Views of the Revolution

Yesterday was like a time warp back to the days of the revolution in the seventies and eighties. I was able to attend a talk by Fr. Fernando Cardenal yesterday hosted by the Xavier University study abroad program which is located right in the barrio with us. They had Fernando over for a talk about his recently published memoirs about his time in the revolution. It was amazing to finally meet this man who is literally a walking history book about Nicaragua. His role in revolution was hugely important. During the Somoza years, pre-revolution when the US still like Nicaragua, Fernando went to the US congress to give testimony to the human rights abuses being done by the Nicaraguan government. He petitioned the US to stop selling arms to the Somoza government and in turn to stop being complicit in injustice, murder, and torture. He returned to Nicaragua and after the revolution was won he took a central role in the new government of the Sandinistas by helping combat illiteracy in the country. In just 4 months Nicaragua's illiteracy rate drop from over 50% to just 12%. That is the fastest and largest drop in illiteracy ever recorded by UNESCO at the United Nations. Wow, this guy is amazing. Now, at the age of 75, he is national director of Fe y Alegria. I actually first met him last week when he dropped into my school to visit some classes, including mine! What an honor!
The revolution day continued when we went to a concert featuring Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy. He is a famous Nicaraguan folk artist who has written many songs about the revolution and life in Nicaragua. He actually gave Fernando a shout out in the middle of concert for being such a great national hero and son of the revolution. I´m attaching a clip from youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUxggbBq-VM

¡Viva la Revolución!

On the Job Training

It’s funny how things come full circle. I remember hearing my mom tell me I used to hate playing soccer. I played for one season before I can really even remember. I can only imagine it like a scene of small children running haphazardly any which way the ball goes. Well, that’s sort of the way I felt last Sunday when I joined a men’s soccer league. I was invited to join a coworker and his team out in Ciudad Sandino where I work. He even helped me find some inexpensive cleats, socks, and shin guards. Although I dug deeply into my monthly stipend, I thought it would be worth it. I’m still discerning whether or not it was. Unlike when I was a child I enjoy soccer much more, but I have to admit I can’t be much better than I was when I was seven. Ok, that’s not giving me quite enough credit, but it’s been a rough learning curve. The guys I played with were weaned on soccer and played before they could even walk. I on the other hand had my athletic awakening not until high school when I started playing rugby. Nicaraguans don’t play rugby. I don’t think a guy on the other team appreciated it when my rugby instincts came out and I laid him out on the ground. God knows why I wasn’t yellow carded. Perhaps it was because I was the token white guy. All I heard during the game was “Corra chele!” which basically just means: “Run whitey!” That’s fine advice, to run, but it would have helped to know where I was needed to run. I couldn’t even tell who was on my team because no one could afford jerseys. They all knew each other but I was lost in a sea of intimidating 20-something young men.
We had another game this Sunday. I didn’t go. I have a cold. It’s true! And I really didn’t want to play, ha. I really don’t know if I’ll go back. I honestly think they wanted me to be on the team because they thought I could help them buy jerseys for the team. When I told them about my monthly pittance I think their glowing interest in me began to diminish drastically. If I’m not bringing money to the team it isn’t like I bring much more.
The cleats will not go to waste because somehow I’ve been wrangled into coaching soccer at my school. Hmmm. This is going to be interesting. I’ve already been consulting friends on how to do this. On top of this I’ll be coaching baseball too. And, if you didn’t know, I played t-ball, and that’s about the extent of my experience. Oh, I’ve also been to a few Reds games. As Steve Poat taught me this past fall, ministry is all about on the job training. So it goes. I’m just going into it with an open mind and with the intent of having fun. I can hope for nothing more than to have a good time and give kids an athletic outlet after school. Today I was hanging out at school in the afternoon and ran into a group of older high school students loitering near the basketball court. I joined them for a pickup game of fútbol sala or indoor soccer which is basically just 5-on-5 soccer on a basketball court. We played barefoot in our work and school clothes. They wore me out but I held my own and even scored twice.
We begin practice next week. Wish me luck. If anyone has good resources for coaching soccer or baseball please pass them along. I need all the help I can get. Cheers!

Happy Day of Friendship and Love

Happy Valentine´s Day!

Here in Nicaragua we say Feliz Día de amistad y amor. Anyway, It´s been a crazy few weeks here in the JVI homestead. We are all into work full swing. I had my first week will classes. They are much different than I expected. It sort of look like this. I show up Monday morning after an hour bus ride on an old American school bus from the seventies. I roll into work around 7am. Oh yeah I woke up at 4:50am. I´m already feeling hungry. Anyway, 7:15, time for my first class. Preschool. While half the class goes to the computer lab I stay with the other 15 four year-olds. Whoa. By noon I was about to cry or just fall asleep where I stood. As the week went on it got better. I´m only in class Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Starting next week I´ll have soccer and baseball practice twice a week each, and chorus practice on Friday. It´s all keeping me thoroughly busy and joyfully exhausted. Well, that´s all for now. It´s Saturday night and my turn to cook. I´m thinking a good ol home-cooked breakfast, pancakes and all. Peace, love, and friendship to all you friends and loved ones out there. And for those of you like us JVs ¨Happy Singles Awareness Day¨. Cheers.

Adventure

Oxford Dictionary describes adventure as
1. An unusual and exciting experience
2. A daring enterprise

Life is an adventure. I don’t know who originally said it, but for me, it is true. Whether I seek it out or is just finds me, adventure is ubiquitous here. Everyday I find something new, unusual, and exciting. Most recently I started work at Colegio Roberto Clemente. Sure it is my work, my volunteer service, the reason I am here far from my family and friends, but it is also a great adventure. The school is very impressive. Compared to many, it has great trees and gardens that create a cool and welcoming environment. The school is really big too with almost 1500 students in both the primary and secondary programs, comparable to pre-K thru 12th grade in the states. My first week was incredibly chill. I went half days and mostly hung out with my coworker Yamil who teaches religion class for basically every student at the school. He has only been at the school for about one year and so is also still getting accustomed to the school. His hospitality and friendship have me really pumped to get going with my work. The first day of class I was introduced to the entire student body and many of their parents. It was overwhelming. They applauded louder than anyone else. I was humbled and embarrassed.
You may ask, “well, what is your work?” Let me tell you. More or less I am the campus minister. They have never had anyone to fill this position so I have a ton of freedom to observe, learn, and then create activities, programs, or clubs. Some ideas we already have for the year include: a movie/documentary club, retreats, music ministry, and maybe some outdoor outings. On top of that I will be tutoring classes of little munchkins three mornings a week. Also, I will likely be helping out with the soccer and baseball teams. (The school doesn’t have rugby…yet. Haha) That’s pretty much all I know. For all I know when I arrive tomorrow they’ll have changed their plans. I’m flexible. That’s the name of the game. It’s an adventure.



Sunday I went on a more traditional adventure. Michael and I set off with our friends Joe and Sean for Volcán Telica. We left the house at 6am toward Leon and caught another bus out into the countryside. We got off the bus at a bridge and struck out toward a huge and intimidating volcano, miles away. It took us about 3.5-4 hours to hike up to the crater. It was so hot and dusty. The crater was out of this world. We couldn’t really see across the crater because of billowing steam coming out from about 200 feet down in the crater. The view from the top was beautiful and the cool wind was a welcome relief from the heat of the forest below. By the time we reached the bottom around 4pm we were ready for a victory beer and a bus to get us home. We were literally caked in dirt and sweat and smelled like it too. We rolled into the house approximately 13 hours after we had left, exhausted, dirty, and so happy. When I was sitting on the top of the volcano I remembered the story of Elijah on Mt. Sinai (1 Kings 19: 11-14). At the summit all I could hear was the quiet whisper of the wind. It was such a dramatic shift from the loud bustling life of Managua. In that wind I felt peace.
It might seem that I only write about the big adventures and life changing experiences but the truth is that the longer I am here the more I can begin sitting and listening to the small whispers that are all around me all the time. The come more and more frequently past the bustling noises of life.




What I´m listening to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62i9Sodwp5o&feature=related
What I´m reading: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Things They Carried

I thought it would be appropriate to explain and illustrate to you the process by which our fridge and bellies are filled every week. Every week two JVs head to El Mercado Huembes to buy food for the week. I just got back from the market. The sights, smells, sounds, and tastes are fresh and they linger on my palate. Michael is my market partner. We grabbed two large market bags woven with a multi-colored plastic material. We first set out for dry goods. We bought four pounds of red beans, one pound of sugar, one half-pound of salt, one pound of peanuts, one pound of raisins, three packages of spaghetti, tomato paste, crackers, cookies, garbage bags, and toilet paper. After we collected most of these things from a small stand in the market called, Sonia y Sonia, we moved through the densely packed market toward the fruit and vegetable stands. Walking through the market is like maneuvering in a crowned labyrinth. Children run around barefoot. It’s hot. Music is blaring from two or three directions simultaneously, and vendors are constantly asking ¿Qué busca? (What are you looking for?). The floor of the market is coated in trash, dirt, and sometimes a liquid mixture of cleaning fluid and water. The smells range from the putrid scents of fish and poultry to the tantalizing smells of freshly baked bread, soups, tortillas, and tamales. Everything tastes better at the market too because we’re hot, sweaty, and hungry. A woman let us test a mandarin which exploded with citrus sweetness in my mouth. We bought one and a half dozen. Along with that we bought three pounds of onions, three cloves of garlic, three large carrots, two pounds of potatoes, one ayote (a delicious squash), three cucumbers, six limes, four packages of green beans, three sticks of celery, and one enormous watermelon. After that we only needed eighteen eggs, and a half gallon of milk. We were on our way. Oh, and I forgot to mention that earlier today Michael bought one and a half dozen bananas, a couple pounds of tomatoes, green peppers, and a pineapple. We bought all that food, enough for six people for one week for around forty US dollars. There are certain things we don’t need to buy every week of course, but that tends to be the necessary budget week to week, with small purchases at local ventas (small businesses run out of peoples homes in the neighborhood) as needed. By the time we got home we were each carrying around 20+ pounds per person. But it felt so glorious to have fresh fruit, vegetables, and eggs in the house. I just whipped up some scrambled eggs with garlic, onions, and green peppers and fresh tomato on top. I have really found it a joy to cook here. So far I have cooked a rica BBQ chicken pizza with a biscuit crust and a Pakistani dish with potatoes and soy meat. I forgot to mention that we eat very little meat products but have found carne de soya­ or soy meat to be a great substitute. If anyone has good and simple recipes please feel free to pass them on. I’m always looking for new recipes. I have found the cookbook More with Less to be a great resource. I highly recommend it. I should also mention that not every Nicaraguan shops at the market like we do. There are also a couple supermarkets that would rival any Kroger or Safeway of the US. Actually, one of them is owned by Wal-Mart (Ironically it is called La Union). We tend to buy very few things from La Colonia, the nearest supermarket to our house, but usually only butter, margarine, or meat, because it is less likely to carry any nasty bacteria or parasites. So, no worries, we eat well, actually better than at home, and we stay as healthy as one could expect. Ha. ¡Buen Provecho!

Sport and Hitchhiking

I want to describe two things that I’ve experienced in the past couple days.

Yesterday I was sitting around the house most of the day relaxing and reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie in Search of America. It is an engaging story of Steinbeck’s travels across the US with his dog. It made me reminiscent of my travels from summers past. Perhaps it made me a little restless too. I went for a run around the neighborhood. It felt so good to stretch my legs. I cut the run short because of the intense heat and a case of insidious laziness. Instead of packing it in and taking a shower, only to be followed by more sweating, I decided to grab a ball from the house and head to the basketball court down the street. I shot hoops with a couple guys that if I were in the US would have made me nervous. They sported tattoos and one guy even smoked a cigarette mid lay-up. While we were playing a local game of Stick, which involves free-throw shots and tipping the ball, a game of baseball started in the dirt soccer field adjacent to the basketball court. My family has a running joke with our friends the Metz’ because we (namely my dad) don’t think baseball is a real sport, played by real athletes. He thinks that basketball is the height of athletic sporting games. After watching guys run around in bare feet over dirt, rocks, trash, and even some glass to play an intense game of baseball, I have to side with the Metz family. That is sport. The tattooed dudes weren’t athletes. And for myself, I shoot hoops like a marksman missing the broadside of a barn.

The second story just happened today. Everyone but Jenna, who had to work, went to Laguna de Apoyo near Granada. It was about an hour bus ride and a ten minute taxi ride down to an exceedingly beautiful volcanic lake. The breeze blew cool and the sun was warm. We spent the day relaxing, swimming, and reading. When we left the lake we started walking up toward the main road to catch a bus. A pickup truck rolled up behind us, Michael stuck out his thumb, and before I knew it I was nestled in the back of a pickup with Christine, two Nicaraguan men, a bunch of firewood, and two ratty old chairs. We breezed through the country on our way to the highway. The air was sweet and fresh as we drove through the forest, up out of the volcanic crater where the lake shimmered below us. The Nicaraguans in back along with the wood were dropped off, and the driver offered to drive us all the way to Managua. Christine and I hopped down thinking that’d we’d get into the cab with the rest of the crew for the highway stretch of the trip. I opened the front door to hop in and the driver said, “No, let the muchacha sit there. Get in the back and sit down low.” So I hopped back in the bed of the truck and settled in for a beautiful and windy trip down the highway to Managua. He drove fast. As we drove back to the city, smells of the countryside faded back to smells of the city—diesel exhaust and pollution. He dropped us off and we were left with a twenty minute walk back to our house. It was a great day, topped off with a donut from Doña Donut, a local woman who walks around selling homemade donuts, and an exquisite dinner of soy meat, beans, and rice prepared by Michael.

Church

This Saturday we went to mass in a community called René Cisneros. The church community is small, welcoming, and rooted in the spirit of the Christian Base Community movement. Christian Base Communities grew with the impetus of the Second Vatican Council and the Bishop’s Conference of Medallín, Colombia. Our Jesuit Volunteer community tries to alternate between this parish and the local barrio parish down the street. I have found the experience at René Cisneros much more conducive to prayer and reflection. The parish reminds me growing up in the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, Ohio. The music is lively and upbeat. People are relaxed and present to the community around them. Formalities and orthodoxies take a backseat to the activity and participation of the congregation.

I would like to share three short insights I had at Mass on Saturday. First, in the middle of the opening prayer a young woman, no more than 20 years old, approached the altar where the priest stood. She held a very small baby wrapped tightly in cloth and nestled close to her chest. She went right up to the priest, whispered a few words, and then returned to her seat with a number of other young women. The priest stopped right in the middle of the prayer and announced joyfully that the small child had just been born and he invited us to welcome her into the community. After applause he continued with the service. The seeming distraction and interruption in the order of things was nothing more than the joyful welcome of a child. I could only think that I had never seen anything like that at mass before and how often apparent inconveniences can be moments of grace in disguise.

Second, the homily, given by a Jesuit priest was nothing like I had experienced before. After reading the gospel he did not start by explaining what he, or the Church, or what anyone else should get out of the Gospel, but rather asked a question to the congregation. He asked, “What is the message of this Gospel reading?” It was not a loaded question or a rhetorical one, but an invitation for the community to participate in the Good News. What did the Gospel mean to the people sitting in this small church, in this poor neighborhood, in Nicaragua? Much in the spirit of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the priest was using the words and experiences of the people to shape and mold the direction of the homily. It was not only biblically and theologically based, but also rooted in the lived experiences of the people. It was liberation theology in action. It wasn’t socialistic or antithetical to the Catholic faith, but, in opinion, just really good Church.

Third, on my way down the middle aisle, toward the Eucharist, I noticed a small, hunched, old woman walking back down the aisle in my direction. She was simple but elegant and wise looking. As she turned into her pew she reached out to a small boy sitting next to her with a small piece of host saved from communion. The boy obediently opened his mouth and ate the bit of host. I laughed. That small act of rebellion or thoughtfulness or whatever it was tickled me. This innocent old lady was “breaking the rules” but only in gifting the boy what she saw to be something holy, meaningful, and necessary. Perhaps, not. That is of course my interpretation of the situation. However, it was such an interesting observation that I felt I must share it. It reminded me of my childhood when my mom baked communion bread for mass. She would let me eat a piece before it was taken to church for consecration. I thought it was exciting, mischievous, and also delicious (it was not the host of the dry wafer variety).

In my recent news I just got off the phone with my boss at Colegio Roberto Clemente. She told me I could come in on Janurary 26th to start getting acquainted with the school. The kids start on Feb. 3rd. I´ve never been so excited to start this work. My boss is extremely nice and really excited to have me. I´m pumped!