Spring Break

It's Spring Break season here in the Manna house! During March, we have groups from different universities come visit for a week and help us out with programs, see what we do, and get to travel a little bit of Nicaragua. Last week was our first week of Spring Break groups, and we had two at the same time! Maggie and Davis led a group from Vanderbilt who stayed at the Manna house and focused on our Math and Literacy program, and Sam and I were in charge of a group from UNC, who stayed at some nearby dorms and focused on our nutrition and health programs.

It's hard to know what to expect when you're in charge of a group of 11 college students who come on a service trip during their spring break. For some of our group, it was their first trip out of the country. After the week, however, I can say with certainty that this group of college students far exceeded my expectations and I was very sad to see them go yesterday.

We spent most of the week just helping out with the programs and classes that Manna has. On Monday, the group sat in on Sam and my beginner's English class. It was their first full day in the country, many of them spoke no Spanish, and yet they eagerly jumped in to talk with our students and participate in a very competitive game of Jeopardy. Their eagerness to engage with the students and to help out was amazing and added a huge amount of energy to our class. Their positive energy continued throughout the whole week, in everything they did - helping with Milk Day in La Chureca, coming up with exercise routines to help teach women's exercise, working with students in English classes, preparing food for a nutrition demo, doing some manual labor at one of the community centers we work at, and more.

More than any of their work, however, what impressed me most about this group was their questions. Development work is hard, particularly for me as an engineer, because there are a lot of questions and very few clear answers. Are the programs we are running effective? Do they meet the needs of the community we are trying to serve? What needs are most pressing that we can address? Is the community open to our work and do they want what we're offering? Who am I to come in and assume I know what this community needs? After just a few days of seeing our communities and our programs, the group was able to ask and discuss these questions. When we had a wrap-up discussion during our overnight trip to a nature reserve called Tisey, every single student impressed me with their insights and understanding of the work we do and development work in general.

Although it was rather draining to lead a week-long spring break group, it was also one of my favorite experiences I have had this year. It was refreshing to see our programs through new eyes and to get an outside perspective on what we do. It was energizing to soak up some of the positive attitude and energy which the UNC group had, and it was a ton of fun to just sit around and chat with the group. When Sam and I dropped them off at the airport yesterday, I literally almost cried saying bye to them - we miss them already!

This week, a group of girls from UGA are here and are working with some nearby preschools! We'll host our last group next week, a group from Worcester State University. It'll be a busy month, but definitely an enjoyable one as well!

Otra vez, otra vez!

"Otra vez, otra vez!" (again, again!)

That's what I heard every time I tried to stop giving (not-that-small) kids piggy-back rides last Friday. Maggie and I spent about an hour and a half hanging out with one of the families in our child sponsorship program in La Chureca. Esteven is an incredibly energetic 4 year old who often seems to be a monkey as he climbs all over us as if we were jungle gyms. His older brother Jose and cousin Richard are just as energetic. I had never met Richard until Friday, but about three minutes after getting to Chureca, he was on my back and I was running back and forth giving him a piggy-back ride. And there-in lay the problem: once one starts giving piggy-back rides, one is expected to continue indefinitely. Occasionally, one is also expected to give rides to multiple kids at once. Needless to say, although I took many breaks, I was still pretty exhausted by the time we were ready to leave Chureca. I was also pretty darn dirty, both because of Richard's dirty hands and feet which got all over my t-shirt and because I slipped and fell while punting a random American football that Jose and Esteven had.

One of my favorite things to do here in Nicaragua is just spend time hanging out with families - sitting and talking with the adults, and running around playing with the kids. It is something which I often have a chance to do in Cedro Galan - it's a short walk or bus ride from the house, we're there all the time, and it's safe to walk around. In Chureca, however, it's less common to be able to spend a long amount of time with one family. We're not there as much, it's not a great idea to walk around alone, and we have to visit a lot of families with the time we do have. Spending more intentional time with families in Chureca has been one of my goals since getting back in January. It's hard to do since it's not fully in my control - like I said, I can't just hop over to Chureca and walk in whenever I want, and I have to work within certain timeframes. But the opportunities I have had to sit down and talk with mothers in our program have given me a better understanding of their lives in Chureca, what's going on in their families, and how their kids are doing. It has been a huge blessing to have these opportunities. Having an hour and a half to play with Esteven, Jose, and Richard and talk to their mother, Karla, was an unexpected highlight of last week for me.

And when I'm talking to a friend or running around with some kids, it doesn't even really register that I'm in a trash dump, or that the person I'm talking to lives in a one-room shack made of plastic tarp which a family of five call home. All I realize is that I have been blessed to meet these people and get to know them and learn from them this year - which is far more important and relevant than the garbage trucks driving by and the shack that I'm sitting outside.