Turkey Day Nica Style

A week before the big day we sat in our program meeting and assessed what we knew about Thanksgiving 2007:

- We could have anywhere from 20-40 people at our house.
- We only have 7 plastic chairs and 3 of them are broken.
- We may or may not have enough serving dishes.
- Matt only eats dessert twice a year... which means we need to make A LOT.
- You can't find pumpkin pie mix in this country.
- Our oven only has one rack. The temperature settings are 1, 2, 3, and 4. We don't really have any idea what that means.

One Week till T-Day: All I remember was a flurry of market shopping, pie making, email sending, favor asking and house cleaning in preparation. We as Manna members were honestly a bit stressed, but happy and excited to be hosting not only my own family [yay Duncans!], but also a team from Vanderbilt, four of Manna's founders with their respective entourages, and just about all the single gringos we know.

12 Hours till T-Day: MPI had a casserole baking party while my family played a rousing game of spades [did I mention the Manna house has no TV?]. We kept giggling, making the chefs run away from their responsibilities to see what was funny.

Morning of T-Day: Vandy leaves for a surfing trip so we could clean and cook without stepping on people. Playing Geoff's Motown mix, my parents found aprons and took command of the tiny kitchen, directing Tessa and me to wash and chop until we could wash and chop no more. By the time we served the meal, Tessa had officially become part of our family.

The spread was incredible. Friends brought homemade rolls, yams, salads [who brings salad to Thanksgiving?!] and desserts. Our house produced a beautiful turkey with gravy [thanks, Mom!], sauteed vegetables, green bean casserole, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, pumpkin soup, homemade dressing and four [count em, 4!] pumpkin pies. For the rest of my life, dinner parties will be a breeze compared to what we accomplished that day.

In a lot of respects, this was my favorite Thanksgiving. No one got snowed in-- although several chairs got thrown into the pool. No one got stuck cooking by themselves-- to pull it off, it truly had to be a group endeavor. Most importantly, no one forgot the reason for the day-- to celebrate friends, family and those friends who have become family. Seeing what we see everyday, we would be naive not to be thankful for such a privilege.

After all, Thanksgiving is so much more than just Pilgrims and Indians. It's not about our past, but rather being grateful for what we've be given today.

Speaking Goat at 3AM

While I was busy trying to permanently kick out Carl [that's right, I named my parasite. He was male, of course], our director presented us with the possibility of living in Cedro Galan [our rural community] for a week. Admittedly I wasn't super pumped about being away from the Manna house while Carl and I were having our dispute, but hey, when in Nicaragua, live like the Nicaraguans do!

To my glee, "Lalo" agreed to host me in their little red house. "Lalo" is the combination of Laura and Oscar who have an amazingly sassy and smart 7 year old named Laurita. Laurita and I, already friends from hanging out at her mom's English class, looked forward to being sisters for the week, playing hours of "ochos locos," drawing pictures for her parents and giggling over telenovelas [Spanish soap operas]. Laura, ever the concerned mother, specially made me food-- boiled carrots and potatoes-- because my stomach couldn't take anything fried [stupid Carl]. While I greatly appreciated her care, I started looking for other food outlets after my second breakfast of carrots.

My host family lived very simply, but happily. Smaller than my parents' bathroom, their home had dirt floors and two walls that divided the space into two bedrooms and a kitchen/living/dining area. We watched TV, prepared meals, and chatted in their four red plastic chairs, the only places to sit. The shower was a spicket with black tarp around it, which, due to the papaya and banana trees around the house, lent the feeling of bathing in the jungle. The mosquitoes swarming around me added to that feeling.

Although I knew it going in, the most difficult part of my experience was the toilet, a latrine [which we shared with four other families] about 30 yards from the house. This meant that if I needed the restroom during the night, I had to find my flashlight and toilet paper, unbolt the lock, tip-toe through two yards and pray that I didn't wake the dogs. Needless to say, the entire area knew when I went to the bathroom. If they didn't hear my entrance for some reason, I quickly remedied the situation by yelping every time I opened the latrine door. Seems that there was a goat who found it amusing to bleat at the gringa trying to juggle flashlight, toilet paper and the lock to the door.

At the end of the week, Laura told me that she and Oscar are saving money from his construction work and her small business selling children's clothes [she's a member of Manna's first microlending program] to install a toilet that flushes inside their home. I told her that I would bake a cake to celebrate the day.

My new realization: indoor plumbing is a marvelous thing.

Welcome to La Chureca, you have a parasite

That is a direct translation of what the La Chureca nurse told me on Wednesday while shaking my hand. I kid you not.

So, to all of you placing bets as to how long my tummy could go before it gave up the fight, the answer is a little under four months. But have no fear-- I'm kicking the moocher out as we speak with some lovely round yellow pills. Take that!!

I just realized that I haven't given y'all an account on La Chureca, where I spend two to three mornings a week. It is the home to the 46 precious kids in our child sponsorship program who are at risk or have been diagnosed as malnourished. One other detail about Chureca-- it's Managua's municipal dump.

Most of you have already heard (or experienced) this, but the emotions I feel when I go into Chureca are hard to put into words. Before we drive in, we roll up the windows to keep the smell from getting into the microbus, as it tends to linger days after our trips. In so doing, we make a barrier between us and the entrance, where truck drivers blaze past pedestrians and solicit young girls for sex and glue sniffers stare at us blankly, their noses covered with baby food jars. Yes, this is a part of the reality of Chureca, but it is not the Chureca that I have come to know.


The Chureca I know consists of Erick, an eight month old baby boy who has his mother's huge brown eyes. It consists of Zayda, who refuses to do anything you ask her, but whose little body throws itself into seizures if she doesn't take her meds. It consists of Josue Daniel Chavez Ortega, who just might have the craziest Communist name ever but is just so cute that you forgive him. These are the faces and the stories that keep me coming in, despite the smell and the parasites. Bring it on... I'm Erin and we've got mouths to feed.
My love to all of y'all,

The Fable of Mabel

This is the story of Mabel Claire, our microbus. Although she is only two years old, her life, like most in Nicaragua, has been difficult. Try as we might (yes "we"-- my friends, I am now driving a stick-shift, much to Daddy D's dismay), Mabel's bald tires can, in the words of a Nica friend, "get stuck in nothing." Here's a short list:

-- AT THE BEACH-- this is where we met the prophetic friend in the previous comment. He came out with his two grandsons in their tighty whities which said "amiguito" (little friend). We gave them cookies as thanks.

-- IN A DRY RIVER BED-- which also doubles as the entrance to the community. I was on the "push team" for this one, along with four teenage girls and an old man with a shovel.

-- AT A HOUSE-- ok, so this one is legendary. We tried to turn in a space that was as wide as Mabel is long... no go. This HUGE dude named "Grande" (not kidding) comes out of his house and breaks bricks with a metal rod to put under the spinning wheels. We thanked him by buying some juice at his venta. It was super sugary, but that's another story.

-- ON A HILL-- not understanding the power of rain in this country, we trapped ourselves in a water run-off early into the trip. Three of our English students helped us, along with a guy in a pick-up. He had on a Vandy "Five-for-Five" tshirt so Dane, Matt and I figured it must be fate.

Yes, Mabel's adventures may not be enviable, but they take place all over Nicaragua and inevitably make friends along the way. The old man at the beach lets us park in front of his house now (it's gravel and saves him the work of getting us out), the girls in the riverbed have told me they're interested in our exercise classes, and knowing Grande has given us some substantial street cred....

I keep thinking that this reads like a Dr. Seuss story, I just don't have the energy to make it rhyme. Oh the places you'll go...

Blessings,

The ants went marching one by one...

Ok, so they weren't any ants and they definitely weren't one by one but I still saw some amazing marching on Saturday. The tradition for Independence Day (yet another Nicaraguan holiday) is that all school children hit the streets for desfiles which translates to parades. This isn't Macy's on Thanksgiving Day but rather hundreds of children of all ages marching like soldiers down Nicaraguan highways. Because we teach a lot of the kids, we dragged ourselves out of bed, walked 45 minutes to the spot where they were to turn, and waited.

And waited.

Gabriel, one of our advanced English students, walked back to his house to get his guitar so he could "serenade" (his word, not ours) us during the down time. While he was gone, Geoff manned Gabriel's family venta, or side store. Quite a sight to behold, a gringo trying to find his way around the space as customers pointed out what they wanted.

Forty minutes later, true to Nica time, we heard the drums and saw the flag bearers. Like proud parents, we snapped pictures and called out names. I inadvertently made one of our teenage students very popular... all his friends now think he has a gringa girlfriend.

When the students turned back toward the school, we followed pied-piper style. Shortly after that, one of the already famous Nicaraguan buses decided it didn't want to wait any longer and tried to push through the lines of children. Parents, in an uproar, used their bodies to block the bus and, so i'm told, called the police and then followed them to make sure he was incarcerated. Everyone else shook their heads and kept walking, telling us gringos to take lots of pictures to document the event.

Once we got to school, the real fun began. Evidently, the Nicaraguan equivalent of the danceline consists of high school girls shaking their tailfeathers in black stiletto boots. Their apprentices danced alongside them with what looked like pom-pons. Boys beat out the rhythm for the dancers with drums of all sizes. Both boys and girls made human pyramids to show their prowess (let me repeat: the girls had on stiletto boots!). All being said, the presentation lasted for 30 breathtaking minutes.

It started to rain, so we headed into the auditorium where each class had selected its candidate to be the queen (high school) or princess (elementary school) of the academy. Girls strutted out in traditional Nicaraguan garb and announced their names and grades... my favorites were the little ones who haltingly read their lines from cards their moms held. When the rain let up, we started the walk back home, amazed that it still was before noon.

I love this country.

Finding Balance in Nicaragua

Every Tuesday and Thursday evening the Manna girls lead exercise classes for "women" in the community ranging in age from 9 to 40. We work together to discover ways to exercise using only objects you can find in a typical Nicaraguan household (benches, towels and filled water bottles) and mix traditional aerobics with Latin dances—you know I relish any opportunity to shake my hips. The past two weeks Julie and Tessa have integrated yoga into the last half hour of class, explaining in Spanish active cats and downward dogs. Many of the women had difficulties with balance poses until Julie instructed them to imagine their feet as roots holding firm to the ground. Then, almost magically, all of the women could balance and we had thirty seconds of silence punctuated only by the sound of our breathing.

While my roots will forever be with my family in the US, I know that I now have roots in Nicaragua as well. Like the yoga positions, these past two months have been a quest in finding balance in my life, from knowing when I can help and when I've done all that I can to understanding that it's perfectly fine to choose a slice of pizza over rice and beans. The moments of balance seem all too few and far between, but they do come. In those instances I am truly traquila, letting the breeze brush past me as I listen to my own breathing.

En Paz

P.S. Many thanks to all of you who have been thinking and praying for me during Hurricane Felix. Since Managua is on the Pacific side of the country, we only received lots of rain, which has only delayed some of our programs because of roads becoming rivers… however, not all of the country fared so well. Please keep the North Atlantic region of Nicaragua (RAAN) in your thoughts as they begin to rebuild—the tallies so far have it at 4 deaths and 5,000 homes destroyed. --emd

Love Notes to Nica, Pt. 1

i'm sure periodic updates will continue on this theme, so i'm going to just go ahead and start numbering...

on thursday of this week all organizations working in la chureca got together for a "reunion" where we discussed our missions, goals and target populations. it was so encouraging to see a room full of nica and american faces working together to improve the quality of life in such a difficult environment. my favorite line: the mind set should not be about pulling people out of the dirt, it should be about walking together hand-in-hand, because we are all people, which makes us all the same.

yesterday we woke up early to go to the beach for the morning. the rain pattering on our roof made us hesitate to the conditions we would find, but when the power went out we (meaning me) decided that Jesus wanted us to go. we weren't wrong. the rain cloud opened up long enough for us to spend 2 and a half glorious hours at quisala,
listening to music, catching up on reading and trying to surf (mainly in vain... but hey, life's a work in progress). as we drove home to get back to work, the rain started again, insuring that the day would be cool and our micro looked semi-clean.

we found a coffee shop that sells frappacinos for less than $3 (take that, starbucks). driving in lori's air-conditioned car, sipping my coffee on my way to shop, i felt like i had been transported back to the states. then i remembered that i was in a 1993 buick whose doors don't open from the inside, we were on our way to shop (for clothes) at a grocery store and a fair, and i was looking at a volcano rising above the city. my life is a dream.

besos y abrazos,

Two Stories this Week...

One funny and one bittersweet. Take your pick, or, if you dare, read both:

FUNNY:
As for my quest to get in shape here in Nicaragua, let me tell you about the "back walk" into the community. There's a total of about 300 yards that's paved and the rest is dirt. Upon entering the dirt "gate" (barbed wire attached to sticks), you pick up a stick to scare the angry dogs that oh so lovingly greet and follow you on the path (by the way, there are two breeds of dogs here: rottweiler and nica dog. rottweilers are for rich people to use as guard dogs and do not like dark people, nica dogs must show at least half their ribs at any given moment and do not like light people. prejudice even in dogs, but I digress...) Locals will point you in the right direction, part of which includes walking through a river bed (meaning this route is only safe when it hasn't rained) and up what I call the Hill of Death. Seriously, this thing is longer and steeper than the hill on Orleans to get to the Compound and it's all DIRT (the dog stick can be helpful here to pull your body up when your legs give out). The lesson of the walk is the road most traveled is not always the correct road. Matt and I had to turn around twice the first time* because we took the bigger path instead of finding the tiny tiny gap in between bobbed wire fences. Should have known to ask directions: we literally walked around two bulls blocking our paths, which turned out to be the wrong way. Don't ever say God doesn't send signs. Door to door, the walk should take thirty minutes. With my short legs, us getting lost and Matt stopping to take off his shirt, we got to the community in a swift 45. Awesome.

*Note* The last time we took this route, it was all the girls on the way to Women's Exercise. Trying to get warmed up, we started jogging down the hill before approaching the Hill of Death (yes, I capitalize it on purpose because it's that intimidating). Unfortunately, a boy told us to wait and we stood as 8 cows passed us and then proceeded up the Hill. That's right-- we climbed up the Hill looking at 8 cow butts. Needless to say, their pace was a little slower than we wanted. We got to class un-warmed up and smelling like cow. Did I mention that I live in Nicaragua?!


BITTERSWEET:
One thing I have learned is that joy can be found in things that seem small to most people. Case in point, one of my happiest memories so far came when I brushed Mercedes' hair for an hour. Her younger sister, Ileana, was one of the first kids I met in the dump. Manna (among others) has been working to get their family out for years now. Their parents and other siblings are now out of the dump, but Ileana and Mercedes, at 15 and 16, respectively, have decided to stay behind so they can work. It's the life they know.

Ok, that's the background. so Daniel, who is Dane's doppleganger (the kids really do think they're the same person!) and a friend went into la Chureca on Tuesday and found Mercedes. When they asked if they could take her to lunch, she said she couldn't because she was too dirty. They brought her to the Manna house so she could shower.

It had been so long since she had bathed that her hair was dreading. It took over an hour to do, but we got the knots out. I kept flashing back to when I was little and my mom used to comb my hair when I was sick. These were quite possibly some of the first loving touches Mercedes had had in a long time. Afterwards, we braided her hair and she gave me a hug. It was the first time since she had gotten to the house that she looked me in the eye. Something as simple as a shower and a brush and she had regained her dignity.

My sweet friends, I do not know what God has in store for us, but I know that His plans are good. He will only give us what we can handle and we are always cradled in His hand... no matter what part of the globe we may reside.

Someone just put on the Weepies. I guess our worlds aren't that far apart after all.

With all my love,

What's Black and Red all over? A sandinista on Dia Libre!

i want to preface this email to my mother and pseudo-mothers alike that I'm still alive and kicking, so don't start worrying.

that being said, i went to my first socialist rally-- sandinista, in fact-- last thursday and i can safely say that it was one of the most surreal events of my twenty-two years.

let me give you a little history: on july 19, 1980, the sandinistas, led by daniel ortega, overthrew somoza's infamous dictatorship, ending the bloody civil war. every year since then july 19 has been marked as "Dia Libre"-- loosely translated as freedom day. now don't get confused, this is not nicaragua's independence day... that comes in september when the nation commemorates its independence from spain (in case you haven't figured this out yet, nicas like to party and take whatever chance they can get to have a festival). dia libre is just the sandinista's opportunity to say "hey, look at the cool thing we did. oh, by the way, if we give you lots of booze, some flags and let you climb telephone poles, will you mind forgetting about the years of uncool things we did after that?"

this year, now that daniel ortega is back in power, the event was bigger than ever and included a fiery speech by venezuela's hugo chavez. that, in addition to the cuban flags and chanting of propaganda songs, reminded me that i'm not in kansas anymore. well, that and the thousands of red and black clad nicas shouting "viva sandino!"

the highlights of our day included boarding a bus boasting a sandinista flag in each window in which the passengers passed around shots of ron plata (the cheapest rum you can buy here), watching numerous human pyramids fall when the tops got a little over zealous with their flags and standing on my tiptoes (with a kid on my hips, as always) to see some authentic nicaraguan dancing. we didn't stay for ortega's speech-- our nica hosts wanted to leave before it got dark-- but i hear it's the same every year so no biggie.

that's all i have for now... my bed is calling my name.

bendiciones

i'm here, i'm alive, and we FINALLY have light!

well... that is, we have light most of the time...

so begins my journey into all things Nica. We lose power every weekday from about 2-7pm, which, considering we´re in language school from 8-12, makes accessing the internet a bit of a challenge. despite that,i've found that there are lots of similarities to Nicaragua and the United States:

Starbucks:
coffee here is served black with lots of sugar. the preferable method of drinking said coffee consists of a baby on your lap with chickens at your feet. in between swatting flies away from the baby (who just doesn´t seem to care about anything) and sipping your coffee in a plastic tumbler, you learn that your host´s roof fell in two weeks ago so his family of five is currentally living in a lean-to.

Public Transportation:
in order to get around the hustle and bustle that is managua, most people rely on buses (pronounced boo-ses). sent from the states about 15 years ago (not kidding, i saw one from chattanooga two days ago), these diesel-spewing mammoths can hold about 75 people at a time and are decorated to the driver´s taste, usually with colorful tape and pictures of saints (and the occasional truck-flap girl). every now and then, the driver will take note of the gringos´ blank expressions and change the music on the speakers from salsa and regaeton to your favorite 80´s hits.

Internet Cafes:
in order to access the web when we do have power, you simply walk about two blocks into one of your neighbor's houses. there in the front room, you can use one of five computers for just over a dollar US an hour. while you check your mail, their dog willie licks your feet. if you´re thirsty, you can buy a beer or a coca (coke). additionally, if it´s the weekend, you can even buy some chicken or a nacatamale. they think of everything.

Shopping:
while there are several american-like malls here in the capital, the real heart of nicaraguan commerce is in the mercado. there you can barter for freshly made tortillas or a light switch. vendor invites you into his stall, which looks suspiciously similar to his neighbors'. street kids ask for money (in english) but are happy if you give them food. the grandaddy of all mercados is the oriental, whose stalls spill out into the street in all directions. we haven´t visited yet because our language school says it´s too dangerous for gringos like us. guess i´ll just have to use my favorite disguise-- brown hair dye (that´s right, mom, be afraid).

Food:
remember in pre-school when you dressed up like a pilgrim for thanksgiving and your teacher told you all the ways the native americans used corn? evidentally, your teacher never met a nica. from drinks (yes drinks) to breads to soups to dessert, corn-based products are everywhere. some are really good; some are lamentable... you have to taste to find out. oh, and they also eat it on the cob all day long.

however, if you want something a little more like home, look no further than tip-top. like kfc, tip-top specializes in many varieties of fried chicken (although, as one manna member pointed out, tip-top has taken the ¨fast¨out of ¨fast food¨). i get the kiddie meal, which comes with a surprise. i could also get a beer with the kiddie meal if i wanted... gotta love latin america.

so goes my first week here in nicaragua. thanks so much to everyone who´s sent me love and blessings. it´s still surreal that i´m living in another country, although i´ll never fully leave my life in the states... case in point, i now have to write an essay for med school apps. bleck.

besos y abrazos