It´s a rainy October day here in Managua, and I know I haven´t written in ages on this blog, but the rain has some strange consequences here-basically nobody comes into the center-so it´s been a quiet day. I´m thinking I could get another blog post up before the craziness that is sure to be the last couple months of my experience as a Jesuit Volunteer in Nicaragua, finishing up in December.
Several weeks ago we finished up the annual ¨Re-Orientation/Dis-Orientation¨ retreat with a visit from the JVC staff, based in Washington, D.C. We headed up to one of my preferred locations in Nicaragua, the tiny village of La Garnacha in the mountains of Esteli.
Heading into the retreat, I was beginning to feel some of the concerns of the upcoming transition I´ll be going through. So many cultural differences, the change from a tight-knit, intentional community of volunteers, changes in climate…I´m sure I could go on and on with a list of all the differences I will be encountering. Anyway, thinking about the implications of all those changes had me feeling a bit nervous, to say the least, of what´s to come. The retreat however has brought me to a place of feeling at peace with where I´m at, trying to make the most of the last two months that remain and in many ways excited for the upcoming transition. We spent time on the retreat talking about how to go about telling our story of the experience to those who care to hear upon returning to the U.S. This is something I hadn´t thought much about beforehand, but an important preparation I´m realizing I´ll need to prioritize as that reality approaches.
Over than all that upcoming transition preparation, life in work and community has been rewarding and enjoyable these past months. At my work site, a recent project I´ve gotten pretty excited about is a small community garden at the youth center where I work. This year I¨ve been involved in a project to bring groups of 5 to 5 youth from the inner city barrio where I work to a farm about an hour outside of Managua. On the farm they help work on a variety of projects such as planting and harvesting tomatoes or learning about beekeeping. We started the community garden to try and make the opportunities to learn about basic farming and planting accessible to more youth in the barrio who don´t have the opportunity to go out to the farm. The garden has been slowing coming along, with a few cucumbers showing up as the first fruit to be harvested. It´s been an enjoyable challenge trying to motivate kids from the barrio to come help out in the garden.
It you´re reading this you may be curious about my future plans after finishing up…I anticipate getting asked about that more and more in the coming months, and although I don´t have a definite answer at the moment, I have some ideas I´m getting excited about that I can share. First off, before returning home immediately I plan on doing several weeks of traveling up through Central America and into Chiapas, Mexico with one of my fellow JVs who is finishing up as well. I plan to leave Chiapas in early January to be home in time for the annual Krista Foundation re-entry retreat for colleagues (check out www.kristafoundation.org for more info!). I´m VERY much looking forward to that opportunity to reflect on the transition and share with other recently returned volunteers. Following the Krista retreat, I plan on spending a good amount of time catching up with friends and family in the Pacific Northwest. I imagine at this point I´ll be based out of this little town I know called Hood River, but hope to do some traveling around the Northwest, so if you´re interested in hearing more about the Nicaraguan experience let me know and we can try and set up a visit! When it comes to what I´ll actually be doing next, I have thought a lot recently about working in immigration work or with migrant farm workers somewhere on the West Coast. I´d of course love to keep up on my Spanish speaking and I feel like it would be a good way to stay connected to the Latin America I have come to know and love and also to facilitate that transition I´ll be going through. So…it anyone out there has ideas or suggestions for getting involved in this type of work please do let me know!
Okay, I think that´s about it for now amigos. For those of you reading this from home, I´ll be around in few short months and look forward to reconnecting and catching up. All the best in the autumn season and hasta pronto!
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Semana Santa, a campesino commute, and a year and a half in...
Holy Week-Semana Santa-is one of the most anticipated holidays of the year in Nicaragua. It’s also infamously the hottest, as it typically falls in April, at the height of summer here in Nica. I was fortunate enough to have the entire week off from work, and it turned out to be a week full of adventures and great memories. I spent the first few days up in a rural community in Matagalpa, the northern highlands about 3 hours from Managua. I stayed with a friend’s family I have gotten to know there who were hospitable enough to put me up and feed me typical Semana Santa food.
One of the highlights of my trip to Matagalpa was a mid-night journey I took with Don Valentin, the father of the family. Valentin had to be in another community to work on Monday morning, and it was about a 4 hour walk away. There are also buses that go between the communities that would be much quicker, but he had to be there before 7 am and the buses didn’t early enough to get there on time. So that meant making the walk, and starting at 3 am to get there on time! I was really wanting some time out of the house and wanted to have a chance to talk more with Valentin, so I asked him if I could accompany him for the trip, work in the other community and then come back on the bus that afternoon. He seemed a little confused that I would want to do that but was more than willing to have company on the journey.
We got up at 2:30 in the morning to a huge and bright full moon, prepared quickly for the trek, and said goodbye to his wife Manuela who had gotten up to send us off. We brought flashlights but with the shine of the moon we only needed them when we passed under the shadows of trees. I couldn’t help feeling some of that adrenaline I’ve felt climbing mountains in the Cascades you get when you’re up hours before sunrise with a strenuous physical task ahead of you.
Don Valentin is about 60 and not a big guy-probably about 5 foot 6-but I was pushing myself and breathing hard to keep up! We walked some parts on the highway and the majority crossing cow pastures, squeezing through barb wire fences between each field. When we found ourselves on a more open section of the road or trail, we walked side by side and talked about everything from his family and the years before the Sandinista Revolution when Somoza’s National Guard used to be the rule of law in the community to mountain climbing in the Northwest and farming strategies. Several hours into the walk the moon began to slowly set and a glow grew in the east. We enjoyed a beautiful clear sunrise as we made the final descent into the community where we would be working and showed up with plenty of time before the 7 am deadline. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I laid down for a quick rest before starting work and passed out for a half hour power nap. I woke up to Don Valentin cooking fresh eggs, beans, tortillas and coffee, had breakfast and was ready to go for the rest of the day!
Following the adventures up in Matagalpa, I came home to Managua and had a wonderful rest of Semana Santa. We had Jesuit Volunteers visiting from Belize so we spent the next few days hanging out at the Laguna de Apoyo-a swimmable volcanic lake about an hour away-and here in and around Managua. We’re getting back to the daily routine here, but I’m already getting ready for my next round of visitors later in May with college friends and friends from home coming into town.
Thank you all for following along, even if I only seem to get an update on this thing once every couple months now! Be assured that I am healthy and well and thoroughly enjoying my second year as a JV in Nicaragua. Time continues to fly by though, so I’m trying to take in every experience and appreciate it for what it is, knowing that soon enough I will be counting down my “last times” (at least as a JV) visiting favorite places and people here.
One of the highlights of my trip to Matagalpa was a mid-night journey I took with Don Valentin, the father of the family. Valentin had to be in another community to work on Monday morning, and it was about a 4 hour walk away. There are also buses that go between the communities that would be much quicker, but he had to be there before 7 am and the buses didn’t early enough to get there on time. So that meant making the walk, and starting at 3 am to get there on time! I was really wanting some time out of the house and wanted to have a chance to talk more with Valentin, so I asked him if I could accompany him for the trip, work in the other community and then come back on the bus that afternoon. He seemed a little confused that I would want to do that but was more than willing to have company on the journey.
We got up at 2:30 in the morning to a huge and bright full moon, prepared quickly for the trek, and said goodbye to his wife Manuela who had gotten up to send us off. We brought flashlights but with the shine of the moon we only needed them when we passed under the shadows of trees. I couldn’t help feeling some of that adrenaline I’ve felt climbing mountains in the Cascades you get when you’re up hours before sunrise with a strenuous physical task ahead of you.
Don Valentin is about 60 and not a big guy-probably about 5 foot 6-but I was pushing myself and breathing hard to keep up! We walked some parts on the highway and the majority crossing cow pastures, squeezing through barb wire fences between each field. When we found ourselves on a more open section of the road or trail, we walked side by side and talked about everything from his family and the years before the Sandinista Revolution when Somoza’s National Guard used to be the rule of law in the community to mountain climbing in the Northwest and farming strategies. Several hours into the walk the moon began to slowly set and a glow grew in the east. We enjoyed a beautiful clear sunrise as we made the final descent into the community where we would be working and showed up with plenty of time before the 7 am deadline. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I laid down for a quick rest before starting work and passed out for a half hour power nap. I woke up to Don Valentin cooking fresh eggs, beans, tortillas and coffee, had breakfast and was ready to go for the rest of the day!
Following the adventures up in Matagalpa, I came home to Managua and had a wonderful rest of Semana Santa. We had Jesuit Volunteers visiting from Belize so we spent the next few days hanging out at the Laguna de Apoyo-a swimmable volcanic lake about an hour away-and here in and around Managua. We’re getting back to the daily routine here, but I’m already getting ready for my next round of visitors later in May with college friends and friends from home coming into town.
Thank you all for following along, even if I only seem to get an update on this thing once every couple months now! Be assured that I am healthy and well and thoroughly enjoying my second year as a JV in Nicaragua. Time continues to fly by though, so I’m trying to take in every experience and appreciate it for what it is, knowing that soon enough I will be counting down my “last times” (at least as a JV) visiting favorite places and people here.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Getting back into routine
January is almost come and gone, and I’m now well into my second year as a Jesuit Volunteer in Nicaragua. The last several months have been a whirlwind, but now life is settling back into the normal routine of work and community life and the weeks seem to be slipping through my fingers.
After hosting JVC staff members here for a yearly evaluation, visit and retreat, there were a few short weeks before we were going to the airport to pick up the new JVs who would be joining our two communities here. They all arrived safely and ready to hit the ground running, so we kept them busy with all kinds of “In-Country Orientation” activities. This included safety talks, history talks, homestays with families in our barrio and in a rural community, language school and a community retreat.
Somewhere in there, we said goodbyes to the JVs finishing up their two years (good luck Christine, Amber and Patrick!) and then I started having family arriving to visit after going over a year without seeing them! My sister Katie came first, followed by my brother Danny, and then the family was completed with the arrival of my parents and sister Claire soon after Christmas. We took time to catch up after so much time, travel around Nicaragua, see my work site and meet the other Jesuit Volunteers and friends here. A highlight was taking them all to a small rural community in the mountains where we have done retreats before. We rented a cabin and all stayed in one room together. The electricity was out, but we were happy to sit around together playing guitar by candle and flashlight. It was the first time I had spent with my entire family since I started this journey, and it will be close to another year until that happens again, so I made sure to relish the moment.
My family stayed around until early January before heading back to work and school commitments. Soon after they left I started up again with work (I had most of late December and early January off). I’ve now been doing that for a few weeks, and like this time last year it’s been a bit of a slow start for getting activities going. That hasn’t necessarily been bad though as it’s given me time to adjust back into the work mode and get to know my new community mates. Heather and Megan are new in our house, and Adrienne, Bianca and Tony are new in the Ciudad Sandino casa.
After hosting JVC staff members here for a yearly evaluation, visit and retreat, there were a few short weeks before we were going to the airport to pick up the new JVs who would be joining our two communities here. They all arrived safely and ready to hit the ground running, so we kept them busy with all kinds of “In-Country Orientation” activities. This included safety talks, history talks, homestays with families in our barrio and in a rural community, language school and a community retreat.
Somewhere in there, we said goodbyes to the JVs finishing up their two years (good luck Christine, Amber and Patrick!) and then I started having family arriving to visit after going over a year without seeing them! My sister Katie came first, followed by my brother Danny, and then the family was completed with the arrival of my parents and sister Claire soon after Christmas. We took time to catch up after so much time, travel around Nicaragua, see my work site and meet the other Jesuit Volunteers and friends here. A highlight was taking them all to a small rural community in the mountains where we have done retreats before. We rented a cabin and all stayed in one room together. The electricity was out, but we were happy to sit around together playing guitar by candle and flashlight. It was the first time I had spent with my entire family since I started this journey, and it will be close to another year until that happens again, so I made sure to relish the moment.
My family stayed around until early January before heading back to work and school commitments. Soon after they left I started up again with work (I had most of late December and early January off). I’ve now been doing that for a few weeks, and like this time last year it’s been a bit of a slow start for getting activities going. That hasn’t necessarily been bad though as it’s given me time to adjust back into the work mode and get to know my new community mates. Heather and Megan are new in our house, and Adrienne, Bianca and Tony are new in the Ciudad Sandino casa.
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