Faith in the Darkness

Today I want to introduce you to one of the three communities that Manna works with here in Nicaragua: La Chureca. I have spent the past three days trying to figure out how to write this blog post to do justice to what Chureca is. Ultimately, I've concluded that it's impossible to adequately do so, but I'm going to do my best to show you Chureca in the next few paragraphs - both for the horror it is and for the rays of light I have seen there in this past week.

The word "La Chureca" is a Latin American slang term for city dump - and that's exactly what La Chureca is. It's the Managua city dump, and, until recently, the largest open air landfill in Central America. It started in the early 70s, and since then, there have been people who live in the dump, building houses/shacks out of whatever they can find, and making a tiny living by searching through trash piles for recyclable objects they can sell. It's estimated that about 1,000 people live in Chureca, and about half of them are under 18 years old. Manna's work in Chureca consists mainly of helping fund a clinic and running a child sponsorship program, where people in the US (or elsewhere) can sponsor a child for $20/month. That cost covers milk, oatmeal, and vitamins for the child, as well as a birthday and Christmas present. If the child is young enough that the mother is breast-feeding, the money covers beans and vitamins for the mother in order to help produce more nutritious breast milk. In addition, we teach a few English courses at Chureca as well.

I don't think it's useful to show you a lot of pictures of La Chureca, and I won't be taking any for a LONG time. Chureca and its residents get exploited a lot as is, and I want to form relationships without a camera lens between me and the people I am trying to connect with. But I will tell you about my experiences in Chureca so far, and about the people I've met there. As we drive into Chureca, there are two things that hit you right away: the sight of huge mounds of trash to your right and houses to the left, and the stench of the trash. It's an overwhelming smell - I'm not really sure how to explain it to you, but I promise you that it's unpleasant. A typical house in Chureca is made of plastic or tin, with sticks as the frame. There is electricity and running water, at least, but the houses are very basic, small, and made of whatever the family could find. There's usually at least one child outside each house playing, often naked.

We go to Chureca three times a week. On Wednesdays, we hold a health-related discussion for the mothers of the children in the child sponsorship program. This is a requirement for the program, and we think it's very important for the mothers to be committed enough to attend these "charlas" - not only does it show commitment, it gives the mothers information to help their families be as healthy as possible. The other two days we go to Chureca, Tuesday and Thursday, we walk around and talk with the mothers and kids in the program. This allows us to keep tabs on how they are doing, if there is any dire medical need, and also to gather information to send updates to the sponsors of the children.

On Thursday, we had the chance to spend some time at the house of a beautiful boy named Douglas and his family. We spent about 15 minutes just hanging out with Douglas and his mother, a wonderful woman who is very dedicated to her son and to the program. Here's Douglas' latest picture from our child sponsorship website:


Douglas was playing with the one toy we saw when we were in the house - a plastic fishing rod with three plastic fish. We had a good conversation with Douglas' mom, and then we got up to leave the house. Douglas' grandma also lives there, and she let us out the "door" (wooden piece which provides a break in the pieced-together metal fence which surrounds their house), and as we walked out, she said something which really struck me and has been on my mind ever since. She said, "One day, the Lord will give us a beautiful little house. But for now, this is what we have."

I stood there with tears in my eyes, and no idea how to respond. She continued and talked about how bad the conditions were at Chureca. We chatted about that for a few sentences, and then headed on our way. But her words echoed in my head the rest of the trip and have been echoing ever since. Douglas' grandma didn't say anything profound - she simply wished out loud for something which we all consider almost a right - a small house. What struck me the most was her faith. Yes, she was resigned to the realities of Chureca for now, but she had such hope in the way she said the sentence that there WOULD be something better in their future.

It's easy to get discouraged at Chureca or thinking about Chureca. I will be the first to admit that what Manna does there, or what any NGO is doing there, is woefully insufficient. We can not fix Chureca - that is beyond us. Walking around to visit the 33 kids in our child sponsorship program, we pass many more who could and should be a part of the program. Kids get sick frequently and stay sick for a long time. Many have skin diseases and parasites due to the rough living conditions. People literally dig through the trash as a living. If there is any place that I have trouble finding hope, it is Chureca. But I only have trouble finding hope until I hear a woman who lives there have the hope and the faith that I struggle to have. When I hear her hope, I find mine again - after all, if she can be hopeful in her situation, can't we all be hopeful with and for her as well? If she has faith that the Lord will provide, can't we all have that same faith?

Chureca, to me, is a screaming example of faith and hope shining through the darkness. I wish I could take you all there - not to show you the poverty, or the piles of trash, or so you could smell the stench. I wish I could take you all there so you could see the smiles on the faces of the children. I wish I could take you there so you could hear the faith and hope of the adults who live in the reality that is Chureca. I wish I could take you there to hear Douglas' laugh, to play with the one marble a sweet boy named Kevin owns, to play with the kids when they are on recess at one of the two schools in Chureca. Seeing Chureca has changed me as a person - interestingly enough, into a more joyful person and a more hopeful person, which may be a strange reaction to the closest thing to a living hell that I have ever seen. But I believe it would do the same for you if you were able to meet the people who live there. I will do my best, throughout the year, to share Chureca and the lessons it teaches me with you in the best way I can. In return, I beg you to pray for the people who live in La Chureca - for their health and safety, and that one day their simple dreams will come true. Please pray.

We currently have a wait list of children who are waiting on a sponsor so that they can participate in our child sponsorship program as well. If you are interested in learning more or becoming a sponsor, check out http://www.mannaproject.org/nicaragua-child or send me an e-mail at fiona.turett@mannaproject.org.

Laguna de Apoyo

I really will write an intro-to-Manna blog post soon, but today was a cool day so I'm just going to tell you all about that first. :-) After waking up at around 5:45am on my own (it gets bright early here!), I relaxed and read for a bit before we all headed off to Laguna de Apoyo, a beautiful lake about an hour away. Five of the current PDs, as well as all 8 of us new PDs and the old and new bosses, headed off to the lake.

After arriving, we had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant right on the water - I had grilled fish, which was yummy, and I also was able to get passionfruit juice! One of my favorites. :-) It was delicious. We spent most of the afternoon just chilling by/in the lake - there were some docks to jump off, and we also rented innertubes so we could just relax in the water. The water was beautiful - a nice teal color, and the perfect temperature. It's currently "winter" here in Nicaragua, also known as rainy season, so it's not as hot as it could be - but even so, it's very hot and humid, so the water was nice. And it didn't rain while we were at the lake, which was great! I really enjoyed the chance to relax, take in the gorgeous scenery, and hang out with fellow PDs.

Laguna de Apoyo is a lake which used to be a volcanic crater. The volcano is no longer there, and the lake naturally is there where the crater used to be. It's surrounded by mountains, and is much deeper than most lakes (hence, being able to jump off platforms into it). It was all around very beautiful and I had a great time. :-)

Here are a few pictures from the day...enjoy!

The view from my seat on the dock...beautiful.
Laguna de Apoyo :-)

Jumping into the lake to cool off

Part of the awesome restaurant/hang-out we spent the day at.

Back from my Homestay!

I'm back from my two-week homestay and have internet access again! It was a wonderful two weeks, and very hard to discuss concisely in a blog post. We did a lot - two weeks of Spanish classes, 5 trips to locations in and around Managua, and 3 days of shadowing the current Program Directors (PDs) and learning more about what we'll be doing in the next year. So my goal in this blog post is to give you a little background about Nicaragua as a country, and talk about my homestay experience and our outings - and my next blog post, this weekend or early next week, will be an introduction to Manna Project and what I'll be doing for the next year. My other goal is not to write a novel, and to keep it mostly concise...we'll see if I can successfully meet both of those. :-)

Nicaragua background: I think it's impossible to understand some of the realities of living and working in a country without knowing anything about the country, so here's some relevant Nicaraguan info to get you started. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere (Haiti being the poorest). Geographically, it's located in Central America and borders on Honduras and Costa Rica. There are somewhere around 6 million people in the country (note: less than in the city of Houston, which is a bit crazy), and 1.4 million of them live in Managua, the capital. Politically, there was a lot of unrest in the 70s. In 1979, a dictator named Samoza was run out of office after his family ruling the country for 41 years, and a man named Sandino took power. There are three big political parties: Sandinistas, Liberals, and Conservatives. The currently democratically elected president is named Daniel Ortega and is Sandinista, though the Sandinistas haven't had power consistently since 1979 and other parties were in power in between. There is an election in November, but it's questionable how fair of an election it is - Ortega is running again (he changed the Constitution so he'd be allowed to) and he refused to have international observers for the election.

Economically, the situation is not very good. Statistics-wise, with a GDP of around $3,000 a year per capita, it ranks 167th world-wide. Many people are unemployed, and many of those with work are underemployed - they have some kind of work, but it's not sufficient. Even with a university degree, it's difficult to find work here unless you have connections to people in government or with power. Many people live on under $1 a day, and don't have access to running water, electricity or adequate housing. Lots of people will sell food or trinkets on the street/in buses, try and wash your car window at a stop light and expect a small payment, or simply beg when they see a gringo/chele (two different words used for white person) walk by. Like in any country, there is an upper class, and there is a huge disparity between the upper class and the lower class.

Spanish school: All of the new PDs spent the last two weeks doing classes at a Spanish school called Viva Spanish school (http://www.vivaspanishschool.com/), which is located in a middle-lower-ish class neighborhood in Managua. We had classes 4 hours a day, 8am-12pm. I was in the middle level, and there were only two of us in the class. Jesse (one of my fellow PDs) and I both speak decent Spanish, but definitely aren't fluent. We had two hours of conversation to start out with each day, and the usefulness of it depended on the day. We got to pick the topics we discussed for most of the days, so learned some Nicaraguan slang/phrases which we'll hear throughout the year, lots about different foods here, and also about the political and economic situation as seen by the Nicaraguans teaching it. After conversation class, we'd have two hours of grammar, which was very useful to brush up (or learn for the first time...) on some grammar concepts. I definitely need to keep studying on my own throughout the next few months, as there's a lot I still don't know, but it was a good jump-start for my Spanish and I'll have all year to practice it. :-)

Homestay: Each of us stayed with a different homestay family, so it was neat to have eight experiences to compare. All the homestays were within a few blocks of Viva - mine happened to be right next door to the school, which made my commute each day quite easy! My host mom's name was Melida, and it was just her and her mom who lived in the house, but there were always lots of people around. Her brother and his 3 year old son were both around a lot, so it was nice to have a little one around! Other people were in and out a lot as well. My accomodations were simple, but adequate - the house had one main room, then an open air part, and two bedrooms off that. My bedroom was in the back, and just had a twin bed, a wardrobe, one light, and a fan. The bathroom was just a toilet and a shower (cold water only) in two separate little rooms, outside as well but under a roof. The neighborhood only had running water in the mornings, so after that I had to use a bucket to put water in the toilet tank to flush it, and would have had to use a bucket to shower if I hadn't just done morning showers. The family had a TV in the house and spent most of their time watching it, even during meals, so I didn't get a huge amount of conversation in with them, but heard a lot of Spanish which was useful. They also watched some American shows with Spanish subtitles, such as Law and Order and CSI, so I got a little taste of home. Here's a couple pictures:





Nicaraguan food: We ate 3 meals a day at our homestays, and mine were generally pretty typically Nicaraguan. So here's an introduction to Nicaraguan foods! The staple foods are rice and beans, which, when cooked mixed together, are called gallo pinto - literally means painted chicken - which is served at most meals. It's often accompanied by a somewhat strange cheese which we affectionately call "Nica cheese". It's kind of hard and salty and hard to describe...it's good mixed with gallo pinto and other stuff, but it's definitely not a cheese you would just eat slices of. They also have yummy corn tortillas which are often served with meals. There are a few interesting drinks, often made with corn flour or oatmeal, which are interesting but mostly good. Vegetable/fruit-wise, the most common to be served with a meal is either a zucchini/squash of some form or plaintains cooked in various ways, which are delicious. There's lots of fresh fruit here - one of my favorite things so far has been getting mangoes fresh off the tree to eat. :-)

Places we visited: As a group, we spent the first week doing outings in the afternoons to various locations. Here's the 1-2 sentence version of each. Granada is a colonial town south of Managua, which still looks and feels like 1500 Spanish colonization. It's next to a lake, which was a ton of little islands in it, with nice houses, wildlife like monkeys and birds, and a few restaurants on it. We took a boat tour of the islands on a little boat, and then walked around the town. There's apparently a big international poetry festival there in February, so I definitely plan to go back. Around Managua, we visited a look-out point to see the city, as well as the old and new cathedrals. There was a big earthquake in Managua after 1972, so some buildings like the old cathedral have never been rebuilt. We also went on a very rainy hike at a place called La Concha, went to see a very pretty lake called Laguna de Apoyo, and saw the volcano closest to Managua, Volcan Masaya.

Well, I kind of failed at being concise, but there you have it - my last two weeks in one blog post! I'll do another one soon-ish with information about Manna Project. If there's any particular topic you want me to write about, or anything I mentioned that you want more details on, just let me know! Hope you all are doing well - my internet isn't super great, but I'll do what I can to keep in touch!

Miami orientation

The adventure has started! After leaving Houston about two weeks ago, having a wonderful road trip home to Michigan with stops in New Orleans and St. Louis, I arrived in Miami on Wednesday to begin orientation. Manna Project started having an orientation prior to leaving the country three years ago,and I'm really goad we've had these few days to learn about Manna and development, meet each other, and get ready to head abroad.

For those of you who don't know much about Manna, here are the basics: Manna was founded in 2004 by a few Vanderbilt alums who wanted to do service abroad with a focus on forming relationships. They went to Nicaragua, and then expanded to Ecuador in 2007. Just last year, a new site was started in Guatemala. Each site works a bit differently, since the communities are different, but the pillars that we work from are the same: holistic development, community focus, and volunteer development. Our focus on holistic development means that Manna doesn't just focus on one area such as English classes, health, or microfinance. Instead, we focus on forming relationships and determining what the community members are interested in and need. Because of this, the programs we have in Nicaragua range from English classes to a child sponsorship program to women's exercise classes to a feeding program, and much more. I worked with Manna in Ecuador in 2009 for a month, and was incredibly impressed with the organization and how integrated they are in the communities. Obviously, I was excited enough to want to spend a year with Manna! I'm really looking forward to becoming a bigger part of Manna's mission and vision throughout this year, and to get the chance to know the communities we will be working with.

At orientation these past few days, we've spent time discussing Manna's history and mission, the role we will play in the organization, what is expected from us in next month, cultural differences, and the basics of development theory. It has been very beneficial - in particular, I have enjoyed learning about different development theories since this is something I've never studied before. I'm looking forward to having time to do some reading on the topic and learn about some of the different theories and models used. It will be particularly interesting to see how these look in action throughout the next year.

In addition, it has been really really wonderful to get to know the other program directors and the Manna staff. It has been fun to have a chance to meet the PDs who will be in Ecuador and Guatemala before we all head off to different countries. It is a really diverse and interesting group of people, and I hope we're able to keep in touch during the year despite being in different countries.

I fly to Nica tomorrow morning, and then have a low-key day at the Manna house - I'm excited to meet the current PDs and learn about their year, which is wrapping up. On Sunday, we head into Managua and meet up with our host families, where we'll be staying for the next two weeks. We'll be taking language courses in the mornings and then exploring Managua in the afternoons for the first week. The second week, we will still have classes in the morning, but will spent the afternoons getting acquainted with Manna's communities and programs. I'm very excited (and a little nervous!) for the home stay, and I know that using only Spanish during classes and with my host family will be great for my Spanish ability. I won't have much access to internet in those two weeks, so don't expect an update until after language school is done and I've moved into the Manna house. I'm sure I'll have quite a bit to report at that point though!

I hope you all have a wonderful few weeks, and thanks for all your support! Looking forward to having a chance to be in touch more in a few weeks!