Homestays, the Campo, and Despedidas

Dear friends and family,

It has now been a little over two weeks since I arrived in Nicaragua. My first full week here in Managua was spent living with a host family in Barrio La Luz, about 3 blocks from the JVI house. I lived with Martin, Blanca, Kennia, and Kenneth from Sunday until Friday, and in the afternoons I attended Spanish language school a few blocks away. The family was wonderful. Like many Nicaragua families they lived a very humble lifestyle but were more than willing to dedicate their resources toward making their guests feel welcome. They took me out to dinner my first night with them, and the rest of the week was filled with great conversations, playing with the kids, and spending hours on the edge of my seat watching epic soap operas. Nicaraguan and U.S. politics were a hot topic of discussion, as the family is very politically conscious. My host dad, Martin, joined the Sandinista army in 1984 and fought against the U.S.- backed Contras in the north of Nicaragua for two years, so he is quite intrigued by the political happenings in the U.S. and Nicaragua. Another hot topic of discussion was the politics behind public services in Nicaragua, namely electricity and water. Electricity is privatized here, owned by a Spanish company, and the service is terrible. Most houses in the capital have frequent and lengthy power cuts. Water is run by the state, and the service is also terrible. My host family has no running water from 9am to 3pm every day. The public service situation has only been getting worse, and people here are getting quite fed up both with state-run services and with private companies operating their essential services.
A week of language school was wonderful. My grammar teacher, a 20-year old, well dressed evangelical worked with me all week to review almost every grammatical concept I had learned in Spanish classes throughout high school and college. I still have a lot of work to do with the language, but it was helpful to brush up on my shabby grammar. I finished language school on a Friday afternoon and said goodbye to my host family as I prepared to temporarily move back in to the JVI house. The goodbye was not difficult, as we were all reassured by the fact that I would live 3 blocks away from the family for the next two years. I hope that I will continue to build a relationship with this family and that through them I will feel more connected to the Barrio La Luz community.
The night that I came home to the JVI house from my homestay I had the pleasure of meeting up with my good friend Dan who was passing through Managua, and we enjoyed a few quality Nicaraguan beers with the rest of my community mates. The next day was the ‘despedida’, or goodbye party for Matt and Adriana, the two Jesuit Volunteers who have just completed their two years here. It was fun to see how many people here they had made friends with…everyone from their coworkers to neighbors to random acquaintances showed up to celebrate.
The next morning Jenna (the other first year volunteer) and I said our goodbyes to Matt and Adriana and headed to the campo (countryside) just south of Volcán Masaya to live in another homestay for 4 days. I love life in the campo. The only sounds are that of animals, wind in the trees, and the occasional pickup truck, a nice relief from the craziness that is Managua. We spent much of our time tagging along with the community leaders and the community youth group. The community of Arenal (made up of five smaller communities) is extremely well organized and has formed a community organization to address a number of issues and goals. There are subgroups within the community that focus on youth development, maintaining local culture through dance, empower women who travel every day to the city to work in sweatshops, and get on the government’s case about access to potable water. We got to spend a lot of time with the youth of the community and a youth group from the city lead by two Jesuit novices. One of the highlights of our time with the youth was traveling to a local town to watch the community dance troupe practice for a performance in Costa Rica. On the way there we packed 17 people into the back of a pickup, which was definitely illegal, given that 15 people is the maximum allowed capacity. It poured rain on us as we sang Nicaragua folk songs together (I was a little rusty on the melodies and lyrics). One of our last days in the campo we actually traveled to Managua with a couple of the community leaders who were demanding that the government cooperate with the community’s plan to install a new water system that would bring potable water to two communities that are currently without water. Lack of access to water, especially in the campo, is a huge issue in Nicaragua right now. I have heard that some communities only have water flowing one day a month, and as a result people are literally dying of thirst in a country with plenty of water to go around. In Arenal, kids aren’t showing up to school because they can’t wash their clothes due to the lack of water. The community has been pleading with the government to send a water technician to help them bring water to two smaller communities, and the government has done nothing. So the other day the community leaders went to the headquarters of ENACAL, the government water management office, to demand government cooperation. The people at ENACAL said they would cooperate and help the community get water to all of its inhabitants, as long as the community covered the cost. All in all, my time in the campo was not only relaxing and tranquilo (as is most time spent in the campo), but it was also a wonderful opportunity to see a well organized community take initiative to resolve its problems and achieve its goals.
I came back to Managua on Thursday and moved in to the JVI house, where I will now live permanently for the next two years. Matt and Adriana are gone, which is certainly sad at times, but I feel more grounded here now with the knowledge that my five housemates right now will make up my community for the next year, and that I won’t be moving in and out with more homestays. This will be the first Christmas I’ve ever spent away from my family, but I’m looking forward to sharing in it with my five community mates who are also not accustomed to spending the holidays in another culture far from home. Thanks for reading this longer than usual entry. Peaceful and happy holidays.