* My 5 community members and I took at week Retreat
to Honduras! A Jesuit beach house... two rooms, 4 bunk beds, and a sink/kitchen, the smallest Jesuit residence I´ve ever seen... but the most AWEsome. On the Northern Coast of Honduras, miles of untouched beach and clear ocean before our eyes. 4 hammocks up. No real running water. A plague of mosquitos. Setting the scorpians, the grill, and our stress AFLAME. Daily spirituality sessions and personal reflection talks. And an overnight trip to the National Park of Pico Bonito, magnificent mountain! My first leave-no-trace, camping experience! We pitched a tent on the edge of a heavenly river, with these huge boulders and pure blue water. Swimming in undies. Felt like Eve! Beans out of a can and smushed bananas. Fire and camp songs, like ¨Be Not Afraid¨ (when we noticed some unexcepted flashlights!). Magical.* Feeling like I was on vacation in another world. Isn´t Honduras basically the same as Nicaragua? Definitely not. As a whole, it´s wealthier, which is probably why it appeared to be more pleasing to my eyes. The global influence in the main cities was obvious. Just passing Dunkin Donuts revived my day! Honduras did not suffer the earthquake, revolution, and war that Nicaragua is still struggling to recover from. And I´m sure she has her own struggles, but I had the rosy glasses on for sure. Staying on the Northern Coast, the Caribeean Coast, we were among a Garifuna community, Honduran people whose origins are from the continent of Africa. So they are Honduran, they speak Spanish, and they are black. We befriended the family of Doña Judith
, a Honduran woman, GRAND (in size and soul), who cooked for us some nights. She made the best bread I´ve ever tasted. Pan de Coco. She bakes Pan de Coco 3 or 4 times a week, like 50 pieces of it. And sells each piece for like 5 cents. Her day revolves around her cooking, and taking care of her kids and grandkids in the house. She lives .1 mile from the Caribeean sea and barely goes. Just hangs out in that small tin house, baking her pan de coco. She loved saying ¨Margarita! Come look at how HOT the Pan de coco is!¨ And I´d say ¨I want to buy a hundred of them!¨ And James would say ¨No, we can only buy 12. Maybe 18.¨... And again,¨Margarita, come look!¨* I received my cedulla, finally! My idenfication of residence! A very exciting moment. Which for some reason made my whole being here seem more real. I LIVE HERE! I live in Nicaragua, a country which has been SO internally affected by revolution and war, decades of opression by a brutal dictatorship, where literacity is a rarity among the women with whom I work, and where what we would consider dysfunctional is almost normal. I will probably live here for the next 18 months and attempt what I believe is nearly impossible, which is to understand this culture, their poverty, their myteries and miracles. Where the raffle at a fund-raiser is a pelibuey (tropical kind of lamb/goat). Where eating fried pig skin and yuca (type of veggie) on
a Saturday is like eating a hot dog at a tailgate. Where there is a rainy season!! Sometimes it can rain for 48 hours straight. Pouring. I do love dancing in the rain. My co-workers, not so much. The people in the barrio have dirt floors and tin roofs, dirt streets, a sad combination when everything floods. The rainy season does bring down the temperature a bit, which is charming. Last night got ¨cool enough¨ so that I could wear a sweatshirt to sleep! Deligtful to feel comfy cozy. Tomfy tozy.* Convivencia. Translates somewhat to “living-together-ness.” In the project we have a Convivencia on the last Sunday of every month. About 4 hours of reflection, prayer, Bible, share with our co-workers, each month a different theme and different coordinators. I helped plan this past one! AHH! Glad that´s over. In theory I love the concept. In practice, in Spanish, on a Sunday, at work, when I just want to sit in the rocking chair and read and drink coffee, it´s a bit trickier to rally. Though I do rally, and I appreciate it. And I appreciated planning this one, themed for Pentecost, “Holy Spirit, come come!” I appreciated the Holy Spirit coming to me in toungues of Spanish to faciliate the final activity of “Knowing each other better, Language of the heart.” Though at one point, one of my mates pointed out that I said, “We all come from different places, and some of us speak different Languages! For example, Spanish, English, French, Germany!” ...´Cause Germany is a language!? Oops. I appreciated feeling supported by my 3 community members present, while the other 2 who were buying us a new refridgerator. Adri who stepped in to cook for me that night. And I appreciated the color red which Mom always had us wear to Pentecost mass. Holy Spirit, come.
* We celebrated Día de las Madres, MOTHER´S DAY, a huge deal here. It feel on a Wedneday and most of the city had the day off. Decorations and promotions everywhere. It seems typical that many families have a big dinner that night to celebrate the mothers. I noticed many people on the buses and in the streets carrying decorative bags and presents, as if on their way to their mother´s houses. It did seem like a much bigger celebration here than in the states, maybe because the role of the mother here is so absolutely integral. Many live with their mothers and their grandmothers for their whole lives. It´s most likely for a mother to raise her children solo, with occasional (if any) visits from the fathers. With such a lacking presence of fatherhood in Managua, I am curious to see how Father´s Day is celebrated at the end of June.
* My sister Colleen has just graduate from high school! Sacred Heart Academy. And given the honor of the Class of 2007´s “Woman of Heart.” While I was unable to be physical present, I was most touched to hear the news. AND so proud to announce that she will be attending the institution I revere and love, BOSTON COLLEGE in the fall. Fired UP!
How blessed I feel, knowing the Catholic education she has had and will continue to receive. These days I realize the tremendous gift that education is, and how deeply it affects a person´s existence. The lack of good education here in Nicaragua expresses itself in INFINITE ways; a very generous contributor to the pervasive, abrasive poverty.
* FAQ: Why is there a Mother´s Day and a Father´s Day and not a Kid´s Day? Well, because everyday is kid´s day! Or because KIDS DAY is celebrated in Nicaragua! Día del Niño y la Niña was beautifully celebrated here in the project. A morning of games, dancing, cheering for about 250 children in the neighborhood. Children who come to the lunch-program, to the after-school program, and children of women in the banks. My heart danced watching the kids clap and cheer so gleefully. I remembered, THIS is why I am here. To be a part of a project that gives kids a reason to be happy and to rejoice. And that gives hungry bellies a meal! We fed them a bowl of rice/chicken/mush and a juice for lunch. And on their way out they all received 3 goody bags: one of little cookie sticks, a pack of Hershey´s cookies, and a little bag of assorted candies, including Tootsie rolls, foreign to them. The kids, so tiny, couldn´t even figure out how to hold them all! Loved seeing them trying to manage their treats. Still so striking to me is this one family who I met about a month ago; the kids are so starving that they barely know how to feed themselves when food is put in their little laps. Purely, surely, the faces of God. Sometimes it seems as though it´s not even enough to give the food. Love requires feeding it as well.
* Funny fun... Mary, Adriana and I went to see SEAN PAUL in concert in Managua. Ladies night! We each paid 200 cordobas, equal to about $11, for an outdoor, standing-room only, crazy show. The lot was divided into sections based on ticket price, so we were in the back until the crowd broke down the barriers and mobbed the front. Memories of UGBC Programming Department, as ticket-taking and security was a TOTAL disaster. I kept thinking, There ARE systems for these kinds of problems! Trying to enter the lot, we were smushed like bananas in a crowd of maybe 100 Nicas, all with legit tickets. Think Titanic, the movie, when the passengers in steerage are trying to escape and they are all shoved up against the gates not allowed in. Why I stayed? To commit to the ladies night out, to embracing something sorta “cultural,” and to feeling like I really am 22 ½ and single. Thank goodness for our Nica friend Jorge, whose Spanish was rather helpful in convincing the security guards to let us sneak through. Jorge made fun of me later in the night for even mentioning to a 250lbs+ man that he was crushing my foot. Interesting that the whole show was in english for a Spanish speaking crowd. I guess Sean Paul doesn´t need to speak Spanish for the people to attend and enjoy. I´m not sure why I wanted to go so badly, or why I did pay 200 Cords to attend (26% of my stipend). Sean Paul´s music connects me to memories and people that I love... Liz, Coll, and PAT NUZZ dancing to Temperture! Brian Dussel on stage at BC. All Lynch cousins trying to learn Brian´s dance. College in general. I yearn for those connections these days. And I guess was willing to pay 200 Cords to feel connected, despite the amount of vulgar dancing and lyrics and degradation of women that I indirectly promoted. If this was 11$ in the States, I totally would have gone, and taken the sibs. For that, I went and had some funny fun with the gaels. Also worth mentioning, we ate Subway for “late night” afterwards. Chicken Teryaki. Macadamia cookie! SPLURGE!!
*A friday night, after Kid´s Day at the project, after 2 unsuccessful hours of trying to go poop to get checked at the clinic, after attending Nica Cultural Night (a final project) at the university of one of our co-workers, and after going out to dinner with M, J, and J to celebrate our 6 mos, I found myself meditating on my bed, in my home in Managua, with James and Josh, reviewing our days. What did we bring to each situation? Person? And what did each situation and person bring to us? I totally failed to come up with any answers or ribbons to tie the present moment up with. But what I did realize is that I do not consider enough that which others bring. What loads, what notions, what thoughts, emotions they carry when I meet them face to face. I always think about what I can bring. It humbled me to think more along these lines, of what they bring. Though I may have 6 mos here, it is still not my homeland. My co-workers, this is their home, their backyard. Their struggles, hopes, dreams, families. On a Sunday when we have a Kermés (fund-raiser) for the project, I am at “work,” wondering how we can make more money, wondering how I can lighten their load. Feeling like “Gosh, I´m run-down. I live in a different country, in the 3rd world, and I have a bunch of laundry to wash. And my body hurts. And I miss fam and friends. And I yet I have lots of love I want to give. So I stir up my energy and give what I´ve got.” They are bringing the Nica food, that they cooked, in their little houses, which are right around the block, to their park, their project, to make money for their health fund. They serve all morning, then sit all afternoon, and I think they bring a desire to just spend time with each other. To be out of their houses. To relax. To dance. To be. To live. And they teach me how to sell soup. And tacos drenched in cream, ketchup, and cabbage. And to raffle a pelibuey. They bring me loads of joy. Smiles. Laughter. Being. And LIFE. They do always bring their lives.
Ahh the End.
Or the beginning. Or the middle. Or All three. Yep, all three.
Thanks for reading! Now you know. =)
With great love, many thoughts, and cherished memories,
Margaret
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