughts, images, or beliefs about the world… they will stay silent and stagnant forever.

More than that, this school in reality only functions three or possibly four days per week because at least once per week there exists a holiday (and therefore days off for teachers) such as:

Day of the Starving yet Un-Spayed Dog who Bites Neighbors but Who Cares Because He has his Rabies Vaccination

Day of the Construction Worker who only Works Drunk on Sundays Beginning at 8 PM

Day of the Cheesy Argentinean Soap Opera Watched by 5 out of 6 Million Nicaraguans Country-Wide Regardless of Age

Day of Loud Reggaeton Played at 6 AM by Neighbors Every Day of the Year

Day of Machismo (aka: Men Rule the World Since the Beginning of Time and Forevermore Day)

Obviously these holidays do not TRULY exist, but you get the idea. Although the official embassy website only posts 11 national holidays per year, I tell you without exaggeration that the NATION of SAN JOSE DE CUSMAPA celebrates more than 70 holidays per year. That’s about 20% of all existing days. If the holiday happens to fall on a weekend, we would never dream of celebrating it on a weekend, we celebrate it either the Friday or Monday that falls closest to the day of fiesta-ing. Therefore every 1/5 school days which could potentially aid children towards their future development is wasted as a “dia feriada” (free day!!).

And, last but not least, the most infuriating thing about Nicaraguan education is…

Drum roll please….

Machismo.

Yes, the macho culture here spills into all corners of society, leaving no teenage girl un-turned. Last month I had a look at our enrollment here at Fabretto and the difference between the amount of girls in 7^th and 8^th grade and the amount of girls in 9^th thru 11^th grade disturbed me greatly. Younger girls and boys post nearly equal enrollment numbers, but after 8^th grade something… though I know not what… happens at this age which causes girls to drop out of school like flies. Maybe it has something to do with the following examples:

1) Cece’s first day in English class, the teacher calls her up to the board and asks her to read a paragraph out loud while the boys in the class (seated on the same side of the room) repeat her after every sentence. The girls in the class are entirely excluded from this activity.

2) Our friend Mayerling’s experience with evangelical parents who pulled her out of school after 9^th grade because they were “convinced that if she stayed in high school she would get pregnant” (yes, that’s very logical). Mayerling wanted to return to school so badly that at age 14 she saved up her own money, working her way until she had enough to buy a school uniform and notebooks to return to school. Her mother, though supportive of Mayerling, never said a WORD to her father about the situation. Now Mayerling, at age 23, still has not finished high school and is stuck living with her crazy conservative parents in a household in which she’s not allowed to wear pants, earrings, has to go to church every night against her will, cannot go to parties or dances, and cannot have male visitors, even if they are just friends.

I think it’s perfectly possible for children to learn a wealth of knowledge about the world without access to books, a science lab, and even outhouses. I even think children can learn a lot in just five hours per day of class, with a teacher who cannot spell (when it comes down to it, that’s not THE most important thing). But a culture and country (government and catholic/evangelical supported) in which half of the population is STIFLED to the point of silence and un-education will never succeed.

And I will never respect a teacher who does not encourage children to color the sky whatever color they darn well choose to.

2008-08-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

How do I feel nostalgic and heartsick for a place I haven't left yet?

When children's voices lifted in quiet song on a windy Sunday afternoon choke tears in my throat, and swarms of dragonflies floating through branches in my orange tree leave me longing and breathless?

Mid-afternoon sun-filtered through holes in a tiled roof, in the arms of someone I'm slowly tearing myself away from yet constantly pulled toward lances through me leaving profound holes in my heart.

A pink-dressed student rushes towards me for a twirling hug shrieking "mi Callie!", her smile writes arpeggios filled with graceful treble notes.

How can I remain open to life here while braced for heartbroken goodbyes?

Low Tide

2008-08-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

Take a moment to think of all the times throughout your day you turn the faucet and are guaranteed clean fresh water. Water availability does not concern the blessed of humanity living in developed countries. On the other hand, in struggling countries such as Nicaragua, water constantly trickles across the thin line between life and death.

Facundo, who takes care of our house (yes, we have a “security guard” in a town of 1,500) lives in the small nearby community of el Imirez. At age 40 Facundo’s grin rings toothless and his two-room house shelters 12 people (four adults, eight children). His youngest, Larry, made the hour-hike-three-hour-bus ride to Somoto to the nearest hospital twice last year due to stomach parasites you and I in America will never worry about. The issue goes beyond lack of early childhood nutrition (which certainly exists in places like Imirez where people subsist on ground corn tortillas and rice donated by USAID projects) to much deeper and more serious issues. Lack of preventative health care and the non-existence of clean drinking water lead children like Larry down a malnourished road where survival, simple survival, matters most.

For Christmas last year, Lauren and I bought Facundo’s family a $14 water filter from a Nicaraguan run Potters for Peace business. The filter, sized to hold about four gallons of water in a clay barrel, will last their family for more than five years. Facundo’s family can now collect water from the community well and run it through the filter, secure that parasites will not seep through the filter’s silver alloy shell. He tells Lauren and I with a wide smile that the family’s water filter is the pride of their small village, that neighbors come by for a glass of clean water or just to marvel at the “miracle machine”. While this type of solution works short-term, it does not solve the long-term issue at hand.

Luckily Facundo’s family lives in a community with a well. Others are not so fortunate. In Aguas Calientes (where Osvaldo’s grandmother lives), about 3 hours further down the mountain, habitants must carry their family’s water supply in plastic barrels from the local river. More than backbreaking work, my heart breaks each time I see a small barefoot child weighed down lugging a fifty-pound container of water back to her family’s one-room adobe home, instead of playing or attending kindergarten… knowing full well that the water may make her family sick.

In Cusmapa, water’s non-availability writes an entirely different story. The majority of households here own a 5-foot-wide by 4-foot-deep “pila” or cement storage tank for water. The city gives water once per week; it trickles through rusty faucets to fill these meager holding containers. If the week’s water supply runs dry, the house’s inhabitants must survive without water until further notice. The pila’s faucet provides the house’s only plumbing. Families use pila water for bathing, washing dishes, washing clothes, washing the floor, drinking, and cooking. Though I’ve heard rumor that water received from the town of Cusmapa is technically filtered and safe for drinking, it comes from the closest river at the bottom of the mountain. I’ve splashed around in that river and consciously not dunked my head. Yet thousands of people in the area DRINK water pumped directly up the mountain from that river. Not for want, but for absolute necessity.

I began writing this with a nag in the back of my mind, whining about our own house’s lack of water for the past 18 days (though Cece and I have only been back in Cusmapa for 10 days)… but thinking about it more thoroughly I realize that at no point during this time have we been TRULY without water. We have access to drinking water, water for the dump-flush method of toilet flushing, and water for cleaning dishes. It’s a minor inconvenience to someone like me, who lives in Nicaragua with the support and resources provided by a larger organization. I do not fend for myself here by any means. I am not forced to send my 11-year-old sister out every morning at dawn to stagger up the mountain loaded down with barrels of river water.

Every day I live here I learn more about conservation and the importance of not taking what we consider to be basic life essentials for granted.

Next time you brush your teeth, gulp down a glass of cold tap water without a thought of the repercussions, flush a toilet, or take a hot shower, think of the action on a deeper level. Consider how blessed you are to live in a place with access to these resources, do not take them for granted. Take what actions you can to ensure that others do not live to survive, rather live to thrive.

Airports

2008-07-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

I sit with Doña Helena and her cheery 5-year-old daughter from Managua to Atlanta. Helena, a native Nicaraguan tells me of her 20 years of life as an immigrant in Tennessee and her Mexican husband who works construction. She’s stressed about his current lack of work, and speaks of the US economy in its downward spiral towards crisis. Helena explains the division between Hispanics and whites in her town, choosing her words carefully. Her daughter, a native US citizen, only speaks a few words of English. The bubbly little one informs me that she can fly airplanes, and gives me a sly corner-of-the-mouth grin as she points to groups of people in the advertisements of Sky Magazine. “These aren’t my friends” she states, referring to an ad of white bikini-clad models sitting on a floating dock. I'd venture that "irony" is not on her short list of English vocabulary words.

Focused in tunnel vision in a brisk clip along a moving walkway, travelers move in herds through the Atlanta airport. I walk for twenty minutes, sauntering down the corridor and they pass me like water over a boulder. I don’t make eye contact with a single person. The sterile fluorescent lit air feels fabricated and stifling. A stars-and-stripes banner welcomes me to the glory of the United States of America and I am shooed through customs without a second glance.

My second flight finds me with Ron, a 50-some-year-old electrical engineer who talks of the six years he spent during his twenties teaching English in Thailand, Taiwan, China, and Japan. He believes in the importance of young people getting out in the world and the understanding of other cultures. I am warmed by his encouragement.

Everyone here whines about gas prices and debates continuously about the upcoming election.

I want a turkey sandwich but can’t stomach paying $7 for a few slabs of bread.

I will see my mom and Cece in four hours!!

Los Chunches: The Debut

2008-06-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Hannah wrote a fantastic blog highlighting the glorious events of a recent weekend we spent in Esteli. Read it if you are interested in the following: the debut of our Nicaraguan jam band, or drinking beer in grocery stores.
Here's the link:
http://www.thetulipsshouldbebehindbars.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Want Ad

2008-06-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

Wanted:
Music Teacher for 123 Adorable Nicaraguan Children.

Requirements:
Kind (though some general teacher sternness pays off)
Flexible (of body-yoga, mind-learning el Espanol, and spirit)
Fairly Musically Apt (ie: ability to sing or play an instrument)
Conneseur of Rice and Beans
A Lover of Travel and Unexpected Adventures
Willing to Travel by Chicken Bus
A Navigator of Torrential Rainstorms and Puddles
Patient, Patient, Patient
Good at Playing Doctor to Little Kid Cuts and Scrapes
Willing to Reason with Teenagers
Able to Laugh in the Face of Very Frustrating Situations
Ignorer of Men on the Street Making Romantic Comments
Accepting of Hair Gel, Bare Feet, and Soy Products
Able to Entertain Self throughout Lengthy Periods of Power Outages

Ability to Move Hips in Latin Dance Style a Plus.

Other Pluses:
Not Concerned about Filthy Feet or Showering Every Day
Acceptance of Large Beetles
Craving of Rum and Cheap Pilsner by the Liter Bottle
Enjoyment of Cheesy Late 80's and Early 90's Music (ie: Bryan Adams and Michael Bolton)
Willingness to Sleep Inside a Mosquito Net
Ability to Haggle with Taxistas

Currently accepting new Music Director in San Jose de Cusmapa, Nicaragua.
Please respond ASAP.
Your new roommate will be a crafty artist and excellent chef.
Adventures shall abound!

Now who has the cojones to respond to this Want Ad?
I figure better posting it here than in a Penny Saver.

Arriba las Mujeres del Mundo!

2008-06-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight we shall celebrate the free women of the world.

After a talk with Xiomara about the injustice suffered by our single female co-workers in the organizing and executing of school celebrations for Mothers/Fathers/Children's days, we decided to take matters in to our own hands.

Esteemed guests include:
Lauren, myself, Kate, Mike (our token male of the group, who will most likely be forced to wear my feather boa and possibly a fake mustache), Mayerling (the most bodacious and vivacious of our Nica female friends), Brenda (who is married, but at age 25 still doesn't have kids, which qualifies her as a free woman), and Xiomara (who's about as free as they get, and strikingly resembles an Egyptian princess).

We celebrate women our age who, especially in a country like Nicaragua, defy all norms.
Women whose power and strength streams from every pore.
Women who I admire deeply for their independence and perseverance.
Women who are just plain awesome.

After a week of torrential rains (a lightning bolt hit so close to our house on Wednesday that it blew a fuse in our living room light) the time has come to "disfrutar" the weekend.

More (and pictures, to be sure) to come Lunes.

Dreams

2008-05-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

I am SO excited for my July visit to Montana...
but can tell I am subconsciously nervous about things
because I keep having dreams about
Jeb
and
George JR.
of the Bush family.

Frightening thought, right?

In brighter news I am also dreaming of lattice-topped apple pie.

2008-05-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Gramma and Ozzy!

Osvaldo's Gramma!

2008-05-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

Osvaldo and I rode horseback eight hours last weekend to meet his nearly 100-year-old grandma, who lives in a tiny community called Aguas Calientes (hot waters).

We leave at 5:30 AM after my queasy attempt at drinking a cup of coffee, packing the horses, and strapping on spurs (as he puts them on, I think “holy god, I am insane… what the hell am I doing right now?). I nearly launch myself off the horse 25 times in the first ten minutes, feet slipping out of the holster trying to trot along to keep up with my (apparent, who knew?) cowboy boyfriend. I slowly gain confidence as my body found the horse’s rhythm, and our gaits begin to match rather than jolt. One of Camello (my horse- a donkey/horse cross named: Camel)’s llantas (horseshoes) falls off within the first hour, so we made our one stop on the way there to pry off and pound back on the broken piece. Camel could not be a more perfect name for this donkey/horse- he’s good natured, but lazy as all get out (Oz calls him a crybaby). Every time I stop paying attention for more than 20 seconds he stops dead in his tracks and takes a good kick to the side to keep trucking down the road.

I have no idea distance-wise of how far Aguas Calientes is from Cusmapa, but it’s a good amount further than Angel 3 (maybe even twice as far, it’s apparently 5 ½ hours walking just to get there, and took us 4 on a horse). The road up to El Cariso (a small community we pass through about 2 ½ hours into the trip) is by and far passable by truck, but the last 1 ½ hours was pretty much down a boulder-laden creek bed. Along the road, we go by three large groups of people working on bettering the road, children and adults and ancianos (old folks) of all ages, in all sorts of garb, hacking away with shovels and sticks and whatever other tool available in order to try to make their community accessible (I would imagine) to ambulances and food supplies (which Fabretto sends out weekly). My horse trips more than a few times, and as I peer over some steep drop-offs I realize that all standing between me and a freefall down the mountainside was: Camel, some burning fields, and a thin strand of barbed wire. Miraculously enough an AMBULANCE (a 4 x 4 type) rambled past us as we descended from El Cariso. I cannot begin to speculate on how long it takes an ambulance to get to Aguas Calientes and back out again, the amount of jolting endured during the trip, or even how long it takes to answer an emergency call there…

In reality, the trip does not take as long as I had initially imagined (by the reactions of my friends here- whose doubts as to my physical ability to make the round-trip up and down the mountain in one day caused me a bit of pre-trip anxiety). The morning ride through lifting fog and birds greeting the day leaves both Osvaldo and I silent and pensive. We sight many birds- one called the Guardabarranco, which is the national bird of Nicaragua, has translucent sea foam feathers and a forked tail nearly two feet long which ends with circular shaped feathers. It’s the most beautiful bird I have ever seen. It’s planting time in the rural farming land here, meaning that slash and burn practices are in full effect, filling the valley with a layer of smoky haze. This does not stop the birds’ song from greeting the new day.

Upon arrival, Osvaldo’s gramma is bathing herself in an open air bucket shower, without regard or worry of the presence of any other person. Though small and ancient, she moves with determination and quiet assuredness that the world is good. She walks out of the bathing area in a white slip, using a cane to help her see, and stops in front of my (giant) shadow to simply ask me if I was “paseando” (just “passing by”) before going inside to change. I talk to one of the uncles about the farming life, about his kids’ education and how much Fabretto gives to the people in his community. He is a small man (much smaller than Osvaldo, who’s about 2 inches shorter than I am), thinly mustached (as most of the men in Nicaragua who attempt facial hair are), and his sandal-adorned feet are callused with years of farm work and rock-strewn mountain paths. His bright-eyed enthusiasm nears the point of ecstatic when talking about his son, Jader, who started high school this year and the new opportunities Jader has for learning (with Fabretto’s rural outreach high school program, SAT).

Osvaldo summons me inside and I enter his gramma’s room in the back of the house, which holds a low cot, a single open-air window, and a small wooden chair. She holds a wide-toothed comb in one hand, and wears her best bright pink floral print ‘70’s style polyester dress. I kneel in front of her cataract-clouded eyes and she envelops my hands with hers, crooning a “mucho gusto” (nice to meet you). When she asks me where I come from and I answer “Los Estados Unidos” (US), her face lights up delightedly and she exclaims “OY! Es MUUUY lejos!” (Oh! That’s VERY far!) then giggles for the next few minutes about the prospect of somebody traveling THAT far just to meet her.

I sit alone with her and we chat for a good 40 minutes, through many stories of the history of the Muñoz family, Osvaldo’s father’s 8 brothers and sisters, where she’s lived and traveled (never farther than Managua), about moving the family from the house there in Aguas Calientes to Cusmapa during the war in the ‘80’s because there was too much fighting on the frontera (the Honduran/Nicaraguan border is very close) and they were forced to leave the house empty, abandoned to the armed forces. We have a long conversation about how she’s progressively become more and more blind. At the beginning, she’d gone with her son to a doctor in hopes of fixing her vision, but found that he could not do anything to help. She tells me that losing her ability to see is the worst thing she could possibly imagine, as a 3-year-old grandson snuggles up on her lap, she runs her fingers across his hair and looks into his face, smiling, as if she can see his every molecule. She looks at me so intently at times that I forget about her blindness.

She’s had a few surgeries in the past decade which have kept her alive, but now has decided to stay in her little corner of the world, no matter what may come. Her favorite thing in the world, now that she’s decided to stay put, she muses, is “sitting outside to feel the breeze in my old bones”. In short, she is beautiful. She reminds me of Osvaldo in her easy-going, calm, patient, careful, direct, sincere manner. Her eyes glitter with the bliss and ache of nearly a century of life. I carefully eat every word she utters with a golden spoon and sip the details of every wrinkle and gesture and toothless smile like an elixir of blessings.

Osvaldo and I want to swim in the famed “Rio Negro” (Black River) so we take his nephews, Jader and Walder, down a path to splash around in a few pools amidst many a boulder. It’s a miracle that there’s water there at the tail end of dry season. We enjoy an incredible (though hazy) view of Cusmapa in the background. I watch Osvaldo play with his nephews, his smile wide and his eyes kind and playful. He leaves me to nap on a huge boulder while he bathes the horses, the warm rock soothes my muscles and the sun spins me into a lucid dream state where I imagine of the great elations and tribulations of living this close to the earth and so far from the running madness of the outer world.

Back up the hill to gramma’s house we meet another uncle and more cousins, and are served a duck and yucca soup (!) with lime and fresh tortillas to ready us for the trip back. Gramma tells me that she hopes I come back to visit, and as she and Osvaldo say goodbye, she cries silent tears and waves a time-warped hand, sending us off with a quiet “buen viaje” (good trip).

The first part of the trip back (up to El Cariso) was HOT and a bit miserable (I also think poor Camello nearly has five heart attacks) but after the road levels out and the clouds returned we trot along without worry or hurry. We hold hands and hum to each other and talk about all sorts of things (mainly the magnificence and luck of our small happiness together). We stop at a small stream to stretch then watch the sun set as we ascend the final mountain from El Angel to Cusmapa.

This is my perfect day.

I think I'm turning Chineeese I really think so...

2008-05-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

Some funny tidbits of the last few weeks- identity-wise:

In a bus from Somoto to Cusmapa I set next to a 50-year-old-ish man who opened his eyes to ask me:

“You live in Cusmapa, right?”

to which I answered:

“Yes.” He then continued to inquire about my identity:

“And you are Chinese?”

I nearly spit out a gulp of water on his face, and incredulously replied:

“Um. No. I am from America. I am american.”

He pondered on that for a moment before stating with great conviction:

“Ahhhh. But whenever you walk by my house, I say to the children… ‘There goes the Chinese lady.’”

At this point I (as I do a lot here) looked around the bus to see if anyone else was paying attention… really, was this guy TELLING me that I am Chinese? Really?

Of course nobody else was there to share in my shock and awe at the situation.

I turned back to my fellow Cusmapanian and said, voice wavering with laughter:

“My family is from Ireland and Germany, not from China. I am american.”

And he nodded his head in agreement, before responding:

“Yes, but your ancestors are from China.”

Now that I cannot argue.

Lesson one of my identity, thanks to a Cusmapan who probably looks at my round smiley face and assumes I am from an entirely different planet.

----------------------------------------

One of Lauren and my students, Rimen, has an incredible attitude.

He came to chat with me one day (after missing his piano lesson, then getting angry at ME for not being able to teach him on his own time). Lauren was out of the country visiting her family. He asked,

“Is it true that Lauren is older than you?”

I replied, “Yes, she’s about a year older than I am.”

He looked mighty confused.

“But if she’s older, than why are you fatter?”

(Thanks?)

Ah, yes, Rimen… you are the reason I teach critical thinking.

A + B does not ALWAYS = C.

------------------------------------

One afternoon I was chatting with a few of my little chiguines (of about 7-years-old) and they were asking all sorts of questions about my family:

They: “Is it true that your dad is dead?”

Me: “Um. No. My dad is alive.”

They: “Oh. Then what’s his name?”

Me: “Daniel”

They: “Your DAD is DANIEL ORTEGA?” (the president of Nicaragua).

Me: (laughing hysterically) “Yes, of course, my dad is Daniel Ortega.”

They: (mouths open wide in shock)

Me: Broma! Broma! (I am JOKING!)

------------------------------------------

Things I have learned about myself this month:

Older people are fatter than younger people.

My father is the president of a Central American country.

I am Chinese.

Stay tuned to find out what the Nicaraguan people teach me next month about my identity.

Reflexiones on Being Profe. Callie

2008-04-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the flavor of frustration

coppery and quick to strike, pumps

through every nerve ending with venomous intent

a spasm of anger recoils my smile

to pursed lips screaming for an undisturbed

moment of breath.

Like a toddler who can taste feelings

before knowing how to categorize them;

I am thrown for loops by teenage laughter

snide ironic comments that can only be

bent by the hasty mouths of 16-year-olds.

There are a finite number of times I can utter a stern

“silencio”

before I feel my head expanding and contracting

with intended patience

mauled into a clenched jaw

and disappearing smile wrinkles…

My sparkle funneled, a channel of molten negativity

I sense my energy in these moments

suckling parasites, thriving in darkness

hatching plans for how to breed

battling for power over my well-being.

Other times

I taste pure golden sunshine

and gulp the mischievous spark of youth

like it still belongs to me

and I want to congratulate

these little bastards

for challenging me to my wits end

I see the battle waged

between teacher and student

as a parody, a commentary of irony

my karmic fate.

Inner smiles and sly winks abound

and joy radiates from my grounded core

energy flows freely in these moments

when a single word or note gives me goose bumps

and smiles make my soul fly.

Pensamiento Critico

2008-04-28T09:59:00.001-07:00

I'd like to share the following reflexion I just received in the notebook of one of my "critical thinking" students, Elvia, in response to the following question:

Que significa medioambiente? Cuales son las cosas y lugares mas importantes en la vida y porque? (What does "medioambiente" (translated as nature and culture mixed) mean? What are the things and places that are most important in life and why?)

Medioambiente para mi es el medio donde todos podemos recrearnos. Es un lugar donde
(medioambiente for me is the medium where we can do recreation. It's a place where

sentimos un ambiente de paz, de tranquilidad, donde podemos reflexionar y concentrarnos sin
we feel an air of peace, tranquility, where we can reflect and concentrate without

que nadia nos moleste. Es el lugar donde mas sentimos seguros, es algo natural, es toda la
anyone bothering us. It's the place where we feel the most safe, it's something ntaural, it's all the

naturaleza que nos tenemos. Es algo que no podemos fabricar con nuestras manos pero si
nature that we have. It's something that we cannot make with our hands, but yes

podemos cuidar y proteger podemos ayudar aunmentarlo.
we can take care of and protect and help to make it better.

Las cosas y lugares mas importantes en mi vida es todo lo natural, es lo puro y todos los lugares
the things and places that are most important in my life is everything natural, pure, and all places

que ayudan a la gente y no destruyen a las personas.
which help people and don't destroy people.

Pretty profound for a 15-year-old, huh?
My students constantly blow me away and give me goosebumps and proud teacher teary eyes.

April Showers Bring.... Jules and Justin!

2008-04-09T15:33:00.001-07:00

I am ECSTATIC.

My cousin Julie, one of my biggest supporters throughout the last 15 months I have spent here in Nica, arrives on FRIDAY with the ever so marvelous Justin :) They're coming almost exclusively to see what life's like here in Cusmapa, to meet my friends and family and students here, to know my loved ones and to bear witness to the hardship and joys people in my pueblo live every day. I am so blessed to have these two in my life, and cannot wait to watch the sunset and drink tea and manifesto and learn and love and live with them until May!

I had an incredible journey through Costa Rica for nearly two weeks with Kayla, Marcy, Jessica, and Harley (all Missoula buddies of mine)- we frolicked the beaches on the Pacific side and the rainforests in the Carribean. Activities included- beach tours by microbus (aka: party-bus), boogie boarding at sundown, watching baby sloths clamber in branches right at head-level, hooting and howling at monkeys at sunrise, ribbiting at tree frogs, marveling at flowers of all shapes sizes and colors, pirating a snorkel trip (poor other tourists didn't know what was coming), reggae sing-alongs with taxi drivers, blowing fireballs, meeting a wide array of some of the craziest and kindest people I've ever met traveling (Manfred the Austrian scuba diver/dead fish collector/short-shorts wearing drunkard being the main event), looooong busrides over mountain passes through driving rainstorms at night, watching smoke rise from the mouth of an active volcano, lots of Flor de Caña (Nicaragua's specialty rum), bike rides through the rainforest interrupted by pizza and beer pit-stops along the way, galloping down the beach on my misbehaved horse, Rubio, eating LOBSTERS, salsa dancing with waiters, hanging with the rhastas... the memories go on and on and on. Needless to say I am suddenly afflicted with both a dire need to get the heck out of dodge and see more of the world and it's many marvels yet with one side of my heart stuck here in a place where one word from one student or one "Adioooos Pues" from a teetering old man on the street makes my heart melt.

Life continues to overflow with such goodness, that I am often left breathless.

ARRRRR Matey!

2008-03-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

So... after a two-week beginning of the school year in which I fell into bed every night "deader than a doornail" (as my mom would put it) I am taking an already-needed vacation.

The kids have tests in the public school, so no class here at the oratorio... and I refuse to sit around for two weeks and do nothing. Therefore, I will frolick the beaches of Costa Rica with Kayla, Harley, and Marcy (three zoo-town folks) and enjoy nearly two FULL weeks of sunshine and giddiness!

Schooooool's.... out... for... the rest of March!
I'll try to update y'all on what the school year looks like, my classes and the awesome women's knitting and tea group Lauren and I have started in the house... but for now, I leave that behind as I set sail for the playa.

Adioooooos, Pues.

Statistics of Note

2008-02-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

I just found out that 3% of Nicaraguans currently go to university...
and 0.6% of Nicaraguans complete university.

In times when I question what Fabretto does here, I need to rememember statistics like this.
We may not be perfect, but the amount of students who've graduated from our program that are currently in college FAR surpasses these percentages.

We have so much work left to do...
But, for the moment, siento orguilloso.
I feel very, very proud of my community here in Cusmapa.

Chigüines (Little Ones)

2008-02-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

Incredible
how being crushed
changes
to a melted
joyful
light
with one
six-year-old
smile.

Changes

2008-02-21T08:11:00.001-08:00

I take people for granted. People I see day-to-day consistently, people who help me with countless things, people who are patient, dedicated, and passionate about life.

Magda is one of these people... my closest co-worker for the past year, my confidant, the rock in the music program, the hardest worker here at Fabretto, the one who brings people together, the eloquent one in staff meetings who brings us all back to what we're really focused on: kids.

Magda's leaving Fabretto.

She told me this morning, it's something she's been thinking about for years. She's stayed because she had no other option, and because of the kids. But these two reasons only work for so long, they do not sustain someone working in one place forever. If one constantly hears from the top-down that their actions are not producing the type of "results" expected, that their work isn't "enough", and has every ounce of work they're doing minimized... one is bound to leave.

Magda says BASTA (enough), and has chosen to take care of herself and Cindy finally, rather than focusing on others. She tells me the decision has killed her inside and that she can't sleep, that she hasn't been able to sleep for weeks thinking about our students.

I want to be angry at her, I do not want to understand.
I do not want this to be my reality right now.
I want her to stay. I am selfish, but I need her.

But how can I be angry when she has made this decision out of a respect for herself, when she is following what she believes she needs to do to take care of her family? I do understand the frustrations she must have faced in the past seven years working for Fabretto- things here are hopelessly unorganized and it's difficult sometimes to keep pushing on through the administrative mess we're faced with as teachers on the ground level.

Fabretto losing Magda is a tremendous blow. Not only to the music program, to the students, but to the organization as a whole. Magda is one of those people who can be counted on at any given moment to drop anything to lend a hand. She is one of the kindest people I have ever known. I know she will not be leaving Cusmapa, that we will still be friends, that she will still come to visit the Oratorio, that she will guide me whenever I need help.

All things go.
I just wish that all things didn't go at the same time...
because as it is now, I feel like everything is crashing down at once
and I am completely helpless in stopping the fall.

sounds

2008-02-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

barking snorkling piglets cows loOOwing clopityclopityclop

gouchos and horses outside my bedroom window chicharas

RRRREEEEEEEE droning the sunset deafening TA TAH springing
TA TAH tin roof rains “adiOOOSSSS pues” with a pat on the head

“YIEEEEEE!!!” shrieks of neighborhood soccer playing

in the street wind rattling closed doors cacophonous drum beats
vibrating office doors the prrradum prrrradum

heartbeat of laughing earth teenage secrets
jembe drum marathons nintendoesque frog-song

peAwpeeeawwwPEW after torrential rains
toe-tingling thunder ocean waves in the moonlight

“adios callie!” ten times in a row from sarita
my 2-year-old neighbor mariachi serenades

boogie boarding yowlps mountaintop blues harmonica

gigglejamming “RAMA!RAMA!RAMA!” branch ducking

on top of the bus gggggrrrrOW! frankie fachento’s fachentoish growl

“sounds of silence” during power outages lit
by flashlights dona miriam mmmmaammashumladum hums

“ave maria” chico the robot “dElete.dElete.dElete the file.”

thanksgiving clanking of wine glasses belly laughter painted faces
WE ALL LIVE inayellowsubmarine singalongs in managuan taxis

jairo’s los angeles gangster accent clinkclink of the cordoba

throwing game on every street corner jinglejinglejingle “eskImoOOooo!”

of the ice cream man oliver’s obnoxious

“BUENAS” enthusiastic cesar’s “MUY BIEN, gracias a dios!”

marlon’s doodling cantitos pedro’s fist-pumping-

air-guitar-marathons

to deep purple breeze in the orange blossoms

waterfall roars roosters self important cock-A- dOOdle-OOOO-h-ing

neighborhood radios rattling boMbaDOMbom

boMbaDOMbom reggaeton bass

hipswishing cumbia cracklecracklecrackle wood

burning in adobe stoves sizzlesizzleYUM fresh tortilla dough

and popopopop roasting coffee beans bouncing marimba
mallets offbeat clap (pause) (pause) clap of little ones

popopop mustard seeds in hot oil dangledongledangledongle

church bells on a lazy sunday morning WHOOOONNNNK
WHOOONNNNNKKKKK bus horns tell time better than watches

swishswishswish splashsplash laundry on cement washboards

“yo quiesiera que todo el mundo fuera feliz como yo soy

en mi pueblo” ranchera guitaron BOWBom. BOWBombombom

BOWBom. BOWBom. BOWBom.
BOWBombombom. flamencoguitarlickselectricpassionsteelstring

shuffleshuffle footsteps on the graveled streets scrufflescruffle

YOWLPARRRRRARAR scrufflescruffleYIIIIIYI! dog fights at midnight

“daledaledale!!!” “suavesuavesuave!!!” bus lingo TOC TOC (giggle)

TOC TOC TOC visiting chiguines at the front door d

on coundo’s silent wheezy joyous laughter chelemancho’s joyous

“bueeeeNNNAAAAASSSsssss!” orangeshakingbranches thumpthumpthump

as they hit the ground TSSST TSSST MUCHACHA

down the gauntlet of mainstreet OYE! shweeeeettweet weeeeeeet

yow! whistle language “soooothe me I want some sugarinmy bowllllll”

fin.

Reflections on Ortega

2008-02-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

(Photo from The New York Times)

“Arriba, los Pobres del Mundo!”
(Upwards, the poor of the world!)

School-bus-yellow letters backed by fuchsia proclaim as a solemn President Daniel Ortega raises a fist to the skies in apparent solidarity with his Nicaraguan people. These billboards scatter throughout the country, featuring Ortega as a casually clad everyday Joe in a pair of khaki slacks and a white polo; his receding peppered hairline and signature caterpillar moustache marking him as the politician at the people’s level.

I do not claim to be knowledgeable about the political situation here in Nicaragua. I speak from the level of the people, the campesinos in the countryside (the voiceless) and the taxi drivers of Managua (who I find to be some of the most politically opinionated and vocal individuals in the country). I speak from my personal experiences here throughout the past 13 months, from what I notice that holds everyday people prisoners to poverty and what the government seems to be doing and not doing about it.

What say the Taxistas of Nicaragua?

I love striking up political discussions with taxi drivers. Though we do not have taxis here in Cusmapa (it would be ridiculous if we did, as walking from one end of town to the other takes less than 10 minutes), every time I travel in bigger cities (mainly Esteli and Managua) I chat up every single driver I possibly can about their political opinions. Ninety-five percent of taxi drivers (in my unofficial count) I have ever talked to about Ortega are violently opposed to the man, angry that he’s in office, and would probably kick him in the teeth if they ever encountered him in a dark Managuan alley. I’m sure their main beef with Ortega has something to do with the spikes in gas prices this past year (we’re now up to more than $4 per gallon country-wide), but there’s also a real feeling of desperation I sense while talking to these men. In the current taxi market prices, I travel from one side of Managua to the other, a 40 minute ride for $2 US.

Ortega was re-elected in 2006 with 38% of the vote (he also served as the first true “democratically” elected president of Nicaragua with the FSLN party- the Sandinista National Liberation Front- in 1984). To learn more about this election, visit http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061120/ortega. Most of Ortega’s support comes from the Northern part of the country, the area where the Contra war was fought, the area with the least education and the most poverty.

In a 2007 CID-Gallup survey published in the Managua daily newspaper La Prensa, “Ortega's approval level had dropped significantly, 26% of Nicaraguans having a positive image of his handling of the job, 36% a negative impression, and the remaining a neutral impression. The poll also indicated that 54% were still optimistic about Ortega and the government, in particular the health and education policies. Additionally, 57% of Nicaraguans believed the country is on the "wrong track", and only 31% believed that the country is on the "right track". Sounds pretty similar to the political situation we have in the United States, minus the optimism in the healthcare and education sector. If anyone told me they were optimistic about the Bush Administration’s health and education policies I think I would be forced to rudely laugh directly in that person’s face.

Ortega’s policies are based on “moderate democratic socialism” and strongly influenced by his Roman Catholic beliefs. In 2006, though Ortega was not President, as an influential member of the parliament he pushed the Nicaraguan government to ban ALL abortions in the country, regardless of medical emergency or issues with sexual or inter-familiar violence (for more information, see Human Rights Watch: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/10/01/nicara16987.htm or the BBC’s report on Nicaraguan’s Ban on Abortion http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6161396.stm). Ortega’s administration doles out 6-year prison terms for any persons aiding in providing emergency abortions- as in the famous 2003 case of a 9-year-old Managuan girl who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather (for more information on Rosita’s case, see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/nov/07111904.html). For me personally, this is the kicker. Though the anti-abortion law was approved on many societal levels (as demographics according to a 1995 census label 89.6% of Nicaraguans as Christians and this number continues to grow with Evangelicalism ever on the rise), I will never understand how forcing a raped child to have a baby could be considered “right to life”.

Ortega’s main diplomatic ties include Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Thus, the Bush administration linking Ortega to socialism, fanatical leftism, and (GASP) … TERRORISM. Let’s just keep it simple at saying the US and Ortega are not good ol’ boy Yale buddies. In fact, before the 2006 Presidential election, Georgy’s little brother Jeb (fondly refered to as “Jab”) took out a full-page spread to bash Ortega, threatening Nicaraguans with what would happen if he were to be elected. A choice sample of Jab’s accusations: “Daniel Ortega is an enemy of everything the United States represents. Further, he is a friend of our enemies. Ortega has a relationship of more than 30 years with states and individuals who shelter and condone international terroism.” Ironically enough, after Ortega’s victory, Bush phoned him in congratulations. You’ve gotta love diplomacy. In a July 2007 speech, Ortega retaliated, refering to George Bush as “the world’s main tyrant” and challenging his policies which promote war-mongering while in reality taking away money that could be used as aid for promoting health and positive growth in developing countries. Apparently Bush and Ortega have reconciled their differences in one single phone call, (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0827392320070108) agreeing to work together on the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the development of “free market democracies” through the U.S. Millenium Challenge Account. I’m sure if Bush backs these policies, they’re ultimately beneficial to the poorest of the poor here in the countryside (insert painful sarcastic eyebrow raise here).

What say the Campesinos of Cusmapa?

Truthfully, not much. People here in the countryside are too focused on the day-to-day survival of their famlies to engage themselves in nation or worldwide politics. The furthest Cusmapan political opinion goes is the flying of the Sandanista flag and houses painted with colors of whichever party the family supports.

The news our pueblo recieves on the two television channels mainly involves reporters shoving microphones in the faces of people who have just been though a near-death experience, asking them how they feel and what happened. I suppose it’s this type of disconnect between what’s important in their country and the world and what’s locally sensational drives news worldwide, not just here in Nicaragua. We do not receive newspapers here, I’d even dare to say that 80% of people in Cusmapa have never SEEN a newspaper. Even if they had, the newspapers in Nicaragua have a bit of world news but mainly showcase features like a woman slowly undressing herself one article of clothing at a time to give you the weekly weather forecast. Brilliant engagement of the population, says I.

Here’s what I’ve seen at the campo (countryside) level of changes in the past year since Ortega’s election…
1) Families in the poorest communities are currently each being given one pig and one bull cow.
2) Electricity outages last year were from 7 AM until 3 PM until the celebratory month of December, when magically the blackouts ended.
3) Water shortages still permeate the countryside- last year during the dry season we went two weeks without water and people reacted like it was a NORMALITY.

These are the three main things that come to mind when I consider Ortega’s influence here on the pueblo level. I’m happy to have electricity again, it makes for less excuses when it comes to the work-day, and less headaches trying to teach keyboarding lessons. The water issue affects all levels of society- people are unable to grow vegetables or fruit, unable to drink sufficient amounts of clean water to sustain health, and are cooking and cleaning and bathing with parasite-infested water on a daily basis. This ultimately leads to much sickness and contributes to the prison of poverty. My question remains: what kind of sustainable development is he providing by giving famlies a MALE cow (which cannot even be used for providing milk) and ONE PIG (fattened up and eaten during less than one week’s time)? I believe these gestures placate the people into believing that Ortega’s working for lasting changes for the poor. They’ll vote for him in future elections because of the week of pork they received. I’m doubtful of his motives, to say the least.

So, while I do not agree with Jab Bush about Ortega’s status as a “terrorist”, I am reluctant to promote him as bringing upward the poor of the world. He’s yet to prove to the people on a local level that he cares enough about health and education to make lasting changes that truly benefit the PEOPLE of Nicaragua.

Weekends in Cusmapa

2008-02-19T06:54:00.000-08:00

The couple pics get creepier and creepier.

Don't look so happy Burt!

What's with this Flat Stanley business? Bet he likes cross-dressing too.

While there is certainly no “normal” to any weekend I spend here, there are quiet and lovely moments during long weekends spent in this pueblo. Saturday mornings I wake up early with the roosters and Lauren clinking coffee mugs in the kitchen. In this way I rise most days, with first thoughts of a cup of steamy gasoline- the black gold which starts every day. Normally Lauren and I sit quietly enjoying the morning tranquility, watching steam rise off the patio bricks as sun filters through the orange tree branches into our kitchen windows. This Saturday we have a slew of guests- Stephanie, Mike, and Kate are all here visiting for the weekend. During the week Lauren does a vast majority of the cooking because 1) she’s GREAT at it, 2) she likes it, and 3) well…. I suppose that about covers the reasons. Point being, Saturday mornings I am unofficially in charge of brunch. Most of the time I make a big batch of banana pancakes but lately I’ve taken to zucchini bread (with freshly chopped nutmeg and loads of almonds and raisins).

Wandering in and out between the breakfast table and the patio, I stretch as if I were a cat in my past life, breathing in deeply and soaking up the golden morning’s light. I like to bring a book out to the hammock, pretend to read for a few minutes, and take naps off and on while pondering the clouds. When we have visitors, late morning often involves a stroll around town to buy dinner supplies- tomatoes, onions, garlic, flour, eggs… and whatever kind of beverage sounds right for the occasion. This Saturday’s dinner menu (because Mike is fabulous) includes rosemary foccacia bread and calzones with a mountain of fillings- olives, pineapple, fresh basil and spinach (from our garden), beer-fried onions, cuajada (fresh cheese), queso seco (literally: “dried cheese” which is basically cuajada that’s been aged), zucchini, summer sausage (thanks to mom’s Christmas gifts), and some wicked marinara sauce courtesy of Kate Fanale (our very own beard-painting maestro). Lazy Saturdays often also mean a game of Scrabble which includes much lollygagging and usually some snacks.

This late-morning Saturday I help Chelemancho (the gardener, “Cusmapanian of the Month” himself) plant garlic, melon, zucchini, cucumbers, snap peas, and green beans. He’s so pleased with how our garden’s coming along- we’re about to harvest a round of spinach and lettuce and also have carrots, red onions, tomatoes, bok choi, celery and eggplant sprouting like mad. I love getting my hands muddy! The smell of earth, our dark musty mother, and dirt under my fingernails… things I cherish. I walk out the front door every day and think “my god, the plants have grown overnight!” Plants really are miracles. A community garden could do so much good in a place like Cusmapa if it had the right structure and support. Chelemancho shows me pictures in a photocopied gardening book to inform me that it’s perfectly normal to put a bit of liquor on your plants and in the soil in order to deter pests. We chuckle gleefully about all the drunken ants and beetles we’re going to have in the garden. Marcos, one of our students, helps me plant the garlic cloves one by one, telling me all sorts of information such as: melons like growing in sand. I’m not sure if that’s true or not but either way I’ve become fairly good at nodding my head and “ooooh”-ing in a way which generally convinces people that I believe what they’re telling me. It’s a talent I’ve picked up in this last 13 months of only picking up 5-70% of what people say to me. I make presumptions about what they’re saying, so I assume they’re allowed to make presumptions about what I’m thinking.

Some little ones come over to draw for a bit… we have 5-7 groups of kids who come over on a regular basis, especially when we’re around for the weekend. This Saturday Jobeling and her five siblings visit for a few hours and marvel over an illustrated guide to the animal kingdom (probably the best book we have in the kid books sector) while coloring and giggling. The main groups of visiting kids are look something like this:

1) Anyelka (13), Jubelkis (12), Tonio (8), Jader (6), and el Pipe (Luis) (3)
2) Aleyda (14) & Marlon (9)
3) Marcos (14) & Christian (12)
4) Jobeling et al. (I know few of their names but mostly they’re things like: Hamilton (pronounced am-IL-ton) and Hanjel (I think they meant Angel)

I must digress into a lovely story about Jobeling’s family… which illustrates a grand sentiment I feel on a daily basis here: that of being a circus side-show. As a good friend of mine, Katie Meyer once wrote “sometimes I feel like I’m a discovery channel show”, and there is no better way to describe the feeling one gets being a gringo living in Cusmapa. The first time Jobeling and her siblings came to the house, Lauren caught them trying to climb our fence to get maracouyas from one of the trees and invited them in to the yard to search for whatever fruit they could find. The next time they came over was while my mom and Cece (sis) were visiting, when we’d had an absolute revolving door of kids in and out the entire day. Lauren and I were sitting outside reading and knitting and the kids came and just sat together in a bunch and silently open-mouth stared. We tried over and over to get a response but to no avail, so finally we started joking around with them a bit. The conversation between Lauren and I went something like this:

L: “Do you think they know we’re witches?”
C: “Hmmmm. I don’t know. But witches do love eating small children for lunch.”
L: “MMMMM. Yes, you’re right. Children are very delicious to eat.”
C: “Yes, especially the little ones. I’m hungry.”

It sounds bad (and looks bad I suppose, when written in this context) but we were laughing the whole time and I assumed the kids realized we were joking. I left the patio for a moment to get a drink of water and came back to see poor Jobeling crouched in the corner, back to the wall, bawling. Turns out Pedro (our dreadlocked dread-inducing friend- every child here thinks his hair is made of snakes) came home and caught on to the joke, and tried to get in on the giggles, but instead told Jobeling it was “lunch-time” while she was backing up into a corner in which she could not escape. Thank god for Lauren, who pulled herself together enough to calm the kiddo down because Pedro and I were laughing and laughing (as was Jobeling’s little brother). I suppose I learned my lesson about being sarcastic here… especially when I’m already a national geographic spectacle who does not go to church.
So Jobeling finally overcame her fear of the white witches and brought her brothers and sisters over to the house for an afternoon of drawing. When they leave, we hike up to the “mirador”, my favorite place in town to watch the sunset over the mountains of Honduras. This Saturday we see all the way to the ocean, there are some estuaries which curve in and out of the shoreline and the sun sets directly behind them, reflecting brilliant light. I love the sunsets here, when the “chicharas” sing the dusk with a monotone buzz I feel droning through every bone in my body. They say the sun sinks faster in Nicaragua. Rushing toward the horizon, it caresses the mountains with its last scarlet rays.

We visit Anyelka’s family’s house with the whole gringo parade to bring them a photo album full of pictures I’ve taken this past year of the kids. It’s wonderful to watch them all pour over the photos, with Luis emphatically exclaiming “YO!” and any other name of a person he recognized. We’re trading Blanca Clementina (mom) clothes washing for some wood we purchased to help repair their roof before the rainy season (it was collapsing), so we chat with her and Nicholas (dad), and leave the house with four of the boys noisily leading the way. Here comes the DANCE PARTY segment of the weekend, induced of course, by Marlon. Marlon’s one of the best dancers I’ve ever seen, he has entirely original interpretive Napoleon Dynamite-esque moves. Eight of us whirl around the living room to folk music from the Atlantic coast, the four of us “old ladies” wheezing and jigging and the little boys giggling and moving madly. We kick the boys out at 8 PM, the general curfew for kids to be out of the house; and though many protests and puppy-eyes are given, rules are rules!

Saturday night normally means fiesta time in Casa de los Mangos, especially when there’s visitors involved. Calzones are a party in my book, and though our oven runs out of gas and the dough is a bit under-cooked, they are delicious. We enjoye a bit of Toña, our favorite national beer (of the two available, which actually taste the same and are made by the same company) and sit around the dining room table chatting until Kate breaks the ice by painting on her best “Inigo Montoya” (of the Princess Bride) moustache and soul patch and sashaying into the room (much to the delight and surprise of our Nica friends). Soon we are all mustached and wrapped in gypsy scarves… a sort of Arab pirate themed troop of characters. When Steph oompa-loompas into the room with the most realistic goatee I have EVER seen I immediately drop to the floor and hold myself for a good minute to try to stop my bladder from the ultimate pants-peeing laughter. Osvaldo ends up as a spice-trader/karate-kid/zen master with a lovely curly moustache. Kate kindly makes me a little bit more feminine than last weekend (I was told my last weekend’s goatee made me look a bit too much like my little brother); I parade around for the night with a thin but chic moustache. Lauren gets the happy bushy intellectual eyebrows and a soul-patch that is the envy of any tattoo artist. Mike, the last and reluctant victim of the face painting parade, ends up looking like a dashing young Burt Reynolds. In fact I think he should grow out a thick moustache, the look suits him so. This face painting goes on for a few hours, over which I nearly pee my pants 5 times as and my mouth and stomach ache with broad smiles and belly laughter.

Sunday morning brings copious amounts of fruit salad- cantaloupe, watermelon, bananas, and pineapple- to be exact. Since our gas tank for the stove still reads E we have no coffee to lift my morning. As on many Sunday mornings, I end nap on the patio for nearly three hours after breakfast, soaking up the warmth of the sun-soaked bricks. Osvaldo whispers in my ear to wake me at 2 PM to go for a hike. We pass the school, where Magda’s giving a Sunday afternoon guitar lesson to Jeffery, the brilliant boy who makes any teacher’s work worthwhile. Soccer league games and adolescent boys fill the stadium. The older men watch and chew the fat on the sideline, their horses roped to a chain-link fence. Osvaldo takes me to Mano del Diablo, a beautiful cliff rock formation overlooking the valley below our mountaintop. We sit for a moment to marvel the view before taking a path over a barbed wire fence to explore some more giant boulders and crumbling cliff walls, winding scraggly trees reaching toward skies. We share exceptional moments discovering the twists and turns of the non-existent path, finally ending up at the local laguna. We decide to make a cup of coffee at Osvaldo’s house and I chat with his mother about the weather as we listen to Silvio Rodriguez and watch their chickens cluck their way across the packed-mud of the yard. Osvaldo jokes about the family’s “guard” dog “la Chelita” (the whitey) who was purchased for security but licks and loves anything walking. Osvaldo’s mom is absolutely shocked to learn that I take my coffee “amargo” (bitter: without a half-cup of sugar), and asks me if I think it will rain. Though it has not rained in months (since November), I feel the pressure of the sky- I do not know at this moment, but I sense the longing for rain in the Earth, that energy that passes between sky and earth in the moments before an exhalation of nature’s tears.

Osvaldo’s promised a visiting friend that he’ll play some folkloric guitar music, and since the guitar I have at the house has no chords (and I can’t find the three sets I bought in Managua last week) we end up walking around for an hour searching for a guitar to borrow- finally finding one a mere block from my house. I sit and marvel as his fingers work their way across the chords and let my eyes wander to the tips where electricity becomes melody and melody becomes passion. Finally Benjamin (a whole other story, an ex-Peace Corps volunteer who flat out gives me the creeps) leaves and Osvaldo and I gaze at the stars, whispering into the misty darkness until the first droplets fall. He leaves, for the up-teenth time and I catch a fistful of tears in my throat thinking about how he’s become a joyous part of my life...

Luckily I have Steph and Lauren to distract me. We eat dark chocolate and play cards until the wee hours of the morning, then lay in bed and yell at each other through the walls about the current stank which permeates our bedrooms. It’s a bit of a rotten fish smell, and we think it may be rats dying in the wall from some poison Facoundo sneakily placed there last week. He’s always hiding things in the rafters- I’ve found a slingshot, a bike chain, some large nails, a sandwich bag of beans, a boot, and the sole of a shoe, among other things stuck away to hide above normal sight-level.

I dream of powdery snow (though I do not miss winter) and wake with a rumbling unhappy stomach (something which happens consistently to me every couple of weeks for 24 hours), and gaze outside at the rising mist, ready to embrace a new day. Welcome to my weekend-time: kids running in and out in general chaos, music and laughter, face painting, gardening, sunshine soaking, a bit of feasting and fiesta-ing, talking about the weather, sunsets, family visits, hiking and exploring, cloud pondering, whispers, and above all else, la vida tranquila de Cusmapa.

Dia del Amor y Amistad

2008-02-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

I would never, ever, in a million trillion years have been able to predict the happenings of this Valentines Day... which happened to be Pedro's (my Spanish roomate) last night in Nica. The night started out innocently enough, with Tona beers at our hotel in Managua, sitting around the pool and enjoying the evening breeze. Osvaldo joined us, and we soon decided to head out on the town for some dinner (as Pedro and I traveled from Cusmapa that morning and hadn't eaten anything since 6 AM). Our boss, Kevin, told us of a restaurant called the Routa Maya which sounded like a great place in theory, but the moment we arrived, we realized we were mistaken.

Upon arrival at any place where there's a live concert and people are:
1) Approximately 20-30 years older than I am
2) Sitting down
3) Dressed fancily
I generally tend to get out of dodge as quickly as I possibly can.

Osvaldo, Pedro, and I agreed that the 200 cordoba asking price was not enough to see the infamous romantical singer staged at the Routa Maya and we instead headed to El Plato de Oro... also known as the mysterious Chinese restaurant in the middle of Managua.

We ordered more beers and some WANTONS which Osvaldo had never tried... upon arrival of the appetizer the song "Wanton-a-mera" was air-guitared, bongo played on the table, and included lovely Ranchera-esque vocals. The wantons were sketchy, some sort of unidentifiable meat... but man I was HUNGRY and they were CRUNCHY. Yum.

Our waiter seemed entirely confused by the whole situation (IE: the working in a restaurant situation) and didn't speak to us the entire evening... I am not sure whether the issue was his lack of Spanish or my slurred Spanish or Pedro's dreadlocks or the air-band we had going in the back corner. Either way, when he brought us out plates of chow mein and chop suey... it took us a few moments to realize that we'd been served the SAME DISH. Yes. With the exact same taste, exact same ingredients. I called our waiter-friend over to the table and asked... "No es lo mismo?" (It's not the same thing?!?!) and he replied "No, uno tiene camarones, y el otro... no." (No, one has shrimp and the other doesn't"). Oh, thank you for your observation, good sir... but I think I was refering to the difference between chop suey and chow mein. He did not seem to get the drift.

Needless to say, we finished off our strange slippery Chinese cuisine, and after a few photos with the giant painted urn display we scooted our way out the door.

Pedro decided he HAD to buy some cigarettes, so we went back into the Routa Maya. The woman singing was seated like a matriarch and her red robes flowed across the stage. Pedro ran off and left Osvaldo and I in the lobby, and she started singing "OJALA" which is probably one of my top 5 favorite songs ever. Osvaldo and I proceeded to sing the entire thing at the top of our lungs (I am sure to the delight of the fancy audience), then Pedro returned from his mission and we danced a bit with the door attendant and went to...

Yet another fancy bar. Who takes me to these places in Managua anyways? Last time I went out there with Karlita on her birthday she ended up on stage at a sushi disco where everyone was speaking English and she was taken by a Chinese man with a glass of red wine to do a strange birthday dance which included kimono wearing and her bending over to have him pretend to spank her. Very, very strange. This time, we ended up at La Familia Goodoy. Carlos Mejia Goodoy is a famous Nicaraguan singer, mainly does folkloric and revolutionary music. The concert was 160 cordobas to enter, but we sweet talked the girl guarding the door into letting us in the back area. We bought a couple of beers there, then went outside to "have a cigarette" conveniently where the music could be seen. It was AWESOME! We were right behind all the seated old folks, nodding to sleep in their chairs. I proceeded to dance by myself (silly boys wouldn't dance with me) for the next hour, loving every moment of it.

We went back to the hotel after the concert and sat around the pool listening to Pedro's ROCK music and sipping some of the fancy rum we don't treat ourselves to very often. The hotel clerk came to ask us to turn the music down and Pedro replied: "what, you don't like the song? I can change the song?!" then proceeded to change the song and turn up the volume. I don't think we made friends with the poor chap, but he was a good sport.

And thus leaves Pedro, who hopefully will be returning soon to indulge in more adventures in fine Nicaraguan cuisine, who engages me in dance parties of all kinds, and who I have hug-a-thons with at 5 in the morning while eating ham sandwiches. Dia de la amistad indeed!

Cusmapanian of the Month: Febrero 2008

2008-02-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

“buENNNNNAAAsssss!” Maximo, the happiest man in Cusmapa choruses as he briskly walks past our front door into the budding garden. Lauren and I giggle because every time he greets us, he sounds like a car whizzing past “vvvvvrrrOOOOOOOmmm!”

Maximo, known as “Chelemancho” or “el Chele” by his fellow Cusmapans, is the 40-some-year-old thick-mustached school gardener, and has Lauren and my vote for “Cusmapan of the Month”, our new feature series here on blog-land.

Chelemancho’s area of expertise, horticultura (gardening), is showcased day-after-day here at the school. He teaches students (and us gringas) about a variety of plants and their medicinal properties, and practical uses as well. According to Chelemancho, if a small cactus is placed in front of your computer screen, it will absorb the powerful and dangerous UV rays emitted from the computer, protecting you from certain doom. Chelemancho also believes that if Lauren and I drink the tea made from flowers of a plant he’s cultivated in our garden, we will be “flying airplanes for three days”. He sprinkles laundry detergent and chili water throughout our vegetable patch to deter pests and parasites. The dirt excavated from our yard to build a compost pile is currently “frozen” though it has been unearthed for over 3 months (and the temperature here never gets below 50 degrees). Chele claims that the earth must sit in the sun for six months or one year before being used for gardening purposes. He also presented us with some type of sketchy fruit wine which apparently has the power to solve all of our intestinal issues. AND he politely informed me the other day that once our beets and tomatoes come in, if we eat a plethora, we can consume all the oil our hearts desire and it will have no negative effect on our bodies.

Chelemancho lives on the edge of Cusmapa, in a large cabin-like structure (owned by a gringo ex-Peace Corps volunteer who got married to one of our co-workers then ditched town, but not before buying a significant amount of property) which overlooks the valley and communities below, offering the best sunset lookout in town. Chele’s “screened” porch includes a variety of entry points for hungry mosquitoes, a single hammock for napping purposes, a handful of halved Coke containers with sprouting flowers, and in baby-blue paint the word MANCHO stomps across one wall. He tells stories of the olden times in Cusmapa, where during the rainy season our half of town was cut off from the rest because there was no bridge. For a few months of every year, he used to live off the land and read gardening books in languages he does not speak.

Chele has recently taken to sporting a navy-blue and white checkered blazer, complete with shoulder pads. We believe the blazer may have previously been owned by an obese NASCAR official. It gives Chele this robotic gangster look that’s simply marvelous.

What we love most about Chelemancho is his constant state of glee. He is, perhaps, the jolliest man we have ever met. Even when describing the hardships of life, Chele meets the world with a grin, eyes crinkled at the sides, moustache corners tickling his rosy cheeks. Yesterday, he arrived at our house completely sweaty and out of breath, wheezing: “I’ve been riding my bike so much lately that now whenever I walk I am exhausted!” and with a chortle, trotted off to water our plants.

Lauren decided to collect leaves from our banana tree to dry them for book-making purposes. Chele, busy as usual planting eggplant and strawberries, sprung from his gardeners stoop when his watch alarm beeped at 5 PM on the dot, exclaiming, “Y ahora, estoy alegre para estar un dia mas viejito!” (translation: “and NOW, I am happy to be one day older!”).

Entonces, Chelemancho wins the award for “Cusmapanian of the Month: Febrero 2008” for his unlimited knowledge of the plant world, unrivaled sense of style, the best and fullest moustache we have seen in years, and for his revolutionary philosophy on aging. Now we are off to drink flower petal tea and “fly airplanes” or maybe find a few cacti to absorb the death rays being transmitted by our laptops.

Hats off to you, Chele. May your 5 PM alarm continue to beep-beep for decades to come.

If you want to see my recent photos...

2008-01-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

you can check them out here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/callie.monroe

Enjoy!

El Pizote (Written March 2007)

2008-01-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

Fixed gaze out the plastic-laden rippling with time
cracked glass, fingers tracing the crooked rusty window-frame
sweat-stuck to the seat, gulping greedily for any breath of fresh air
I think of the children back in the States
who smeared their fingers across these sticky seats
twenty years ago,
Pestering the exhausted bus driver,
throwing wads of paper, envious
of the cool kids, the 8th graders and high schoolers
who always commandeered seats in the very back rows.

I take a gander at my companeros smashed against each other
“The people on the bus go up and down!” sings through my head…
Though they don’t seem to bounce much,
mouths in straight lines, fixed eyes, leaning, balancing, a sweaty mass.
I scoff at the “40 passenger maximum” inscribed on a silver plaque.
The department of transportation would have a heyday
with the 120 plus pasageros inside
plus daredevils perched on the roof with burlap bags of onions and coffee.
Who needs “oh shit” handles when you have 50 pounds of veggies to hang on to?

How many suburban neighborhoods has this old rambling wreck
of a once canary-yellow monstrosity witnessed?
I think it probably enjoys it’s sweet revival as “El Pizote”,
the lifeline between the middle of nowhere and the town closest to the middle of nowhere.

Cream with screaming burnt orange racing stripes,
as if the “road” from Cusmapa from Somoto up and down mountains was a go-cart track
and not a dried up river bed of
boulder-dodging
5 MPH
brakes screeching
shock-breaking
dust-laden
yellow-brick road.
I’m sure not in Kansas anymore,
though I just discovered the only grocery store within 4 hours is owned by Wal-Mart
and “Eye of the Tiger” blasts as we bump along
and the kid sitting across from me sports a shirt with stars and stripes flying proudly
which certainly adds an ironic kick to the situation.

A rainbow of tassels on the stick shift flutter in the breeze
an arc of letters calls out a blessing on our voyage “Dios bendiga esta bus y sus pasegeros”.

God bless “El Pizote” indeed,
Without this voyager the pirate of the northern mountains,
I’d have no peanut butter,
and Wal-Mart would be out a full 50 cordobas per month.

A loud “NO FEAR” sticker on the rearview mirror in fearless bold font
would warrant skepticism as turns are taken at remarkable speeds,
but I’m positive it’s just for show.
I know driver and he doesn’t speak a word of English
beyond the necessities of “Hello” and “I love you.”

What more do we really need to say?

Two Important Updates

2008-01-28T11:26:00.001-08:00

1) Refering to the "street cred" blog... just thought you all should know that a couple of weeks ago I spent an afternoon moving giant bus tires with all the men I work with at the school. I was covered in oil and dirt, but they were obviously impressed with my manual labor capabilities. So I think that probably covered my street cred building for the month.

2) A miracle of an update... little 7-year-old Cindy (who had surgery last May on her foot, and hasn't walked since she was a year-and-a-half years old) is now full of attitude and walking MORE than the doctor thinks she should be able to. She's been prancing around in circles throughout her house, pushes Magda (her mom)'s hands away... wants to be completely independent. She's talking now about starting DANCE classes. She's entirely inspiring.

Yet another unexpected joy...

2008-01-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

This is love:

to fly toward a secret sky

to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.

First to let go of life.

Finally, to take a step without feet.

- Rumi

Cece on Christmas Eve

2008-01-28T10:48:00.001-08:00

Nothing in the world like spending Christmas with my little sister in Cusmapa, Nicaragua.

Blowing bubbles and listening to Pink Floyd under breezy orange trees and buttery sunshine.

Goggles worn as sunglasses... life doesn't get better than this.

Feliz Navidad!

2007-12-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

Hi friends and loved ones!

It´s sort of lame of me to post a group holiday greeting like this, but I figure I haven´t updated a majority of you on my happenings and wanderings in some time... (aka since I moved to Nicaragua last January) and also wanted to wish all of you a very happy holidays! I hope this note finds you well, blessed, and at peace.

Things are wonderful here, I wake up every single day feeling blessed and in complete awe of where I live, work, play, and love. Cusmapa (the little pueblo I live in) has grown to be a second home for me, everywhere I walk I am followed by children shouting ´Adios Profé Callie! ´ and my Spanish has (bit by bit, with much confusion and many headaches and also laughter) improved to the point where I can ACTUALLY communicate with people! It makes all the difference in the world to be able to talk to someone in their native language, and I feel so lucky to have been given the opportunity to really learn to speak and listen in another language. I am still teaching the music program, we just had our last concert of the year yesterday, and a wicked dance party to close out the school year. We´re singing Bob Marley and Simon and Garfunkel, and I am that wierd teacher that dances around and giggles all the time! Bet you can´t even imagine that! Ha.

I have about a month of vacation (finally!) and my mom and sister, Cece, are here visiting for the next two weeks! We´ll go to learn how to make tortillas tonight, fresh cheese tomorrow, and are quietly enjoying Christmas with eachother and one of the families I spend a lot of time with here.

I´ve decided to stay here for at least another year. I feel that one year has barely been enough to tap the surface of things here, that I am just gaining the trust of all the kiddos and their parents, and starting to build real friendships and relationships. My roomate, Lauren, and I have so many ideas for projects we would like to start next year! One of the main things I have noticed in my year here is the lack of critical thinking capabilities, the kids don´t have books at school and learn basically by memorization and repitition rather by truly thinking and challenging what they are told about the world. You all know me, and know that this type of knowledge doesn´t fly in my book! The church here seems to be a good social force, but I feel that a lot of the times people are told what to believe and take it at face value rather than thinking for themselves. So, Lauren and I will be teaching a class to high schoolers here at the Fabretto center, with hopes of igniting some sparks of interest in their learning more about themselves and about the world. We are also going to start a knitting group with about 10 of the women who work at the school with us, one night a week in our house... knitting and cookies. Lauren being responsible for the knitting, me baking the cookies. There´s really not a lot of places for women to socialize here so we think it would be a great way to get to know more of the women in town, in a postive environment, and would be fun for them to learn a new skill as well. I am also starting a university choir (most kids study in other towns on Saturdays, and are free during the week, so they have time), we want to teach yoga classes, start a paper making program, some lithography (lauren´s an incredible artist), and scarily enough I will be giving more piano lessons!

SO to cut this ramble short, I am BUSY and finding lots of things to spark my passions. Life is good... slow and quiet days mixed with the breeze in the orange trees in our garden, neighbor children playing and laughing in the streets, snorkling pigs, cackling hens, the sweet tones of reggaeton music floating in from neighboring houses, rain on my tin roof, my horrific (yet improving) guitar picking, students jamming on bongoes and tambourines and anything else they can get their hands on.

I will be back to visit the states in July for Jason´s wedding (!!!!) and my little bro´s 21st birthday, and am hoping to see many of you then! (As my plans after next December still aren´t certain, Lauren and I may stay on longer with Fabretto or we may ramble through Mexico and the rest of Central America for 4 or 6 months...). I would love to hear from any of you, updates on life and how you´ve been the past year. I wish all of you many blessings, and for those of you who´ve been with me as a real part of this journey I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support. You fuel the flame that keeps me waking up every day here with a beaming smile.

I miss you, love you, and wish you joyous, joyous blessings.
Cuidate mucho! (Take Care!)
Peace, Callie

Street Cred

2007-12-04T06:19:00.000-08:00

When I first arrived in Cusmapa I realized two things:

1) I walk like a gringo. Fast-paced, as if I have an actual destination and am looking forward to getting there on time.

2) Nobody here uses a flashlight at night, and there are no street lamps… yet everyone seems to be able to navigate the cobblestone and riverbeds without spraining ankles and with a consistent knowledge of who passes by.

In order to adapt myself to the culture and to build up my (what I like to refer to as) “street credibility” (some may call it “street cred”) I made two adjustments to my behavior:

1) A conscious attempt at sauntering along at the pace of the snorkeling pigs. I am not allowed to pass any moving object, person, or animal… there are no passing lanes. I have to remind myself that it only takes 10 minutes to walk from one end of town to the other… I have no reason to hurry.

2) I do not use my headlamp or a flashlight of any kind to walk around in the dark, even though I finish teaching at about 7 PM every night and sometimes have to walk back through darkness where I can literally not see my hand 6 inches in front of my own face.

I figure that if I do these two things, people will look beyond my whiteness to see the Cusmapan within.

So I’ve been building up my “street cred” around town, “poco-a-poco” (bit by bit) yet I keep hitting major roadblocks which set me back to the gringaness factor I found in square one nearly a year ago. These roadblocks include but are not limited to the following:

1) The first week I was in town, walking home after lunch for a much needed siesta, a bus horn surprised me and I ran face-first into the mayor’s office sign in front of a bus full of people and the mid-day center of town loitering crowd.

2) Two months ago walking to school with Hannah, we walked by the billiards hall and passed two little children who gawked in fear at our oddness. I giggled and right as I was saying “I just love it when I say hi to kids and they look at me like I’m going to eat them” (aka: making fun of these kiddos who’d just been frightened to death by my friendliness) I looked at the sky and BOOM fell over a small rock in the road and nearly broke my ankle (karma’s a real bitch). When I got to the school the house doctor told me that I should probably “take some ibuprofen, ice my ankle, and stop looking at the clouds while I walk”. Thanks for the stellar advice, doc. I’ll write that one down.

3) A month ago, walking to school with Lauren, head in the clouds thinking about a boy (of all things, seriously?!) I again stepped funny on a small rock and landed directly on my OTHER knee (right after the scab on my left one had finally healed). Lauren, being the kind friend she is, didn’t laugh in my face. She sat with me as I crawled to the curb and angrily fought back tears for a few moments… THEN laughed at me. Or rather, with me. Let’s just say, my knees are not in good shape these days.

4) I kept using the word “bicho” to talk to Facundo (the guy who takes care of our house) about the various bugs we have in our house… because in my Harper Collins Spanish Concise Dictionary “bicho” refers to “a small insect”. My Nicaraguan friend Mayerling recently informed me that the word “bicho”, when used in Nicaragua, actually refers to a “vagina”. I have been talking to our caretaker about my vagina for the past two months. If that’s not a roadblock to building a strong foundation of street cred, I don’t know what is.

5) A moment I like to call “THE KICKER” in my complete lack of street cred in Cusmapa. Walking home from school last week, I passed the soccer stadium where the high school boys were playing a late afternoon pick-up game. Their ratty ball conveniently flew over the barbed wire fence 20 feet in front of me so to the yells of “Oye! Profe Callie! El pelota!” In a moment of absolute stupidity (my excuse being that I was in a riot of a good mood) I picked up the ball and took a bit of a running start to kick it to them over the fence (thinking: “that’s right, girls can play soccer too!”) and… WHIFF. Not even kidding you, I whiffed. With my foot. And a soccer ball. Needless to say, the boys and I were all doubled over laughing and I mumbled something about needing different shoes to kick a soccer ball properly (obviously my Chacos were not the right footwear choice for the moment) and threw the ball over the fence.

So, now I resolve to take the following precautions in order to retain the shred of street cred I may currently possess:

1) I will walk with a flashlight. Because not walking with one down my riverbed of a street is just plain stupid.

2) I will no longer make fun of small children while walking. Karma always bites me in the ass.

3) I will no longer look at trees, animals, or the sky while I am walking. That’s just asking for a skinned knee and a visit to the school doctor (whose motto, as I’ve stated before is “take ibuprofen, and if you don’t feel better in four days… you’ll be dead!).

4) I will no longer talk about insects in the presence of “the Cound” (Facundo’s nickname) as I think we’ve had more than enough conversations on the topic of my vagina. I will spare him the pain.

5) I will invest in a pair of soccer cleats in order to be fully prepared for my next opportunity to drop kick a ball into a field of high school boys. Well maybe not, but I will not soon forget the reality of my complete lack of hand-eye coordination and will try to plan my behavior accordingly.

6) I will continue to laugh at myself and hope that others do as well, with the thought that if we are laughing together they’re not directly laughing AT me… I’m just making other people joyous through my follies.

AYYYY Mi Amor! Mi Corazon!

2007-11-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

A list of heckles I receive every day walking to and from school:

“Ayyyyy mi amor! Mi Corazon!!!!! Mi vida!”
(Translation: Oh, my love. My heart. My life.)

“Voy a casarme contigo y vamos a los Estados!”
(Translation: I’m going to marry you and we are going to the United States.)

“Ayyyy mi muneca….”
(Translation: Oh, my doll.)

“Adios chelita preciosa hermosa (insert smooching sound here)!”
(Translation: Goodbye beautiful precious whitey MWAH.)

“Adios amorSOTA!”
(Translation: Goodbye my LOVE! Straight out of ‘Dumb and Dumber‘.)

“tssst…tssst…tssst….”
(an appalling hissing sound meant to be a romantic attention-grabber)

“Adios, gringo!”
(An enthusiastic exclamation from the mouth of a two-year-old neighbor of mine who must think I am a man.)

And my personal favorite:
“Callie, I love you forever!”
(straight from the mouth of a seven-year-old who isn’t even a student of mine)

These taunts follow me from the moment I leave my house at 7:30 AM until I return at 7 PM. I’ve heard all of the above come from the mouths of my students, their fathers, and quite possibly their grandfathers; from bus drivers, bus attendants, and the owner of the local corner store. Last Valentines Day as I walked home with three rolls of toilet paper and a half-dozen eggs I received quite a few “ay, mi amor!”s, much to my surprise. I can’t think of anything more romantic than buying toilet paper.

I could blame it on the male gender in general, but after talking to a few of my students and friends I’ve found a few other causes for this constant heckling.

1) Boys here learn it from their fathers who learned it from their fathers who learned it from…
(you get the point)
2) Men here are too intimidated to actually have a conversation with women, therefore they choose to inflict a barrage of romantic mumbo jumbo upon them.
3) Men think that the women here actually LIKE this kind of verbal abuse (I’ve assured my Nicaraguan male friends that this is most definitely NOT the case).
4) Alcohol… the town drunk here, a most friendly soul who talks to walls and bricks and dogs (non-discriminating between living and inanimate objects, which I respect) calls me “his love” while asking me to buy him a litro of Caballito (at $1 a bottle and with a picture of a horse on front, comparable to a cross between rubbing alcohol and moonshine)… seriously though, alcohol plays a big role in the fact that men are not comfortable socializing with women on an equal basis. They feel they must be drunk in order to talk to women, and then instead of talking to them as peers, end up insulting them.
5) A major pastime here in Cusmapa, watching telenovelas (cheesy locally produced soap operas) largely contributes to the type of romanticism displayed by the men. Many suitors of mine claimed to love me “at first sight” and claimed to have not thought about another woman since laying eyes on yours truly (including, believe it or not, those I know to have more than one girlfriend). I suppose if I received the majority of my ideas about romance from soap operas I’d have a pretty skewed view on what love actually is. As the Red Hot Chili Peppers sing: “THROW AWAY YOUR TELEVISION.”

A prime example of the “love at first sight” phenomenon occurred today as Lauren and I walked to la Casona (the gigantic Fabretto-owned house in town used for large groups of volunteers) to have dinner with a group of folks from the States who are currently visiting Cusmapa. Marlon (an acquaintance of ours) approached us on the street, flushed and bashful. We know Marlon through his cousin Osmara, one of my high school students. The only time we’ve hung out with him was a few weeks ago at my birthday dinner at Osmara’s house. He studied in the states for a year in a forestry program in Oregon, and loves to practice his English with Lauren and I.

Marlon asked why we didn’t end up having a Halloween fiesta, to which we claimed the reason of volunteer poverty. He wouldn’t look Lauren or I in the eye, which should have been my first clue that something was weird and wonderful in our interaction. He stammered out an:

“I have a dream…”

“Yes…” (Lauren and I both wonder…)

“I have a dream…” (Marlon looks embarrassedly at his shoes. Awkward pause.)

“Um. Like Martin Luther King Jr.?”
(I can really be mean. Like I‘ve said before, I‘m not a good English teacher… or person)

“No.” (The joke went over his head, but Lauren giggles…
I’m glad at least someone finds me funny.)

“I have a dream….”

(Lauren and I look at each other and lean together in a “oh no, oh my, oh goodness, this isn’t going where we think it is” moment of understanding.)

“I can’t tell you.” (I shut off my giggles, and attempt to gain back his confidence by appearing serious and genuinely interested in the profound content of his dream.)

“Oh, come on. What was it?” (I’m such a good shrink.)

“It was about you.” (Marlon gestures at Lauren then looks back at his shoes and blushes and chuckles nervously.)

(Marlon mumbles something under his breath, losing his English speaking capabilities and resorting to an unintelligible Spanglish, which I myself am entirely guilty of speaking the vast majority of the time.)

“Um. Was it a long dream?” (Lauren, the gifted interviewer tries to pry some more information from our suffering friend and looks at me, eyebrows raised in utter disbelief in the ridiculousness of her life. She tries desperately to make the conversation a bit more bearable.)

“I can’t tell you.” (Oh sweet lord, out with it already buddy.)

(Marlon looks at me, then pulls Lauren aside for secrecy… obviously the dream’s contents are meant for her ears only).

I walk out of earshot and look at the sky, smiling. Good lord, I never know what to expect when I wake up every single morning in this country. All I hear from their conversation is Lauren’s awkward laughter as she asks:

“Haha but it was just a dream, RIGHT?” (oh Lord, how she hopes it was)

Then I hear, “…you can come over later… JUST FRIENDS…” and more nervous laughter. I know exactly where that conversation went. Lauren and I hold our giggles as best as we possibly can as she fills me in on “the dream” that Marlon experienced. Apparently in dream-land, Marlon is in love with Lauren. Shocking. And now he wonders if he can come hang out at our house “as friends”. Poor blundering guy.

I gotta hand it to Marlon, he’s the creative romantic type.
At least he didn’t use the
“I’m going to marry you and we’ll go to the United States” line straight off the bat.

The Not-So-Magic Schoolbus

2007-11-05T14:04:00.000-08:00

I consider myself a fairly tolerant person, yet when it comes to bus rides here in Nicaragua I find myself beginning to lose patience with a few essential bus ride factors:
1) the music being rocked over sound systems which belong in Honda Civics with spoilers, not on ancient school buses
2) the absolute lack of safety (though I had some illusion of it until this past weekend)
3) subjection to spontaneous Evangelical sermons

The last four times Lauren and I traveled back and forth between Somoto and Cusmapa we’ve been in the same bus, as there’s only three which ramble back and forth up and down the mountain. Eddy, the wide-mustached driver, seems hell bent (though he may not be conscious of it) on providing the most awful, repetitive music possible to accompany this scenic route. Imagine looking across the misty forests and mountains of Nicaragua and Honduras and being subjected to tunes such as: Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”, a CD which I refer to as “Night at the Roxbury on Crack”, or my newest favorites which I call “Spoken Word Evangelical Style” and “Woman Howling in Spanish about her Failed Romantic Endeavors”. Every once in a while Eddy plays a gem like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” or some ranchero (Mexican drinking music). However, the vast majority of the time I find myself groaning as “Night at the Roxbury on Crack” repeats itself for the fourth time. What makes the music selection particularly destructive to my mental health is THE VOLUME LEVEL OF THE TUNES REFLECTS EDDY’S ASSUMPTION THAT EVERY SINGLE OF HIS BUS PATRONS MUST BE DEAF.

It’s not only the bus music selection that sets Nicaragua apart from other countries in this world. Tell a Nicaraguan you’re from the United States and you are bound to be faced with a few remarkable questions:
1) “OH! You must love the music of Michael Bolton!”
2) “Ooooh. Bryan Adams. Don’t you love romantic music?!”
3) “Have you ever heard the song ‘Hotel California’ ?”

If you haven’t heard “Hotel California” lately, you’re bound to hear it within the first two hours you’re in the country. If like myself, you don’t even know what songs Michael Bolton actually sings, you will know soon enough. If Bryan Adams songs bring back thoughts of the mid-eighties, they will now bring thoughts of Nicaraguan friends who enjoy singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs at 6 AM. My favorite part of the random awful selection of US music listened to here in Nicaragua has to be what’s lost in the translation between English and Spanish. Although in English most romantic music refers to human relationships, the Spanish versions most often showcase Jesus as the song’s major theme.

As if listening to Jesus theme songs and “Evangelical Spoken Word” isn’t grand enough, approximately 1/3 of the bus rides also include an unsolicited Evangelical sermon. The first time I experienced this event, I sat wide-eyed and awed (you know those times you feel like life’s so ridiculous that you MUST be in a movie) as the preacher sent fire and brimstone across the vinyl bus seats, praising Senor Dios almighty before he came around to each patron, hand outstretched to collect cordobas. Though I’d like for nothing more than contributing to the construction of another “Dios Poderoso Iglesia de Jerusalem” or “DioZ es el Senor” (literally spelled with a backward S, seen on the front of a Baptist church here in Cusmapa), I normally choose to abstain from the bus pastor’s collection.

My favorite display of public Evangelism occurred nearly four months ago at the bus station in Managua (which apparently is an extremely dangerous place, though after this experience I have my doubts) as Ingrid and I headed home after a weekend in Managua. We curiously watched a pot-bellied middle aged man set up a karaoke machine, wiping beads of sweat off his brow with a washcloth and adjusting the volume so it would be just right (aka: enough to reach the ears of every person within a two block radius). After indulging the audience with a few warm-up elevator music hits, the pastor grabbed his Bible and started praying (now that I think about it, he sounded a lot like the “Evangelical Spoken Word” CD Eddy likes to play so much). Ingrid and I marveled at the exhibit, and the man took a long gulp of water before clearing his throat and beginning to SING. To get some idea of his vocal chord capabilities, you must imagine Josh Groban with the voice of a 60-year-old smoker. Not pretty. Entirely hilarious. Whoever does the Public Relations for the Evangelical churches in Nicaragua certainly iced the cake by flaunting this multi-talented pastor at one of the busiest travel hubs in the country.

I digress. Lauren, Mike and I set off for Esteli in the early morning last Saturday, after a lengthy Friday evening of shenanigans and billiards. The Esteli trip served three purposes:
1) We are unable to cash our paychecks in Somoto (the bank there we refer to as a FAKE bank because they do not take travelers checks OR cash any type of check from a different bank chain) so we must make the nine-hour round trip bus ride to stand in line for two hours to get our monthly stipend. (aka: I will NEVER complain about going to the bank in the States again.)
2) Lauren and I have decided to do our grocery shopping at the nearest store not owned by Wal-Mart, which happens to be a locally owned supermarket called “Las Segovias” in Esteli. It’s also the only place in the Northern part of Nicaragua which sells both wine and coconut milk.
* and they served us free beer on my birthday, which boosts the store’s rating to *****.
3) La Casita, our favorite restaurant in Nicaragua, which sells whole wheat bread, muesli, banana marmalade, and Swiss and brie cheese is located in Esteli. To keep up morale, I find I must indulge in one of their sandwiches and a banana milkshake at least once per month.

The stretch of Pan American Highway between Somoto and Esteli looks similar to the two-lane mountain madness at the top of the Fourth of July mountain pass between Idaho and Montana. While living in Spokane during college, I made this trip dozens of times in my trusty ‘93 Subaru Legacy (which hugs the curves much more successfully than the trusty rusty school buses here ever could) and endured quite a few near-death experiences (mainly due to blizzards, breakdowns of Reghan’s “Budgets” mini-van, and crazed semi-truck drivers). Winding two-lane mountain roads and school buses don’t mix. You get the picture.

This particular bus driver (as we were on an Express bus) drove like a “bat out of hell” (as my mom would say) and I felt more than a little queasy as his Indy 500 attempts at tight corners tilted the bus precariously. Lauren and I sat together near the front while Mike brought up the rear of the bus (this being the first time I’d ever experienced bus-attendant-enforced seat numbers). On a particularly dodgy twist, we passed a semi-truck and just as Lauren and I gave each other a “good god we might die today” look…

“WHAM!” people screaming and the bus lurched as the semi-truck grazed the back 15 feet of the bus. For a good 30 seconds, I thought our driver was going to keep on truckin’ down the highway with a hole ripped through the back of the bus. He finally pulled over and I saw Mike stand up brushing broken glass off himself. He’d been one row in front of the shattered windows. We piled off the bus, my heart pounding emergently. There were no serious injuries, only a shaken group of 20-some people who’d literally seen their lives flash before their eyes. The semi-truck we’d hit kept driving! Scary thought. Lauren, Mike, and I regained our composure and shook our heads in disbelief. The bus attendant began to sweep out the broken glass with the head of a broken broom and some of our fellow bus-mates hitchhiked with passing lorries. Five minutes after we stopped, folks loaded back on the bus and we looked at each other warily before making our way back to our seats. (Yes, we got BACK ON the wrecked bus). Ten minutes later we were still waiting and the man standing in front of Lauren and I reported that the driver had called the police, and we wouldn’t be going anywhere for some time. The three of us got back off the bus, tracked down the attendant to get 20 of our 30 cordobas refunded, and caught the next bus passing on its way to Esteli.

The irony of the situation was that the day before, Lauren asked if I carried my travelers insurance information with me in the case of a bus accident. Truthfully, I’ve never thought about how important it could be to have my medical information on me, but now I am absolutely convinced. I think Mike might take to renting cars rather than relying on public transportation (though I suggested the purchase of oxen and a cart, which would be much more cost effective than car rentals). Any minor sense of safety I felt traveling on the public bus system has been completely shot after that experience, especially seeing the nonchalant reactions of the Nicaraguan’s I’ve told about the wreck. Their flat-line response to hearing about the accident points to one simple fact: there are absolutely no magical crash-free school buses in this country…

Oh, the things we risk and endure just to get a brie and hummus sandwich, a can of coconut milk, and to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart owned Pali.

126 Hours of Rain

2007-11-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

Anyelka (of the Jungle Death March, a student of mine and adventure companion) comes to my house this morning offering fresh tortillas, still warm off the adobe oven. We sit at the dining room table and chat for some time, mainly commenting on the weather. You see, today is Saturday and it’s been raining non-stop since Tuesday morning. There’s been a few half-hour breaks here and there but currently we’re going on more than a hundred straight hours of rain. That’s more rain than I’m used to seeing in a whole year, or even five years!

Anyelka tells me that in El Cariso, a community close to Cusmapa, 50 people have been evacuated from their flooded homes and that two houses have already collapsed here in town.

A few days before, we sat at the same table as Jubelkis (Anyelka’s sister) nonchalantly mentioned that one of her cousins died last weekend in the drainage ditch right outside my house. Apparently he’d been in town early morning to buy some cheese and other supplies, walked across one of the wooden plank bridges (which my friend Mike refers to as “rickety planks”), slipped, fell head-first into the concrete riverbed, and was unconscious for a few minutes gulping down rainwater before someone found him and took him to the health center. He died on the spot, a mixture of the concussion and drowning in 6 inches of rainwater. I wonder if anyone at the scene knew CPR? Because of this accident (which has been coming for some time, as the ditch is not covered and is located on a main street where children play unsupervised all the time) people are scared and avoid walking over it

Anyelka earnestly states that her mother’s been with her aunt in El Cariso all week, praying and holding vigil over the boy. The family lost two cousins in the past year. Last April, Manuel, an 18-year-old (who used to be in the same high school choir I currently teach) started coughing up blood and died within 24 hours. Death in Nicaragua- not a foreign event awaiting to take people at age 70 peacefully in their sleep. Death waits around every corner. In a shot given at the health center with an overdose of medication, which killed Anyelka’s oldest sister three years ago, in fungal infections which require pills too expensive for a family to buy, in the inability to provide basic first aid to someone with a minor injury.

Anyelka and I continue discussing the weather, and she informs me that another hurricane is on the way. “Haven’t you been watching the news?” she exclaims, wondering at the insanity of the fact that I don’t spend any of my time watching the three television channels we get here in town. She’s adamant and seems to have her facts straight, becoming the fourth or fifth person in the past day to tell me that there’s never been a rain like this here in Cusmapa (since Hurricane Mitch, which put the pueblo out of contact with civilization for nearly 2 ½ months). I call Lauren (my new roomate) into the room and tell her the big news. I figure that whether or not Anyelka’s news right, we should be prepared for the worst. So we strap on our soaking wet shoes, damp rain jackets, wool socks, pop open our broken umbrellas, and head out into the rain.

“What should we buy?” Lauren asks, her eyes grazing each shelf of our corner pulperia store. The 10 X 15 foot room, stuffed to the gills with essential items such as hair gel, gumballs, Coca Cola, Gustitos (a Cheeto/Dorito mix), sardines, and shortening grows silent in pregnant anticipation. What do the crazy gringas want now? I shrug, wondering if sardines take first prize as the only non-perishable item to be found in Cusmapa.

Four sticks of margarine, two bags of rice, a dozen eggs, a pound of potatoes, a pound of cheese, and some sweet bread later, we pay the store’s owner 114 cordobas (about six dollars) and wade our way carefully downhill (currently downstream) stepping over moss-covered rocks and dodging the current river of rainwater pouring down what once was our street. We pack our pantry (ie: old non-functioning refrigerator) with our hurricane supplies and set to making banana pancakes (because in the face of a storm, what else are you going to do?).

After breakfast and a strong cup of coffee, we turn on our TV (for the first time) to see what Channel 10 (the 24-hour news station) reports about the storm. Twenty minutes into the news-watching all we’ve learned consists of the fact that Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro are buddy-buddy (big surprise there) and that George Bush has asked the legislature for “TLC” for Central American countries (lord knows what TLC means in Spanish, but we got a big kick out of that one as I‘m sure it does NOT refer to “tender loving care“). We also happen upon a program about fire-dancers, a Frankenstein-looking botox-enhanced mullet-sporting man singing about Jesus Cristo… and in the meantime realize that our roof has a massive leak. Nothing about the hurricane, so we turn off the scary electric box and figure we’ll just weather whatever comes our way.

I read in my Moon guidebook of Nicaragua some months ago about rains “being an excuse” for just about anything but never believed it until now. Public school’s been cancelled since last Tuesday and currently classes are suspended until further notice. We worked at Fabretto all last week but no students came, and to get to and from work was a quest each time. Thursday afternoon, after the strongest of rains hit town, Lauren and I ventured back to the house and ALL the streets in town were flooded riverbeds; we dodged raging waters left and right. Growing up in Montana, I was granted one “ice” day of winter freedom- we never had a single snow day in my 12 years of school! Imagine my thoughts regarding rain days….

A ridiculous concept, right? Wrong.

This kind of weather makes foot travel nearly impossible for many of my students who walk more than an hour to get to school each day. Most of them do not own a rain jacket (though it‘s rainy season six months of the year here) or any other waterproof clothing. My students who did show up last week at school wore sandals and cotton shorts and dresses and shivered constantly. Kids wander around the streets barefoot and wearing little or no clothing; while I’m dressed in the same garb I‘d sport for a day of downhill skiing. Our garden’s been ravaged. Half a banana tree fallen, all the sunflowers satiated and keeling over, roots exposed. I stood in the doorway this morning and watched two chickens unsuccessfully search for a dry place to preen.

I’m struck by how relatively unaffected I’ve been by the storm. Other than dreams of sunshine and lectures I’ve prepared in my mind targeted at global warming nay-sayers, I’m comfortable in my fleece pants with a cup of tea in a draft-free (relatively drip-free) house, guarding all the instruments from the music program (I currently have 9 guitars, a set of bongoes, a jembe drum, and 4 congo drums drying out in my bedroom- as our music classroom’s broken windows let in moisture), and banking on my backup margarine and rice supply to sustain me through whatever tempest comes my way.

And for those in my community who are losing so much more to these rains… crops, homes, family members… I hope, I wish, for blue skies…

Niblits (Nica Newsy Tidbits)

2007-10-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

Oh dear I am a slacker. I haven´t written anything of substance, or given an update of sorts for months! Life here is treating me so well! Things here are busy, yet the days are long and tranquil. I have been teaching three choirs (all different ages), an English class (of 10-14 year-olds), voice lessons, and have even managed to score a night with a family once per week where I give a piano lesson to their daughter in exchange for great company and dinner! I am feeling more and more at home in my community, connecting with my co-workers on a deeper level, and my language has improved drastically. It´s been interesting to have my language capabilities and trust in relationships develop at a similar pace, and I have found in the past months more and more deep conversations with my students and co-workers.

The electricity situation in the country has not improved at all, we are power-less from 7 AM until 3 PM most days… at first I was annoyed with the lack of light, but I have realized that it has freed up time I probably would have spent browsing around on the internet, and have been able to use this time to do MUCH better things. My guitar playing is improving bit by bit (thanks to finding a beginners Beatles book and some Christmas songs with tabs on them), and I have a lot more time to lesson plan, and to engage in any student who happens to pop in to my office. That being said, the power situation is OK for me but is affecting Nicaragua drastically on the economic front. I can´t imagine what the lack of electricity does for businesses around the country, we are blessed in Cusmapa to have less reliance on electricity. Candles are a wonderful, wonderful invention indeed! But I do miss being able to rely on my refrigerator to keep things from spoiling, and showers in the morning…

I spent two weeks in the US at the beginning of August, one week with my dad´s family in Wisconsin at our family reunion (highlighted by dancing to blues bands, card games galore, golf tournaments, great time with cousins, and my new stepsister Emily getting jabbed in the leg with a lawn dart… welcome to the family!). The second week I spent in Montana, seeing my mom´s family and hanging out with friends. It was incredible to see all my loved ones again! The highlights of that week were many barbeques, bluegrass dancing at the Top Hat, shuffleboard, croquet at the Miller´s house, going to Flathead Lake with my mom, Cece, Kate, Tira, and Kayla, getting to see my favourite cousins, lots of laughter, great food, even greater company! It was so hard for me to leave Missoula, a place I feel that will always be my roots and soul. I cried through the entire first two flights back to Nicaragua… but the moment I set foot on this country´s soil again I felt rejuvenated and ready to get back to Cusmapa. That, combined with the amount of incredible little kid hugs I received upon my arrival (and every day since) has lessened the homesickness. But I still crave the sound of banjos, my mom´s hugs, my little sister´s laughter, and the bright eyes of my friends. I am so excited to see all of you again next July!

Since I´ve been back, things are busy and wonderful. There´s been an influx of new Fabretto volunteers (up until this point in my trip I had been the only one). Hannah, who is in Esteli, Mike who is living in Somoto, and Lauren who is my new roomie in Cusmapa! It´s great to have folks to bomb around and travel with, and to have places to go on the weekends. And more company so I can quit doing dorky things like playing Scrabble against myself for fun. (wow, yeah… lame, I know) About a month ago, we had an unprecedentedly crazy weekend in Cusmapa, attended by Josh and Adriana (of JVI clan), and Hannah and Mike. We spent the weekend basically cooking glorious amounts of food and drinking rum… plans to hike on Saturday were thwarted with a late night Friday, spent carrying on and dancing and playing cards. The food highlights included fresh pineapple, alfredo, the best cuajada (fresh cheese!) I have ever tasted, French toast, banana bread, mojitos, and CALZONES (something I never thought in a million years I would eat in Nicaragua). Lots of giggles and ridiculousness. My new roommate Lauren arrived this week and I can already tell we are going to be great friends. She seems like a really compassionate, driven, mindful, artsy type and we are settling into living together and enjoying each other´s company.

For those of you who read the twisted ankles and toothbrushes story, my ankle is feeling a bit better these days. I fell again last week (yeah, I know) which made for a nasty return to the swelling and more pain than I had initially experienced… but it seems to be healing. I went to the school doctor (the same one who told me after the scorpion sting incident that I would ´feel better in a week´) and I think he basically told me what I needed to do to get better was to QUIT FALLING. Which I totally agree with the fellow. It´s difficult, however, to quit falling when I constantly want to be looking at the trees and clouds and the man riding past me on his horse carrying a machete, and the little kids playing in the street. I don´t want to be constantly looking at my feet, I feel like if I do that I will miss what´s really going on in the world! I told the doctor that and he sort of looked at me like I was nuts. It´s true though! I want to look at the clouds while I´m walking sometimes, darnit! So I have been very careful each step the past few weeks and have not noticed a single thing walking too and from school, I am too busy pondering my muddy stinky feet.

A bit of exciting news, I found out last week that my high school choir will be travelling to Spain in March! Apparently there´s a big Georgetown University event (the bigwigs at Fabretto are alumni) and it will be in Madrid, and they want to have Coro Fabrettino sing at the huge banquet of the weekend. Intense! Also, Fabretto has a sister organization in Barcelona, and donors from some beach town in the south of Spain, so we can make it into a tour and travel all over the place singing for people who´ve donated to the organization over the years. EXCELLENT! I am so excited for the trip, it´s sort of overwhelming to think about it now as I know it will be stressful… but I am hoping to get more chaperones in on this adventure so I am not running all over the place the whole time I am there. So that´s my sweet travel news, which means I may have to spend part of my planned vacation time (in January) doing practices with the high schoolers for the trip. But… for a free trip to Spain I guess I could probably manage that.

I am getting ready to have a slew of visitors the next few months! My buddy Evin from college gets here in a few weeks, Katie AND Pat are coming for Thanksgiving (Katie´s one of my best friends from high school and Pat was the last choir director in Cusmapa), then my family will be here for Christmas (and Cece and Cory might stay an extra week so we can have some sibling adventures!!!), then Steph is coming in February for two weeks! AND hopefully Reghan will quit her job and come live with me for a couple of months next Spring. It will be wonderful to get to show all these folks around my home, to have them meet my students and friends and get to know the community.

I am headed to Managua this weekend to do something I never thought I would do in my lifetime… see the Black Eyed Peas in concert. There´s about 10 of us going to the concert, so I think it should be a great time. Hannah, Lauren, and I will also be helping our friend Karlita celebrate her birthday this weekend with margaritas and dancing! So my days of being a hermit here may be officially over, moved to a new phase of having constant company… good stuff! I´m glad to have had the alone time at the beginning to have to really get through things myself, but it feels great now to have some real support and great friends here. Josh and James have also been ´brewing´ some wine type beverage, which sounds very sketchy, and we may get our first taste of that this weekend. We are also planning on going to Leon (a great cultural center of the country, and an hour from the beach) for my birthday here in a couple of weekends. Lots and lots of things happening! Goodness all over the place!

On that note I must sign off, but I send all of you many blessings, and hope all´s well in the rest of the world!
Celebrating 9 months of living in Nicaragua, and loving every moment! And all of you! Love, Cal

Twisted Ankles and Toothbrushes

2007-08-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

If there was a Cusmapan newspaper, I’d certainly be writing a letter to the editor thanking the gracious driver and assistants of “el Pizote”, the rundown and re-painted (with Rastafarian tendencies) late 1970’s North American school bus that runs the early-morning route between Somoto and Cusmapa.

I decided to stay overnight in Somoto, eager for the company of my Fabretto co-workers and in dire need of a night of being social in English. I knew full-well that the Friday night would probably end with little sleep, as I needed to take the 6 AM sleepy-eyed bus back to Cusmapa for a 9 AM choir concert on Saturday. Nonetheless, I decided dealing with the early morning would be a small price to pay for a bit of the good times. I played cards with Mike (one of the new volunteers), Oliver (my Peace Corps buddy), and two of Oliver’s Nicaraguan neighbors. We carried on jabbering and singing along to cheesy love songs until the wee hours of the morning. I knew the 6 AM wake-up call would come all too soon…

I slept lightly and awoke at 4, 4:15, 5, 5:30 to the fog-muffled sounds of pre-dawn Nicaragua. Roosters crowing, women dramatically relaying their latest string of life-inflicted barbarities on the way to set up produce stands at the market, taxis passing to and fro beeping at pedestrians in mock warning. At 6, I pulled myself out of bed and wrestled with whether or not I had time to shower (a 10 second match halted with the reflection that I hadn’t showered since Tuesday) and jumped in the ice cold garden-hose stream (what heavenly water pressure!) for just enough time to get soapy and endure a bone chattering rinse. I popped my pajamas back on and grabbed my carton of carrot-orange juice from the fridge, assuming I had at least 10 more minutes (as it was 6:06 and the bus normally doesn’t pass by the house until 6:15 at the earliest).

A too-close for comfort horn blared, and suddenly thrown into panic mode I made a mad dash for my backpack, oversized blue plaid umbrella, and with toothbrush still in mouth, ran full-speed out the door.

I forgot about the front steps.

As quickly as I’d congratulated myself for being ready to leap to action at a moment’s notice, I was brought down and a soul curdling pop resounded from my ankle. I immediately looked up to make sure the bus hadn’t yet passed, and seeing it rambling 30 yards away, burst into tears. An older man who happened to be walking by must have seen me fall then reach my arms out to the bus in desperation. “SUAVE! SUAVE!” (slow down!) he yelled at the driver, then grabbed my arm and got me to my feet and up the steps of “el Pizote” while explaining to the bus driver that he’d seen me take a fall. I never even got a look at this man’s face, he came in and out of my morning as quickly as I took that leap off the stairs. Through my streaming tears, I realized I hadn’t breathed in what felt like 10 minutes (but must have been more like 20 seconds) and started gulping the air desperately, trying to calm myself down.

I stretched my leg and propped my ankle up on the seat in front of me, figuring that maybe if I levitated it the throbbing twisting would cease. The bus assistant (I want to call him a “runner” for some reason, as his duties include running in and out of the bus during the whole route, tossing firewood and crates of tomatoes and rucksacks full of rice and beans onto the roof and giving his hand to aid teetering old ladies and gringas crying with an umbrella in one hand and a carton of juice and toothbrush in the other) asked me if I was ok and I tearfully asked him if he thought we could find a place along the way to buy some ice. The next stop, he set off out on a “hielo” search and the concerned driver regarded my foot like a chicken about to be beheaded- “it’s not the bone” he declared as he grabbed my ankle and gave my foot a good tug. I winced. “No, no es tan serio” (No, it’s not really that serious… though at the time I felt like I was lying). No luck with the ice at the first 3 stops on the pulperias lining main street Somoto. Finally, at the last chance pulperia on the way out of town the runner appeared triumphant with a block of ice just as my seatmate produced some sort of icy hot salve remedy and told me it would help. I spread the miracle salve on my ankle and winced with the 2 lb block of ice jostling against my tendons… watching the countryside pass slower than I’d ever imagined it could.

I noticed more wildflowers than I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve taken this trip dozens of times in the past 7 ½ months. Shooting stars, buttercups, and a red-antennae laden mad-haired flower straight out of the world of Dr. Seuss. I sat in the front seat and watched people’s eyes as they boarded the bus and wondered at their brightness and hollowness, smiled through gritted teeth at the 4 and 5-year-old chatterboxes off for a Saturday outing with Grandma, and shifted in my seat multiple times before I realized I was sitting on my toothbrush. Finally, about two hours into the trip, my foot couldn’t stand the ice any longer, and having turned into a full-body cramp from the awkward raised leg position, I decided to ditch the ice and see how it felt to put a bit of weight on my foot. I knew by then it wasn’t a sprain- I’ve gone through that nastiness before (falling on a sidewalk, of course. How the hell do I manage to hurt myself doing such run-of-the mill things and not on adventures where it would at least be a good story?!), and though the ache didn’t go away I no longer felt the twisting hot poker in the depths of my ankle. I paid the runner the standard fare (20 cordobas, or about $1.10) and tried to give him some money for the ice, which he politely refused. As the bus slowed to let me off at my corner (between the cemetery and the Catholic church) I slowly made my way down the stairs and the driver ever-so-kindly reminded me “not to fall” again. I’ll try to keep that in mind.

I shuffled my way to my house, using the ridiculous umbrella for a cane substitute, wrapped my ankle, took a good dose of Ibuprofen, and stopped to ponder the morning for a moment. In that moment where I lay so vulnerable on the side of the road I felt even more desperate than during the scorpion sting episode (then I had resigned my life to the fates and let venom run its course) and I wonder how long I would have sat there dimly bemoaning my minor injury if the bus had just passed right by… if not for the faceless gruff-voiced man who grabbed me under the armpit and a crinkly eyed driver who slapped me back to reality and the mustachioed runner who grinned with the first-prize trophy of an ice block… I might have sat alone curbside in a small pueblo in Nicaragua and peered from behind a curtain of self-pity at a desperate world.

Instead I sit here, awestruck once again at the grace of humanity and laughing to myself about the unbelievable spectacle I must have been this morning when I hobbled sobbing onto “el Pizote”, the bespectacled gringa with a bright-pink toothbrush and umbrella- prepared to face the world one torrential downpour, cavity, or twisted ankle at a time.

American Blackout

2007-08-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

I recently watched “American Blackout”, a documentary film depicting the utter racial discrimination faced mainly by African Americans and Latinos during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. I suspected fishy happenings in Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004) but never knew that the actions of the election directors in these respective states were so blatantly undemocratic.

How was front-page news not made when Jeb Bush , Governor of Florida, and Katherine Harris, the Secretary of State, hired a private firm to create a list of 90,000 supposed felons (using misdemeanor records from the state of Texas, of course) in order to blacklist these “criminals”? Choicepoint, the privately contracted company, was informed that names on this list only needed to be 80% matched in order to block a registered voter from casting their ballot in the 2000 presidential elections. So in the state of Texas if you had a misdemeanor charge and your name happened to be John Smith, a registered voter in the state of Florida by the name of John Smyth could have been cut out of voting. No questions asked. Choicepoint was ASKED SPECIFICALLY to provide an UN-VERIFIED list of banned “felons”. Turns out that 97% of these American citizens whose civil rights were destroyed were INNOCENT. How ironic that not only were 75-80% of those listed as apparent “felons” African American, but also that statistically African Americans tend to vote 9 out of 10 times for a democratic candidate! This black list (pun intended) blocked approximately 90,000 legitimate American citizens from voting and the state of Florida (as we all know) went to George Jr. by a mere 537 votes.

Do the math.

The documentary also followed sketchy happenings during Ohio’s bit of the 2004 presidential elections in which election machines were pulled in dozens of inner city precincts in which thousands more citizens were registered to vote than the 2000 elections. Camcorder footage shows empty gymnasiums in the suburbs contrasted with people in the inner city areas who waited in the rain 4 hours to cast their ballots. How can the Elections Committee of Ohio possibly explain the numbers when “Blackout” clearly shows that machines were ONLY pulled from the poorer areas of Ohio’s larger cities (in areas where registered voters were up 27% from the 2000 elections); NO machines were pulled from suburbia? Logical? Only because the Republican government was well aware of the lengths it needed to go to in order to keep their puppet in power. Embarrassing? YES.

Last but certainly not least, “Blackout” follows the story of ex-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (of Georgia), a progressive African American woman dedicated to pulling the truth out of war-mongering politicians on the hill, who was sacrificed and labeled as “un-American” for asking questions about 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the debacles of the past two presidential elections (she started asking these questions back in 2000 and to this day has not been dissuaded from her quest for truth). The Republican powers that be banded together to force McKinney out of office when her truth-telling went “too far”. Where are we as a democracy when we’re chucking politicians like McKinney out of power? When did it become un-patriotic to ask questions which DESERVE answers?

It almost seems like the Republican leaders of our country have something to hide!

Let’s do some justice to honest politicians like Cynthia McKinney who are actually working for the people rather than the system, who believe in democracy in its truest sense. Let’s start asking REAL questions and DEMANDING answers. 2008 will not be another regression to the pre-civil rights days. Take action and believe in change!

Let’s get those insurgents off Capitol Hill!

back in the us of a

2007-07-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

goodness gracious i haven't sat down to write in a long while... where to start?

i got back last week from a 2 week long adventure in the us of a; one week with 20 of my high school choir kids in DC and the other split between katie and dundas (in DC) and my gramma, aunt and uncle, and cousins in ohio. what a whirlwind! some of the highlights from the trip:

- airport hassles, we'd filled out the wrong forms and when we arrived at customs in the us had to fill out different forms for ALL TWENTY kids. insanity ensues, including a few security officials barking at me in english and my answering them in spanish without thinking about it. ridiculous, and i would not recommend offering to be responsible for getting 20 people who don't speak english through customs. not exactly the greatest highlight of the trip, but it definitely stands out in my mind as a lesson. i will never complain about going through customs again, so long as i don't have 20 teenagers in tow.

- lenin, norman, and magda getting interviewed by "telemundo", apparently one of the largest hispanic television stations in the area, meeting the ambassador, chumming it up and getting stuck yahda yahda-ing when all i wanted was to make my way to the wine table! (my god i don't care if you were the previous nicaraguan ambassador to the states just give me some shiraz).

- as we arrived at our dorm at georgetown after our first concert at the nicaraguan embassy, brian (who started the music program here and was on the trip to help chaperone) turned to me and said "um. i lost the key to the common room." (where we had forced all the kids to leave their room keys because then we could be "responsible" for them). i shook my head. typical. after going to the front desk at another dorm to beg the poor work study students to unlock one of the kids' doors, we walked back into our dorm building and could hear yelping from above. figuring it was the kids causing a ruckus, disregarding the fact that the elevator wasn't working, i tromped up the stairs to the 7th floor while preparing a lecture in my mind. when i got up to our floor, i was informed that the elevator was STUCK with 5 of the girls inside. the doors were cracked just enough to peek through and take a picture (i, of course, was absolutely cracking up at the whole situation and not really the sympathetic person you'd want in control of things at that moment). we called a security guard, and 5 minutes later a 7 foot tall black man came bursting up the stairs screaming "EVERYONE OUT OF THE HALL. I MEAN IT KIDS! NOW!" i was a bit shaken and trying not to laugh in his face (he was super intense) and tried to tell him "they're from nicaragua, they don't speak english" as he yelled in the elevator "PUSH THE RED BUTTON. DO YOU HEAR ME?! PUSH THE RED BUTTON!" i could tell he was just scaring the absolute daylights out of the girls. with his brute strength, our incredible hulk of a security guard managed to single handedly pry the doors apart and the girls came flooding out in a rush of tears and exclamations. we had a 10 minute reunion in which i held fifteen year-old roberta as she sobbed into my shirt, and let her cry a bit before asking "but won't your mom think this was hilarious?". she nodded through her tears. and contrary to my revised thoughts on the elevator (i took the stairs the rest of the week) and my expectations of the kids (you'd think they'd be a little wary of it after that experience) bright and early the next morning they piled on the elevator one after one without appearing the least bit tentative. lesson learned?!

- hitting "the toombs" (infamous georgetown bar) with karla (the other fabretto chaperone, and my best girl friend in nicaragua), and marveling at the ridiculousness of the frat boys. speaking in spanish about a guy sitting next to us who turned around and retorted with a haughty spanish remark. ooooops. having a guy offer to buy me a drink, taking a shot with him and talking to him for about 10 minutes, turning around to talk to karla for a moment and having him run out on me BEFORE paying the bill... complaining to the bartender and his reply "oh that happens all the time here. you're in georgetown!" my thoughts on the situation: if that ever happened in montana someone would get their ass kicked! needless to say, the cute bartender took pity on me and ended up buying me the drink. closing down the bar as i talked to the bouncer about children’s' art and what an important effect it has on the world. ha! what a teacher nerd. when i get tipsy i talk about my students... lordy.

- a night of sharing music with a group of teenage musicians from serbia and a children's choir from the DC area. a very low-key event, potluck style, forcing of kids to sit together even though they weren't able to talk (somehow laughter still rose from those tables, clinking and bouncing off the high vaulted church ceiling). each group performed, then the director of the DC choir (who's just a TAD bit more experienced than i am!) had picked out a song for the kids to sing together called "one song". she passed out sheet music to the 80-some kids and a few adults, and as magda and i joined their voices i felt a lump in my throat and couldn't stop the tears... "if we all sing one song, one song of love, one song of peace, one song to make all our troubles cease, just imagine what tomorrow could bring... if we all sing one song"... their voices rose and fell under her expert direction, and though my kids don't speak english they were smiling and obviously impacted. the pianist taught the kids and the audience some sign language, and then they performed the song with full instruments and movements and i just stood there wishing i could bottle the moment, the harmony, how simple life can be when we are willing to work together towards a common dream. after the song, a man i'd met earlier came up and introduced himself as the "drum instructor" for the DC choir. he was from west africa, a mountain of a man with a monumental smile and mischievous eyes which shined as he helped to pass out 40 jembe drums and handfuls of other random percussion instruments to all the kids, who'd sat in a clump at the front of the church in chattering excitement. the man led a 20 minute jam session and i watched his lack of inhibitions spread through the kids as those who started to play tentatively gained more and more confidence and were soon wailing away on the drums with abandon, grinning from ear to ear. my students allowed the innocence of their short childhood to shine through in these minutes, leaving me breathless and skipping around gleefully. when kids are jamming together and creating together, all sorts of good energy comes forth! what a burst of loving kindness! easily my favorite moment as a music teacher yet.
- a day at the museums... my favorite part being at the beginning of the "evolution" exhibition in the museum of natural history where gabby (one of the volunteers state-side who'd basically organized the trip for us) and i talked about how the kids were unable to learn critical thinking with the current educational system in nicaragua (she grew up there) and how the church influences so much of what people unquestioningly take to be true: ie: that evolution was falsified by scientists. we asked a few of the boys at the beginning of the exhibit whether or not they believed in evolution, to which they answered "no. because that's not the way it was". and left it at that. gabby smiled at me slyly and proceeded to explain the exhibit in great detail (i swear if you see it you will not be able to believe in anything OTHER than evolution as the reason we're here now) punctuating certain points. by the end of our time with the dinosaurs the boys looked at gabby and i and admitted with sheepish grins that "maybe" they had been mistaken, and that "maybe" they should think for themselves about things like that instead of just believing what the church says. (YES! SCORE ONE for critical thinking!). beyond that, the kids were in awe of the museums, they'd never seen nor expected to see anything like them. we also went to the museum of air and space, which was incredible. the sheer size of the rockets which propel shuttles to the moon, i have this lovely image of ileana bending over a railing to touch a shuttle rocket with her mouth wide open at the sheer grandeur of the object, turning to me as if to exclaim "can you believe THIS?!".

- saturday night at a piano bar with katie (after she brought me some chicken curry! amazing!) where we made our way to the piano and didn't leave for the rest of the evening, singing at the top of our lungs to every single song... until she slipped the piano man a sheet of paper which read "my friend callie came all the way from nicaragua to hear 'i've got friends in low places' and she'd love to sing it with you" therefore rendering me helpless to resist singing in front of the 300 some people in the bar... gulp! actually it was awesome, probably one of the better renditions i've ever done of it (most assuredly better than at cousin erin's wedding, regs?!). then taking a taxi back to georgetown (about 8 blocks) because katie insisted i couldn't walk and balking at the cost: $8. WHAT?! that could get me from managua to masaya by taxi! outrageous! i could never take taxis around in the us after being in managua so much, where you can go anywhere across the city for less than $2.

- a day spent at the international children’s arts festival (basically the reason we came to the us in the first place), singing on a stage which framed the capitol building. mainly, the highlight being singing our own version of bob marley's "one love" (translation of my spanish words being: here's a song for people who are fighting, we are asking you why, why? there's no politician in this whole world, who can take care of our future?). right at ya george bush! bam!
a 50 foot by 30 foot lego model of the us (you could build and contribute parts, and the kids spent about 2 hours playing there... you can never be too old for legos!), starting to paint a mural (as we watched other very artistic kids creating paintings for bill and hillary clinton, bill gates etc.) then having a woman come over to us FREAKING out because we weren't "art olympiad winners" and we weren't supposed to TOUCH the paints... i got a good laugh out of it. i hope bill clinton got some stick-figure drawing which says "nicaragua" and "coro fabrettiono" on it! ha! all the girls got henna tattoos, and we all had our names written in arabic. there were peace workshops, and an art gallery of children's paintings from all over the world. incredible stuff! peace through art! one love indeed!

- the last concert of our trip, on a side stage at the kennedy center (an impressive giant of a building, with 70 foot tall ceilings and hefty chandeliers... red curtains and all). we spent an hour testing the sound system, another hour listening to the serbian group (the same ones who'd performed with us at the church earlier in the week) tweak their instruments. we were finally set to go backstage when i turned around to talk to my aunt kelly (who was there with my cousins michelle and josh and my uncle david) and did a triple take. my DAD walked up the aisle. a tearful reunion in front of all my kids ensued with me proclaiming "es mi papa! es mi papa!" and them (confused by me as usual) laughing and pretending they knew what was going on. my dad surprised me! the concert was short and definitely our best of the week, and i was elated afterwards as we walked to a local italian restaurant for a "reception" with the president of the org's dad. i got to share dinner with my dad and other family, and felt extremely joyful. the kids started to sing (we took over the upper balcony of the restaurant), guitars were brought out of nowhere, and we were treated to an hour-long concert. we also performed a rousing version of "one love" (which the president's dad claimed to be his "new favorite song") and the kids were jovial and basking in the light of their success. an excellent evening.

- dropping everyone off at the airport! i don't know if i've ever been more relieved in my life. hugs all around, and promises that i'd actually return to nicaragua... saludos sent to my dad. i took a 20 minute taxi ride to my dad's hotel (right outside of DC) and met with my aunt and uncle and cousins and had breakfast then we hit the road for the 8 hour drive to ohio. they apologized furiously for making me drive with them (and i'm thinking "are you KIDDING! this is LUXURY! we have AIR CONDITIONING!). we ended up singing disney and show tunes for the last 4 hours of the trip, which i think made my uncle david ponder jumping out his childproof window... but made aunt kelser (the tone deaf version of maria from the 'sound of music') extremely happy, and passed the time well.

- time spent with gramma kay in her apartment in ohio, mainly playing scrabble or telling stories and talking about old pictures. we did some shopping and went to lunch, and played and played and played scrabble. gramma invited her two friends mert (age 92) and nancy (age 88) over to play with us for an afternoon which was very exciting. actually the best part of being there ended up being a trip to gramma's physical therapy appointment, where i got to meet her therapist (who she told me "he's SO cute. but he's married. and his wife's having a baby in two weeks") and took some candid photos of her workout (which she claimed not to want but later was so funny about). i admire her so much, she's going through her 8th knee surgery on her left knee and just refuses to be confined to a wheelchair. she wants to walk! her determination and the manner in which she perseveres in her health issues inspires me greatly. we also had a great discussion on "why jesus isn't my best friend" and i think we came to a good understanding that i can think jesus was a pretty awesome guy, but believe that there have been other prophets like him in our world, that he's not the only one. but gramma's pretty persistent that jesus is HER best friend, and not only that, but after i'd spent an hour or so showing her how to put digital pictures on her computer she exclaimed "oh! you can just do so much with the internet! i just thank jesus every day for the internet." i nearly had to sit down for fear laughter would crumble my body. "yes. yes, gramma. jesus did invent the internet."
she retorted cheerfully "well, he sure did help us find it!". oh jesus, finder of the internet... maybe someday we CAN be best friends.

- an extended weekend in DC with katie and dundas- hookah bars, sushi, birthday celebrations (with lots of beerpong, yummy pizza, and carrying on), eastern market, feasting on ben & jerry's, lots of giggles and catching up. dinner date with margo including an adventure to a super sketchy safeway to buy taco supplies, some ice cold blue moon and guinness, and all sorts of excellent conversation. linz's sister giving me a killer haircut, time spent decorating katie's ridiculous house for the parties (with both fourth of july and cinco de mayo decorations), incredible weather, awesome people...

- taking the 2 hour metro/bus trek to the dulles airport only to find that my flight to nicaragua had been cancelled due to an apparent hurricane occupying the air between DC and central america. the woman helping me at the TACA (read: super sketchy central/south american airline) being called to an urgent meeting and deserting her post as camera crews from local news stations showed up to interview folks in line who'd each come to the airport with an average of 8 bags... carrying their lives in duffel bags and tupperware containers. i turned to the pilot standing in line behind me who'd been on the phone with one of his buddies asking about the "hurricane" and asked him what the heck was going on. he shrugged his shoulders "dunno, but there sure as heck isn't a hurricane anywhere between here and nicaragua. they're totally lying to us." i just started laughing. of COURSE they would lie to us, rather than just saying there's a problem with the plane... my lovely airline helper came back after 20 minutes and looked flustered and told me i'd have to come back at 3 AM the next day. um. no. if i chose that program i'd either be 1) stuck at the airport for the next 14 hours, 2) stuck paying for an airport hotel, or 3) stuck paying for a taxi from adam's morgan neighborhood to dulles at 2 AM (read: at least 60 bucks). i ended up rescheduling my flight for the next available afternoon flight (i had two choices: 5 AM or 5 PM flights) and headed back into the city the same way i came. katie was working, and i don't have a phone... so i borrowed someone's cell phone on the bus and left her a message, giggling and shaking my head in utter disbelief. seems like my luck in nicaragua with transportation followed me all the way to DC. i ended up taking the metro to the right spot but got off on the wrong side of dupont square, walked 6 blocks with all my stuff and ended up at a park i'd never seen. i decided that rather than despair i'd do the only thing that made sense at the time, which of course meant picnicking at the park with the turkey sandwich i'd brought for the plane. i ended up talking with a homeless man who shared my bench, our conversation speckled with his observations about the changing city he'd called home his entire life as he carefully rolled cigarettes and politely refused the other half of my sandwich. he smiled to the skies and remarked on the weather being incredible (which it was- breezy, sunny, the perfect afternoon) as i watched the other park patrons- a gothic garbed couple tangled under a tree sharing headphones, a tailored-suit sporting businessman walking his groomed poodle, a woman in stirrup stretch pants and a mesh tank top engaged in a heated argument with whoever happened to be occupying her 10 foot radius. i wondered if any of these people smiled to the skies in the same way as my bench companion. as he used his long dirt-filled fingernails to smoke his 5th cigarette down to the roach and put the remnants securely in the pocket of his duct tape patched down coat, i wanted to thank him for praising such small happinesses, for still looking to the skies with reverence and thanks even though he'd so obviously fallen on hard times. instead, i smiled at the sky, smiled at him, and walked on with a lighter step to find my way.

Walls

2007-06-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all of this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action, it is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but murder. - Albert Einstein

I learned today of the U.S. Army's construction of a three mile long wall dividing Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods within the city of Baghdad. I'm not a military strategist, I've never even played a game of "Risk", I didn't play with plastic soldiers when I was a tyke... but i can't help but being struck speechless. Words about stone walls fail me. They seem to me such an ancient component of human existence, a component of our collective history marked by pain, war, death, conquesting emperors, greedy kings, sacrifice, and separation. A barrier between mankind and...mankind? Back in the days of King Arthur and his valiant knights we humans built protective walls around our cities, a security measure to protect against pillaging rogues and raging armies. Given the weapons of the day, the sword and bow, the boiling hot tar and launched boulders, these meters-thick walls provided a sensible barrier from the traitorous outside world. Nowadays the sensibility factor runs thin, and these barricades serve to separate, to contribute to the rift of inequality in our world.

Already having been deeply disturbed by the construction of the "necessary" triple-fortified section of the "Wall of Shame" being built upon 700 miles of the U.S./Mexican border, this bit of news about Baghdad leaves me unnerved. Are we reverting to another Feudal Era in which the kings of our world believe that we must enclose our world in walls in order to remain "secure"? What does the word "secure" refer to? Closing out our perceived enemies, showing them we'd rather spend millions of dollars on concrete and chain link and barbed wire than on creating programs in their country to benefit the poor? Building the wall in Baghdad amidst thousands of people protesting throughout the city crying desperately for the division to STOP? Bush slaps the face of Congress for their attempts at holding his administration accountable for their deception, lies, and greed. Put Mr. President on the defensive and I suppose that's the knee-jerk reaction we should expect to receive. "Oh yeah, look at me now. I can do whatever I want. You think I’m causing civil war and destroying a country? I'll show you civil war."... Mr. Bush would do well to remember the words of his predecessor, Bill Clinton "A world without walls is the only sustainable world... If the world is dominated by people who believe that their races, their religions, their ethnic differences are the most important factors, than a huge number of people will perish in this century." Clinton wasn't perfect, but he recognized the pointless endeavor of imprisoning humans within man-made (and unsupported) confines. Bush's puppetry act becomes more and more translucent as he continues to support policies which lead to the construction of barriers and the deaths of innocent people. Stone by damned stone.

The jackhammers begin to tear away at freedom and block by block a "temporary" barrier appears in our backyard, between neighbors, across Mexico, in Baghdad, pervading our lives. What happens when we become so accustomed to this barrier that we forget its presence, we forget that we were ever truly free to speak of justice and truth and equality, we forget that we were ever allowed to dissent? Will we lose sight of things that once were our unalienable rights as Americans? will we forget? Bush has succeeded in facilitating mind-blowing acts of radical patriotism while creating a society in which we seem to have forgotten our roots. Who are we to morally impose ourselves on other countries? Who are we to say democracy is the only way to live? YES. It could be the most comfortable, safe, and freeing way to live... but does that mean the rest of the world must follow in our footsteps? Has this command been directly handed down by GOD (the one and only true GOD, of course) to Mr. Bush himself to justify a Napoleonic conquest of the world? Does our country as a whole live and breathe by and pray to this same one God our President claims to act under? Are our hands guided by a war-mongering spirit?

From what i know of Americans, I say NO.

Do we line our own suburban neighborhoods with thick cement walls? We cannot be silent and expect peace to pervade the world and to suddenly appear in our government's foreign policy. There are many Americans who have not been silent a single day about the terrible consequences and injustices of the Iraqi War and I thank them from the depths of my heart. There are also Americans like me... who are waking from a slumber rubbing our eyes and wondering "what the HELL happened to our country?" Those of us who claimed to "never get involved" with politics because we didn’t know where to start, scared that once we start to know our hearts will break, and aware that once we have this knowledge we will never be able to step back into our secure bubbles of nightly-news induced reality. We can no longer be numb to the statistics of the dead, unable to see visions of the flag-draped coffins... and yet we continue to be fed self-righteous lies by politicians who claim to be looking out for the lives of our brothers and sisters across the world.

The director of the factory in "Brave New World" (Adolus Huxley) quotes his forefather Our Ford in a frightening statement "History... is bunk".

Have we come to a point that we're so wrapped up in our actions and reactions of the moment that we are unable to look at the past with any type of intelligent reflective thought? Have we removed ourselves so far from reality that we cannot notice the parallels between our current situation and feudal times, times of the Berlin Wall, the Vietnam War? Do any of these historical events ring enough bells to create a fury of action, do they stir our lives enough that we begin to realize that we're the ones who must take responsibility for changing the doomed course of our country's policies? Have we already forgotten the slippery slope that was Vietnam, and how suddenly our boys overseas were being lost by the hundreds and by the thousands, how the death tolls mounted and mounted to a 58,256 name-long black granite cry to the heavens....

I've experienced this monument, this memorial to a generation lost in the jungles of Vietnam. a bitter sob caught in my throat, I wanted to drop to my knees and wail "WHY?" angrily at the skies, to shake the White House on its foundations "WHY WAR?". Blurred eyes searching the heavens for an answer, fingertips tracing letters- each one a prayer of peace on my lips. The Vietnam Wall. Another wall of our history, another wall for which so many boys died needlessly, another wall which divided a country and families and lives forever.

I looked though the iron bars of the White House, choked on my thoughts- it's so small. For the amount of destruction the decisions made within those walls have created, it should be a palace, a small country, a ridiculously giant theme-park adventure complete with flashing neon signs and a "Bombs Over Baghdad" theme park. If one saw the President's lair out of context, it wouldn't be much of a statement of power. I can't bring my mind past it's color- set against a "true-blue dream of a sky" (e.e. cummings), forged of the purest white... where's the spattered blood of the world?

Certainly not on our hands, for we are the purest form of freedom and democracy that exists on this planet, and our actions come with oh-such-good intentions. Adolus Huxley wrote, "Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions, it is walled and roofed with them". Good intentions matter not when they lead to the murdering of tens of thousands of civilians, they matter not when they lead to the death of one innocent person. Stacking our things around us as protective individualistic walls, we are able to feel that we own our own part of the world, and our prized collection mounts with the dust of years of inaction and spiderwebs woven from a life of closed eyes. But, we have our own little lives, our own museums, monuments to our fleeting lives, and we continue to hoard and justify our miserable mizery. Thing by damned thing.

Reading these utopia-based books leaves me wondering what point we've come to in our world... I live in a small town on a mountaintop in Nicaragua where 80% of people struggle to eat every single day yet own the same amount of high-tech electronic mumble jumble as my friends back in the states- giving up their daily rice and beans for a sugary dose of daytime drama and farcical news. Chuck Palahniuk wrote, "The sound shivers though the walls, through the table, through the window frame, and into my finger. These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics. Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of hat. Big Brother's holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed... and this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world". Big Brother constantly keeps the spoonful of sugar within arms reach. Just when we're ready to make a movement toward thinking in terms of freedom and breaking free of societal constraints, there he is dangling shining objects in front of our oogling eyes, enabling us to forget the pain of reality and the necessity of being awake and fully alive. We are being spoon-fed day after day in our educational systems, in our institutions, in our media... with symbols and repeated key words and new things to wish and dream about possessing. Spoonful by damned spoonful.

Did anyone else catch the ironic news of the construction company building the US/Mexican border fence being fined for hiring illegal immigrants to build the wall? What about first-hand accounts such as Michael Finkel's short story entitled Desperate Passage in which he describes an ill-fated venture with a group of Haitians crammed in the hull of a boat named Believe in God? Of the desperate measures those from the poorest country in the Western hemisphere must go to in order to have some hope of a life? What are we saying about our own standards and values if we can't understand that people from these countries, if given any chance or opportunity of having a future, would rather live in the warm circle of their own families than existing on the outskirts of our society?

One of the men in Finkel's story, a Haitian named David, speaks of his stint as a drug dealer in Naples, Florida and his fear that upon returning to the states he will return to this lifestyle in order to afford a North American lifestyle. "In America, he mentioned, there is shame in poverty -- a shame you don't feel in Haiti. 'People are always looking at the poor Haitians who just stepped off their banana boat' he said." the words "illegal immigrants" are just as emotionally and politically loaded as "terrorist" or "insurgent".

What if we were made to look into the eyes of every scared shitless "illegal immigrant" who'd left their home and family in search of the mirage of the US? For our façade of glory? Would we be able to regard them as an equal human and still justify building an eyesore of a fence between the Americas? What if we had to look into the eyes of every mother and father in Iraq, of every “insurgent” brother or sister who'd ever lost someone due to "Operation Iraqi Freedom"? Would we be able to believe in their freedom if we had to brush away their tears, if we were deeply aware of their humanity, if we inscribed every name of an Iraqi casualty on our new wall in Baghdad and traced our fingertips across the letters, the alphabet in a foreign hand yet our own hands connected on a deeper level, aware of the significance of each character, each letter, each pair of eyes?

Would we drop our gaze to the ground and pick up another stone? OR would we cast our stones aside and reach out to grasp our brothers and sisters to honor the lost and help them re-build their world rather than continuing to destroy it? In 1984, George Orwell writes, that if the average citizen "were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. It is therefore...the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs".

Bombs and walls. Fear and hatred. Self-righteousness. Possessions. Lies. We cast the stone.
We dangerously mock history.

Will we continue to allow ourselves to be fed, spoonful by damned spoonful until we become so engorged and addicted to ourselves that patriotic tears of glory arise with the news of another "insurgent' death?
Will the shining objects in our lives continue to lull us into a nightmarish dream-world in which we forget the reality of freedom and justice?

Will we avert our eyes and continue to cast stones?
Or will we fall to our knees in fumbling clarity and mourn for our war-torn world?
My question is not who will cast the first stone
For as Jesus told us we have all sinned.
My question is, who's humble and valiant enough
to put the first stone back where it belongs
in the arms of Mother Earth?

As Robert Frost wrote:
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
what I was walling in or walling out,
and to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
that wants it down.
This something Frost refers to, the deepest part of ourselves, the collective soul of our world, refuses to be silent.

My last question: when will we finally take a moment from our own diversions to stop, to consider, to release that something, to break walls, to break the hand of the spoon-feeding institutions, to rebuild our own world, to remind ourselves of what freedom once was, to regain the glimmer of hope in our eyes?

Put your stone down, return it to its Mother.
Embrace your own selfishness.
Embrace your neighbor.
Let love travel through these walls
and shatter them into the useless rubble .
Let them become a part of history,
a part I hope we'll never again be trained to ignore.

discoveries

2007-06-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

last week as i sat outside the casona sharing a beer with my peace corps buddy oliver i started noticing floating spots of light flashing in the darkness of the garden spread out in front of us. in general i would take this to be a sign of impending eye doom seeing as major eye issues tend to run in my family and seeing flashing spots of light is not a good sign from normal eyes, however oliver informed me that there were LIGHTNING BUGS all over the place in cusmapa... which i had never noticed before that very instant. how in the world i missed such a glorious little insect for nearly 5 months when every other bug in the town seems to have found its way into my life or my bed or my pants is beyond me. my faith in the bugs of cusmapa is entirely renewed, because i don't know much about lightning bugs but i have a completely romanticized childlike fascination with them. like i wonder if when the power goes out i could catch a jarful of them instead of using my headlamp. they would make for much softer lighting, of that i am sure.

discovery #1: lightning bugs are the COOLEST BUG EVER. i want one for a pet.

things in my life here have not slowed down remotely, but after an incident last week in which the entire nicaraguan passport system crashed overnight leaving me and 13 kids and their parents standing in a non-airconditioned office in somoto wide-mouthed in utter shock of our bad luck and the irony of the situation (i really had a "michael shut your mouth, we are not a codfish!" mary poppins-esque look on my face, you could have fit a 12" submarine sandwich in there and i would not have noticed). anyways after that shocking turn of events (and by shocking i mean not very shocking at all, sort of like a game of chutes and ladders with much bigger stakes, or like getting a "go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200" card instead of landing on free parking) i basically threw my hands up in the air and surrendered myself to the powers that be. if this trip is meant to happen for my kiddos, it will happen and there's nothing more i can do about it. thank goodness the system crash finally brought our president down here into the mix and magically the system's up and running today (monday) when last friday i was told it would be another month before new passports would be renewed. the way he said it made it sound like the machine that made the ACTUAL passports themselves had just decided to take a haitus and that we just had to be patient with the thing because vacations are important things. great news though, my utter lack of control has made me feel a bit better about this whole blasted situation; and has also led me to a few realizations and new experiences i would not have expected... the first of those being the lightning bug discovery.

discovery #2: planning for chutes and ladders type events to happen on a consistent basis is a good way to make sure you don't end up wide-open-mouthed in a government office or making voodoo dolls of lawyers.

my third discovery of the week involves fabretto's new volunteer up in cusmapa, ingrid, who's in her early forties and is from madrid, spain. she is lovely and i'm really excited to have another companera up there (i mindlessly referred to her as a gringa as in "wow it's going to be great to have another gringa up here" before i knew that 1) gringa is a word only used to discuss folks from the US of A, 2) i insulted her by using this word... this was the same day i met a guy from utah and said "oh i was born in utah, but i'm not a mormon! hahaha" to which he most solemnly replied "i am." DAMN. i put my foot in my mouth even when i speak my own language!). ingrid has made it her goal while she's here that i will speak better spanish and actually corrects me when i make mistakes (which is something everyone else is either too polite to do, or they just like me sounding like an idiot... either way my spanish is not improving). yesterday she told me "i've noticed that you have trouble with the verbs SER and ESTAR" (which are basically the two forms of the verb "TO BE" in spanish... the most important verbs out there) and proceeded to give me a grammar lesson. i think i've been under the impression that my spanish is much more proficient than it actually is, because i am able to communicate with people... but like david sedaris writes, it's likely that i've gone from speaking like an "angry baby" to rambling like a "podunk hillbilly".

discovery #3: my spanish, which i'd thought to be at the level of at least a preteen, has currently dropped to the late toddler years (which i'm told is a very important time of brain development, so i have that going for me, right?!). though a woman today asked me if i was from spain after we chatted for a minute... maybe it's the current euro mullet i have going on (result of cutting my own hair and not using a mirror) and thick rimmed glasses style combo i'm apparently currently sporting.

my fourth discovery (well not really a discovery, since its something i've known for quite some time) is that it's HARD to break a HABIT. for example, i'm staying in managua right now with 13 of the kids and 11 of their parents and we had to be at the migracion office this morning at 8 AM (meaning we'd have breakfast at 7 and that 6 AM would be the ABSOLUTE EARLIEST anyone would have to think about waking up). yet... at precisely 4:30 AM (after i'd sweated my brains out for 5 hours trying to sleep and had moved myself outside to sleep on a sheet on the ground only to wake up a few minutes later with ants crawling all over me... and had finally fallen asleep inside for an hour or so) EVERYONE in my room except me was shuffling around, showering, and getting themselves ready for the day. i vaguely remember looking outside at what i knew was a very early morning sky and asking one of the mom's "que hora es?" and her responding "5" and me turning over and mumbling "porque?" (WHY? which in this situation seemed an extremely valid question). i ended up sleeping until 6 AM and feeling like a SUPER late riser. then when i asked why everyone woke up this morning so early nobody could give me a straight answer other than "it was hot". when i told karlita about my early morning wake up call she said "what do they think, that they need to be up making tortillas or something?!" which sounds insensitive but since karla's nicaraguan i guess she's allowed to say stuff like that.

it's the truth though, i was thinking that for the majority of these mothers this 5 day trip to managua will be the longest vacation they've ever had away from the daily cooking, cleaning, washing, child-caring that goes on nonstop for most if not all of the years of their lives. i wish i had the money to take them to do something really fun! the women are so cute, they tisk tisk over everything and don't seem to be satisfied with anything (ranging from the cleanliness of the sheets to the quality of our food... (to their kids' hair before the passport picture) that isn't starch clean or infused with lots of good-ol cusmapan beans and salt. i have a feeling that my kiddos are going to starve when i bring them to the states, because if they don't like the food we've been eating the last few days they most certainly won't like the food there! and being kids too makes it even harder, i remember being about 13 years old and only liking VERY specific types of foods. we shall see. thing is that i know most of the women here are used to going to bed around 10 and waking up at 4 or 5 to make tortillas, start the day's pot of beans, and feed the animals before their kiddos are up for the day demanding attention. and the concept of vacation just doesn't exist- you're either working or with your family or your work is your family... not a lot of planning for the trip around the world in my new sailboat type of moments around these parts. i also believe that for some of these parents this might be their first trip to managua (lord knows i've been here enough times for all of us combined) because i feel like i'm supposed to be a leader here and i have NO clue what i'm doing. people wait for me to make the first move, it's like i'm responsible or something. yikes.

i had a moment this morning in the migracion office where i was getting frustrated with people asking me questions about the ONE FORM i had each of the parent/kids fill out for their passports... when one of the mom's walked up to me and asked me if instead of signing it she could just put her initials on the form because she DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE. OH. i'm an asshole. of course they have questions if they can't read or write on the form, and although my spanish is sketchy at best i at least know the letters and the general gists of questions.

discovery #4: although they will complain about being tired all day, every group of nicaraguans i've spent the night with makes a point of getting up before it's light out to make sure they're good and squeaky clean for the day... even if it means just sitting around for 3 hours until breakfast. go figure.

discovery #5: vacations are not universal.

discovery #6: reading and writing abilities are a GIFT i will not take for granted.

my seventh discovery: i really miss my family. all these kiddos are so close to their parents, and i think being around them and not having my parents around leaves me looking like a lost little kid tugging on pantlegs asking "MOMMY?!" hopefully yet peering time after time into the faces of strangers. i want to hug my family.

discovery #7: i really am still a child.

my eighth discovery: i finally found something that i REALLY miss about americans. we are overzealous about thanking each other, sometimes to the point of exhaustion but every now and again it is really important to be told that what you're doing matters and to have people be verbally thankful of your efforts. i've found that to be very difficult these past few weeks as i've been running around like mad trying to collect all these papers and not having a clue what is really going on and literally i have not had one parent or child say a simple "GRACIAS" to me the entire time. the ENTIRE time. sometimes it seems more like they're waiting for me to make a mistake, to falter so they can titter about it. the thing is, i can see that they're thankful in their eyes... and i guess the other thing is what do they REALLY have to thank me for? i'm taking their kids on a choir trip that's basically a fabretto PR tour... their kids will be the face of fabretto in the states. it's not like i'm giving them scholarships to go to college or anything spectacular like that. i can only do so much...

discovery #8: as cynical as i am, i really do miss some things about the states.

i saw my first nicaraguan rainbow on our bus ride down here yesterday and pointed it out to my seatmate miriam expecting her to shrug it off (which is what happens 99% of the time when i point out a natural event to someone here which i consider to be particularly miraculous) but instead she seemed absolutely delighted and we marveled at it for a few brief moments until the highway took our bus around a hill and it was POOF gone. hope lingers.

discovery #9: miracles happen in EVERY MOMENT of every day. miracles ARE universal!

paperwork, punishment and parasites

2007-05-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

magda and i have been collecting all the documents the kiddos need to get their passports and visas throughout the past month or so (ever since we found out that the DC trip was actually happening). this whole process definitely has made me realize how lucky i am to have been born in the US because for us to travel ANYWHERE in the world really doesn't take more than a passport... here to GET a passport itself costs about $100 US (of course the kids can't afford this, fabretto is paying for that) and beyond a passport, to go anywhere outside of the country you need to apply for a travelers visa. just to have an APPOINTMENT with the american embassy in managua costs $100. put those two costs together with the amount of traveling, paperwork, etc. and it basically costs an average family's YEARLY INCOME to get a passport and a visa to go to the US (not even including the actual travel to the US itself). ridiculous, meaning that i'd guess about 3% of the people here get to travel outside the country in their lives.

at first i'd been under the impresson that if we were able to collect these papers (original documents, birth certificates of both parents and kids which becomes a bit difficult when some parents were born about 10 hours away by bus and there's no such thing as a telephone signal or fed-ex here) we'd be well on our way to reciving passports. i found out that we needed to deal with a lawyer... and it's all been downhill since then. apparently these kids need a "special letter" in order to get their passports in the first place, even though one of each kids' parents will be accompanying us to the migracion office. this wouldn't be such a big deal but 1) fabretto's lawyer is located in MANAGUA and 2) for whatever reason a LOT of the kids were blessed with ENTIRELY different names than both of their parents... meaning the lawyer needs MONTHS to fix the problems on their birth certificates (though for some reason she's able to fix some of them in a few days... something which i do not understand in the least). so i brought all the paperwork we've collected thus far to managua last friday in hopes of meeting with the lawyer and getting stuff sorted out... hoping to return to cusmapa on sunday. HA!!!! what a ridiculous hope that was. i ended up finding out that 6 of the 20 kids that didn't have passports just simply COULDN'T go on the trip.... that there was nothing i could do, if only i had a freaking TYPEWRITER and could fix the type-o's on their birth certificates, those one or two mistaken letters that are ruining this opportunity. i also found out that for about 4 of the kids who had problems, the lawyer could fix things... but needed me to return to cusmapa, go to the civil registration office, fix the birth certificates, and bring them back to managua. something i am both willing and capable of doing. i finally ended up getting back to cusmapa WEDNESDAY after a lot of waiting around, worrying...

thursday i spent all day in the civil registration office. walking into this 10 X 15 foot room the first thing i noticed were the 3 bookshelves on the wall which appeared to hold ALL the important documents in Cusmapa's history. dated, numbered, PAPER information... though Lenin (the assistant) had a computer to use... everything else was CATALOGUED. of COURSE Panchita (the mom of one of the girls who's going on the trip, and the ONLY person in Cusmapa who's capable of finding things in that mountainous mound of paperwork) was conveniently in Managua for the week. Lenin and I had to find 60-some documents, the first 15 or so of which he looked up and just shrugged his shoulders like "OH WELL" when he couldn't find them, and told me they must have been "repositioned" (whatever the heck that's supposed to mean). about 40 documents into the search i was beginning to get really frustrated because we were NOT having any kind of luck, and it was rapidly approaching 5 PM. at that very moment of exasperation the POWER WENT OUT. one of those moments where tears jumped to my eyes but i found myself laughing anyways. he couldn't type out any of the documents without his computer, so we ended up looking up the rest of the documents and marking them in the books with pieces of paper so that we could find them the next day. Lenin also informed me at this point that he couldn't do the new birth certificates, that i'd have to wait for Panchita to get back (NEXT monday or tuesday) for her to help me. i walked back to the school to try to find magda, and we looked through our collection of parent identification cards to find those she needed to take to Las Savannas the next day to track down their birth certificates, but it kept getting darker and darker and we were left with no ability to see names on the cards. just then, a huge clap of thunder and it started a DOWNPOUR of rain. at this point, there were no tears... more just laughter as i NEEDED to bring my computer home to work on organizing our info for a parent meeting the next day. so i stuck my backpack in a plastic bag and said a quick prayer of "why am i stupidly bringing out this electronic equipment into a nicaraguan rainstorm?!" and decided to take my chances. luckily the rain let up after a few minutes, so my computer was just fine.

i got back to my house to find that there were about 15 people staying the night, and since we hadn't had water the whole week things were in a disasterous state of filth. dishes everywhere, people everywhere. my friend arturo watched me make a peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich and told me i looked "worried" then said, "we have NO LIGHT and i've heard it's not coming back until Sunday!" in a jolly tone and i just shook my head. I NEED LIGHT. the boys were all jovially eating dinner and sharing beers, but i just wasn't in the mood. so i locked myself up in my room and started writing a letter by candlelight to one of my buddies, trying to calm my worries down a bit and to let go of things that i was so OBVIOUSLY unable to control. about half-way into my letter the lights flickered and CAME BACK ON! i was giddy happy, and ran into the living room parading around and whooping, which the guys got a huge laugh out of.
friday i spent the morning searching through more books, and unable to find at least 15 out of the 60 documents we need for the kids visas, i returned to school to plan our parent meeting. i got there and wasn't expecting to see magda but apparently she'd gone all the way to Las Sabannas only to find that the woman who did the registration papers there was WORKING IN SOMOTO till monday. typical.

i spent a few hours putting together some info on the documents we still needed, and sorting out why the 6 kids who couldn't go so i could talk to their parents, then jorje and i hiked up to the public school to find the director to ask if our permission for the kids to miss school had been approved. SOMETHING FINALLY WENT OUR WAY! the director was there, and very kind, and wanted me to know that not only was it OK for the kids to be missing school, but he thought it was a wonderful opportunity for them, and wanted me to tell the kids that their tests would be rescheduled to before our trip so they didn't have to worry about anything while they were gone. the parent meeting was supposed to start at 3 PM, and at 3:15 there were approximately 3 parents there, so I waited for another few to show up, and since magda wasn't there I just started right in. i'm pretty sure there were a lot of blank faces in the crowd and many of them didn't seem to understand what i was talking about (i don't blame them! i barely understood myself!). after the meeting (which most of the parents ended up showing up to at about 3:45) i had each of them come talk to me about the paperwork their kid still needed, and how we could go about getting it. some of the parents just told me flat out that it would be "impossible" to get their original birth certificates, and i told them that if this was the case their kid could not go on the trip. what a predicament. there were also a handful of the choir kids there who came to talk to me about problems with their papers and i hated not being able to really explain to them why they couldn't go, why some kids' problems were getting fixed and theirs weren't. a few of them seemed really bummed out, and others reacted with a "i didn't want to go anyway" type of attitude. i felt devistated, really sad, and helpless- i wish there was something i could do. i kept telling them that i wished i was a lawyer so i could do something more about it, but that i couldn't. two of my favorite girls in the choir, belen and aleyda came and talked to me individually and it ended with them having to leave because we could both sense that the other was about to burst into tears. it was awful. especially because aleyda's one of the cousins of the family i hang out with all the time, and her brother died last year- and he'd been in the choir and had gone to the states in 2004 when they travelled to chicago and colorado... YUK. i knew this was going to happen, but it didn't make things any easier.

i've also been feeling sick for the last week or so (i think my intestines are finally realizing all the yucky parasites they've fought and are giving in a little bit). but i woke up saturday morning and felt like absolute hell. i had told a group of nurses who were visiting Cusmapa for the weekend and didn't speak any Spanish that i'd show them around, so i put my best healthy face forward but the whole day i felt like i was going to pass out. i probably drank about a gallon of water, and took some pepto bismol, and just felt worse and worse. this morning i woke up in a cold sweat at 7 AM and tossed and turned for a few hours, ate some bananas (felt like i had to eat something, but it was not a good idea) then went to bed until 3 PM (something i haven't done since i've been here... but i just felt exhausted and feverish). i started taking some prescription meds my mom sent with me but i am still feeling terrible, and just thinking it's SO typical that my body would choose this moment in time to break down.

cindy and magda are headed to managua tomorrow for cindy's surgery and will probably be gone till wednesday, and i need to get this paperwork done with Panchita as soon as she gets back (i'm hoping she'll be there when I visit this evening- though she was also in managua for a surgery on her little boy who i think has some sort of cerebral palsy) and then head to managua myself... BEFORE tuesday if at all possible. my body is failing me, something which does not happen often. i'm so bad at being sick, because i've been so lucky and healthy for most of my life... i'm just praying that these meds kick in soon cause there's no way i could make it to managua in my current state.

things have got to go up from here, eh?!

camera man

2007-05-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

a few weekends ago i took a trip to quilali (a little mountain-valley town in central nica) with 20 of my middle school choir girls, 15 of the older choir kids, and about 7 random Cusmapanians. we started off from Cusmapa at about 10 AM (a good hour and a half behind schedule) and i had the distinct honor of sitting in the front seat of one of the two trucks we took on the journey with two ten-year-olds on my lap for the entire 6 hours. yes, we had two trucks for 42-odd people. quilali's this little middle-of-nowhere town with about 15,000 people in it, which means it's much more modern than Cusmapa and feels like a metropolis. we were scheudled to sing at a Catholic mass at 6 PM so we had a few hours to hang out, eat some lunch, and explore before church. the Catholic church was HUGE (compared to the one i'm used to up here) and was all decked out in pink ribbons and flowers for a quincenera birthday celebration (the girls in Nicaragua have a huge "coming of age" party for their 15th birthday which is basically her parents sending her out into the dating world, putting her on the market- it's a bigger celebration than weddings here). the celebrated girl st up front of the church in her Glenda the Good Witch dress, and our chior was crammed up into the second level music pit with no airflow up a rickety spiral staircase with a broken railing (not a super-pleasant situation). i was fascinated by the event's camer man who seemed to be hyped on some sort of amphetamines, he was rushing around the church panning over the audience in a completely ridiculous and skitterish manner. i'm sure the film was a blur of faces. he was also taping the choir and i kept thinking about how funny it was that some random girl will have me, a wierd gringa, on her quincenera video. little did i know...

so after the mass we walked out of the church to join a procession, led by the Good Witch in all of her glory, down about 6 blocks to the family home. Don Trino's guitar provided a lovely and appropriate soundtrack for the moment, and i held hands with jubelki and dignah and whistled happily at the stars while trying to get them to spin in circles with me. everyone else seemed awfully somber for what i imagined to be a joyous event in this girl's life, but i was really chipper about the whole thing (probably more chipper about getting out of that hellhole of a sauna music pit than anything). still, the camera man came out of nowhere ever onec in a while- paparazzi style, and i was in a jovial mood thinking about his film footage and just loving the moment. when we arrived at the family home/reception there was an awkward "do we go in?" moment (and by moment i mean about 5 minutes). of course all of the little girls wanted to go to the party, and i could tell that the older kids and i were feeling... well... very awkward. the mother/hostess said she wanted a picture of us and motioned for our group to sit at the tables in the front of the room (um... no thanks) so we sort of booked it with half of the girls (the other half had already sat down). we got back to the Padre's house (where we'd stored all of our bags and stuff) and found it LOCKED. (typical)

the lady who was in charge of our group there was hell-bent on getting us all to the party (though she was trying to be nonchalant about it, her motives were completely transparent). i found myself in the back of a truck with her and a bunch of the little girls (pleading "WHY?!" the whole time) as the older girls chose to stay curbside and wait for our return. at that point i just wanted to eat and go to bed, and i could see exactly where this evening was headed. another awkward moment at the party... when we got to the reception ALL of the girls started to pile out (though i had been assured that we were just making the trip back there in order to get the key) and i looked at Beranay (one of the older choir girls) like "are you KIDDING ME?!". so, with a heavy sigh, i resigned to my destiny. of course i ended up seated at the table in the very front of the room (obviously where i was fated to have been seated in the first place) and could not stop laughing. it was such a hilarity to me that none of us knew this girl, we totally crashed the party, and the 4 little ones I was seated with picked at their food (which looked a heck of a lot like beef with mayonayse sauce) and giggled with me.

AND, the camera man came back into my life. true hilarity ensues.

round one: he slowly creeps by, pans across the table, does a triple take long lingering shot of me that the kids notice and laugh at.

round two:
He: "Hi. MY NAME'S EDMOND. DO YOU SPEAK INKLISH?" (no i do not just have my caps key on for the heck of it, he was sort of yelling in my face in monotone, camera still rolling in his right hand)
Me: "Yes. I'm from the United States." (in Spanish)
He: "Oh yes. You speak Spanish?" (I nod) "I have question. I study in Mexico. What... what you think about women?"
Me: "Women? Like women, in general?"
He: "You know, women here, somen in Mexico. They good?"
Me: "No. I think things are getting better for women, but I don't think they're good."
He: "Oh." (as in one of those "OH's" I so often use when I don't have a clue what somebody actually said to me). "I mean abortion."
Me: "What do I think about ABORTION?!"
(remember, the camera is still rolling and we are yelling at each other, he at me for no reason- me at him for clarity's sake)
He: "Yes. Abortion. Many women in Mexico have abortion."
Me: "Yes. And it's illegal here. Do you think it should be illegal?"
(abortion was just legalized in Mexico City, much to the disgust of the Catholic Church - and was just made illegal in Nicaragua last November, even in situations where the woman will die if she doesn't have the abortion)
He: "Yes. I mean... Yes. And you?"
Me: "Well, what if a woman will die if she doesn't have an abortion?"
He: WHAT?! MUCH SLOWER PLEASE.
Me: "WHAT IF A WOMAN WILL DIE IF SHE DOES NOT HAVE AN ABORTION?"
He: "Oh. It's OK."
(at this point he walks off to do another go-round the room and I am in tears thinking "my GOD is that how I sound when I speak Spanish?")

round three:
He: "I have other question. You know cowboy movies?"
Me: (lying) "Yes, I do."
He: "Clint Eastwood, you know him?"
Me: "Yes, I do."
He: "Good. I have question. You know that bad war?"
Me: "The Iraq war? Yeah, It's BAD."
He: "NO NO NO NO, the war... in the century... with the North?"
Me: (incredulous) "Um. You mean the Civil War?" (am I really having a discussion about the Civil War on video camera at a random girl's quincenera party in the middle of Nicaragua?)
He: "Yes. That one. Why was it?"
Me: "Why did we have a civil war?"
He: (nods)
Me: "Well... the South wanted slavery and the north didn't."
He: "Slavery?"
Me: "Yes, slavery." (he nods in understanding though I can tell he's never heard the word before, and I have no idea how to explain that concept in Spanish... here's what I could get across with my current level of Espanol: ' slavery... cuando una persona es propia de un otra persona, y necessita travajar por la otra persona por gratis' ... direct translation ' slavery... when one person is property of another person and must work for the other person for free'. i knew how ridiculous the concept was in the first place so didn't even try to explain it to him)
He: "My question. Who won the war? In the Clint movie the war was not won?"
Me: "Who won the Civil war?" (which I realize is a pretty valid question)
He: "Yes, who won?"
Me: "Well, do we have slaves in the states?"
He: (long thinking pause) "I do not know."
Me: "No, no we don't. The North won."
He: "Oh, the NORTH?! Thank you. And that president?"
Me: "Lincolin?"
He: "Yes, Lincolin was a... a man."
Me: (giving him a break by finishing his thought) "Lincolin was a GOOD MAN."

and, finally, round four:
He: "You are a student?"
Me: "No, I am a teacher. I am their choir teacher." (point to the giggling kids sitting around me)
He: "Oh, a teacher."
Me: "Yes."
He: (with great conviction) "I can tell YOU LOVE JESUS."
Me: (WHAT?! ... a smile with tears in my eyes holding it in...)
He: "Yes, I can tell you love Jesus Christ because you work with kids."
Me: (oh God just please please please hold in this oncoming burst of laughter Callie)
He: "And it's in your eyes. And you know, psychologists say: the eyes are the window to soul."
Me: "Yes, yes that's true." (holding my composure by a thread)
He: "Yes, yes you love Jesus. I'm a painter."
Me: "Oh, you are?"He: "Yes, I paint things that are important to me. I have a painting of an eagle with four chickens. And the mother chicken died for her babies. She was a sacrifice like Jesus."
Me: "That sounds beautiful." (fueling the fire, feeling like a bastard for doing it, but I couldn't help myself)
He: "Yes, yes. I'm a painter. I have 4 paintings."
Me: "FOUR PAINTINGS?!"He: "Yes, four."
(at this point, the power went out... chaos ensued... candles were lit and he still tried to carry on a conversation for a mintue though our group was trying to make an invisible exit out the side door)
He: "Nice to know you!"
Me: "You too." (you have NO idea).

i think the greatest part is that literally the whole of our conversing was taped and that simple awkwardness of being at a formal dinner i wasn't invited to (it would basically be the equvalent of going to a wedding in a small town where you didn't know anyone, the whole town was invited, and you just showed up only to sit at the front table and monopolize the photographer). he was glorious, and made me absolutely gleeful and also made me realize how really ridiculous i must sound about 95% of the time i speak spanish. i just hope i don't yell at people in monotone very often, it's definately not something i intentionally do... but i suppose you never know!

opportunities in yahda-yahdaing

2007-05-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

the fabretto bigwig in DC who's organizing our trip in june writes that i should "let the kids know this trip is about work and not all about play". i feel cut to the core by this comment... does she have any idea what this means? or how it feels like a personal cut at me? of course i'm not expecting to be galavanting around the city skipping along without a care in the world when i'm responsible for taking care of 30 kids! of COURSE i realize that i'll have to be doing a bit of puckering up to appease the other rich folks who've provided us with this opportunity. but my question is this: what kind of OPPORTUNITY are they "PROVIDING" for us if the kids are going to DC just to be schlepped around from one venue to another singing for private parties with hors d'ouvres and sparkling wine and marble floors and hand-shaking and name-dropping and all the bullshit things that go along with the public relations and business world?

my next question is how the heck i ended up being a public relations major in college? (though i have known the irony of this for some time- ever since i showed up at a "shadow-a-professional day" in my normal clothes and everyone else there was wearing four inch tall stiletto heels and a business suit... talk about being a sore thumb! i probably stuck out more in that room than i ever will being a gringa in nicaragua).

i refuse to tell my kids that this trip's not about FUN because that's ridiculous. another thing that's just eating away slowly at my choir director's SOUL is that the same bigwig also wrote to me that "it's OK if there's 5-6 kids that can't go. and it's OK if at our international choir festival concert we don't have enough kids to really sound good because THAT'S THE LEAST IMPORTANT CONCERT PR-WISE". are you KIDDING me LADY? what's that supposed to mean? just because we're not being PAID to be at this festival makes it UNIMPORTANT?! for me, this concert is the REASON we are going to the US in the first place- so that my choir kids will have the OPPORTUNITY to interact with kids from all over the world, and will get to experience the marvelous harmonies found in creating art with other children. HOWEVER according to the money money money worldview, of course this would be the least important part of our trip.

ironic and sad that she's using the festival as an excuse to get the choir to the US to use us for a PR campaign, that the festival seems to be pretty important when donors are considered yet loses it's importance somehow in the mix of things. what it really comes down to is i am so frustrated that these kids are looking forward to having time to spend in museums, and experiencing the festival and the city... and instead we'll be running around DC like mad with our instruments going from private concert to private concert... selling our musical souls to make a buck. i suppose i should be grateful for the free trip, and fabretto is paying for everything for these kids to get the trip to DC (which for most of them will be their only trip to the states in a lifetime). but just don't tell me flat out that the trip's going to be about WORK when i'm already fully aware of it.

i figured i knew how things worked in the world of tax-refundable donations but now i'm certain.
all work and no play means a world filled with dischord and unhappiness.

so i'll work on my yahda-yahda-yahda skills, suck it up, put my PR smile on (didn't pay for 4 years at GU for nothing!), and trudge to the capital with a twinkle in my eye.
and i'll find a way to work in a bit of my own magic in the meantime,
little does she know that even when i'm working i'm still playing in my own mind!

un escorpion me pique!

2007-04-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

rainy season has officially started here, though we'll have a few days of rain then it's bloody hot for a week before it rains again. we're still experiencing water shortages, and only have running water for about 2 days per week. anyways, all the rain has led to a massive influx of bugs (mainly beetles) and frogs (hopping around in puddles on the street) and other random critters.
last thursday i had a disturbing experience where i found the second tarantula within 24 hours in my bedroom- so i squished it with a shoe only to have the thing basically explode and about 50 baby spiders come streaming out of an egg sack i hadn't seen on its belly. i somehow maintained my composure enough to find a bottle of windex in our kitchen (of course i don't have bug spray or anything useful like that) and drowned the little buggers. now normally i'm all about saving little bugs lives but when they're gnarly spiders like that in my room that crosses the line.

the line was leaped across however that night as i was sleeping. i woke up at around 2 AM to something crawling up my pant leg and knew immediately it wasn't the normal beetle/moth/ant/mosquito experience. so, half-asleep still, i reached my hand down to brush it off and was stuck in my kneecap by a huge sting (OH GOD!) and looked down at my hand to see a HUGE black scorpion clutched on to my fingers (it was the size of my hand- probably about 6 inches long) so i shook it off and it ran under my bed (GREAT) then i sat down for a moment thinking "well, this really could be the end of it all" shaking something awful and trying to make myself breathe. i found my nicaragua guidebook (obviously i didn't have any bug identification books) because i wanted to know if i should go to a doctor, if i had to worry about dying or anything like that... thank goodness i had seen it and knew it was a big negrito scorpion which according to my MOON guidebook are "not normally deadly" to healthy humans. a bit of good news, but didn't make me feel any safer, that's for sure. i tiptoed into the kitchen (don't ask me why at this point i was not wanting to wake my roomates up) and reached into the freezer to get some ice (which was the only thing i could really think to do) since my kneecap felt like someone had stabbed a knitting needle through the middle of it (unlike what the guidebook said it would feel like "a bee sting" HA!). we didn't have any ice, so i grabbed the next best thing... a bag of frozen chicken drumsticks, and laid in bed for a couple of hours with my knee raised feeling the numbness slowly spread through my body. a very unnerving feeling, let me tell you. the wierdest part of it was that though the rest of my body was nearly numb, my knee was still throbbing like crazy.

somehow i fell back asleep for a few hours and when i woke up in the morning i felt much worse. i stood up and immediately had to sit back down, dizzy and unable to balance. i made my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water and to try to eat something (i knew that if i didn't, i'd feel even more faint) and told my roomate chico what had happened to which he replied:

"oh don't worry, i've been stung 5-6 times by scorpions and you'll feel awful for a while but you'll be fine. just drink some milk."

now i don't know anything about recovering from a scorpion sting but his advice seemed better than anything else i'd heard- so i drank the rest of the delicious boxed milk i had on hand and still felt terrible. luckily one of the drivers, jose, was at the house and drove all of us to school so i didn't have to worry about walking there. i told magda what had happened and she was much more concerned than chico, so she had me talk to the doctor at the school who took one look at me and said:

"oh, you'll feel better in 3-4 days so don't worry too much about it. you won't die, they aren't THAT dangerous."

3-4 days of numbness seemed like a pretty big deal to me, and with the way i was feeling at the time i decided to go with the rest of my roomates to somoto where i'd be closer to a doctor who could do something for me if things got worse. the ride down was pretty miserable, but by the time we arrived i was feeling a bit better and my arms and legs were less numb, which made walking a heck of a lot more manageable. the 3-4 days really only ended up being 24 hours, and after that amount of time only my mouth was numb (which i'd heard was the last place to re-gain feeling). so... i stayed in somoto for the night, bought a mosquito net... and now sleep a little bit lighter and am more wary about shaking out my sheets and blankets before going to bed.

ah... the lessons i've learned. at least now i'm not scared of tarantulas anymore, as long as i don't get any more scorpions crawiling up my pants in the middle of the night i think i'll be just fine.

Amarguillo (How Else Could We Understand?)

2007-04-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

A blast of the brightest sunshine yellow sparks,
brave amarguillo trees speckled
amidst dried fields of hopeful farmers
withering crops
crinkling pine needles
fallen trees crying for water, for life.
Smokey the Bear shakes in his Forest Service boots.

I’m told the dry season never ended last year,
and in some towns the water gets shut off for three months at a time.
Forty people died in Chinandega last weekend in temperatures hovering between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius.
Heat stroke can’t be blamed when water’s not an option.
The sharpened guillotine blade hangs on a thread,
perched for the fall.
This is normal.

My roommate Fransisco laughs at my awestruck shock at this statistic
and the joy disperses, as fleeting as it came
with my wondering "Como puede vivir sin agua por tres meses?
(an honest question- how do you live without water for three months?)
Honest but severely loaded.

How do you LIVE?
In one instant I’ve found why Nicaraguans have such faith in God.
His answer:
"We believe because how else could you explain a world in which we must live without water for three months at a time? How else would we understand?"
A slap in the face.

How else could a world in which people with all the power choose to
fund and fight unwarranted religious wars based on fear and oil
yet disregard poverty as part of the "other" world,
the THIRD world.

Why would we care about the THIRD world as much as OUR world?

We invest our money CAREFULLY there, in this other world
Just enough to keep them coming back for more
Just enough to keep the hands outstretched
Just enough to keep the UN off our backs
Just enough to keep opportunities for photo opportunities arising
Just enough to keep them silent and downtrodden
Just enough to keep their starry-eyed focus on our American dream alive.

What is this "American Dream"?
If it’s not meant for all of America,
rather meant to justify the rise of the rich to their castles in the clouds
and blame the victims of our carelessness,
our neighbors
who gaze in our dining room windows
awestruck at the opulence
salivating with hope for our scraps
who struggle every day just to live.

I sound cliché-
how do I paint you a clearer picture what it means to struggle every day to LIVE?

Have you woken in the morning to the same hunger pangs, knitting needles in the depths of your stomach that have haunted your dreams for your whole life?
Have you constantly and consciously been forced to drink water infused with sewage and garbage day-after-day simply because you had no other CHOICE?
Has this water given you life-threatening fevers and blinding migraine headaches?
Has your water been carried up a mountainside in 5-gallon-plastic-jugs by your seven-year-old daughter every morning, her back hunched unnaturally under its crippling weight?
Have you also been forced to send this daughter to beg for pesos to buy rice and beans,
her bare feet dodging broken glass and rusted barbed wire?

How do I get you to see this painting in color, not in the black and white of "THE OTHER"?

For if you are to realize that this type of poverty exists in every moment of every day
for millions upon millions of our brothers and sisters
throughout the entire world
and in your backyard
it MUST be in vivid color
high definition if you will.
Do I need a PowerPoint presentation and a flat screen TV
or will these words of impassioned truth
reach beyond your ears and your eyes and into your heart?

These words, " THE OTHER" and "3rd WORLD" must be abolished
we must learn to empathize
if the world can ever change for the better.
If we can open our minds and our hearts to realize
"THE OTHER" as an intimate, essential, precious component of ourselves,
if we can understand that these words "THE OTHER" and "3rd WORLD"
have been fabricated by people with power,
people who judge and fear change,
people who refuse to grant freedom,
and voices to the voiceless
their bullets silenced with a justification of "US versus THEM".

We must not buy into this
unjustified disabling dichotomy
For each time we turn a blind, ignorant, guilt-laden eye
averting our gaze from the pain and suffering of this world
we in fact turn from the deepest part of our soul.

Who felt the right to draw black lines
zigzagged boundaries across our globe?
How have we not noticed these lines are INVISIBLE?
Invisible until we forget the past
and break ground to construct another embarrassing wall
as if blocking our view of the wrong side of the tracks
will make our neighbors disappear.

The make-believe black lines are pathetic enough,
but walls go beyond the zigzags.
We’re playing a game of Risk so real
that if we allowed ourselves a moment of clarity
our hearts would break into a million pieces.

Do we need these fancy adjectives
these walls
to justify how terribly we treat each other?
Is this all just a big game to people like Mr. G. W. ?
I’d compare his game to chess
but I know the only players he’s aware of are the king and the pawn.
Maybe if he could ever wipe that all-knowing smirk off his face
for long enough to say something real
we’d have a glimpse of some sort of truth…

Ironic how mumble-jumbled and repeated key words
"insurgents"
"terrorists"
"freedom fighters"
"rebel forces"
"fanatics"
cause more conflict, misunderstanding, hatred and war than bombs ever could.

How many soldiers to this date have died
defending these words?
I’d tell you but I’m not trying to give a history lesson.
Would it matter more if it were ONE person or THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND?

How can I paint this picture in COLOR when our own government will not allow the media to show pictures of caskets being carefully carried off a military plane draped in those glorified stars and stripes?

An image sticks in my mind, a 2002 clipping from a newspaper scrap booked next to lyrics from John Lennon’s "Imagine" … a middle-aged man, long beard trailing in the dust, white robes spattered with blood, white linen and crimson death pooling around his knees, arms outstretched desperately to the skies, mouth hanging open in a primal wail that only a man at the foot of the coffins of his two children aged four and six years old could pour forth on an unjust world, dried riverbeds of tears marking the end of any happiness and future he’d seen in life. His babies, gone forever at the hands of "freedom fighters".

"Imagine there’s no Heaven, it’s easy if you try."
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine, Mr. Lennon, that there’s no Heaven
when we’re willing to kill each other in the name of GOD.

How do we think GOD feels about these justifications?
Does he sit on his throne in the sky contentedly staring down as we play plastic soldiers
with real guns
remarking to himself "How lovely are these wars in my name?"
(these words strike too close to "Hallowed be thy name")
or "I must give this judgmental sect of soldiers for Christ a first class seat on the train to glory?"
(those who claim "there are two types of people in this world, those who believe in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and those who don’t")

Even if Jesus Christ was our personal savior and the only son of GOD…
I’d still like to hope GOD sees in color.

Or…
Does GOD sit silently as tears stream down his cheeks,
mourning the death of true life?
Pleading for all of humanity
to give up our fabricated terms of differentiation,
to face each other as human beings,
casting fear aside,
breaking down walls,
tearing across boundaries,
looking through open and non-judgmental eyes,
bowing deeply in acknowledgment of the divine in all,
in communion with nature and our Brothers and Sisters,
filling the deep and lonely fear of vulnerability
with simple, deep, and unconditional love?

We claim an operation in Iraq based on FREEDOM.
Is this another fancy word we’ve manipulated for our own causes?
Freedom from what?
From our own fears and anxieties?
From having to explain the selfish reasons we’re still there?
From "THE OTHER"?
From terrorists?
From four and six year-old Iraqi children?

Where does freedom end and murder begin?
It’s a slippery slope;
the boundary between the two as invisible
as those inked black lines flowing across the maps of humanity.

Yet across the deserts of hopeless lands
rise moments of triumph and brilliant life
amarguillos, my eyes see in rusted dry brown and mid-day sunlight yellow
tufts of blossoms defiant in the face of drought,
peeking over walls to the better side of town.

"Amargo, like coffee without sugar" my friend Henry explains.
He speaks of bitterness with an unsettling smile.
It’s why we believe in GOD.
"How else could we understand?"

let the rain fall down...

2007-04-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

my three month "anniversary" of being in nicaragua! i can't believe how fast the time is going- yet sometimes it truly seems to stand still. today was my first day back at work after a week-long trek around southern nicaragua with james and josh. i visited my family in la concha for a weekend, then we went to isla de ometepe, grenada, and i spent the last few days of my trip in managua staying at the jvi house. here are some trip highlights:

- morning from hell getting out of cusmapa: a bus breakdown between las savannas and somoto- 45 minutes of three guys taking pieces of the motor off, cleaning them, and re-assembling them on the sidewalk much to the amusement of passers by- fransisco assuring me that they were "engineers" as i (baffled) watched one lean over the running engine with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth- drinking apple juice and feeling very much a spectator in some ridiculous nicaraguan sport
-spending time with paulette and gaiermena, enjoying her lovely library, meeting new members of their animal clan (or zoo as i like to refer to it)
- climbing a mandarin tree with elton and raquelita (two of the kids in my family in la concha) to get a view of a volcano- eating handfuls of plump perfectly ripe mandarinos, stuffing ourselves silly- trying to explain to them why i felt more comfortable with my feet planted firmly on the ground
- day trip to grenada with mama gina, raquelita, and madi (from florida who is living at their house)- hopping on a boat and walking past a 50-year-old woman saying the rosary, boat ride to an island with a "pool" which was filled with kids and dirty lake water, sharing beers with mama gina, a beautiful sunset over the lake and a purple moon rising
- long trip full of mishaps to get to ometepe: left late, took a useless 100 cord taxi cab ride to see the "scenic route" in grenada, a long bus to rivas, another taxi to san jorje, caught the last ferry to the islands- had a spectacular sunset approaching the island, caught the last bus to altagracia (which got us half way to our hotel) and wandered around asking about a place to stay for cheap, stumbled into a house where we were put up for 30 cords per night (less than $2), ate fritanga with an argentinian jewelry maker and his girlfriend- talking about politics and hitchhiking while attempting to drown out evangelical ramblings in the city's central park
- beers at a random tucked-away bar, the glorious cartoon of a man who struck up a conversation with us: think billy crystal but nicaraguan with a purple long-sleeved satin button-up shirt and poufy curly hair and a voice like a cross between mickey mouse and the gatekeeper to the city of oz ("not nobody, not no how!")- some choice quotes from his side of the conversation:

"you like this music? (we were singing along to summer of '69) i thought only people my age like this music? you like Brian music? (i assume here he was referring to brian adams) and patrick swazy? you know him? i would not recommend you to Rambo, the movie- all nicaraguans are rambo junior (i don't even know what that means). i have been practicing my A.B.C.'s this week. you know, mouth to mouth? A.B.C.'s? we are all very important people (gesturing to the three other men who were seated at his table). these two work at the mayor's office, he is a doctor, and i am that guy" (at this point i was holding in what was sure to be an explosion of laughter and replied enthusiastically while pointing for emphasis: "you ARE THAT GUY!". james turned to me and said "no, Cal. he's a GUIDE. he's a TOUR GUIDE." OH. i still think he was that guy. best character i've come across in a very long time.

- bonfire the first night at monkey's island hostel, sharing a little rum and skinny dipping under a full moon
- josh & i taking a somewhat treacherous swim out to an island made of volcanic rocks, seeing monkeys curiously poking their heads out of the trees (joking that both of us are blind and neither one had glasses on... which was sort of sad)
- waking up in the middle of the night and listening to the rain for an hour
- a day spent reading, playing 31, chess, checkers, and singing along to james playing the guitar- sharing pistachios and macadamia nuts with jacinto (the hostel owner) who'd never tried them before
- throwing rocks at 60' tall mango trees to get the ripe fruits to fall- young nica boys taking pity on the gringos and showing us proper form
- sophie the crazy belgian who has a not-so-sneakily taken picture of james in the buff
- chocolate ice cream shared in an empty market vendor stand
- glorious fritanga and the biggest vat of ensalada i have ever seen, people-watching in the park of grenada
- playing pool, yahtzee, and trivial pursuit with james while eavesdropping on josh playing monopoly with two 18 year old norweigan girls in our hostel- key cards and factoids learned: pope JPII wore white doc martens, the buffalo bills cheerleaders are called 'the buffalo jills', there are 15 people on a scottish jury, they don't speak egyptian in egypt, israel's not in europe (HM. think i need to work on my geography), and the kicker: about 10 years ago london tried to enforce slow and fast lanes on its sidewalks (i wonder are there speed limits to these lanes?)
- waking up early in our hostel (after enjoying a night's rest on couch cushions and being bit by a nasty spider) and enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning breeze before anyone else woke up
- finding out my high school choir gets to go to DC in june for an international children’s arts festival!!!!
- walk to the laguna apollo- being a bit sketched out about getting robbed and having a guy with a leather glove endowed with metal spikes try to convince us to take his "safer" road down to the lake. we may be gringos but we're not that stupid!
- day spent at the laguna relaxing, swimming, exploring underwater, reading out loud to each other, picnic-ing, and getting royally sunburned
- catching the last bus to managua by an absolute miracle
- sleeping in till 9 AM!!! going to james' favorite reading spot and devouring a david sedaris book, james knocking down starfruit out of the tree we sat under (just the fact that i was reading under a starfruit tree was pretty awesome in general i think) for a snack
- good friday service- my teary-eyed singing along to 'be not afraid'
- an excellent and very patient guitar lesson from james
- a fest of a dinner for the arrival of ad's friends from the states (who she hasn't seen for more than a year) beans, veggies, garlic bread (thanks josh!), and spaghetti
- james and josh finding, reading out loud, and performing songs they'd written in high school mostly about loves... my favorite being josh's "apple of my eyyyeeeee"
- giggling with margy till my belly hurt and i had tears running down my cheeks
- riding an expresso bus with reclining seats (i didn't even know those existed here!) not getting off at the right spot (though i've made the journey about 10 times now) and instead an hour later realizing i had no idea where i was- taking a random taxi to somoto (when i realized it we were somehow near a junction and somoto was only 10 minutes away!), feeling like a silly gringa
- getting to talk to my fam on the phone (and regs!)
- a day spent in easter celebration by writing letters and cooking a weeks worth of beans, listening to the rain trample across my rooftop

today i got back into the swing of things, though in my 5 classes i had a grand total of 10 students... but we finally had the internet so i got to respond to all sorts of emails and post pictures, chatted with jason and nikki (who i miss terribly), had quite a bit of cleaning time (the amount of dust here after a week is phenomenal!), gave a frustrating english class (i hate the books we have to use) to ONE person, loved my little ones- who held my hands and gave me hugs at the end of class, practiced the guitar, had a heck of a time with my tenors in the high school choir.

right as i was about to leave it started raining so i thought "i'll wait it out" because i wanted to bring my computer and guitar home. so i sat to practice the guitar a bit and watched the rain. the eye of the thunderstorm seemed to hover over the oratory for at least 45 minutes, pouring huge droplets and letting forth a FURY of thunder which (even when i anticipated it) made my heart leap. i finally decided (after a good hour of a relentless storm) to just leave my computer in my office, and that i'd better get home before it was completely dark. i went to get the key from juan carlos (one of my roommates) and in the 20 seconds i was outside i got absolutely soaked to the bone (i needed the house key because a missionary stayed at our house last week and left with my key- or so i thought).

i resigned myself to getting good and soaked and made my way toward home, leaping across small rivers which had formed in the road and hopping gleefully in puddles. a small figure came scurrying toward me buried under a broken umbrella- the only other person silly enough to be out in the dumping rain- she stopped, lifted her protective cover- and it was Anyelka- i exclaimed "what ARE you doing?!" and she answered "i came to look for you" so we walked, her arm around my waist and mine around her shoulder back to he house. along the way i lifted her over particularly large streams of water while we giggled and she pointed out a frog hopping across the street which made me wide-eyed and open-mouthed in delight. i had water running down my entire left half but a smile on my face. when we reached the house there was a light on and jubelki poked her head out the door. dona miriam was STILL THERE! (it was about 6:30 by this time) they had all been worried and waiting for me to come home. turns out dona miriam had my house key- the missionary had left it with her, and she couldn't bear the thought of leaving my house open, so she was waiting till i got home. i invited the girls to stay for tea and crackers, and we chatted for a bit- anyelka started to try to go home barefoot because her shoes were so awful and soaked so of course i gave her a pair of shoes to wear.

again i am humbled by the amount of thoughtful and genuine care i receive from people here, i am brought to my knees. three months blessed by lots of living, learning, and love- good health and good spirits, and the making of wonderful new friends. here's to many more months to come!

love and miss you all- joy and peace to you! cal

Jungle Death March Part II

2007-03-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

Fourteen year-old Anyelka, my closest comrade here in the mountains, arrives on schedule at precisely 10:35 AM. She pays me a visit every Sunday after mass ends to deliver my week's batch of clean laundry. She wears a canary yellow polo shirt, dirty whitewashed jeans, and broken plastic flip-flop sandals reminiscent of the jellies I remember wearing in middle school. The intensely light colors of her outfit highlight her smooth cappuccino skin tone, and her cat-like obsidian eyes sparkle with teenage secrets. She fishes in her pocket to produce a solitary earring, which is presented to me along with a handmade wire and bead bracelet. My gifts for the morning, which I’ve learned to accept with sincere gratitude rather than attempt to refuse.
Last week Anyelka asked me with unabashed curiously why I only had one small grocery bag full of clothes per week for her mother to wash. I told her that I did not need all the clothes washed that I'd worn for the week, only the completely dust-ridden ones. She looked at me wonderingly and shrugged her shoulders with a slight smirk which I take to mean "oh that -- (insert adjective here)-- gringa!" The shoulder shrug with hands held up in a despairing question mark is a common expression for the locals in San Jose de Cusmapa, who marvel at their token gringa's foreign ways. I wonder how long it will take for Anyelka to give up on my un-cleanliness, for as Walt Whitman wrote, "the scent of these armpits, aroma finer than prayer" and I find that his sage advice applies directly to my clothing habits. I also wonder why, when we're facing a fairly serious water shortage here on our mountain-top, where the nearest "river" (read: foot-wide trickle) is located at least 4 kilometers below the city, that my not wanting to have more clothes washed on a weekly basis has become such a concern for Anyelka. I’m not used to a fourteen year-old pitying my "bedraggled vagabond" style. And by pitying I mean pitying. I truly believe that she has taken upon herself the impossible task of turning me into a presentable woman. If I really knew Spanish I'd explain to her that it's truly not worth her effort. Instead I smile widely; her enthusiasm for my hopeless habits is a lovely gesture of friendship.

Anyelka inquires if I'd be interested in meeting her Padrino (godfather) in the afternoon, an invitation that I simply cannot resist. I've just sat down at my computer to get some reading done for a project I'm starting here with women’s health education (something I'd effectively put off all weekend by hiking all over the place, taking pictures, sleeping on the spectacular down pillow Steph left me, making a glorious stir-fry for my roommates, and practicing my struggling guitar skills) so I ask her to come back around three in the afternoon to fetch me. After she waltzes out the door, fulfilled with a cup of tea and a mango (both of our favorites) I make a valiant attempt to get back to my reading.

Five minutes later I hear a shuffling of steps in our living room and recognize the notorious muttering of the three-toothed cackling homeless woman of Cusmapa. Her sun-baked grinning face greets me with hardy laughter and she croons a string of Spanish of which I understand less than one word . I've found that teeth are an important factor in whether or not I'm able to understand the language... at least a 70% increase in my understanding happens when a person has more than a handful of teeth. Her gnarled fingers generously pat me on the head like I'm a small, well-behaved child. I hand her a package of saltine crackers and lead her to the door, trying to explain that she can't just come in to our house without knocking... a particularly ridiculous statement as all doors in Cusmapa are always open to this ancient wandering soul. I feel sort of a kindred spirit with this semi-crazy crone, as we're regarded by community members with the same sentiment. We're intriguing and eccentric yet harmless apparitions- not of the same reality, clumsily stumbling along the outer boundaries of the community begging for a moment's inclusion. As I shoo her out the door I'm able to decipher a mumbled yet sincere "gracias" before turning back to my work.

Moments later I hear footsteps climbing our front steps and a knock, peek around the corner and OH NO there stands a very hopeful local Romeo (and by local Romeo I mean he lives 3 hours from Cusmapa by bus). I met him last weekend and had (what I thought was) a very terse conversation (read: I'm most definitely not interested in you) before assuring him that I had a very serious race-car-driver boyfriend back in the States. Yet, he saunters into my life again, Saved by the Bell era bleached jean jacket flung over his shoulder, waiting for an invite to sit down. I'm brisk with him to the point of rudeness. At this point but I’m really not in the mood to get hit on by a creepy guy who think's he's Webster's definition of saucy sexiness. He gets the hint after a few minutes, and literally turns on his heel to make a quick exit when Domingo, one of my roommates, returns from lunch and passes him in the doorway with a friendly handshake (read: "come on in, buddy!) then immediately disappears into his bedroom. Damnit Domingo. I continue to read about women's reproductive rights (ie: I'm most definitely not interested in talking to you!) and he finally asks "am I annoying you?" (um... are you kidding me?!). In trying to adhere with the local cultural practice of saving face of both people involved by lying to somebody's face I reply “of course not, I just need to work" and explain to him how important I think it is for women here to be able to have the right to legal abortion (at least when the mother's life is at risk- a right which was taken away by law about six months ago). I think this topic will turn him off infinitely. I’m dead wrong. This statement somehow turns into a half hour discussion on religion, at the pinnacle of which he generously gives me a copy of an Evangelical DVD (after I’d told him that I think Evangelical religions are absolutely frightening and assured him that I wanted nothing to do with that type of church). I politely and enthusiastically refuse his preaching peace pipe. His weak laughter in retaliation of my refusal only augments the awkwardness; he continues with unyielding romantic advances. At this point I answer with a ruthless silence. Finally he stands, clears his throat, and attempts a cheek-kiss, which I meet with a handshake. He tells me he hopes to see me soon. I say the only thing which seems appropriate in the moment, "adios". Sometimes “goodbye” is all there’s left to say...

I've entirely wasted two hours of my "working" time entertaining and attempting to thwart various visitors. The clock reads 1:50. I sigh... one hour of work before Anyelka's return. I'll give you ONE guess what happened next. Of course my dear little friend shows up an hour early (which is nearly unheard of in Nicaragua, most of the time people arrive to events or meetings between 20 minutes and two hours late) obviously excited for our little jaunt. What choice did I have but to close up shop? I completely surrender any hope of getting work done on this interrupted Sunday afternoon. We walk in silence in the mid-afternoon heat to say a quick hello to Blanca (Anyelka's 32 year-old mother) who stands in the doorway holding a wiggly two-year-old Luis (the baby of the family). Luis greets me with great gusto and pats my hand in response to my greetings. Blanca, always quick to smile, assures me that Anyelka's padrino's house is "circa" (very close) to Cusmapa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up una momento. My "Nicaraguan cultural knowledge" alarm goes off in high volume. I’ve heard these words before.. a "very close distance to walk" in La Concha this January turned into a 8 mile "Jungle Death March" (as Sky, my buddy from New York and I dubbed it in an exhausted attempt to find some sort of humor in the situation). The Jungle Death March ended with me falling three times and nearly crawling on hands and knees to the top of a mountain ridge in a sweaty collapsing mess. The crowning moment was when we finally stumbled upon a roadside pulperia (corner store) where a crinkled bespectacled woman in an apron sold us water which had been (in her words) "partially" frozen. I’ve never had a more joyous and devastating moment in the span of a coveted gulp of water. Sky and I had toasted, our water bottles clinking magnificently as only the promise of cold water after a dust-laden death march can feel, and tipped back our heads at the same moment, only yearning for a giant gulp of gloriousness. Instead I received a meager three drops of water. In all honesty I nearly cried in that evil moment. Instead, Sky and I immediately caught each others eyes and laughed hysterically for about five minutes, enough time for our COMPLETELY frozen water to thaw for a hearty gulp. After the Jungle Death March I decided to acknowledge that most Nicaraguans' sense of distance would be extremely different from my North American lazy-assed perspective.

In my state of alarm, I indicate to Anyelka that I thought her padrino lived IN Cusmapa, not SOMEWHERE CLOSE TO CUSMAPA (why else would i have signed up for this program?). My mind reels with the desperate knowledge that I’m already in for the long haul. Ticket booked, signed, sealed, delivered, no refunds, no change-of-date, no coupon for a free alcoholic beverage. I make an executive decision to return to my house to put on sunscreen and get a water bottle, change into more appropriate clothes for "a very close distance walk" and am struck like lightning with karma for my annoyed demeanor by a rock jumping under my foot which sends me flying across the cobblestone street in front of my house. I completely skin my knee before the journey even begins. This not a good omen; but it does lighten my spirits, giving the whole adventure a surreal air.

We set off down the river-bed of a road at about 2:45 PM and Anyelka assures me that we'll return by 5. I completely concur with her cousin Aleygda, (age 13) who's also accompanying us, when she exclaims "mentira!" (you're lying!) HA! We read right through your claim that your padrino only lives half-an-hour walk from Cusmapa! Jader (Anyelka's five-year-old brother who's had a veritable river of snot running down his face since the moment I met him) and Marvin (Aleygda's seven-year-old brother) skip ahead of us exclaiming and pointing out various bugs and trees for our viewing pleasure. My next clue that I'm embarking on another Jungle Death March comes after about 15 minutes, when the dried river bed we're hopping from side to side down suddenly veers off to the right, a foot-wide rocky path down the mountainside into the tangled forest of the unknown. This path just so happens to be the same one Domingo pointed out to me earlier in the morning as “dangerous”. Great. After a few tenuous first steps down the 60 degree incline, I get a bit self-assured with my mountain-goat like mountain scaling abilities and immediately am upended, skinning my entire forearm on a sharp rock. I let out a few choice explicatives, dust myself off, and glare at the menacing path which winds before me in a mocking display of unearthed tree roots, boulders, and pools of dust. At this point I absorb myself in conquering the path with all the sheer force my gringa-ness allows me, I concentrate fiercely with each step. You will not skin any other part of my body today, enough is enough. Anyelka fake-falls twice to make me feel better. Again, a true friend, allowing me to not look so ridiculously silly in my constant follies. In her motherly ways, she walks behind me watching my every movement, exclaiming and clucking when I make the slightest error "cuidado!" (be careful!). She also makes a point of making me look up from my careful steps every five seconds to regard a pine tree, which I think I’ve seen my fare share of growing up in Montana.

After about a half-hour of clambering down this precarious path to the forest floor, we hit solid flat ground. I make no attempt to hide my joy for the upcoming leg of our adventure- which looks remarkably tranquil compared to the last hair-raising descent. The right of our path is lined with a variety of trees- most look like what I’d imagine olive trees to be- scraggly and grey-barked, branches reaching toward the sky at unthinkable angles, sinew broken by time and the constant gale of mountain wind. To the left, a sea of mountain ranges. I’ve heard varieties of these facts but apparently the first mountain range is in Nicaragua, the second misty range is in Honduras, then the flat expanse of the Pacific Ocean can be seen in the distance. I learn today that the volcano I’d thought was in Honduras is in fact Volcan Momotombo, near the foot of which lies the capital city of Managua. I also now know that the third range of mountains (which can only be seen on a completely clear-skied day like today) are in El Salvador. I’m no geographer, but I realize that my home state, Montana, is probably bigger than all three of these countries combined. Anyelka stops to pick up a dead bug from the ground, which strikes me as a cross between a house-fly, a dragon-fly, and a grasshopper- and looks positively too large for my comfort. "chinchilla" she tells me, as she points to the trees. they must be the culprits of the constant cacophonous symphony of monotone ringing rising from the forests here, a vibrato which at points during the next hour or so of walking runs through my nerves with an electric current of shiver-inducing sound.

We pass a wild-haired woman and her little one sitting in the shadows of a naked tree waiting for something, anything, to happen. Anyelka tells me they're selling some type of fruit from a red sandbox bucket. I brought two pesos with me for the adventure, which seems to be enough for the sprightly woman to finger through the fruit to pick out the best ones for each of the five of us. I end up with a half-chewed on (by some small animal I'm assuming) piece which looks like a cross between an apple, a nectarine, a plum, and a pomegranate with a waxy yellowish-red skin and an entirely fake looking stem (right out of a Christmas decor catalog). At first bite I pucker with the bitterness, however my thirst overpowers the flavor and I soon find myself appraising it as a lovely specimen of the fruity kind. I'm thirsty at this point because the first time I'd produced my 16-ounce water bottle and taken a swig I'd been swarmed by the kids and was left with a nice mouthful of backwash for whatever thirst-inducing trails that certainly lay ahead. Note to self: next time bring a gallon of water (and a donkey, and a ankle wrap).

We're suddenly on the valley floor and stumble upon what must be a new school surrounded by barbed wire fence, plopped in literally the most rural place I've ever seen. I’m awestruck, and even more so when Anyelka informs me that if you follow the road the school's situated on you'll be in Honduras in 4 KM. What that really means, I have no idea. Just the thought of walking to Honduras in itself is marvelous. We walk across the "road" (which around these parts is one of the nicest, flattest, most navigable roads I've seen), and the kids assure me that from here it's "very close". We round a corner to find a woman relieving herself in the middle of the path about 40 yards ahead. The kids whisper and giggle to themselves and tell me she's crazy. She pulls up her turquoise skirt and picks up the burden of her water bucket, ducking under a barbed wire fence all in one stealthy and sure movement. As we pass, she eyeballs me suspiciously and returns an "adios". Aleygda tells me that a few months ago she killed both of her parents, and that's why they call her crazy. I gulp. Well, now not only am I on a Death March but I'm literally on a Death March in the middle of absolute nowhere and we have a known murderer who I’ve just sauntered past and gregariously greeted. Why am I not surprised?

Anyelka informs me that this walk seems long to me because I've never been here before. I scoff in my mind. No shit Sherlock, but we have been hiking now for nearly two hours. Thirty minutes later we finally step through a creaking wooden gate on to the infamous Padrino's property. I stop dead in my tracks to marvel at a 20 foot tall boulder, an artifact of ancient times, upon which a grove of trees have planted themselves, their leaves whispering in the soft late-afternoon sunshine. My companions, who by now have become accustomed to my substantial and un-ceasing obsession with trees, wait patiently while I snap off a few photos. The path winds round the other side of the boulder, where a house is nestled into the hillside. Anyelka calms her Padrino's dog who has probably never seen a white person before and by the sound of his grumbling growl I assume has white-woman flesh on the brain. I consider my unclothed calves, which to this malnourished pup must look like a drumstick mirage of mythic proportions and allow for a few queasy moments to pass before he's calmed down. I'm hospitably asked to enter and to sit in one of two chairs which decorate the one-room house. From the ceiling hang bunches of dried corn and green plantains. The corner houses a clay oven upon which simmers a pot of coffee. I'm graciously offered "cafecita" (a cup of coffee). I think to myself how strange a lot of social situations would be here if I didn't drink coffee, it's entirely a national pastime. Consuming your host's homebrew here is an essential part a part of being a guest.

I have a brief conversation with said-Padrino, a middle-aged man going on 80, with a thin graying moustache and a body frame of a man who's spent his life hard-laboring in the fields, who now feels the deep pressure of time and age. His left eye clouded with cataracts, and hair peppered with hints of black peering boldly through silver, he asks me if I know Mateo (one of the American volunteers who lived here about 5 years ago) and I tell him no, then ask him how far it is to Honduras. He tells me 15 kilometers. A bit different than Anyelka's 4 kilometers- but at least I’m getting a mean of 9.5 which is definitely walkable. Chickens wander in and out of the dirt-floored room, and I watch the kids hunkered down by the door sharing a cup of coffee, listless in these few moments of non-movement.

Anyelka gives up on the prospect of a deep long-winded conversation between her Padrino and I, and we descend out the back door down the hillside to a little quebrata (water pump which serves as bathing area and laundry facility) where three girls in their early-teens vigorously scrub today's laundry, absolutely soaked to the bone. The kids find it strange that I'm not compelled to rinse my feet off. I’m all too aware that we're soon to be on our return voyage, so I don't really see the necessity of washing them. Again I'm met with a notorious "hopeless gringa" shoulder shrug and we clamber back up the hillside to the house. We're given a bunch of bananas for the walk back, I’m squawked at by a frightened baby (this also happens to me often here, as to them my thick-rimmed glasses and facial piercings probably look absolutely and horrifyingly alien), and we say our goodbyes. I'm told to return soon, which I promise to do. Now that I know how close they live to Cusmapa, how could I not visit more often?!

We take a different path back. Another pattern I'm noticing about the way things work around here is that when you walk somewhere you never take the same path to return. Always walking in circles... Twenty minutes into our walk I find myself ducking under a barbed wire fence and the kids are looking at each other warily. I know this kid look, I’m not that old yet. In universal kid language it means "we're most definitely not supposed to be here right now but let's not tell the old lady cause then if we get caught we can just blame it on her". We tiptoe past what appear to be bunkhouses and are met with the yipping of yet another underfed canine admiring my white chops. We quickly duck out of sight behind a latrine and are suddenly in the front yard of Tia's (Auntie's) house. Five kids sit on a long bench out front, sharing a small elementary calculator and one notebook, arguing about the solution to a math problem. They snicker at my plaid boy-shorts as I lumber in front of their huddle. I use the word lumber as I've been making a lot of "fat gringa" jokes lately mainly because, well, my roommate informs me on a constant basis that I'm fat. He never says it like it's a bad thing, just like it's an indisputable truth. I don't know which of these meanings is worse, but they're equally detrimental to a gal like me who already towers above 99% of the women here by at least a foot (take into consideration that I'm only 5'6").

Present circumstances being that I'm wearing a scarf around my head and sporting baggy boy-shorts, sweating like a bandit, I suppose if I saw me right now I'd be doing a lot of snickering too. I'm invited in to a 8 X 8 foot room for a brief moment, till Tia's baby has one look at me and starts howling it's little head off. I make a beeline for the exit. By beeline I mean I take a step backwards and go back outside, and take a seat on the bench near the group of snickerers. An old man in a loose-fitting forest-ranger uniform joins me and we sit in deep silence. I study his time-worn wrinkles as he stares off into the distance. He seems nearly blind but moves his gaze toward a group of chiming clattering children down the road and offers a wide-mouthed non-toothed grin. We don't exchange any words, but I love this man. I suppose it's good that we didn't try to talk considering my five-toothed rule, which he certainly didn't pass. I smile warmly watching him tottle off down the road towards the children, seeking one of their hands to lead the way. I don't know where he goes, but I wish him blessings and a peaceful voyage.

Anyelka's done her best to calm Tia's baby, but to no avail, so we leave with a "mucho gusto" (nice to meet you) and take a much less strenuous, much longer road back up to Cusmapa. About half-way up the mountain she points out our first route to me, a sinister serpent weaving across the mountainside. I look down at my skinned forearm- a spectacular souvenir from the afternoon. At this point romantic dusk lighting takes over the world and I’m struck by how much this golden lighting affects my mood and perception of events. I stop every 200 yards to take pictures of the setting sun. As we finally reach the outskirts of Cusmapa I am thrilled to see smoke rising from houses, battered clothes hanging from rusted barbed wire fences, and barefooted children running willy-nilly down dirt pathways; marking a hodgepodge of images which I now distinctly recognize as "home". All major injuries averted for the day, of which I'm convinced that the dogs being at eye level with my calves were the most life threatening, I take a deep breath of the setting sun, wish my little friends a good evening, and saunter to my house for a much deserved, sure to be completely un-frozen, gulp of water.

two months!

2007-03-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

buenos dias! it's been a bit since i've written on here about my life- but i've been writing LOTS of letters so if anyone's interested in being a penpal i'd like that MUCH more than this silly internet business. just email me and i'll send you my address. hope this update finds each of you happy, healthy, living fully, and spreading the ripples of hope, love, and empathy that we so desperately need in our world.

i'm having a bit of a reality check these past couple of days- spending time with a group of 20 or so high school students from the states (private boarding school in boston)... nothing like being around these kids to make me realize how far i've come and why i'm here rather than back in the US! actually i think many of them are here for the right reasons- to learn about the culture, to help (they're working on breaking ground for construction of our new classroom building- definate HARD labor), and to actually interact with people beyond a surface level. however, i'm also experiencing lots of frustrations with them such as their tendency to 1) complain about everything, 2) this morning whining about getting up at 7 because they're "on spring break" (HONESTLY?! are you here to sip virgin pina coladas and frolic on the beach or are you here to HELP?), 3) the usual high school bullshit (i know i was like this too), ie: bringing prom dress magazines to a place like nicaragua, and 4) their relative unawareness of why they're here in general (i asked one girl and she responded "because i convinced my parents to buy me this trip instead of a lettermans jacket and a class ring"... well YEAH it's awesome she's here but i didn't ask her HOW she bought her plane ticket... i was sort of hoping for something deeper than that). maybe i'm placing too many expectations on them, or being hasty to judge, but i just guess above all else it's hard to be around them because they remind me of what i left back in the states- that being a complete unawareness of how poverty truly exists in the rest of the world... remind me of how far removed i am yet how close i am also- as it hasn't been long that i've been aware of these realities myself. even being here they stay in this lovely house in cusmapa with running water, great food, comfortable beds- and i wonder if some of them will go home STILL totally unaware of the actual type of poverty which exists here- dirt floors, chicken coops in the kitchen, only tortillas to eat, no electricity or running water (or even SAFE water available), malnutrition, kids that walk to school more than an hour each way every day, the amount of mothers completely raising families without any help... i just want to shake them and make them see what i see- but know i can't do that. also they haven't been having any sort of discussions at night about what they've been experiencing here which is strange to me. i'd think if i were a teacher and chaperoning this trip i'd make it a point to have multiple discussions with my students DURING the trip about what they were seeing, experiencing, learning... and WHY things are the way they are here. maybe that's just me...

another part of the frustration equation is i've been writing back and forth with my cousin julie for the past few months about all sorts of things- but one of these things being the inhumane conditions in which most of the employed people of nicaragua endure on a daily basis. my friend karlita (she's from nicaragua, my boss' secretary in managua- a 27 year old SINGLE woman with a great job, extremely intelligent, doesn't put up with any of the bullshit guys try to pull around here, and is just basically wonderful) and i were talking about her trip to the US a few years ago and she was trying to buy some "american clothes" which meant she went to buy a shirt at walmart (made in taiwan), bought a tommy hilf shirt (made in singapore) and went to buy some nike shoes (made in china... or something to that extent) and was absolutely baffled that she couldn't find anything to buy that was actually made in the US. i guess i never really thought of the fact that there arent really ANY factories in the US (beyond stuff like ford and dodge... some food factories...) but as far as actual production of the goods we take for granted, buy cheaply, and trash without a second thought... we don't have any type of production of those things in the states. we never have to SEE the sweatshops, the factories (which karlita was telling me about) in nicaragua that employ people for about 12 hours per day who get a half hour lunch, can not go to the bathroom, sometimes get beaten, and make less than 25 cents per hour. the government here has all these contracts with chinese businessmen who build factories, employ thousands of people at these rates in horrific conditions- then the government can brag that employement rates are up. the thing is, who in america actually WANTS to know why their walmart tshirt is so ridiculously cheap? i know until the last couple of years, i haven't had any kind of awareness... which is awful (not the awareness itself, but the lack thereof).

julie and i were also talking about being in a third world country and how realizations about your relative safety can be a bit unnerving (although i know her experience has been a bit more drastic than mine- as i don't have to worry too much about crime where i'm living now, only in the bigger cities). if you allow yourself to be truly honest about what would happen to you if something awful were to happen (crime or health-wise) you begin to realize how truly alone you are. even stuff with sickness- steph (the other volunteer) and i were in managua to get her some tests (her stomach's been bad pretty much the whole two months we've been here) and went to a nicaraguan doctor and she just kept saying "well if he doesn't figure it out i'll just call the embassy and they'll know what to do" UM. what? i'm sorry but i really think the US embassy in nicaragua probably has more important things to deal with than a volunteer's tummy bug. i think a lot of americans just really have this false sense of security even in the most remote of places that if something bad happens they'll be able to figure it out, things will get fixed because they're american. steph's comment cracked me up, like we could have just called the embassy and they would have sent over a limo to take us to their state of the art hospital (which they do have one of those i believe) free of charge where i'd have been offered steak and macaroni and cheese and jello salad in the waiting room and they'd fly in the best doctor available in the US for a quick visit... no questions asked. HA. instead we ended up in a private hospital that had just lost it's electricity for the afternoon (minus the emergency room and ICU) and i felt, honestly, that if i had to be in a hospital there i'd probably be OK but i really wouldn't be certain. it was a bit sketchy to say the least. i can't even imagine what a public hospital is like- i'm planning on visiting one before i leave here, just to get some sort of persepctive. the thing is, we have to PAY an arm and a leg in the US for our healthcare but at least we have the OPTION of receiving high quality care in sterile environments... and are guaranteed electricity at our hospitals.

things here are going well for me- teaching-wise i've been very busy. we have a concert tonight for the high school group, then the 22nd is a big celebration for Padre Fabretto (who basically founded the town of cusmapa) so we're getting all ready for that concert also. english classes are going well so far- though attendence is always sketchy at best and there's no chain of command so student's aren't held accountable for missing class at all. THAT will prove to be extremely frustrating over time as i'm expected to return to step one when a student's there who doesn't understand the material. the awful thing is there's many students who really want to be there, and love learning english- but there's others who i can tell think it's complete bullshit. a question, then: why am i teaching english to kids who don't want to learn english in one of the most rural places in this country? shouldn't i be teaching the kids who WANT to learn it rather than spending all my efforts on those that don't care to? guess that's part of the challenge of teaching, making those who don't deem a subject to be relevant understand that EVERY subject's important in some form. still, doesn't make it any easier. my friend james (the one doing JVI) told me that he's feeling the same way, so he's been indulging himself in letting his high school class use 10 minutes of classtime every day to discuss a controversial subject (first in limited english) but then in spanish... he just picks things, for example: the fact that nicaragua recently completely banned abortions (even if the mother WILL die if the baby isn't aborted) and lets the kids debate about them in class. he refuses to give his point of view, just stays there to keep things civil and respectful. NOW that sounds like my kind of class! i think what's hard is that i want to teach a class where there's deep conversation, debates, and students are empowered to give their opinions on issues that matter (rather than teaching about the times of day and colors). again, another reason why i'm excited my spanish seems to be improving... i'll be able to talk to my students more and more about what they believe, and what parts of their lives they see needing to change. THEN i can start being able to work on these changes from the ground up, with the students :) something to look forward too, though i'm thoroughly enjoying this time of getting to know them as well. as always enjoying the ride rather than looking to the finish line. i had the biggest compliment i've recieved yet on my spanish- after talking to one of my fellow fabretto employees who's working on a rural secondary education outreach project for a while he just looked at me and said "you talk like a nicaraguan." QUE MARAVILLOSO! i was a bit pleased at myself after that little comment- which served as karma for me to speak crappy spanish the rest of the weekend.

i had one of the most random experiences i've had down here yet this past weekend- i went with steph down to managua so she could get some tests done and we stayed in a hotel there for a few nights. the first night we were sitting down to dinner and the other couple in the restaurant struck up a conversation with us asking if we knew how much it should cost them to get to the airport. i told them we lived in nicaragua, we had the name of a taxi driver we could give them and the guy asked me where we worked/lived, then looked at me and said "wait, what's your name?" turns out he and i had been writing back and forth online because i was giving them some tips for their vacation here- and we just happened to be staying in the same hotel in managua the last night of their trip. it was SO bizarre. we ended up hanging out with them for a couple of hours talking about their trip and how they want to move here... they're from alaska, he's an anthropologist and she's a lawyer- both in their late twenties- just an awesome, life-affirming couple. i just couldn't believe the randomness of meeting him (i mean managua's a BIG city too!). it was good to meet some americans who want to help here for the right reasons- and are looking to take action soon (rather than just vacationers)- they described adventures of getting lost in the mountains, almost falling off a cliff, learning how to make tortillas, being woken up by howler monkeys, and misadventures in their spanish learning experience. it was great for me to meet these type of visitors (who i find here in nica are NOT as few and far between as they seem to be in many other places) who plan on taking valuable parts of their experience home and spreading awareness, and then DOING something about it. excellent.

ah, good news! i think i'm headed back down to managua next weekend with magda and cindy guadalupe (my co-worker and her daughter who i wrote about earlier in my 'power of one' blog) to get her to a doctor's appointment on friday! i talked to my boss, peter, about it when i was in managua last weekend and told him i thought we needed to get the ball rolling- and this groups going down on a private bus on thursday, so they'd have room for magda. it's virtually impossible for magda to travel with cindy on a public bus, and dangerous too... so the fact that they have a bus going down there already works out perfectly. i'm going to go down there with her to help out if she needs anything (even if it's just to carry bags or somethin) so i told magda that today, that i planned on going to which she responded "why?" and i said "to help..." and she was really happy about that. i hope something comes out of it... i guess there's also a school near managua where they do parental training on some physical therapy that magda could take some classes at, which would be awesome. vamos a ver... (we shall see...)

i realized how much i love being here yesterday when i finally came back to town and went to teach my littlest kids choir class. i was absolutely ecstatic. seriously beaming ear to ear... it was wonderful. i do really enjoy teaching, and just one smile from one of those little ones is enough for me... they're precious. one of them even gave me a hug today!!! my first student to do that. i DO feel like i've made a commitment to love the people here, and have begun to make that leap (the leap of love)- i think because of certain roadblocks that are just a part of the culture (ie: kids not being held accountable for showing up for class, certain kids not being expected by their parents to do anything beyond living in cusmapa and struggling to survive forever, combined with my own realization of distancing myself sometimes....) it's sometimes hard to remind myself that my being here in the first place is a pretty great thing- and the fact that i already feel so at home here, that i'm opening myself up more and more to the experience... means that my heart is already here. and that i don't necessarily need to teach these kids perfect english, to be a hardass, or to make the music program "the best" but that i just need to LOVE and let the rest happen as it will.

last night as i lay under the stars with karlita and laura (a nurse who came with the group from the states, AWESOME lady who's into energy healing and all sorts of interesting stuff) i sang to the stars and was enveloped in a warm mountain breeze... listened to the roosters and felt extremely peaceful. we did some yoga this morning as the sun was rising over the mountaintop... nothing like meditating in the early morning when the birds are waking up and the fresh breeze whips around you, brings you to life... i also realized that i'm going to HAVE to start doing yoga outside on a regular basis, no matter what the neighbors think of me (i'm sure they already think i'm a wierdo!) so that every morning i can awake with a deep bow of appreciation for the beauty i experience here every day, as well as a salute of namaste to my pig friend who tiptoes around my backyard on her ridiculously small high-heeled piggy feet.

suppose that's about all for now- things are moving along fast! i celebrated my two months of being here last saturday by drinking some hot chocolate :)
here's to many more months of good health, high spirits, wide eyes, and an open heart.
love to all, callie

bursting our bubbles

2007-02-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heard has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” (Paolo Coelho, The Alchemist)

Most of us exist on a day-to-day basis in perceived bubbles of security. We use daily rituals and routines, financial responsibilities, and the need to “succeed” in some universal (ie: financial) sense of the word as an excuse for sticking to our daily grind. Deep down, we are aware that this bubble represents only a thin layer, a false boundary, between our hearts and the world. Although we present others with our striking independence, we are constantly doubtful and lonely… unsure of our place in the world, yet knowing we will not be content to merely float about in this solitary bubble for our entire lives.

We fear the “other”, believing that the world which exists outside of our thin scope and belief system will somehow shatter our spirit. We fear what could happen to our secure lives if we actually journeyed to experience the world. One cannot truly experience the world as a traditional vacationer, as a wandering spirit. A true experience of the world can only be achieved by living with a people, by learning to respect and even cherish their culture (both the negative and positive aspects), by developing a compassionate awareness of their suffering, and by bearing witness to their hardships and successes as if they are one’s own. Developing an awareness of the amount of suffering and injustice in this world WILL shatter one’s spirit… many times. It takes great courage and a willing to delve into the dark corners of humanity. However, in these dark places… in the places where people toil day in and day out simply to survive… on the fringes of our broken world… exists boundless beauty, stoic hope, and an unparalleled faith in community and brotherhood.

Part of our fear of truly experiencing unknown cultures must be rooted in our knowledge that, on a very deep and primal level, we are all the same, we are all one. If every person in our world could experience the power of the undercurrent of humanity, our delusions of a perfection and individuality would be thrown into the unknown winds; leading to a chaotic yet delightful rollercoaster of being and doing, of learning about other ways of the world, of shattering preconceived notions of individuality and sowing the seeds of a worldwide personal responsibility for the well-being of ALL people.

Somewhere, deep within each of us, is a cry waiting to burst forth, a cry of unity and of anguish in response to the injustices of this world. The injustices which, without action, we aid in perpetuation while fueling the vicious cycle of poverty which keeps the downtrodden silent and invisible. From this same place comes a humming harmony (some call this harmonic hum God, but I truly haven’t decided yet, so in my musician’s mind, I’ll refer to it as a ‘hum’) which goes beyond words and formalities, beyond imaginary borders, beyond angry and vengeful governments, and beyond the gap between those who “have” (but often lack in wisdom and spirituality, and a real sense of community) and those who struggle simply to live (who are rich in being with each other, in the depth and bonds of relationships, and often with an unfaltering faith and generosity in the face of inhumane amounts of hardship)… a harmony which moves through the unspoken language of all living things, whispering, simply “love.”

Although paying heed to this ‘hum’ and loving all can be extremely trying and at times downright exhausting- one begins to realize that if every person treated each other in reverence to the ‘hum,’ to the innate harmony so easily disregarded in the face of selfish fear and power, we would have, rather than a consistently increasing amount of suffering and injustice, a literal heaven on earth.

of mice and stolen cheese sandwiches

2007-02-26T12:35:00.000-08:00

i finally told paulita (my supervisor) last friday that i hadn't had propane to cook with in my house the entire week. i'd been cooking everything in a toaster oven... which takes a bit of creativity. truth is, though, i need to be able to cook (and to at least boil water to get the bugs out of it) and i was getting a bit frustrated with the no gas situation. that and the fact that i've literally eaten 24 banannas this week and i think my body's beginning to reject them. NO WORRIES said paulita, smiling grandly and giving me a moment of hope, we'll take care of it. she ushered me into the school's kitchen and busied herself collecting all sorts of food items for me (spaghetti, oatmeal, mayonayse, sugar, and margarine... you know, the essentials). the best part of the whole situation was, that every item of food she got out for me i'd say "i already have that" and she'd laugh and continue to fill my box with the un-neccessary staples. so i ended up with a 2 LB bag of sugar (which i haven't used a teaspoon of sugar in the last 2 months), 4 sticks of margarine, a hunk of queso, two bags of oatmeal, and four bags of spaghetti. what i'd like is for someone, anyone, to tell me how to cook spaghetti noodles in a toaster oven. as i walked home with my box i eagerly awaited yet another weekend of toaster oven cuisine (ie: toast, ramen, and bananas) and laughed, again, to myself at paulita's unabashed joy at providing me with such an abundance of food resources... and wished desperately that the random guy who came to take my gas tank away last friday (for what i assumed was a fill-er-uper job) would miraculously re-appear with another rusty tank full of liquid gold.

now, in the still heat of sunday afternoon a quiet breeze blows through the heavy, normally dead-bolted back door and i gaze across the yard (well, more of a dirt pit than a yard) and pretend to watch the chickens and pigs roam around in search of scraps in my backyard... while actually, and more importantly, i await the culprit who stole my cheddar cheese and mustard sandwich off my kitchen counter yesterday morning to return for round two... and i don't think it was the pig (although the thing's literally the size of a small cow)...

i owe an explanation. steph came to visit for the weekend (hitchiked on an ambulance...which in iteslf is one of the miracles of this trip so far) and we spent friday night having dinner at my boss' house (scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, and games of peek-a-boo which i've found to induce universal belly laughter in the toddler sector), watching 'school of rock', and eating a bar of dark chocolate her parents sent to me in their last care package. we woke on saturday to the lovely and incessant pounding of a hammer and what sounded like a weed whacker outside my bedroom window at 7 AM. after lazing around in bed for a while, we ate breakfast and packed a picnic lunch- with plans to hike to the peak of the mountain that cusmapa rests beneath. when the group of donors visited earlier in the week, peter brought me a hunk of cheddar cheese (as i regularly joke that i miss cheese more than my family...which is sometimes the truth...) and i'd been saving the rest of it for making sandwiches saturday for our hike. we got all prepared- with a canteloupe, ritz crackers, peanuts, and our sandwiches sitting out on the counter...and left the back door open (which i rarely, if ever, do)...went to put our shoes on in my bedroom...and came back out two minutes later to find the ritz crackers all over the floor (a thought to myself "that's strange") and i realized with a sinking feeling... that our sandwiches had disappeared. it's a funny thing having an eagerly awaited item of food (such as my cheese sandwich) taken from beneath my nose... it actually made me mad at myself how upset i was over the situation. i don't think it was REALLY just losing the sandwiches that pissed me off- it was more the feeling of 1) being watched, and 2) being watched and someone taking the time to wait for a moment of guard let-down to take full advantage of the gringa and 3) here i am, actually really pissed off about someone taking a sandwich from me in the middle of a freaking third world country, and the person who took it was probably STARVING. the fact that i knew the person who took them was probably starving, honestly, didn't make me feel much better about it in that moment. it just made me sad at the amount of despiration that exists right under my nose. and even more sad that in my own selfishness i couldn't look beyond that 'being taken advantage of' feeling to a greater feeling of 'well i hope they like mustard...' we ended up just having to laugh about the whole thing, and how ridiculous and typical it was... guess you have to laugh at things like that, cause (in the words of the indigo girls) 'you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't'.

the hike to the top of the mountain was eventful, to say the least. i had no idea how to get up there- and there wasn't a trail... so we followed a dirt road (past the school) up along the side of the mountain, past a handful of houses marked with hole-laden clothing hanging listlessly on rusted barbed wire fences, drying in the morning sunshine. we hit a point on the road where it was more of a riverbed than a road (ie: all rocks and boulders), then around the next corner i found myself breathing deeply and suddenly aware that i smelled montana... in the dry lifeless crunch of layers of pine needles beneath my feet on a dusty path, in the filtering warm sunlight through the whispering pine trees, the floating breeze smelled of summertime up the rattlesnake, of folfing up patee canyon, and of adventures.... it was the closest to home i've felt the entire time i've been here. i dragged steph off the "road" onto a horse trodden path that looked promising, and soon we found ourselves crossing over fences and climbing on our hands-and-knees up further and further. i felt the rich, dry, espresso colored soil slip between my fingertips and smiled eagerly while steph kept asking... "do you know where we're going?" and telling me "i can't believe you talked me into this." around one bend i stumbled into the shadow of a pine tree and disturbed a family full of creamy butterflies from their mid-morning siesta- they floated around my head, lifting with the breeze, and i felt light-headed with giddiness. here's what i'd been missing the past 6 weeks- trekking through the mountains and paying homage to the breathtaking miracles of nature. we finally reached the top and were rewarded with a 360 degree view of the surrounding valleys and peaks (all the way to the volcano looming in the distance of honduras), caught our breath, and marvelled at the vista... accompanyed by two beautiful chestnut-colored horses who regarded us with a curiosity mixed with an air of obvious ownership over their mountaintop domain. i laid out a sheet i'd brought with us under the shade of a few magnificent pines, and we laid and chatted for an hour or two, soaking up the quietness (unbroken by reggaeton music or roosters), and enjoying our picnic lunch.

we spent the rest of the afternoon making our way back down the mountain (a much more difficult feat than getting up), napping, showering, playing chess and uno, and watching the sun set. we went to dinner at panchita's house and were treated like queens there (as always) with french fries, pork, gallo pinto, and a tomato salad for dinner. we'd planned on drinking a few beers but neither of us felt up to it after such a lovely dinner, so we ended up watching 'kingdom of god' instead and finishing up our glorious chocolate bar. i was about to drift off when...

i heard that dreaded gnawing noise through my pillow. the sound i know all too well these days, that can only mean one thing. there was a mouse nearby. i was planning on ignoring the creature until WHOOSH i felt it rush across my feet and i jumped up and screamed bloody murder... ran to turn the lights on, rifled through my bedsheets... and silently waged war on the little suckers. it was all fun and games until one of them had the nerve to climb into bed with me. normally i'm pretty pro-life when it comes to the little creatures of the world, but these bastards had gone too far. i got out the mousetraps my mom sent in her last carepackage and read the impossible to understand instructions, then promptly put a little bit of salmonella-induced peanut butter on the bait stand (which i'd saved simply in case i needed to do any real war-waging on the mouse population in my house) and set up the trap in the bathroom... turned off the lights... and waited. about ten minutes later i heard a lound SNAP, and reluctantly turned on lights to find... not one, but TWO dead mice, heads snapped in the trap... never to run across my bare feet again. lord knows now i probably just pissed off their mouse family members and they're going to get me right back by gnawing through my thick tupperware food container and pooping on my toothbrush... but until then the scorecard remains, CALIZ: 2... RATONES: 0.

i've had a nice relaxing day today, reading and writing... and listening to the constant conversations taking place outside my bedroom window by the handfuls of guys who seem to have deemed my houses' corner to be 'the place to hang' in town. anyelka and her little sister visited for a bit and i gave them a frisbee and some crackers... talked about going to the local laguna with them next weekend, and tried to calm myself about their hands being constantly all over everything... they brought me some more of the cool little seed/beads found in the river here which i'll try to make some jewelry out of if i can find some good string down here. suppose that's about it for now... just wanted to write about un-necessary food, the stolen sandwich mystery, finding my home in the mountains, and my first real experience with mice. now back to making dinner in the toaster oven... toast? ramen? or more toast? the possibilities are endless........ love, caliz

the secret of the universe...

2007-02-21T06:23:00.000-08:00

i found the universal language of the world
in the simple secret smile of a peasant woman
coffee toned skin rippled with harsh years
of trekking across sparse and unforgiving mountain paths
untamed hair whispering in a dusty breath of wind
brittle hands worn smooth
spoke of survival
crooked fingers laced cross her little one
intimately brushed his cherubic cheek-
delicate wings of a wisened cricket.

amidst my raptuous voyeurism
our eyes caught and connected.
the glimmer of a smile in those deep seasoned eyes-
our faces, a mirror of the secret smile shared.
without a word, she spoke words i've known forever:

"my child...
we are a mirror,
sculpted in the same eternal mold.
we are one...
for our shared joy in this moment
holds every secret in the universe."

the power of one...

2007-02-21T06:19:00.000-08:00

The last 24 hours we were visited here in Cusmapa by another group of current and potential donors from the States- this time a much different experience then spending time relaxing, lounging about on the surface of things with the “VIP” donors who visited last week. We had our second choir performance last night with ALL the kids (well probably about 60 out of 90 of them showed up) which was QUITE the experience, to say the least. Actually, the majority of them were extremely well behaved. I think they’re pretty used to being put in the spotlight and expected to do great things. Peter and the group of gringos didn’t show up until about an hour after they were supposed to be here, which gave the kids a lot of time to run around and get some wild energy out. I watched the sun set over the mountains as I stood outside of the school and felt an extreme sense of calm and peace wash over me, amidst the shrieking masses of kids. The band practiced for a while too, so I got to dance with a few of the Salesiano girls (my middle school aged choir group) - taught them a few swing moves, which really got the giggles going. Silly americans and their crazy dance moves J One of them in particular, Dignah, was wearing a beautiful light blue dress and danced with me, and had a glorious belly laugh going the whole time, it made me smile so hard I thought my cheeks would burst. A few of the little girls also brought me necklaces, one made of some kind of local seeds, and the other right off her neck… so much generosity without a second thought… I played tag with them, ran around for a bit (had them laughing again at how quickly their gringa choir teacher ran out of breath!) and did some horseback rides. I also had a wonderful little moment with Christian, one of the little boys in my Chiuinaso choir class who normally acts out during the whole class, and drives me crazy. He sat next to me and was very sweet… I think it’s hard because a lot of the reasons kids here act out are the same as in the States- their parents are too busy with other things to give them any kind of attention, teachers are too overwhelmed to give every child individualized positive attention, therefore the only way they get someone to notice them is to act out. The simple difference between the parents in this case is that parents in the States for the most part work hard to provide their kids/family with new material things, vacacions, a bigger house, a nicer car… whereas the parents here work simply so that their children might have something to eat. It’s a matter of thriving versus survival…

Anyways, the extra time before the concert actually filled me with more energy, and the concert itself went really well. Our crowd was extremely responsive and happy to be there, and I got many more congratulations than were actually due to me… I feel such a sense of pride in these kids, they’re all so TALENTED. It’s incredible, the amount of passion many of them have for music. I wonder if Brian (who started the program from scratch here 7 years ago) has ANY inkling of the amount of lives he’s touched here by his efforts. The power of one person to change the course of so many lives continues to amaze me… and the rippling effect one person can have on this world should NEVER be underestimated.

After the concert, Steph and I went up to the Casona with the group and had dinner (oh my goodness, such wonderful spaghetti!) and sat around the table and chatted for a long while… one of the ladies who’s been coming down here for 16 years was sitting next to me and she brought up something she said she’d been ‘thinking about for a long time…’ about the type of provocative dancing she’d seen earlier that day at one of the performances at a Fabretto school. She basically started blaming the culture here on making those sort of actions OK… I brought up the point that a lot of these kids get their images not only from local TV, but from stations such as MTV in the states which are also broadcast down here, and from our TV shows which they watch all the time. I then happened to mention that I wanted to be here for a while, then research a way to start a health education program for preteen girls here based on REALITY and fact rather than the abstinence preached (but obviously not followed by anyone) in this society. She started to talk about how she’d read some articles about how effective abstinence based education is, and her husband brought up one study he’d read and how he just ‘couldn’t believe that a 25 year study like Dr. so-and-so’s wouldn’t be taken seriously by everyone and their mother’ (well not exactly in those words, but he certainly made it sound like he was in complete awe of anyone who couldn’t keep their facts straight about the POWER abstinence based sex education. Of course I had to rival that assertation and immediately started on my little (Dr. Worsham-induced) soap-box about how much I’d read about abstinence based health education in general, and how it’s simply NOT effective for ANY negative behavior (smoking, drugs, drinking, sex…etc.). To which she answered that well, HER ORGANIZATION (ie: she’s the president of Tin Roof, a Catholic organization who gives TONS of money to Fabretto) had been putting an abstinence-based sex education course in place in all the Fabretto schools. UM. OOPS. AWKWARD. But of course I had to cover myself, so I didn’t stop there. I told her that I was really happy to hear her different opinion because it would help me in the long run to develop a much more well-rounded program to address this problem. She started going off about how she thought that what I was basically saying was that we should just give them condoms and tell them to go on ahead and have lots of sex (and that of course they wouldn’t use the condoms anyway in what she called ‘the heat of the moment’) and that I thought it was perfectly acceptable to tell 11-12 year olds to start having sex. RIGHT. That’s exactly what I was saying…. Not. At all. Luckily, one of my fellow table-mates came to my aid, a wonderful doctor from Ohio who’s in his mid 60’s who started telling stories about his work in community health in Cincinnati and how much problems he’d seen with parents who were in complete denial about their kids’ sexual behavior. One story he told involved a mother and daughter coming in together, the mom simply said ‘well just tell me if she’s pregnant’. After he checked the daughter out and determined she was not pregnant, he asked the mother if he could give her daughter birth control pills, to which she replied ‘HELL NO! She’s never doing that again’. The doctor looked at the daughter and asked, ‘well, are you?’ to which she defiantly regarded her mother and said, simply ‘of course I am’. The mother finally gave in and let the doctor give her daughter birth control pills, but not before going through a period of complete denial about the whole situation. Anyways, to make a long story short- I ended up feeling quite triumphant, with a beaming grin on my face- one that I only get from participating in rousing discussions like that one… I probably freaked out one of the main funders of our organization with my crazy sex talk and spooky liberal ways, BUT that’s what I’m here for!

After dinner, Steph and I came back to the house and talked for a long time. She’s been having a rough time feeling pretty taken advantage of in a lot of situations… housing, food, and her class time. I think it’s hard for her to stand up for herself, especially when considering the language barrier. I also think that she IS being taken advantage of in a lot of ways, which is really hard… and I don’t have a solution for it. Other than, I know she’s strong enough to figure out a way around feeling used all the time. We also talked about how hard it is sometimes to justify being here and taking the job of a local person. I have this inner debate all the time- what am I providing these kids with, or the program with, that a local couldn’t provide? I guess my only hope is that some of my proud, independent, wacky ways will rub off on some of the girls here and provide them with a way to break the cycle of young motherhood and having dependent children before they have the opportunity to really LIVE their own lives. I’ve also found that a lot of women here are just plain mean to each other (which I think to be true in the US also) and I think that by teaching women to team together to conquer the machismo bullshit they endure every moment of every day rather than divide themselves with jealousy in their current ‘dog-eat-dog’ world, many of the issues here could be helped. I’m also attempting to teach people different ways to express themselves creatively, which I believe to be one of the most important and joyful things in life- when we are able to express deep emotions using means such as music or art- we benefit ourselves and our surrounding world immensely.

Again, I stray from the reason I started writing this note in the first place…
Today at lunchtime, Steph and I went with Peter (our boss) up to the house that the donors stay in here in Cusmapa (which literally the biggest house in town) and had the best meal I’ve had in the last 6 weeks. We had soft tacos with CHEDDAR CHEESE (oh good lord), fresh guacamole, fresh salsa, beef (I haven’t had meat for about 2 weeks), beans, and homemade tortillas… they were glorious. I ate my heart out.

The night before, I had mentioned to my doctor friend, Elser (the one that backed me up in the abstinence debate) about how worried I was about Magda, that she’d been very sick the last week and that I thought she should get checked out more than what happens every time she goes to the doctor’s office here- ie: they give her shots of pain medication. I don’t even know why I’d mentioned it in the first place, other than it’s been on my mind a lot and I don’t really have anyone else to talk to about it… Before I’d left that night, he had offered his services to give Magda a consultation, which I was really happy about. Steph and Peter and I had passed a group of the donors on the way back up to the house, who were headed to the school (Elser being one of them) but I didn’t remember at the time that he’d promised to visit Magda. He showed up about 30 minutes later at the house and sat next to me at lunch so we had a chance to chat a bit. I wish I could describe this man with words… I can only say that he’s one of the gentlest men I’ve ever met, he’s quiet and brilliant, a true seer and believer in the power of making things happen. He told me he’d met with Magda, and that although he worried a bit about her health problems, he was much more concerned about the health issues of her disabled 6-year-old daughter, Guadalupe. He attributed much of Magda’s pain and headaches to the stress of worrying about her daughter, and told me that when he came back in 6 months he planned to see Guadalupe and see what he could do about helping her. That in itself was so relieving for me to hear, because of the sincerity with which he promised to help. After lunch, everybody packed up and got ready to leave. I said goodbye to Steph and turned around to see Magda walking up the driveway with Guadalupe in her arms… what happened next, for me, was nothing short of a miracle.

Time stopped as Magda sat in one of the wide wooden porch seats with Guadalupe on her lap, a shy soft-spoken little one wearing a blue Easter hat with daisies on it. I sat next to them, completely riveted. Elser knelt down in front of them, and regarded Guadalupe kindly, one spirit to another… asked for her name, and started to give her a checkup. What he needed to know most was if Guadalupe still had feeling in the left half of her body (they think she had some sort of stroke when she was about 1 ½ years old), so he began with having her grasp his fingers and squeeze them as hard as she could. Then he took the sock and shoe off her foot, which was nearly bent at a 90 degree angle to her ankle, and got her to wiggle her toes, and to lift the bottom half of her leg and hold it. With great care, he took a few photographs and had me take one of his hand clasping her foot. At this point in time, everyone there was holding their breath in awe of the moment already. He tried some different reflex motions with her arm, elbows, wrist… and had her follow his fingers with her eyes. Then he started snapping his fingers all around her head to see if she could follow the noise. I started thinking of how funny this all must have seemed to little Guadalupe- some strange tall, old, black man with a white beard, glasses, wide brown eyes- who didn’t many words of Spanish suddenly probing her and snapping his fingers everywhere, and couldn’t help but smile. Elser had Guadalupe clasp his hand once again with hers and squeeze to which she replied, “yo no puedo… porque yo no tengo fuerza” (I can’t because I don’t have any strength). At this moment, Elser looked at Magda in the eyes and said “We need to fix this foot.” Peter translated to Magda who asked, “If we fix it, will she be able to walk again?” Without hesitation, Elser answered a definitive “Yes.”

I thought my heart would burst… Peter took over, talking to Elser in business tones- that Fabretto could make this happen, that they’d find a pediatrician in Managua as soon as they could, a private doctor to take a look at Guadalupe and schedule her for surgery. She could have the surgery within a month, a fairly simple surgery which will only cost $900 but will mean the difference of Guadalupe’s whole life. Elser said that in a year, she could be able to walk again. At this point in time, I had tears streaming down my face and was not surprised to look at the others to find I was not the only one incredibly moved by this scene. Charlotte, the woman I had the heated debate with the night before, walked up to Magda and Guadalupe and told her that from now on she was going to have help, that she was not alone. At this point, Magda’s face absolutely crumpled in tears as she embraced Charlotte and Guadalupe looked at her mom, worried, brushing tears from her face. They embraced for a long moment, and tears of grateful joy were exchanged.

As Magda and Guadalupe left, I tried to stop my tears and said my goodbyes, but when I got to Elser I broke down thanking him…I choked on my words and could only offer a tearful embrace. He simply thanked me right back, and looking into my eyes sincerely said, “of course, my dear, I feel this moment deeply too”. It’s so hard to explain with any kind of words, but in the humble ways of this incredible man I may never meet again, I learned more than I ever have. I will never forget that moment… the moment I discovered the power of one person… that with one action of kindness and simple generosity the lives of a whole family will be changed forever.

be love

2007-02-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

(poem i wrote after a particularly crazy afternoon with the little kiddos... closest i've been to screaming since i've been here...)

How do I live as a poem
with mass chaos, screeching children
in constant pursuit of finding my Achilles heel?
How do I live as a poem
when the poem sometimes bursts without warning
into a tempest of unknown origins?
How do I teach love
when constantly bombarded by madness and whispers?

I put forward step after step, balancing timidly on a thin line of faith.
My deepest breaths halted by cut after cut…
Do they even know it hurts?
Or are they so used to being hurt themselves, of the injustice of everyday life
that my pain is meaningless?

The boundary between hate and love, pain and triumph, despair and highest hopes
runs rampantly criss-cross across every moment of every day.
I desperately desire to put forth love,
but sometimes in loving them I feel as if I am discarding a love and care of my self.

I’m stifled in my own selfish ways.

My poem cannot be only about one person, only about love, and faith, and hope…
For poems must also contain the darkest corners of this world-
and to experience these I must know, to full depths,
the amount of pain people are capable of causing each other.
Needless pain through thoughtless words and defiant actions.

Poems do not only care for words,
they require constant tender movement through each line.
Each stanza requires a balancing act,
and faith in the dark corners
where a different and divine life blossoms.
I can learn to love myself deeper in these shadows.

Then I will not need to teach love,
I will be love.

don't let the bedbugs bite...karma's a bitch!

2007-02-16T08:24:00.001-08:00

While reading a book in bed last night I heard some rustling around (not surprising as in the past two days in my room I’ve found cockroaches, grasshoppers, some kind of bedbugs, mosquitoes, and mice) and tried to ignore it for a while… but the scurrying became even more pronounced and unavoidable. So…with a deep sigh I seem to have perfected (through my searching out of the various pests constantly invading my room) I began to search high and low for a culprit. What I found, however, was extremely surprising (as I haven’t seen one since my stay in La Concha)… an esparanza (grasshopper about the length of my hand which looks like two green leaves pressed neatly together) sitting on top of one of the bunk-beds, trying desperately to find its way out of the confines of my room. Since esparanzas are considered to be good luck here, I chose to leave it be and resumed reading. Moments later I looked up at the wooden rafters supporting my tin roof and saw an entire family of mice wandering around in search of a stray morsel. I woke up with bug bites this morning that were most definitely not mosquitoes, and showed them to Dona Miriam (who cleans our house) and she was entirely grossed out but could not offer an explanation. So… one of my roomates (who thinks my trials and tribulations with every pesky animal and insect in Cusmapa are extremely entertaining) offered to help me fumagate my room this week. I don’t even know what that entails here… but it sounds nasty. I’m just hoping the bedbugs go away. I always thought that silly little nursery rhyme was a freaking JOKE but apparently it’s not. Not a very funny joke anyways, in all honesty, who gets bedbugs? I’m not THAT dirty.

Moving on, life here’s actually going really well. I’ve settled myself in to a bit of a routine, which for the moment goes something like this: 1) wake up the first time at 3 AM when the roosters start cock-a-doodling their heads off, 2) wake up the second time at 5 AM when the first bus rambles through town honking it’s horn incessantly, 3) wake up for the third (and final) time at 6:30 AM when the second bus serves as a perfect alarm clock, 4) eat breakfast- oatmeal with a banana, and drink a lovely cup of instant coffee, 5) head off to school… a nice 10 minute walk through town (some days dodging pigs rolling in the mud, always watching for local men trotting by on horses with their machetes, trying to intimidate the stray dogs so they don’t nip at my feet, and saying ‘adios’- which serves as hello and goodbye to any person who stares at me for long enough), 6) try to practice the piano… which is terribly slow going as I haven’t practiced for the last 9-10 years, but since I’m a choir director it’s kind of important that I can play, 7) choir practice with the first group of high school kids- trying my damndest to plunk out the right notes so they have some sort of respect for my musical skills… normally failing at that and just laughing at myself, 8) choir practice with the middle school girls (who are most definitely the best group- easy to work with, eager to learn, and very fun, well behaved… if anyone had ever told me middle school would be my favorite age to teach I would have though they were absolutely insane but I love them), 9) lunch at school (usually some combination of rice, beans, a tortilla, and some sort of meat or corn mush… today I made the mistake of eating a red chile pepper with my rice and my mouth was on fire for about 20 minutes. Not a pleasant experience.), 10) walk back to the house to relax for about 20 minutes (read or write usually), 11) return to the school to do prep work for the little kiddos… who for the 45 minutes leading up to their class come in a constant stream to ask me when class starts (although it’s at the same time everyday). I have 25 kids in my 5-9 year old class- and they are so exhausting, but so much fun. I’ve realized that it takes an extremely special (read: insanely gifted) person to handle kids of that age in large groups. I am not one of these people. One on one, I’m great with kids… but I don’t like doing the stern teacher voice at all… and they simply are not controllable without it. Give them about 5 seconds of leeway and they’re all over the place! Today we had a special “dance” time at the end of class- which worked out really well except I think the next teacher was not impressed with me as the kids were all sorts of wound up by the time she started her class. 12) prep-work for voice lesson/afternoon choir classes- right now I’m only giving voice lessons to one girl, her name’s Wendy and she didn’t make the choir this year. She’s in high school- and I really like her, she loves singing and is extremely patient with my inability to speak Spanish. We had our first lesson last week and I made her dance around the room singing with me… she probably thinks I’m crazy but she does a great job of hiding it! 13) afternoon choir with the high school- about 35 kids… my co-worker’s really sick so I have no idea how it will go without her… I’m offering up a small prayer though! 14) go home, eat dinner (more beans and rice, and a tomato… sometimes with a scrambled egg!), 15) lesson planning, 16) bed. So, that’s a taste of my life here…There’s different ups and downs in every moment, and I take things day by day

I’m not teaching English yet, because Magda (my co-worker/boss of the music program/helper) is really sick and we don’t know what’s wrong with her. I’m really worried because I think she had some sort of stroke last year (she told me she went numb in one side of her body and couldn’t walk or talk for a month) and now her face is swelling up on one side… she has constant headaches. To top it off, her daughter, age 6, hasn’t been able to walk for the last year and a half (they think something is wrong with her brain…). I can’t help but think Magda’s health problems must be serious. But, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it, and, even worse, there’s practically nothing she can do. She was headed to the health center last time I saw her, but I don’t know what they will do for her there- she can’t get any real tests done, all they have at the health center is antibiotics. I am certain that what they can give her there will not cure what she has. Even if she could afford going to Managua to get tests done, I know she still couldn’t afford to do anything about it. It breaks my heart because she’s one of the kindest and gentlest women I’ve ever known and she would do anything to help the kids here. We’re so lucky in the states to at least have access to the kind of health care that could really benefit us in a situation like hers. Although we bitch and moan about how expensive it is (and really, it is ridiculous how much things cost) at least we have the option. I just wish I could do something, anything…

So, I’m going to start teaching English in March (we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with that). It’s frustrating because the school system’s so strange here with timing of classes- you’d think that one age group would have classes in the morning and the other in the afternoon, but it’s so jumbled that it’s nearly impossible to find a time in the day that works for all the kids to be here. ACK! What’s even more annoying about that is that whenever I ask my boss about it, she says to talk to the kids’ other teachers and tell them that music’s basically more important than their class (and that kids who are in music will be better students). YEAH RIGHT! No teacher here is going to want some gringa waltzing into their class to tell them her class is more important than theirs! I think I’ll just wait to see what happens with the scheduling stuff- lots of things here just seem to be that, one long waiting period. Can’t imagine how incredibly wearing that must be to the people who live and work here year in and out.

I’ve been cooking my own food, which has been a bit of an adventure, but has also been really fun. There’s not much variety to be had- mainly the typical beans and rice, tortillas, plantains, tomatoes, bananas, and eggs (that’s about it) but I made spaghetti last week with a few girls who are here volunteering right now, which was fun (except I dumped half the noodles in the sink, so I just ate the dirty noodles! Quite the first dinner party, that’s for sure).Steph and I (the other Fabretto volunteer who’s from Colorado, currently living about an hour bus-ride away from me) went to Managua last weekend to renew our traveling visas. We went to immigration only to find that because we’re from the US, the normal rules don’t apply to us and we have an extra 60 days more than everyone else traveling here. Convenient, but also a bit typical and wearing. You’d think we have enough privledges?! Can’t complain about it, but it really goes with the whole theme here of regarding the US as this type of dreamland, a wonder world where nothing bad happens… I’ve had multiple people tell me that their biggest dream is to leave Nicaragua to find work in America. It’s so strange because I’ve never considered the fact that I could easily get a job (even a menial one) in the US to be a ‘big dream’ of mine… I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m reminded constantly of what I take for granted every single day living in the US. Having water…lights…the ability to trust in healthcare…enough teachers to have children in school for full days of learning (rather than wandering around or watching TV for hours upon hours… oh wait kids do that in the US too)…being able to fund simple projects such as public spaces for kids to play, teenagers to hang out safely… drinking water being safe! (one of my roomates has had a fever/headache and has been in bed for the last 3 days, he thinks it’s because of the water)…the ability to fund higher education (having the option of loans, even when our parents can’t afford to pay)…support for single moms… oh man the list goes on and on.

Access to bug exterminators is high on my list right now! All the websites I looked at for bedbugs say that to get rid of them you need to ‘hire a thorough exterminator, and it might take multiple treatments to fully rid your habitation of bugs’. I laughed. Yeah, next time I find an exterminator in the yellow pages around here I’ll be sure to ask him to fumigate every nook and cranny of my room.

Managua was great though, we stayed at a nice hotel (splurged with our first paycheck) and ate CHICKEN! (which was glorious), drank a few ice cold beers, giggled a lot… we’re so different but we really do have a blast together. Funny how being thrown together with someone in circumstances like these can make you feel so much closer to a person after a small amount of time. What I love about steph is that she always makes the best of things, and she laughs a lot- her enthusiasm is contagious. And she always shares her chocolate, which is a BIG deal in my world at the moment. One of our best moments of the weekend was when we learned that ‘karma’ is also a word in Spanish. We rode the public bus down to Managua and on the second leg of the journey we sat in the very back of the bus and were treated to a half-hour long evangelical sermon. The preacher was one of the most intensely passionate individuals I think I’ve ever seen… bible reached towards the heavens, hands outstretched, eyes closed… of course, being ever the photographer, I wanted to take a picture. But, I didn’t want it to be awkward so I pretended to take a picture out the window then quickly snapped a few of the preacher. We had a private giggle about the whole situation and I promptly forgot about the whole thing. We got on the next bus and were waiting to depart for Managua when a middle-aged Nicaraguan guy got on and quite literally pretended to take a picture out the window, then turned (about 6 feet away from me) and took a picture of me right in my face. I didn’t know what to do, so I just smiled… then burst out laughing and exclaimed “oh my goodness, karma!” Steph’s friend Henry who was with us (and knows no English) said “karma?” so I tried to explain it to him in Spanish… turns out karma’s a universal word. Ironic.

We got to tour one of the other Fabretto centers in a ‘suburb’ of Managua called San Isidro… one of the poorest areas of the city. It’s extremely rural, and dry… few houses cluttered along the windy dust filled road. The kids at the first school were beautiful. We were treated to a performance by a 6-year-old girl clad in her school uniform (complete with unzipped pants… not normal attire for a girl), she had thick spectacles, pigtail braids, and was one of the most intense little singers I’ve ever seen. The teacher that brought her out to sing for our little group was beaming, she was so proud of her little one. I couldn’t stop smiling- I swear a bird could have built a nest in my mouth my smile was so wide. When she hit her high note, her vibrato turned into a roar… and she was also grinning from ear to ear. It was a precious moment. The center that James (one of the JVI volunteers I went to ESL training with in January) works at has been recently remodeled… they have a beautiful new performance center and I got to meet with the music program director. He was really excited about getting our high school choirs to sing together, so I’m hoping to make that work out. We also got to tour one of Fabretto’s ‘experimental’ farms in the area- I frolicked through a pineapple field, ate a sweet lemon (not so good), and got to drink fresh coconut milk right out of a coconut that had just been cut down. It was a great little afternoon.

Yesterday I walked by the new baseball/soccer fields they’re building here and there were 3 goats mowing the lawn. It cracked me up. I was surprised that there weren’t men out there with machetes helping those poor little goats (that’s how they mow the grass at our school). I also saw my first duck/chicken cross. I don’t know how that’s even possible, but it was a strange looking animal… let me tell you. I’m starting to get used to the NOISE associated with being a music teacher. WOW. Kids are loud. I do love teaching, but I don’t think teaching the younger ages is my calling by any means. What I do love is giving voice lessons (although I don’t know what I’m doing) and making the students do all sorts of strange things they’d probably never be exposed to in a music class- dancing around while singing, a bit of yoga… Last night I suggested to the choir that one of our (entirely boring songs) could be sung as a blusey spiritual and got the most incredible response (I felt like I was right out of Sister Act or something) and immediately had them all laughing, smiling, singing with joy, and even got our drummer in on the action. I was on top of the world, it was definately the best teacher moment I've had thus far.

Suppose that’s enough rambling for now, but I will try to write more often so that my blogs aren’t a novel like this one seems to have become! Life’s going… I’m breathing, laughing, loving, and happy simply to be ALIVE in this moment. Sending lots of love and many blessings your way… Caliz (my new name here… which is also the cup of wine used in catholic mass in Spanish)

la concha- escuela en espanol!

2007-01-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

january 22
i've been living in la concha, nicaragua for the past week taking spanish classes and going on all sorts of adventures... la concha's a small city in an area known as la concepcion, about an hour northwest of managua. it's absolutely beautiful up there- tropical paradise with countless different kinds of plants, flowers, and fruits. the atmosphere is much more tranquil than managua- partially because of the heat, but also because of the way of life. things seem to pass much more slowly up here. the school steph (other fabretto volunteer) and i go to was recently built by an incredible woman from the UK named paulette. she sold all of her belongings back in england, and decided to come back to nicaragua. she'd been here 20 years ago volunteering in managua and adopted a nicaraguan baby named gaimiena, who's now 21 years old. paulette now runs a school/hotel with 8 rooms on a mountainside between san juan and la concha. her property has a multitude of rescued street animals (at least 10 dogs and 5 cats), 5 horses, countless chickens and a few incredibly self-riteous roosters, parrots, ducks, some sort of pheasant looking birds, as well as a small coffee plantation. she employs at least 15 locals, half of who are currently working on various carpentry projects and the other half of whom teach and do cooking/cleaning duties.

i get 4 hours of intense one-on-one instruction every morning. my brain hurts so much by lunchtime! the teachers are really patient though, and although learning the language is slow-going i absolutely love it. i can tell the amount of face-to-face conversation i'm getting makes a big difference.in the afternoons, the other students at the school and i (and sometimes paulette) and at least one teacher take trips to various areas around la concha. last week, we went to volcan masaya and got to peek down into an actual crater with boiling lava. it was really cool, and a bit scary- as the park ranger made our driver turn the truck around just in case we had to make a quick getaway. the next afternoon i just hung out and started reading a book about the revolution/contra affair and took a lovely 2 hour siesta in a hammock on the school's sprawling brick porch. warm breeze and a bit of sunshine makes for lovely naps.

thursday, steph and i walked to la concha from the hotel and used the internet for a while (it's quite the hike, you have to really want to get online!). the best part of that trip has to be the careening microbuses riproaring around corners and honking madly at us unfortunate pedestrians or whistling and yelling what are meant to be compliments. the internet cafe's really the hub of the youngsters' social life in the town. they play such classic tunes as 'gangsta's paradise' and lots of other old-school music. friday, we took a day trip to diriamba, one of the other close towns, and went to a fiesta celebrating san sebastian. the fiesta was an all-day affair complete with dancers of all ages, people in masks (mainly old men and horse masks?!), and a final parade down the main street with a marching band following huge levatated manequins of three saints. the parade went on for at least 2-3 miles at a snails pace in the beating down sunshine. very sweaty and lots of different sounds and colors and smells to take in... the street lined with food and drink vendors of all sorts and people drinking tona and victoria and carrying on. lots of libations, lots of music, a general hullabaloo.

saturday we spent a day at the beach, la boquita, which is a good 2 hour drive from la concha. we get chauffered everywhere in the back of a truck, sitting on benches and holding on to metal bars for our dear lives. it's quite amusing considering the amount of potholes here... leads to a few small prayers offered up for one's life about once every 10 minutes or even less! the truck cannot be rivaled (not even close) by the microbuses... which are dilapidated 8 person vans. last one i rode in i counted no less than 24 people inside it. not even exaggerating. sky, one of the other girls at the school, told me one time she counted 37 people. people sitting 3-deep, not complaining one word about it. that's just the way things are here. the beach was beautiful (pacific coast) and paulette's built up quite the relationship with one of the cantinas right on the playa. we spent the afternoon frolicking in the waves, drinking rum with ice and fresh limes, and laying around in hammocks. a perfect saturday if you ask me. sunday, i went for what i thought was going to be a 'morning walk' with sky, nathan, and miguel (one of the local guides) which actually ended up being an 8 mile jungle trek (!) we started at the top of a ridge where a beautiful wood-floored library with huge windows overlooking the valley floor was plopped down amidst what have to be about 20 families houses within a 5 mile radius. it was bizarre! the trek took us down to the floor of the jungle, through a coffee plantation, an unmarked path (i definately got some poisonous plant brushed up against my leg... i have a wicked nasty itchy rash on it), through an area which felt completely untouched by man. the trees seemed hundreds of years old, there were plants with 3 foot leaves, vines everywhere, butterflies, parrots, and lots of other bugs. we also happened upon a family of three monkeys- who we watched playing in the treetops for a bit (or rather they watched us with some curiosity). the hike back up to the library was BRUTAL, but we made it. then nathan said "so... the taxi's picking us back up here?" to which miguel offered a short, well-intended chuckle. oh noooooo..... he pointed to the next ridge and explained that it was a short walk, only 5 kilometers back to la concha so we'd be walking back around the other ridge. we passed a handful of houses made entirely from sticks, string, and tarp... children wearing completely tattered clothing with wide serious eyes... papas happy to show off their armadillo armor they'd collected. pineapple and coffee farmers living on the top of a mountain- a brutal existence. i can't imagine what it must be like during a storm up there. tarps don't hold well for high winds, that's for sure. and farming?! the sides of the ridge were incredibly steep. beautiful vistas, lots of dust (i think i have some in every spot on my body possible), and some honestly dangerous descents. but we made it in one piece! the funniest part of the journey was at the end, we went to a pulperia to buy a bit of water and the lady said 'it has some ice in it' to which i thought... GREAT! ICE! (meaning it would be cold). we hadn't had water for the whole hike. sky and i cheersed our waters and both went to take huge gulps only to have a few drips fall out timidly. the whole bottle of water was frozen. typical. a sad moment, punctuated with much laughter. seems like there's a lot of those down here.

i haven't even got to the best part of la concha- my nicaraguan family!!! i'm staying with gina, her kiddos david (17) and raquel (8), and across the yard eva maria (gina's sister), jadalin (17)., and elton (10). gina's brother eduardo also lives with us. there's people in and out of the place all the time. we have mandarin, orange, and plantain trees in the yard. many flowers and all sorts of other trees. my family's relatively well off, they have a 4 room house (one of the bedrooms is mine, one eduardo's, one that gina, raquel, and david share, and the kitchen/dining/living room). doors open at all times... they're re-doing half of their roof right now cause a mandarin tree fell on it, so we're a bit cramped. they're wonderful though. raquel and elton have played with me since day one- we read, play soccer, basketball, and just sit around and giggle. raquel and i also enjoy making animal sounds at eachother, because they sound so different in spanish and english. gina's been wonderful. she treats me like a princess, i've been eating so well. mainly rice, beans, plantains, cheese, and fruit. the pineapples are SO yummy. oh wow. we also get tomatoes and tortillas sometimes, which are a treat. she just discovered that i like coffee, so she's been making me some every morning :) this morning i learned how to juice by hand (mandarins), made gallo pinto (rice & beans), and fried plantains. she's going to teach me how to make beans and do my laundry... she's very concerned that i'll be living by myself and i need to know how to do these things. i haven't had enough time to articulate how i feel about this family, but i've had a few moments which thus far completely define the experience for me.one was last night, raquel's cousin alejandra came over and the two entertained me with poems and songs and dancing for about 2 hours, asking me all sorts of questions, giggling, and such. raquel keeps asking me when i'm going to come back to visit. actually she asked me that after the first day, how blessed am i to be so cared for and cared about?!

the other came a few nights ago after gina and i were talking about the sandenista revolution and how awful the US had been to nicaragua during that time. i wish i could understand more so i could ask more questions... but when i come back to visit i'll have time to talk to her about it more. anyways, we were talking about greedy politics and other things like that, and i asked her if she had nail clippers. she went on a hunt for them, and came back 5 minutes later with a nail file... couldn't find them. i thought she'd just hand it to me but instead, with great care, she sat and filed each of my nails one by one. i had tears in my eyes. it was one of the most tender moments i've ever had- and completely symbolic of my time here thus far. truly indescribable. well i must be going, we're in managua right now for the afternoon (had to download my pics so i could take more!) and we need to catch a microbus back soon so we aren't packed on the roof with 37 other lovely microbus patrons! much love, cal

thoughts on rap and evangelical "social justice"

2007-01-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

january 14- mid-afternoon

i just ate lunch with pastor john, who is basically the administrator for the provadenic program here in nicaragua. provadenic provides basic medical services to many of the extremely rural areas of nicaragua by training a local to perform the health services for the community on a regular basis. the program seems to be geared toward the right goals- empowering locals to take responsibility for their own health outcomes, and creating an environment whereby locals help eachother instead of random missionary trips helping at unpredictable intervals. pastor john's a really interesting guy- we had a discussion about whether or not rap music should be considered art, and he said "no, because i don't like the way the artists say women should be treated". hmmm. i don't think it's just rap that enables men to feel ok about treating women poorly. i'd agree that any form of music which degrades women isn't something i'd personally listen to or endorse, but i think it's still art. we have more to look and change at a society-wide level than rap music to blame for the maltreatment of women.
pastor john also brought up an interesting point- one which i'd never considered before. he was talking about how at his age (i'd assume mid to late fifties) many of his peers have forgotten their roots in social justice, have sort of sold out and become comfortable with their lives. in this comfort, they have forgotten how to care for the poor and disadvantaged... he told me that he thought "every person's a liberal until they recieve their first paycheck and mortgage payment." i don't know if i agree with that statement entirely, but it does bring up the point that having or not having money changes everything. he told me that in his experience of evangelical christians, and more specifically conservative evangelists. many of the people he's come into contact with think that their conquests against homosexual marriage and crusades for pro-life issues ARE in fact attempts at being involved with social justice. i had to let that sink in for a moment... i suppose i can see the reason behind the pro-life as a social justice issue. from a certain worldview, it would seem like the most important issue because we're dealing with those who quite literally cannot help themselves. however, the thought of using an anti-homosexual marriage stance as a social justice issue just blows my mind. it makes sense though, that from the truly conservative christian worldview, being anti-homosexual marriage in fact "saves" society from (what?) destruction? the downward spiral we're sure to enter the moment a gay couple is allowed the same rights as the rest of us? i thought we were fighting FOR human rights, for justice... not for the oppression and inequality homosexual couples currently endure throughout america and most of the world. it just doesn't make logical sense that fighting against another person's rights would be considered to be fighting for social justice. anyone out there who can enlighten me on this matter?
so, to those of us who've recently recieved our first big paycheck from the real world (myself, obviously not included) or had to pay our first mortgage payment... let's not forget our liberal roots. if we were ourselves as children again, would we be proud of our intentions and actions? hold tight to that "childish" optimistic voice inside of you, and try with all of your might to never let your optimism and idealism fade with the comforts of an "adult" life in america.

che, barrios, colors, and pancakes

2007-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

january 14

we only had class for a few hours yesterday- mainly we practiced choosing and creating our own activities from the textbook. we also found some really helpful webpages- for example, animal safari sounds and an animated song to accompany the lesson. this course has really highlighted the incredible impact the interent has for teachers sharing information. after class, i came back to the provadenic and read "the motorcycle diaries" for a bit (ernesto 'che' guevara's diaries from his trip around south america) and listened to some tunes. the book is quite wonderful (the movie, one of my favorites) and details ernesto and alberto's misadventures throughout an 8 month trek. it's funny because most of the book they remain completely miserable, cold, under-fed, and ill. their only form of transportation dies a third of the way into the trip and they are forced to hitchike with the locals from city to city. however, where most of us would be turning home in agony- they press on... guided by i don't know what- ernesto remarks at one point that their loved ones may have mistook their supposed bravery for simple stupidity. i've been told i'm brave, and am hoping desperately that i'm not stupid! the best part of the book for me is that because the two are extremely poor, they simply try to survive from meal to meal. this type of focus lends itself to making the best out of terrible situations and to small kindnesses making the biggest difference throughout the journey. i want to go to chile!!! ernesto wrote, "Looking at the scenery superficially only captures its boring uniformity and doesn't get into the spirit of the countryside; for that you need to spend several days in a place". these two explorers inspire me to not just look for the scenery in places, but to dig deeper, to find the terrible recesses and to learn them, to appreciate them, to understand the real people behind them. i refuse to be a tourist... i must care enough about the places i visit to embark on a journey with the people there, and to capture and honor their hopes and dreams.
i walked around the barrio for a while taking pictures but still don't feel comfortable wandering around by myself here. i'm sure it's perfectly safe during daylight but it's going to take time to convince me of the safety. till then, i'm skeptical at best and a bit jumpy (which really doesn't suit me). the barrio's a strange mix of nicer new buildings and shanties held together by tin and barbed wire- similar to the 'la luz' barrio that the JV's live in. it's simple to truly see the gap between the 'have's' and 'have not's' here- one does not have to look beyond the front door of a casa to understand the relative hardships of the family living inside. many of the wealthier homes have mosaic type sidewalks outside their wired-in porches, and fancy designs instead of simple bars on their windows and doors. this may not seem like much, but when contrasted with rusted twisted tin scraps... it means much.
i've been having an inner debate about the colors here, and whether or not they actually are brighter and more vibrant than those i'm used to in the estados. i do think that in general, buildings here are more often painted in bright primaries and colors similar to those found in a packet of tropical skittles. it almost seems like the colors of things in the estados are more muted, they all ascribe to a similar pattern of "nice, but not toooo much, don't start any debates or problems with these colors!" which leads basically to "blah". i also believe that the colors here seem more raw to me, new because the combinations they're seen in are different than any i've been exposed to, and new for their cracked and broken nature. there's something incredibly beautiful in brokeness- a heartwrenching quality which shouts "mend me" and at the same time whispers "sit, for a while, and ponder my existence. why am i broken? can you fix me, or should you simply honor my existence, my brokeness?" i need to think more about this. more thoughts on it at a later point.
after i returned to my room, i finished my book, ate dinner, did some yoga, and went to bed. all in all a fulfilling and relaxing day :)
this morning, i woke to dreams of home and was treated to the BEST breakfast i've had here by far. there was a group of missionaries from ohio who arrived last night, and i swear they feed me better here because of these wonderful men. hallelujah! i had a pancake (with syrup!), pinto gallo (rice & beans), an egg, watermelon, toast, and a bannana. it was a feast! it's incredible how a meal like that can actually make an entire day feel like it will be wonderful, full, and productive. more than that, i had fresh fruit which was really a treat. after a week, i already promise myself to never take the availability of fresh fruit we have in the estados for granted again... because it's WONDERFUL. simply wonderful. i really don't have plans for the day, but i think i'll walk around the barrio a bit this morning and take some more pictures, and maybe find a church to go to- i do enjoy seeing different types of worship. i'll write more later- cal

fried food fridays!

2007-01-14T07:47:00.000-08:00

january 13

class was good yesterday, we worked on forming our own lesson plans from a text, worked in partners for a bit (which was actually much more difficult than on my own- i think i have a pretty well-set idea of the way i plan to teach so it's hard, but good, to figure out different ways to go about teaching). i figured out that the Fabretto center has wireless internet, so i spent a large chunk of the day playing on the internet and posting blogs (naughty callie). after class we took a crazy "scenic" route to drop people off- it took an hour to get to Silvio's hotel. i felt bad for josh and james who had to ride in the back of the truck! a bumpy ride! the girls pointed out where they're building the new american embassy- looks like some pretty swanky digs. apparently the US is building a "mini-city" for an embassy, complete with hotel, restaurants, grocery store, and hospital. priorities, anyone?!
i decided to hang out with the JV's again for the evening, it was frita friday (or something to that effect), meaning fried street food was the fare for dinner. josh and i set out to explore barrio "la luz" and finally found a place- 6 meals for 130 cordobas (the equivalent to $8 US dollars) including meat, ensalada, fried plantains, and chiles (no gallo pinto... which was very sad). i was introduced to the JV's neighbors who each made it a point to kiss me on the cheek (all 10 or so of them). i love that, meeting people here is such a process compared to what we go through in the states. it seems very important to people that every person present has met eachother and been formally introduced. it's really a very polite thing to do in general, but i know i've been guilty of not doing that in the past. something to learn! during dinner, we played a "name that tune" game with margaret's i-pod, which led to much laughter and an impromptu jam-dancing session to "i believe in a thing called love". how great to find other people who are as passionate about the air guitar as i am! after dinner, james and mary played their guitars and i broke out a tupperware drum for some jack johnson tunes. i realized i can't really keep a beat and sing at the same time... which is something i thought i could do because of bbt but, guess i'll have to work on that too! we drank a tona (one of the two basic types of national beers) and i decided to head back to my hotel. my taxi driver had to ask 3 different people for directions before we finally found it, which started to freak me out a bit because he kept asking me for directions beyond the ones i had written down and i had no idea what to tell him! i was just starting to dread him asking me to step out of the car in the middle of the very sketchy neighborhood we're staying in, but at the last minute we made a turn and found it! PHEW. dodged that bullet. i don't think i'll be heading out and about anytime after 8 or 9 PM in the near future. it wasn't an unsafe situation, i just think that until i know the language better it's probably not a very good idea. gotta go to class- then i get a day off school! love to all, cal

chavez: "capitalism is savage" (a gringo amidst mass nicaraguanese)

2007-01-13T08:10:00.000-08:00

January 12

Here I am, morning of my 3rd day in Nica- I really haven't had a moment to write! I arrived on the 10th around noon, and made it through customs without a second glance (I must not have struck them as a Miami drug dealer). Danielo (the bus driver from the choir tour) picked me up from the airport and we had a jolly little reunion, it was awesome to see a familiar face! We basically talked the whole way to the Fabretto center in Managua... well I have to admit Danielo did go off for about 10 minutes on a rant about how much he detests Ortega (I think I maybe understood 10% of what he was trying to tell me). Other than that, we had a great conversation and he even remarked on my Spanish (which is hilarious because I haven't practiced at all). Managua was absolutely going crazy that afternoon with the innaguration of recently elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega (yes, the same one from the 80's). The airport was packed, and apparently the plane next to the one I came on had the President of Mexico on board. All the sidewalks and buses were crammed with people, most of whom carried Sandenista or Nicaraguan flags and wore pink (yes, bright flamingo pink) FSLN hats. The traffic was incredible! We finally arrived at the Fabretto center just as the ESL training finished for the day. James, one of the JVI (Jesuit Volunteer International) volunteers I met last trip, was there to greet me (another familiar face!). I met Silvio (our teacher) and the two other women in the class, Carmen and Marjorie (from Esteli). James asked me if I wanted to go to the innaguration that evening with him and his roomates (I believe his direct question was "Well, do you like doing things spur of the moment?".... what kind of a silly question is that?). I decided to drop off my bags at the Provadenic (ironically, the same hotel I stayed at with the choir last December) and went with James to the JV's house to meet the other roomates.
We waited for a bus for about 15 minutes before having to basically stuff ourselves on a completely packed public pus. We went as near to the celebration as we could possibly get. I've never been on a more packed bus, it was crazy! Every time I moved I felt like I was on top of another person. After we got off the bus, we followed the flow of the crowd for about a mile before reaching a standstill about 300 yards from the satge. We had all heard that the festivities were supposed to start at 3 or 4 PM but in reality nothing happened until atleast 6 or 7 (welcome to Nicaraguan time!). This meant we were standing in the sun for a good three hours before the innaguration INSIDE the national assembly even started (which they were nice enough to broadcast live on a big-screen projector). While we waited, we stood around and chatted and I took all sorts of pictures. It was actually really cool just to be in that environment, you could feel the buzz of excitement and hope in the air. The Nicaraguan people have such new-found faith in this man who completely screwed them over a mere 20 years ago. he truly is their hope, and has the capability to trun Nicaragua around, to make her a progressive nation, to help the poor. While we waited, James took about 20 minutes to catch Josh (one of his roomies) and I up on what he'd learned in the past three days of ESL classes. Seems like we really didn't miss too much, a lot of it seems like common sense but I'm not sure that I would have come up with all of it on my own. Finally, just as we were about ready to throw in the towel, the big screen lit up with a live scene of the happenings at the National Assembly, which entailed much ritual and many photo ops with various world leaders and dancing by Nicaraguan youth. This lasted for a good hour, until finally the various dignitaries began to fill the stage. The stage iteself was very impressive. It's a huge white concrete structure with a variety of colorful desighns on alternating columns... almost looks like someone very talented decided to graffiti it.
Ortega arrived to what must have been the 20th rendition of "Give Peace a Chance" in Spanish- the reggae/hip-hop version of course. The sky filled with raised flags of every Latin American nation (mainly Sandenista) and everybody sang. It was a moment I won't soon forget, a truly beautiful scene in a free country, a people filled with dreams of peace and hope for better lives. I hope Ortega can at least provide that. Ortega's wife (clad in a blue plastic visor, flower-print everywhere, and curly mane blowing wildly in the evening breeze) gave the first speech, after which more dancing and festivities filled the stage. Next, Chavez and Eva Morales both spoke. Chavez had a truly commanding presence- I was incredibly impressed by his ability to control the audience, each person seemed to hang on his every word. He also emphasized 'death to imperialism in North America' and roared 'capitalism is savage!' which I thought was extremely appropriate for the circumstances. However, for one of 6 gringos in a crowd of 200,000 it made me giggle and also made me a bit queasy at the same time. Morales was a less engaging speaker, but seemed sincere and grateful to be there. We honestly only stayed for the first 10 minutes of Ortega's speech, it seemed like half of the people there decided to have a mass exodus. I'd have felt bad if I hadn't been so exhausted that I felt like falling over. On the way out, there was a huge fireworks display and much hullabaloo. We caught a taxi and came back to the hotel, and I fell asleep right away. I don't think I've ever slep that hard! I definately needed it though. The next morning we woke up at 7 AM (because apparently people here like to wake up much too early and then sit around waiting rather than sleeping in a bit more) and I took my first bucket shower of the trip. We ate breakfast, and I took a nap before we were picked up for class. I read the newspaper on the way to Fabretto, which had some excellent pictures of the innaguration. How incredible to be a part of history! I can only hope it will be a great moment in history, not one that the Nicaraguans will regret.
Class was good- many of the things we learned were elementary/basic, but will provide a good foundation for me as an inexperienced teacher. We played a lot of little games, worked in groups, and giggled a lot. We had class for about 8 hours though, so by the end of it I was ready to be done! We came back to the hotel and ate dinner with Pastor John (who runs the Provadenic) and chatted with him about thier medical missions, his studies in psychology, and other things. After dinner, I read a few journals about early childhood ESL strategies and went to bed. Today, more class, then I figure out what the heck I'm going to do this weekend with nothing scheduled. I have a feeling I'll find something or other to keep me preoccupied...