Forgive me for the gap in entries recently-it’s been a busy last month or so, but definitely a good busy. I’ll have to back up to mid-March to catch up a little bit. Along with the other six Nicaragua Jesuit Volunteers, I traveled up to San Salvador, El Salvador for a weekend. I went in memory of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated 30 years ago last month. Romero was one of Latin America’s greatest advocates for the poor during a time of violent civil war. We participated in a memorial ceremony, in which El Salvador’s president called Romero one of the country’s greatest patriots, and then a subsequent march to the downtown cathedral where a mass and vigil were held.
After the 12 hour bus ride back to Managua, I barely had time to wash my laundry and settle in before I was on the road again. I joined a team of other volunteers and several teachers at a school in the barrio where I work to give a youth retreat on vocation and calling in a rural community. We spent an entire day traveling to get to the town, leaving at 6:30 am and not getting in until after dark. The seven of us led the weekend retreat based at a church in San Pedro del Norte, in the Southern Atlantic region. We were expecting around 80 participants, but when we showed up we found that there we nearly 100. And by the way, “youth” has a pretty broad definition in Nicaragua; there were people participating from ages 14 to 70! The retreat provided some of my greatest memories so far in my time here, but also proved to be exhausting. My Spanish was tested as I led talks in front of the entire group, and then in a smaller group setting where I acted as a facilitator for the themes we discussed surrounding vocation.
After finishing up the retreat, I was more than ready for a little break, and Holy Week came at the perfect time. I had the week off from work, so that was a great chance to catch my breath. We had the great pleasure of hosting three Jesuit Volunteers from Belize for the week, so we showed them around Managua and took them to one of my favorite places here in Nicaragua, the Laguna de Apoyo. This was a perfect opportunity to trade stories and share experiences with other JVs, particularly since they’ve been in-country four months more than we have. We were able to tell about and show a little bit about what life looks like here in Nicaragua and hear similar experiences from Belize, along with the differences of living in a tiny country that is considered more Caribbean than Central American.
Following Semana Santa, it was time for…retreat again?! This time I would be participating, along with the rest of the Nica JVs. This was our first community retreat of the year, and we were all more than ready for a little relaxation and reflection about how everything is going so far: personally, with work, and with community. We decided to design the retreat with a theme of falling in love and all the different ways we can fall in love with our experience here in Nicaragua. We traveled to a small community in the northern mountains where I encountered the first real pine forests I’ve seen since coming here! The cool, clean mountain air was a welcome escape from the heat, noise and dust of Managua. We spent the weekend sharing reflections and discussions on what it means to fall in love, specifically how we might fall in love with ourselves, with our community, with our work sites, with Nicaragua, and with God. It wasn’t all heavy talk though, because we made sure to fit in some activities together and relaxation time to enjoy our beautiful surroundings. A highlight of each day was gathering as a community to watch the sun set over rows and rows of mountains reaching toward to the Pacific. From our viewpoint, in the department of Esteli, we could see nearly everything from Momotombo, a volcano near Managua, up to Cosiguina, another volcano near the Honduran border that Thomas and I climbed back in December. My eyes might have been playing tricks on me, but several times I thought I could pick out a slight glimmer of sunlight on the ocean, hundreds of miles off to the West.
The retreat was a breath of fresh air-emotionally, spiritually, physically. Hopefully that will bring us back to our work sites and community life re-charged and ready to fall in love with our experiences here with the struggles and triumphs that they will bring.
