The Day the Music Died

Last night I had a test of detachment. I was fiddling around with my ipod and out of ignorance I accidentally synced my ipod with my computer and erased almost all of my music. I couldn’t believe it. I had spent years collecting this music. I had over 7,000 songs from friends all over the world—all gone. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

In light of this I have invited myself to take a step back and take the long view. This is not the end of the world and it gives me good reason to look at my life a little bit. I live here in Nicaragua and am confronted with realities of poverty everyday. That doesn’t mean I actually see it. For sure it’s always there but I don’t always choose to keep my eyes, ears, and heart open to it. I am reminded of a short story I read in college by Flannery O’Conner: A Good Man is Hard to Find. In the story, as in many of her stories, she uses violence as a catalyst for her character’s dynamic growth, and more importantly for grace to enter their lives—to experience metanoia, personal change, realization, or enlightenment.

Poverty is violence, and so if my life were like an O’Conner short story I would be changing and growing daily. But truthfully, I feel like I can get stuck or numbed by the day to day violence of poverty.

There are some days when it hits me hard. I can’t ignore nor forget certain imagines burned into my memory. Last week I was walking from my house to Metro Centro to catch my bus to Ciudad Sandino. It was 6:05AM. I went to cross the street and saw out of the corner of my eye a homeless man. Actually, all I could see was his bare ass and him wiping himself. It shocked me. What brings a man to defecate like that out in the open? That same day, on arriving to Ciudad Sandino, I was walking from the bus to school and saw two more things that shocked me. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Save the Children ads on TV showing images of dirty naked children looking for your daily donation of 60 cents. I think one of those kids lives near my school. He stood by the road wearing nothing but a dirty cloth diaper, and his little hands clutching barbed wire. He looked up at me with red expressionless eyes. On the next block a group of four or five shirtless and raggedy men were sitting around on the ground passing a bottle of Guaro or cheap dirty liquor. A bottle of this stuff goes for about 2 dollars a pop and even the cheapest and most desperate college freshmen would turn their noses up at the stuff. These men were getting drunk at 7AM as their kids were heading to school and their wives and girlfriends to work. When I left school at 4PM they were still where I left them.

These experiences are not unique to this one day. There was something about the concentration of the events, all happening within an hour, that shocked me out of my stasis. It’s not easy to see suffering like this on a daily basis but it certainly puts my ipod woes into perspective. I hope I never become too accustomed or dulled to the realities around me, but perhaps I can use these experiences as catalysts for personal growth, enlightenment, and metanoia.

Swine Flu

Everybody's talking about it. Thought I'd let you all know. We're going to be OK here in the JVI Nica house. We have masks.

I think the rains are coming soon. It hasn't rained a drop since December. The rainy season starts this month. We heard thunder today which is a good sign. I'm not sure it will be better in the rainy season. It will certainly be less dusty but also much more humid. We shall see. In other news we had a three day weekend this weekend because of the May 1st celebration of workers. We had a good time seeing some friends and relaxing. I have a meeting this coming week with the teachers and parents of the first grade. The topic is discipline, which these kids have none of. Oh, and by the way today is my 5 month anniversary of being in Nicaragua. I am adjusting well and getting pretty used to life here. El español está mejorando día por día.

Weekend with the Boys and Mailing Address

I had the great privelige to travel with an old friend and some new ones this past weekend. My buddy Colin, the one I road tripped with this past summer and studied with in El Salvador, and two other guys living in El Salvador right now came to visit Nicaragua. I swear, it felt more like they were hosting me in Granada. We went out to eat, drank mojitos, took a small boat tour and went to Laguna de Apoyo to swim. It was luxurious. On Sunday morning we came back to to Managua early, before their bus back to El Salvador, to have breakfast with the community. It was really great to have so many good people in one place.

From left to right, sporting JVI colors unknowingly: Sam, Jeff, me, and Colin

From left to right: Megan, Michael, Sam, Colin, Jeff, Me, Jenna, Amber


My Address (By request):

Patrick Reynolds
C/O JVI
Apdo LM 161
Managua, Nicaragua

P.S. I LOVE getting mail!!!

Semana Santa - Holy Week

Happy Easter, Felices Pascuas, and happy spring to all those who have the pleasure of experiencing it this year. It seems to get hotter here. They say holy week is the hottest week of the year. That’s not true…perhaps this week is though. For Holy Week I went on “mission” for one day with other teachers and some students. We went to the homes of about fifteen students, visiting, and wishing happy and blessed Holy Weeks. Honestly, it was kind of awkward. It was much more evangelizing and guilt tripping than I was comfortable with. My boss was asking what the family had planned for holy week. As is custom the country over, many had planned trips to the beach or other places throughout the country. When my boss heard this she proceeded to remind people why it is holy week, because “we are celebrating the passion, death, and resurrection of the lord.” She would then remind everyone to go to services Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I sat in silence for the most part, smiling occasionally. On Tuesday of Holy Week I did the Nicaraguan thing and went swimming at a lake with some coworkers. We grilled meat, drank rum, and swam. It was great. Wednesday Michael and I headed back to the mountains of Estelí, to La Granacha. It was good to get out of the Managua’s heat; I relaxed. I finished reading Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, played my guitar, and went hiking with Michael. We ran into a snag on Friday when we were planning to head back to Managua. We found the bus to Estelí wasn’t running and that we had to stay another day. It was a mixed blessing. It was great to spend another day in paradise, but we were unable to notify our compañeras at home. When we finally got home on Saturday they were quite worried about us. So it goes.

Work started up again yesterday, Easter Monday, and it was a shock to the system. Luckily for me only about half the kids came because they didn’t realize there was class. Apparently all the public schools didn’t have school. Some people missed the memo. Anyway, I didn’t have to cover any classes because there were so few students. I finally took some photos at school. You can see some of the kids that I spend time with in the afternoons. These are not the kids I have in class, so I pretty much like them all. Good kids.

¡La Música Mai!

So, since being in Nicaragua I´ve felt disconnected from American culture a bit. That is to say, the American culture I receive here is different. It´s everywhere: American brands, Wal-Mart-owner-supermarkets, Coca-Cola, eighties music on the radio, etc. One thing I have missed is music. Perhaps it is being away from my friends who constantly kept me updated and interested in new tunes, but I feel like I don´t know what´s out there, and music is one way I have started to feel disconnected. However, that said, I have picked up some new music since being here. It´s funny, some of the most popular music here is in fact American, well, Puerto Rican actually. Here are a couple links to popular songs:

The newest by Daddy Yankee
And Calle 13

Soy Resident

Well, it is official. I am now an official Nicaraguan resident. I am a card carrying expatriate. It feels good. Considering how much beaucratic red tape we had to go through to get it realized, it was realitively easy compared to the immigration process of the United States. There are hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who would love to get the same kind of residency in the US. I feel humbled by my privledge to be an official resident.

Learning Math All Over Again

2+3=5, duh.

You would think teaching simple math would be easy. Well, apparently not. Yesterday we had an all morning workshop about math. It was principally for the primary teaches, myself included. The workshop was given by a Swiss national who is living with his family here in Managua. His role is to support and develop math in all of Fe y Alegría´s schools in Nicaragua. That´s quite a task. Anyway, the workshop was great. I had forgotten math can be fun. I think he really turned many of our notions about math unside down, especially for my coworkers. It is typical for a teacher to put a bunch of problems on the board and for students to copy and do the problems. This is not a good way to learn but it is how just about every class, in every subject, is taught to Nicaraguans the whole country over. I personally have not had a real intensive math class since St. X High in Cincy. Even with my math skills well on the backburner I remembered not only how to multiply fractions but was able to teach my coworker who is a 6th grade teacher. I don´t know how kids learn here. Michael´s coworker, a Nicaraguan, said that for a kid to learn in the Nicaraguan school system they have to be an outright genius. I´m starting to believe him. Anyway, the workshop was energizing and gave me some ideas to spice up my lesson plans that teachers leave me. Even if they leave me with simple copying plans I feel like I could spice them up a little bit. Vamos a ver.