5 de Octubre
Today was a day of highs and lows, defeats and accomplishments. After finishing our first week (we’re halfway through!) of language school we headed back to our homestay only to discover that our room is overrun by ants. The boxes of cereal that we purchased in order to fend off the hunger from the sometimes unfulfilling Nicaraguan meals were filled with ants. There were little lines of them streaming across the table in our room. So, accepting this mild set-back, Dylan and I cleaned everything up in our room and decided it would be a good time to pack up our suitcases for tomorrow’s big move. Following that, we were called for lunch. As breakfast had been a relative success – we were hopeful that lunch might follow suit.
At first glance we were mildly disappointed – it appeared that we were receiving a plate of white rice and a sliced potato – but willing to accept the meal as a win. But, on further inspection we realized that our plates of rice were sitting atop bowls of steaming soup. What kind of soup you might ask? Well…it smelled like blood. It was purplish-red in color. And better yet, inside our steaming broth was a boiled egg yolk encased by a pinkish colored blob that greatly resembled a cross between animal intestines and animal brains. Our maid insists it was bean soup. Needless to say, we mutually agreed that we would gladly have accepted about 25 slices of “the cheese” in exchange for our bowls of soup. The problem was, no exchange was being offered. And we had to get rid of the soup somehow…I mean, it would have been rude to return full bowls to our host-mom, right? So, we contemplated our ability to struggle through eating the broth. I took a bite of the unidentified substance. Again, mutual agreement – defeat. The solution? One of us goes on lookout to make sure the maid isn’t watching us while the other dumps the broth, one bowl at a time, into the garden. Dylan goes on lookout, I dump the first bowl. A success – minus the mass of egg yolk and unidentified mass still left in my bowl. And too bad Spike (the bad dog) is a sell-out and immediately goes to our garden dump to lap up our deposited soup. One more bowl to go. I go on look out, Dylan dumps his bowl into the garden. Oops, a part of the unidentified blob falls out! Again, sell-out Spike jumps in to lap up our garden “spillings.” Facing our lunch defeat, still hungry, we decide to go to Pollo Campero – Nicaragua’s version of KFC – with free wireless.
Once inside, we were treated like royalty. The waiters had a brief argument over who would get to serve us (yes, they actually serve you in Nicaragua’s version of KFC). Our brief P.C. visit provided us some much needed protein and we quickly set out on our way to the open market to purchase some supplies for our new apt.
Dylan and I have made multiple trips to the market, but today’s was definitely the most memorable. Immediately after entering the market we spotted the hangers and clothespins we were in need of – easy. After grabbing a few of those we set off in search of the rest of our shopping list: sheets, pillows, towels, a broom, garbage cans, etc. If only Nicaragua had a Target…We found towels and pillows pretty quickly. Dylan did a bit of price bargaining with the woman at the stand and we managed to talk her down a little bit – and walked away with two new pillows and some towels. After that we struggled for a bit searching for some sheets – the most necessary items on our shopping list. While we couldn’t find the sheets right away, we did stumble across an entire section of the market devoted to home goods. So, we purchased a broom, a dustpan, a kitchen garbage can, and two bathroom garbage cans. At this point, you have to realize that Dylan and I were creating a bit of a spectacle. I was carrying pillows, a broom and a dustpan while Dylan was walking around with an enormous multi-colored trashcan stuffed with the rest of our purchased. Navigating the narrow passageways between stalls in the market, we were bumping in to people left and right. All that was left on our list were those darn sheets, and we could not find them anywhere. Eventually I spied some bedding related objects in the back of one of the stalls and Dylan waited with all of our purchases while I scouted out our options. We finally settled on two sheet sets and I struggled (with my newly growing Spanish vocabulary) to figure out how much we owed the sheet-seller woman – as we only had American dollars left and not enough cordobas. The sheet-seller woman was incapable of doing simple mathematics, and my limited Spanish was very incapable of explaining to her where her Cordoba to dollar conversation was going wrong, so Dylan stepped in. With his quickly improving Spanish skills he managed to explain to her where her math was off and to straighten out the monetary conversation. While we did have a few cordobas left, we were hoping to pay with the rest of our American dollars and be done. Unfortunately, despite Dylan’s excellent bargaining skills, he was stonewalled by the mathematically challenged old lady sheet-seller. For $1.00. True defeat. In the end, we paid the additional $1.00 and waddled out of the market weighed down by all of our new purchases to catch a cab to our new apt. As was to be expected by now, our cab driver quickly nodded that he was familiar with the address that we gave him for our destination and not 1 minute later rolled down his window to ask a man on the street for directions. He had no idea where he was going.
Regardless, the taxi driver successfully brought us to our new apt and waited for us as we dropped off our new purchases and took our laundry from the other day off the line. As a side note, our laundry still smells very strongly of laundry detergent. Apparently we do not have as strong an understanding of our laundry facilities as we thought. We will need to work on our “rinse” cycle a bit more. Anyways, our taxi driver then drove us back to our homestay where we have had some nice time to unwind.
Since our return from the market, I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking about my time in Nicaragua. I truly believe that I am supposed to be here right now – but I am struggling, every day, as I miss home and all the people that I love, and because I have not yet begun any work/service that I came down here to do. This past week-and-a-half has truly been a time of learning, and struggling, to understand my purpose for being here. While down here, I have been reading a book called The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I have found myself reading the same passages over and over again each night:
Dr. Martin Luther King put it like this: “We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside…but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.”
Later in the book Claiborne says, “I’m just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, ‘When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me,’ or, ‘When I was naked, you donated clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me.’ Jesus is not seeing distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: ‘you fed me…you visited me in prison…you welcomed me into your home…you clothed me.’”
In terms of my trip down here, I think these quotes hit home. At home, in the states, I often contemplate all the ways in which I would like to help – but they are always the surface means to helping. I am quick to make contributions to charities and make donations to Salvation Army, but ultimately – what am I really doing? What compassion am I really showing? I am beginning to realize that my time in Nicaragua is meant to be a time for me to truly serve. It is an opportunity for me to learn the gift of servitude, love and compassion. It’s easy for any of us to toss a coin to the beggar – but that is not solving the beggar’s problem. It may not even do much to change that point in his/her life. I am ready to spend some time actually living the gift of service and helping to repave the road. I am ready to provide some concrete acts of love. I am coming to realize that that is what my time in Nicaragua is intended for. To live out these concrete acts of service. There are so many children here in need of a loving touch and tender words. I can only hope that I will have the opportunity to serve them with some of God’s love – and my own.
Thank you all for your continued encouragement and support. It means so much to know that you are behind us. I am sorry that this blog is so incredibly long. Please know that you are all loved and missed dearly.
Much love from Nicaragua,
Lauren
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