My week.

This week has been crazy.

The week started with a 5k run. Jenn and Bianca heard about this Managua 5k, and decided to do it. Saturday night, I decided…what the hell, I’ll do it to. I figured I wouldn’t be able to run the whole thing, but it was free if you didn’t buy a number, so I wouldn’t lose anything other than calories. Sunday morning we woke up at 6am, met up with Bianca’s Nicaraguan friend named Pedro, and we took a micro to La Galeria. I was pretty nervous since I haven’t ran 3 miles combined in the last 5 months, but I actually started out ok. I did the first 2 miles fine, but the last mile was almost all up hill, and I was dying. I was about ready to quit about half a mile from the end, but Jenn and Bianca stayed with me, coaching me on. Jenn kept saying, “We are all finishing this together.” And that is the story of how I finished my first race without stopping to walk a single time. Definitely the highlight of my week. (But needless to say…my legs were in major pain the rest of the week.)

Later on Sunday, I went with Tobin to the airport to pick up her 2 friends from Europe that are visiting for the next 2 weeks. One is from Germany and the other from Spain, so at the moment, our house is very multi-cultural. They have been fun to have here, but since my room is connected to the living room, and they have been staying up late, I didn’t get very good sleep this week.

Then came Monday. For the last month-ish, Heather, Adrienne, and I have been going to dance practices twice a week in Ciudad Sandino to get ready for our big performance at Carnaval with a group of Nicaraguan jovenes. This week the dance instructor, Marlon, decides that he wants to put us 3 in our own line in the middle of everyone. We are all appalled by the idea. We don’t want special treatment because we are chelas, and there are so many other way better dancers that I would rather have featured in the middle. We’ll see if we can convince him otherwise…

Thursday I found out that my grandpa died. My mom called and told me that he had died on Tuesday, and she explained everything that happened. At first it just felt really weird. When I finally go back to the U.S., he won’t be there. I will never see my grandpa again…like a small part of my life in the U.S. was just erased while I was gone. Then I felt really sad…for multiple reasons…but mostly because I knew I could not be there to support my family. Here I am in Nicaragua while my Grandma, parents, and brothers had to stand by my grandpa’s bed as he withered away and took him last raspy breaths. I’m so sorry. I feel really horrible. I wish so much that I could have been there with you.

Then today, I found out that Grety quit. Silvio also told me that he is leaving in December, and then Silvia said that if she can find a way, she will be leaving too. Everyone that I work with in the bank could very possibly be gone in a year. How am I supposed to do my job if everyone is gone!?

I feel overwhelmed. I thought I was almost out of the transition stage here. I thought I was starting to get things more or less under control. I was wrong. 

This is where I am at 3 months.

This blog is just going to consist of a lot of random thoughts, feelings, and experiences that I´ve had lately. It´s been so long since my last blog, and so much has happened, that I´m not sure I could put it all into one cohesive post.

One of the most uncomfortable things I deal with here is men coming to our door asking for food. Sometimes we give them food, other times we don´t. We’ve decided that if we have some extra food, it´s okay to give it away, but we don´t want to create a dependence. The last few times that men have come to our door, I freeze. I wish I could get up and answer the door, but I just can´t. I slink down in my chair hoping that they haven´t seen me, and I wait until they go away. Each time I feel horrible. I should at least get up and answer the door. Even if we don´t have food to give out, I could at least acknowledge them as human beings; maybe offer some water or talk for a bit. I just can´t. I’m going to start forcing myself to answer the door, though, because I have too much internal conflict when I don’t.

It is also really hard to see people sleeping in the streets. Sometimes men are passed out in the middle of the sidewalk in our barrio, and I can´t always tell if they are alive or not. I wonder sometimes if they actually were dead how long it would take for someone to call the police or a hospital.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is trash day in our barrio. Each time when we drop off our trash at the end of the street, there are people there looking through it. Maybe there is a little extra food or maybe some metal or plastic bottles to sell. Apparently our house is known for having ¨rich trash,¨ and everyone wants to be the first to look through it. One time when I was dropping our trash off, one man ripped the bag straight out of my hand so that he could get to it before another woman.

Diabetes is such a horrible problem here. I think one cause is that there is so much sugar and starch in the diets. I hear stories of people dying of diabetes related problems often, and Tobin´s campo mom just died from diabetes-related complications. Many of the women at the bank have diabetes also. One socia has a huge open sore on her foot attributed to the disease, and I can barely look at it as she swats the flies away from it. A girl at the place where Heather and I eat lunch has very bad diabetes as well. She does not have any way to test her insulin level, so she does not always take her insulin shots at the right times. She regularly feels sick, and due to the disease, her hip bones have reformed so that she looks extremely bowlegged. She is only about 29 years old, but Heather’s mom (a licensed nurse practitioner) says the advanced stage of Karla’s diabetes means that she maybe has 10 more years to live.

One day I was talking with Silvia and she told me that she only makes 2100 Cordobas each month (about $91) for her full time job at the bank. This is absurdly low. Tobin said that the teachers at her school only make between 3-4000 cordobas a month and they only work half days and get all vacations off. Most of the teachers also have another job so that they can financially survive. How can a project that is preaching love and justice pay their workers such an incredibly low wage!?

Everyday on the way to and from work, I pass a very mentally handicapped man. He just sits a little ways off the side of the road in the trash and rocks back and forth, making a “Uhhh Uhh Uhh” sound. It is very sad, and I have a hard time just walking past him. I wish I could just go give him a hug or something, but I have no idea whether or not it would be safe.

Lent has started. At work the other day, my boss was talking about the 3 parts of Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Giving Alms. It was very intriguing because she related each of the three to a different type of relationship. Prayer strengthens your relationship with God. Fasting should help your relationship with your sisters and brothers (aka those around you), since you are all supposedly united in solidarity through hunger and purpose. Giving Alms then works on your relationship with everyone else—(those outside your inner circle of people)…giving you a bigger picture of the rest of the world. I had never thought of these three in this light, and I found it very beautiful.

Also along the lines of Lent, my house has decided to eat breakfast together once a week as our Lenten promise. The other JV house in Nicaragua has decided only to eat rice and beans during the week for the next 40 days. Jenn went so far as to give up all packaged foods! We really don’t eat that much packaged food, but I thought the ideas and reasoning behind this decision were really cool (solidarity with those that can´t afford it as well as simplicity in reducing waste). Personally, I decided to take about 5 minutes to myself each morning before work to listen to some music and calm myself…a sort of meditation/prayer.

I have realized that I have a horribly short attention span. I can get lost in my head so easily. This hurts me even more here because I have to pay twice as much attention to people speaking in Spanish to understand them. In order to try and combat this I have been trying to remind myself each time I realize I´m drifting by saying ¨Are you listening?¨

Right now it is mango season, and I absolutely love it! There is a mango tree that hangs over our roof at work, and sometimes it sounds like it is hailing because so many mangos are falling down on the tin roof. We just go pick them up, and have a mini mango feast. I have also learned that there is more than one type of mango. : ) In addition to these different types of mangos, there are a few other fruits here that I´ve never seen before. One is called caymito, and it is amazing. I can´t really compare it to any fruit I´ve ever tried before, though.

I have learned quite a few names of the women in the bank. I think I know almost all of the women in my 3 banks of women. They are all so loving and beautiful despite all the hardships that they face. One woman bought me a cacao fresco on Valentines´ Day after she heard me ask how much they cost. Another woman gave me a pair of earrings that she made herself. But I would have to say that my favorite gifts from the women are their hugs.

One day we went to a woman´s house and she proudly presents us each with one whopper. It fascinated me that one tiny whopper here could have sure importance and value. In the U.S., I could eat an entire Easter basket full of whoppers without thinking twice.

Anyway...so that is some of what has been going on with me. Lots of mixed up emotions of awe, saddness, confusion, love, beauty, and evil. Thanks for allowing me to share it with you.