I think I will start by talking about our hotel. It is very nice. It is hard to find nice hotels here. But this one is owned by a family. It is open and the walls are a bright blue. There are plants everywhere and a beautiful garden out front. There are two people staying to one room which is lovely. My roommate is Sarah Barton. She is so awesome we get along so well and she always wants to explore with me. The rooms are nice. We are definitely not roughing it by any means though that may change. We have AC, two double beds AND a TV. We are living large. The bathroom isn't bad at all. We have a shower and well the water might be hot, it might be cold and it might not come out. So that's how it goes. And sometimes the toilet will flush sometimes it won't. But again, this isn't average. We are lucky to be in this hotel!We sit together at a long table and we are served every meal at the hotel by three women who cook every meal. They make the juice fresh. I have never had such delicious juice. They use fruits I have never heard of and my taste buds don't have a category for them, ha. Some are a deep red others are a pale yellow and some are slightly green. The food is absolutely fantastic. They put everything in a bowl and we pass it around. There is rice at every meal.
For breakfast we usually eat beans and rice (aroz con frijoles), eggs, toast, juice, and always FRUIT: mango, pineapple, watermelon, banana, papaya, and cantaloupe. The pineapple is white. I have never really liked pineapple. But the pineapple here is totally different and I think it might just actually be fresh and that is why it is white and delicious. It is really soft and not extremely sweet.
I have been learning a ridiculous amount on this trip and it makes me want to learn this much about a place whenever I travel! There is just so much history, unique qualities about the culture and issues that a country faces to learn about and be able to truly appreciate it! I will give you an idea of how much we have been doing and the extent of the experiences we have had.
Yesterday we went to a jacket factory that is a part of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) where they manufactured Patagonia, North Face, Eddie Bauer, and Columbia jackets. We saw the whole process from raw material to the final product. I even saw a jacket that I owned. It was encouraging to see that the workers actually had good working conditions at least.
We went to the city dump today where everything is dumped. I mean everything. All biohazardous (sp?) waste is dumped there. We saw an IV. There are body parts there, hysterectomies,HIV/AIDS needles, to abortions all in this one dump. Okay so everything is dumped there, so what? Well there are families that spend from 4 am to 4 pm there sifting through the trash everyday for their next meal and for recycling to sell for 30 Cordobas to live off of a day which is roughly a $1.50. When we went there I almost cried seeing children as young as 2 years old looking through the trash and picking it up to eat. There are 750 to 800 families that make their homes in these dumps. This place is more than a breeding ground for disease, it's like a diseases tropical vacation and tons of the children have rashes all over their bodies. I have never seen poverty like this. I feel like everyday that I see all these things I still just don't get it. I don't get that this is truly their reality. Their backyard is literally a wasteland. I described it in our journals as the obvious brokenness of this country or third world countries is as dark as the sin we know is in our hearts. Everything is just so real here. There is no time to mess around with your resources. People need them and your NGO better find an effective way to distribute them.
God seems so close here. God seems so close to these peoples hearts. You ask them what gets them through the day and it's like "of course, God". Seeing their closeness to God, their creator, shows me how far my heart is from Him. But I feel his grace that much more. He whispers. He says, "It doesn't matter who or where you are, rich or poor, selfish or serving, I'll meet you there." I see how messed up this world is and I say, "how did you ever forgive us?...thank you Jesus for coming and living the perfect life I couldn't. Becoming as poor as the people that I see, so that I may inherit your kingdom one day."
We have been dancing two nights. I can barely go out now with a clean conscious knowing that I am spending money that could feed these people or keep their baby from dying from diarrhea by cleaning their water. I gave a dollar, just a dollar to an 8 yr old boy today because I couldn't take saying no to them anymore and the verse Luke 6:30 wouldn't leave my head: Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. This kid acted like it was Christmas morning as he ran to his friends to show off the U.S. dollar bill. I just keep putting myself in their shoes. What if that was 8 yr old Andrea begging for a dollar. Or 8 yr Andrea in the dump searching for her meal among the body parts and the needles?
The organizations and NGOs that we have visited are truly remarkable and making a HUGE difference. Their philosophy on how to best be effective is beautiful and it is changing the hearts and minds of these people one community at a time. It is heart breaking to learn all these things and see all these things but truly the progress that has been made just in the past two years is so so encouraging.
I am going to see be in the O.R. next week watching the surgery of a ministry in Nicaragua that does primarily curative treatment for the community rather than preventative. Doing whatever surgeries that need to be done. It is a plastic surgeon who comes down from Savannah, GA with his wife three times a year to this ministry they started and they do surgeries from like 7 am to 3 pm everyday. I can't wait! The opportunities I am getting I never thought I would get.
We have been in Managua for a week now. We will leave on the 20th to go to Matagalpa for 4 days. And then we will go to Granada for 4 days and then we will be back here to take off for the states. I cannot wait for Matagalpa and Granada. I have heard they are beautiful and that Matagalpa is in the mountains and it is much cooler.
Nicaragua is definitely very different than Costa Rica. You just feel down underdeveloped and impoverished it is in comparison to Costa Rica and you can feel how heavy the hearts of the people are here. There is no down town area. After the earth quake in 1972 everything was destructed. At the time of the earthquake Managua was an up and coming city in Central America and everything that was destructed was never built up again. It just stayed as it was up until now, and so that is what we see.Their aren't even street signs; they never replaced them. You give directions by land marks. Here there is no east or west. There is up and down. "Up" is east, where the sun rises...up. And, yep, "down" is west where the sun sets...goes down.
One of my favorite talks that I have heard since we have been here is the talk about economics about CAFTA, NAFTA, and ALBA. It is crazy how Central America is affected by these "agreements". The speaker was just very good at explaining everything and gave good examples. Not all of our talks are in the same place. We usually go to the speaker where their establishment is or some even come to the hotel or we have a general meeting place. All the speakers are very well informed and experts in their area. I feel so blessed. It is amazing.
In closing one of the funny things here is that we only have a "tentative schedule". They say, "Nothing has happened until it is over". Speakers may or may not show up. The electricity may or may not work. We may have a demonstration or riot in the street and not be able to make it. Luckily nothing has kept us yet. There have only been a couple hiccups. But life is just so different here. There are people out on the street all over the city. You just have to drive down one street and you understand the culture (to an extent). Yes, women all over the place walk around with bowls or water on their heads. There are all kinds of people selling things in the street. There are people in wheel chairs going down the street begging to every car. There are infants at every corner. About half the people ride a horse drawn buggy, the horse looks like it needs antibiotics. There are children dancing and playing drums just for a few cents. I'm haunted by their screaming voices in my head. There are people standing on people shoulders juggling fire. It is absolute chaos. I have never seen anything like it. I can't imagine growing up somewhere where everything is so uncertain, and unstable, and out of control. You just see distrust in all of their faces. They can't even trust their government to regulate their city trash!
Strangely enough life seems to make more sense here and among all this chaos life is simple. People sit on their porches. They know their neighbors. If they have food they share a meal with them. If things on their schedule that day don't happen then they don't happen.The traffic on the road is crazy but people rarely honk and they are constantly swerving in and out of lanes (I have only seen one car accident). It feels like a play that they have practiced for weeks and they know exactly the next move the other is going to make, ha.
I see myself here or some place like it after I graduate trying to help the cause in all of these countries. But who knows. I don' know. I am really attracted to all of this. I know its no joke; it is only by God's grace that those already here get through the day and stay motivated. But I want to give my life away and stop this selfish crap. This selfish nothingness.
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