Febrero!

Greetings from sunny Nicaragua! The sun is getting stronger every day. Everyone walks around with an umbrella, or rag, or t-shirt on top of their head- anything to keep the sun from hitting them directly. I have been told that March and April are the hottest months of the year, so I am bracing myself..


February brought with it some more pets to my house. First, there was Davíd (this is what I call our rooster). Davíd stays outside the wall of my room and crows all night long. The wall of my room is wooden, and there is literally no sound protection (I can sometimes hear my host siblings breathing in the room next to mine at night.) So I may not sleep through the night again until Davíd becomes soup :)

We also just got two puppies. They are to guard the house at night when they grow bigger, not for soup, and they are much cuter than Davíd!

Hogar Belen:

This month at Hogar Belen, Gretel and I spent a lot of time doing evaluations for each of the children. We evaluated them in four different areas- physical, social, cognitive, and language. We then made up a form that we used to create annual goals for each of them in each of these areas. The third and final step was developing a list of activities and methods that we would use to work at these goals in the next several months. It feels a lot better to be working with the kids with more knowledge of their current levels, and with some clear goals in mind.


It is an unstructured role that I am in this year, which can be a challenge from my own cultural background- but I am learning flexibility, and these little steps of more formal organization are helpful.


Little Moments...
This month I have often thought of how much I appreciate the places I find myself in this year- the little moments that I think to myself "I really like it that life has me in this very place at this very moment."

For instance, last week I spent Saturday afternoon on my front porch with my host mom "limpiando los frijoles" (cleaning the beans). Cleaning beans involves taking a handful of dried beans in one hand, pulling out the tiny sticks, stones, and reject beans, and then placing the "cleaned" handful of beans into another recepticle. We sat there cleaning beans and having conversation for the afternoon. I like that about Nicaragua- there isn´t a way to do everything quickly, and though it can be quite the pain sometimes, I still treasure the pace.

Another time I really enjoy where I find myself is when I go to our Saturday evening church service. You may be wondering- why church on a Saturday evening? My church here actually has services on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and twice on Sunday. Now I don´t go to all of those, but people are generally confused when I try to explain that at home we only have a service for the whole congregation on Sunday mornings.

Anyways, I really enjoy Saturday evening chruch because we meet in two different groups in someone´s home. We have a group of about 20 people from the neighborhood, all gathered together on the front porch of a house. We sing songs (not at all quietly), read scripture, someone gives a short talk, and then we sing some more. The houses here in Nicaragua are incredibly close together- yards rarely exist. And the cool thing is that 20 people making quite a raquet in the middle of this small neighborhood with their church service is not seen as anything out of the ordianary. I can´t explain it, but it is such a unique atmosphere, and I so enjoy it when I can go :)

Another expample of these little moments is this past Friday night. I went to a concert in a cafe with two other volunteers here. The singer was a man from England, married to a Nicaraguan, and sang the songs of Victor Jada (a Chilean who wrote and sang songs for social justice in Chile, and was eventually killed for doing so). There is a movement of young people in Nicaragua working for social justice with Victor Jada as their inspiration. The cafe was a small open air setting, and we were among the first of the handful of people that came. They were serving free coffee, and when I asked if there was milk (here in Nicaragua coffee is amost always served with milk), the singer there to give the concert left the cafe to find me some. Only here.. :)

Other happenings this month:

The MCC team had a meeting this month up North in Matalgalpa, and went for a day to a farm in the mountains. We went for a hike and heard ( but didn´t see) some monkeys, saw a lot of coffee plants, and a waterfall. As always, it was wonderful to get out of the city and into nature for a while. And the climate in those higher altitudes is such a relief!


This last weekend I went to a big carnival here in Managua with my host sisters. It consisted of a huge parade with a lot of folklore and traditional dancing, and a massive amount of people all in the same street.




This month I also was able to visit a Sewing Center project in Managua, connected with Hogar Belen. This is a small project that teaches women from the community the skill of sewing and tailoring. They take the classes and graduate with some materials and a skill that they can use for the rest of their lives- to stay on their feet economically. It was cool to see, and one of those sparks of hope that brightened my month :)

Until next time... :)