Twice a week, I help teach a math and literacy class at El Farito. Our goal for the class is to augment what students are learning in school and help them to succeed and advance, and we do this in two ways: by providing our own lessons and exercises, and by helping them with the homework that they are assigned in school. I usually work with middle schoolers, but a few weeks ago had the chance to work with Maria, an 8 year old girl who is in 1st grade.
Maria can barely read or write - she can sound out words syllable by syllable most of the time, and is able to write most of the letters of the alphabet without help. Maria's homework on that Monday was to write a short story. We started out by brainstorming a topic for her story, and concluded that it would be about a tiger. I asked her questions as we went along - what's the tiger's name? Where does he live? What does he do in the story? It took prompting, but Maria came up with her story and we set about writing it.
Too often, I see parents or older siblings just doing assignments like this for kids. They assume that the child isn't capable of doing the work, and so they do it for them. This is harmful for two reasons, the obvious of which is that the kid never actually learns what she or he is supposed to from the assignment. The other reason, which I would argue is the more harmful of the two, is that the child is told that they aren't smart enough to do the assignment, to learn the material, and to do well in school. When a child is told this enough by their family, either directly or indirectly, they inevitable believe it as well.
It took Maria and I about 45 minutes to write her one-paragraph short story, and we had to sound it out syllable by syllable. Occasionally, I would have to write down a letter on a different piece of paper to show her how to write it. I had to continually remind her to put spaces between words. But when all was said and done, SHE had written a story - SHE had done her homework. No one else had done it for her, and no one had doubted that she could do it herself. As I gave her a high five and told her how good of a job she did, the pride on her face was amazing to see.
Development work can be hard. There are a lot of times where you don't see tangible results and it is easy to get disheartened. One key to my happiness this year has been to focus on the little victories and on the small moments. The funny thing is that when I do that, the "little" victories don't seem as little anymore. All Maria and I did was write five sentences about a tiger, but two weeks later I can still see her proud smile when we finished, and it embodies all the reasons why I wanted to spend this year with Manna: the ability to form relationships with community members and the ability to do my little part to help them in whatever ways I can.
I have seven more weeks in Nicaragua before my year is over and I head back to Houston. When I look back on the year, what sticks in my head are the little moments like this. I have no illusions that I have changed the world through my work this past year, and that was never my goal. But I can look at the year and at the little moments and be proud of the impact that I have had, in small ways, on individual people. At one point, I had a bucket list for the remainder of the year, of places I wanted to visit and things I wanted to do before leaving Nicaragua. I've thrown it out the window, and I really only have one goal for the next seven weeks: recognize and cherish the small moments I'm given to impact the people I work with and to let them impact me. If I can do that, I will truly have no regrets when I pack my bags and say goodbye in mid-June.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Rio San Juan
Last week was Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is a week of vacation here in Central America. We had the whole week off, and it was a nice chance to rest a bit after a busy March with Spring Break groups. I spent half the week traveling and the second half of the week at home catching up on sleep, work, and just hanging out with some of my housemates and community members.
To start off our travels, Maggie and I hopped on a bus early Friday morning and headed to a town called San Miguelito, a small town right on Lake Nicaragua. I had found a farm online which did ecotourism, so we planned to spend two nights on the farm and explore the area around there. We were expecting a guest house or some kind of separate building for guests, but it ended up just being a two-night homestay in the house of the family who owns the farm. Eduardo and his family were amazing and made sure we had a good time during our stay. The farm is beautiful, the food was great, and I really enjoyed relaxing and being away from the "real world" for a few days. To get to the farm, it was a 45 minute ride in a wooden canoe (with a small motor) from San Miguelito out to the farm. There was no running water or electricity on Eduardo's farm, so it was pretty primitive but very sufficient. :-)
To start off our travels, Maggie and I hopped on a bus early Friday morning and headed to a town called San Miguelito, a small town right on Lake Nicaragua. I had found a farm online which did ecotourism, so we planned to spend two nights on the farm and explore the area around there. We were expecting a guest house or some kind of separate building for guests, but it ended up just being a two-night homestay in the house of the family who owns the farm. Eduardo and his family were amazing and made sure we had a good time during our stay. The farm is beautiful, the food was great, and I really enjoyed relaxing and being away from the "real world" for a few days. To get to the farm, it was a 45 minute ride in a wooden canoe (with a small motor) from San Miguelito out to the farm. There was no running water or electricity on Eduardo's farm, so it was pretty primitive but very sufficient. :-)
On Sunday morning, we headed further south to San Carlos, a town on the corner of Lake Nicaragua and Rio San Juan. The bus left Sam Miguelito at 6:00AM, so we has to leave Eduardo's at 4:30am in the wooden canoe. The sun obviously was't up yet, and it was an incredibly clear night. For the first half hour or so of the trip, the only lights we could see were the stars in the sky - there were no unnatural lights around. It was amazing, to put it lightly, and incredibly beautiful. After we got to San Carlos, we hopped on a motorboat to take us down Rio San Juan to El Castillo, the town we were staying in. Rio San Juan is a huge river which is the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and it has a lot of beautiful jungles and amazing scenery. During our three days in El Castillo, Maggie and I toured a fortress, went canoeing, saw crocodiles, went for a hike in the jungle, and more.
We then jumped on a 14-seater plane run by Nicaragua's domestic airline to head back to Managua last Wednesday. The airport in San Carlos was literally one room and a semi-paved runway....but the flight was great and we got back just fine!
Pictures below from the trip. :-)
This fortress in El Castillo was built in the 1600s and used to keep pirates from coming up Rio San Juan into Lake Nicaragua.
Maggie and I with the river, from the fortress.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Washing Dirty Feet
So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.
I'll start off with a confession right off the bat: my feet are almost always dirty here. It's not that I don't shower, because I do. But I usually wear Chaco sandals around, and it's dry season so everything is dusty. Inevitably, within a few hours of my shower, my feet are covered in dust from walking around Cedro Galan or La Chureca. It's actually slightly absurd, and I've never had dirty feet as frequently as I do nowadays. Every shower, I have to vigorously scrub my feet, sometimes multiple times, to get them clean again.
Maybe that was more than you ever wanted to know about my feet and their level of dirtiness. If so, I apologize - but I've spent more time thinking about my dirty feet lately than I ever thought I would. While at Adoration near the beginning of Lent, I was staring at my (dirty) feet while praying and got to thinking about Jesus and his foot-washing at the Last Supper. It suddenly had a lot more significance to me than it ever had with my clean feet in years past. As I sat there praying with my dirty feet, I realized that in order to truly understand how to wash others' feet, I had to first be around people with dirty feet.
A rule of our child sponsorship program in La Chureca is that the kids have to wear shoes or sandals every time they leave their house. It's a frequently broken rule, even though we provide the sandals for the kiddos. Many time, people walk around La Chureca without anything on their feet. Their feet are literally in the trash and the dirt. They have dirty feet. It's also not uncommon to see people in Cedro who just aren't wearing any shoes as they go about their daily lives. Many play soccer or walk around barefoot. They have dirty feet.
Here's the thing though - in order to be around these dirty feet, I have to be willing to get my own feet dirty. I can't sit in my clean or safe places, like offices or personal cars or my own house, and expect to be able to wash the feet of others. If I want to find people who truly need their feet washed, I have to step outside my clean, safe, comfort zone and go to the places that make feet dirty. This doesn't mean that we all need to travel to third world countries and find the dustiest or dirtiest places we can - there are people everywhere who have dirty feet, both literally and figuratively, and who need someone to wash their feet. But we have to be willing to go meet them where they're at, despite the dust and dirt that we'll also find there.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,"Master, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered and said to him,"What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later."Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered him,"Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me." Simon Peter said to him,"Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well."
I can be a stubbornly independent person at times, and generally like to be the one doing the serving while also taking care of myself. In that sense, I can relate to Simon Peter - frankly, my first reaction to anyone, let alone my Master or teacher, washing my feet would be to say "It's ok, I can do it myself." Jesus makes it clean to Simon Peter and clear to us that we need to let others serve us too. We need to let others see the dirt on our feet and wash it off. It's reciprocal, you see - we are called to serve, but we are also called to let others serve us. One of the most beautiful things about my time in Nicaragua so far has been realizing that I am being served every time I serve. I learn as much or more from the communities I serve as they do from me, and I am inspired every day by their lives and by their love. They are serving me, helping me grow, washing my feet, as I simultaneously do the same for them.
So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, "Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."
So seek out the dirty feet. Get outside of your clean and safe zone, whatever that means for you and where you're at right now. Risk getting your own feet dirty, and find someone whose feet you can wash. And then, be humble enough to let someone wash your feet, too.
I'll start off with a confession right off the bat: my feet are almost always dirty here. It's not that I don't shower, because I do. But I usually wear Chaco sandals around, and it's dry season so everything is dusty. Inevitably, within a few hours of my shower, my feet are covered in dust from walking around Cedro Galan or La Chureca. It's actually slightly absurd, and I've never had dirty feet as frequently as I do nowadays. Every shower, I have to vigorously scrub my feet, sometimes multiple times, to get them clean again.
Maybe that was more than you ever wanted to know about my feet and their level of dirtiness. If so, I apologize - but I've spent more time thinking about my dirty feet lately than I ever thought I would. While at Adoration near the beginning of Lent, I was staring at my (dirty) feet while praying and got to thinking about Jesus and his foot-washing at the Last Supper. It suddenly had a lot more significance to me than it ever had with my clean feet in years past. As I sat there praying with my dirty feet, I realized that in order to truly understand how to wash others' feet, I had to first be around people with dirty feet.
A rule of our child sponsorship program in La Chureca is that the kids have to wear shoes or sandals every time they leave their house. It's a frequently broken rule, even though we provide the sandals for the kiddos. Many time, people walk around La Chureca without anything on their feet. Their feet are literally in the trash and the dirt. They have dirty feet. It's also not uncommon to see people in Cedro who just aren't wearing any shoes as they go about their daily lives. Many play soccer or walk around barefoot. They have dirty feet.
Here's the thing though - in order to be around these dirty feet, I have to be willing to get my own feet dirty. I can't sit in my clean or safe places, like offices or personal cars or my own house, and expect to be able to wash the feet of others. If I want to find people who truly need their feet washed, I have to step outside my clean, safe, comfort zone and go to the places that make feet dirty. This doesn't mean that we all need to travel to third world countries and find the dustiest or dirtiest places we can - there are people everywhere who have dirty feet, both literally and figuratively, and who need someone to wash their feet. But we have to be willing to go meet them where they're at, despite the dust and dirt that we'll also find there.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,"Master, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered and said to him,"What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later."Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered him,"Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me." Simon Peter said to him,"Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well."
I can be a stubbornly independent person at times, and generally like to be the one doing the serving while also taking care of myself. In that sense, I can relate to Simon Peter - frankly, my first reaction to anyone, let alone my Master or teacher, washing my feet would be to say "It's ok, I can do it myself." Jesus makes it clean to Simon Peter and clear to us that we need to let others serve us too. We need to let others see the dirt on our feet and wash it off. It's reciprocal, you see - we are called to serve, but we are also called to let others serve us. One of the most beautiful things about my time in Nicaragua so far has been realizing that I am being served every time I serve. I learn as much or more from the communities I serve as they do from me, and I am inspired every day by their lives and by their love. They are serving me, helping me grow, washing my feet, as I simultaneously do the same for them.
So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, "Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."
So seek out the dirty feet. Get outside of your clean and safe zone, whatever that means for you and where you're at right now. Risk getting your own feet dirty, and find someone whose feet you can wash. And then, be humble enough to let someone wash your feet, too.
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