anhelo

So it's October again. and this time I'm a senior. schneikies.

I guess that means I'm supposed to start figuring out what I'm going to do with my life--or at least for the next year or two. at least, that's the impression I get, since everyone asks me all the time.

but it's not that simple. there are so many factors to consider, not the least of which is myself. there are so many things I COULD do--the question is which one is right for me, for my passions, for the direction I think I might want to go with my life.

it's fall break, which is why I have time to sit at my computer and write this. at my computer on the couch in the living room of my HOUSE! I don't think I could stand it if I were living in a dorm this year. my spirit has a need to be free from the institutionalism of school. to feel more connected to the world. to not be completely swallowed up by "the bubble".

they're tearing apart the campus.

one day I walked to class at 8am, and when I walked back down the road an hour and a half later, the big flower bed along the side of the intersection was missing. removed. replaced by a big flat empty gravel patch. on Thursday, that class will be meeting in a modular on the other corner of campus, because they're going to tear down the education building. a large swath has been cut out of the woods of Norway Valley. they are putting a new road in. making way for the new state-of-the-art environmentally-friendly science center! but i find it more sad than exciting. disruptive. ugly. maybe when it's all done I'll be happier about it, but that won't be for at least 4 more years.

i want to make apple crisp. i want to watch Hazel and Skye and Birka grow up. i want to work with latin@ kids. i want to play the guitar. i want to eat gallo pinto and pupusas. i want to go to africa. i want to live in a big city. i want to live on a farm. i want to fall in love. i want to have children. i want to adopt children. i want to raise bilingual children. i want to go to mexico. and el salavador. again. and india. i want to like tomatoes. i want to make the world a better place. i want to be free. i want you to be free. anhelo. anhelo.

anhelo.

and home

On Tuesday, May 30th, I took the fancy bus from Copán to Guatemala City. I spent the night in Casa San José--the same guest house where my group stayed for the first three days of the semester! It was wonderful to be staying in a familiar place after a stressful day, and gave a sense of closure to my experience, coming full circle to end my experience abroad in the same city and the same place as where it all began.

At 5:45 the next morning, I rode in a taxi through the rain-slicked, dark, and empty streets of Guatemala City to the airport, to catch my 8AM flight back to the U.S. I was sad to be leaving, but happy to be returning to a place where it's ok to flush toilet paper, you can drink out of the tap, there are toilet seats, smooth sheets, snow-capped mountains, all kind of food to choose from, and where the weather is cooler (most of the time). There were also a number of things I wasn't looking forward to about coming home, but as I wrote in my journal my first night back, "home always feels like more of home than I think it's going to," so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself happier about being back than I thought I would be.

The one big adjustment I hadn't been counting on was the bittersweet realization that I didn't have to figure out how to communicate in Spanish anymore--and that if I did, people would probably look at me strangely. Spanish wasn't the only thing I was having withdrawals from--my first two weeks back I walked around in long pants and a sweatshirt most of the day because I was so cold! I felt like I had returned to January, wearing the same clothes that I'd worn before I left, only they were on a much tanner person who was no longer quite the same person who'd worn those clothes four months earlier...

To echo my parting wish to Central America, "Good night, sleep well, and may you never cease to dream..." ...and may I somehow be a part of making that dream a reality...

Honduras

Well, everyone, this is my last travelogue. I want to thank you all for your interest and support, and for travelling electronically with me on this journey. I hope these updates have been informative and interesting. I want to let you know that all of my photos from the semester are available online at http://community.webshots.com/user/Autumnrose1125 with detailed captions. Peruse at your leisure!

As you know by now, I ended my travels abroad with a short trip to Honduras. Mom and I traveled together on a 1st-class "luxury" bus from Managua to Tegucigalpa, which nevertheless did not excuse us from being stopped at a police check and having all our luggage and carry-ons checked. After a short night in a cheap, but safe, motel, we took an early morning 2nd-class bus (comfy seats, but no bathroom or air conditioning) to La Ceiba, on the northern coast of Honduras. What a surprise, as Mom and I were waiting in the bus station for the bus that would take us to Limón, when all of sudden my dad showed up! He was travelling from Copán, where he'd been at a language school for two weeks, but we hadn't expected to cross paths on the way to Prairie's, thinking he'd be a few hours ahead of us. When all three of us arrived at Prairie and Beth's house in the early evening that Sunday, we were greeted with surprise and joy, because they didn't think we would get there as soon as we had, figuring it wouldn't be until the next day!
I had a lovely week with my family--having all four of us together in the same place has become a rarity in recent years, although we were all at home for 4 weeks together around Christmas. We swam in the Caribbean a few times and took a walking tour of the little town, but mostly just sat and talked with my sister and Beth and joined in their everyday living routines--pumping water, washing clothes, going to the store, cooking meals, and doing devotions.
Prairie is helping Beth start a women's monastery up in the hills outside of town, and we went and visited the property and worked in the garden with them. Construction was still underway while I was there, but just recently they moved their living quarters permanently to the mountain!

After my parents left on Saturday, I spent four more days at Prairie and Beth's house, making two more trips to "the mountain" and preparing to leave. As foreigners, they have to leave and re-enter the country every three months or so, and so they took the opportunity of my departure to do that. We travelled to La Ceiba and spent two nights at the Methodist Church in a nearby town, then went on to Copán for some vacation time and to visit the Mayan ruins.

finishing up Nicaragua

Hola otra vez,

I can't believe it's July and I haven't finished my updates yet -- I've now been home for over a month! Here goes--the marathon to the end (we're almost there!)...I want to mention some other interesting things we did in Nicaragua and how we finished up the semester.

1) There was a group of girls who decided that for their final project they wanted to do something hands-on that would make a difference, so they volunteered with an organization that works with kids. Dos Generaciones runs programs on Saturday mornings for poor children who help their families eke out a living by working at the city dump. The children who are selected by the organization come every Saturday to play games and do arts and crafts, and for three weeks these were organized by the girls from our group with others of us volunteering. I went one of the weeks to help out, playing soccer and making piñatas with these fun, bright children who have so much potential but whose possibilities are thwarted by poverty, hunger, and the embarrassing necessity to work at the dump.

2) Near Sébaco and Ciudad Darío, we visited a small rural community where they have developed an irrigation system with the help of funds from Switzerland. This enables them to grow crops all year round, have a more stable income, and send their children to school, but it is projected that the water supply will only last for 13 years. I guess the hope is that by things will have changed enough that they will have new ways to support their families...

3) The next day, we paid a visit to Jubilee House, a project that was started near Ciudad Sandino (20 min. from Managua) in 1979. The Jubilee House is the headquarters of the organization "Center for Development in Central America", which tries to help and support the community in the way of health, jobs, and education. Their website can explain it all a whole lot better than I can: www.jhc-cdca.org. One of their big projects is a maquila, which is run as a cooperative and makes organic cotton clothing which is sold to the U.S. on the free trade market. Their other major project is a health center in Nueva Vida, right next to Ciudad Sandino. Nueva Vida and Ciudad Sandino are extremely poor communities (the poorest and most dense in the country), with unemployment rates up around 80-90 percent. Ciudad Sandino was started in 1973 as a place for people displaced by the earthquake to relocate. Since then, it has been a depository for those left without homes because of the war and natural disasters. The people of Nueva Vida were moved there after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Jessenia's boyfriend--the father of Miurell--is currently living in Ciudad Sandino in order that his sister's home there be occupied while she is out of the country--because if it were to remain vacant, someone might decide to make use of it and she wouldn't be able to move back in when she returns.

4) The last day at our host house, a Sunday, was not spent at our house. Instead, our two host sisters took Angelica and I along with their children to go visit their grandparents, Doña Rosa's mother and father, who essentially raised Jessenia unti she was 10. They live in the little town of Santa Teresa, about an hour and a half's drive through beautiful countryside near the city of Jinotepe in the department of Carazo, along with two of Jessenia and Marilet's aunts (Doña Rosa is one of nine children) and some cousins. It was an enjoyable and relaxing day, getting to learn a little more about the family, watching the children play together and climb the starfruit tree like monkeys, eating ice cream and sliding down the concrete stair sides in the park. Back in Managua that evening, we bought them pizza for dinner, took photos, and said our goodbyes. On Monday morning, Miurell and Jeffrey came into our room as we were waking up and gave us goodbye hugs before they left for school, since we would be moving back into Casa Jaime Mayer that day.

5) The very last week was a marathon of finishing final projects, visiting host families, having anxiety about leaving soon, doing project presentations, and, for me, my mom arriving. On Monday morning, the eminent Fernando Cardenal, who is now 72, came and spoke to us. A Jesuit priest, he was the minister of Education during the 1980s, coordinated the 1980 Literacy Crusade, and was for a long time the vice-chair of the national young people's association. On Wednesday, Angelica and I returned to our host home to give them the family tree that she had made for them. They gave us the most jaw- dropping and unbelievable gift--a painting by Juan Carlos for each of us. That night, my mom arrived from the U.S., which complicated things a bit, but was wonderful nonetheless.

At the end of it all, after the last presentations and class evaluations were done on Thursday, we took off for a 24-hour retreat on the shore of the beautiful Laguna de Apoyo, a lake formed in a volcanic mountain crater. The purpose was to de-stress, decompress, say goodbye, and have some fun with this group of 20 people that we had come to know so well over the preceding three and half months. It was difficult to face the fact that we would all be leaving soon, going off in different directions and eventually (some sooner that others) out of Central America and back to the U.S.; to realize that we wouldn't be surrounded by these people, this community, with which had experienced so many new and different things. Most of us were excited for home and/or family, but none of us were excited to leave.

On Friday after my group returned, Mom and I went to the artisan market together, and then visited my host family again so I could introduce them. The first thing Doña Rosa said to my mother was to gesture towards me and say "Ella es mi hija (she is my daughter)."

The next morning, most of our group left for the airport at 5am, and at 9:45, the six of us that were left boarded the bus, which dropped mom and me off at the King Quality bus station. I said goodbye, and so ended my semester in Central America and began my adventures with Mom to Prairie's house in Honduras...

Nicaragua Pt. 2 -- Host Families

Well, it's father's day as I begin this, and I've been thinking about how all minus a few of my seven host families I stayed with during the semester had an absent father. In Quetzaltenango, my host mother was divorced, and the father lived in Guatemala City. At La Escuela de la Montaña, the children's father was in the U.S. (and my host mother's father worked in Xela all week and was only home on Tuesdays). In San Jose las Flores, the father of the oldest kids was killed during the war, although she was remarried with two younger children and we saw the father once or twice while we were there. The husband of Cordelia, my host mother in Nueva Esperanza, died during the war as well. There was a father in El Sitio, who came in after we'd all gone to bed and was gone when I woke up. The father of my Managua family had never been around much, and eventually left for good and married another woman. My host family in our rural Nicaraguan stay was very stable with a wonderful father. Let me elaborate on my experiences with the two host families I had in Nicaragua.

As I said in my previous email, we lived in the CGE house our first and last week in Nica, and if you subtract spring break and our 4-day rural stay, we lived with our host families in Managua for about 4 weeks. The homes were all in the community, or barrio--which is the word for a poor neighborhood--,of Batahola Norte. My family actually lived one block outside of Batahola, in Dinamarka, but all of the families were involved with the Centro Cultural.

Batahola is well known internationally, in certain circles, for two reasons: it was the first housing project taken on by the Sandinista government in 1980, and for its Cultural Center, which was founded in 1983. The cultural center offers classes of all types to the members of the community (music, dance, sewing, cooking, adult education, etc.), contains a library, and is especially famous for its murals, which cover almost every wall surface. The murals depict Nicaraguan history as well as images of the community's struggles. More information is available at www.friendsofbatahola.org , or--in Spanish--at www.ccbnnic.org (this site doesn't seem to be working, but there is a very cool picture of the mural at the front of the church at the top of the home page--do you recognize the four men on the left?).

My little blue house with its living/dining area, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms was on a dirt street. Eight people lived there. With Angelica and I, that made 10, and the two of us stayed in the little tiny room with two twin beds and a foot and a half of walking space between them while everyone else slept in the large bedroom. Our family was made up of Doña Rosa, her four children, and three grandchildren: Marilet, 32, with sons Jeffrey, 7, and Esteven, 18 months; Jessenia, 24, with daughter Miurell, who turned 7 while we were there; Bismarck, 18; and Juan Carlos, 14.

Here's a description of some of the characteristics of living in that house: "a rattley fan, a bed with bar across my chest, a window that opens onto a concrete wall. Corrugated metal roof with wooden 2x2 cross- beams. Aqua walls -- cement, wood, and metal, depending on the side of the room. Curtain door to our bedroom, debris falling on our beds from the roof. Paintings (some by Juan Carlos), and giant posters with photos of fancy U.S. country homes. Rocking chairs with wicker seats and backs. Table with a hole in it where we eat, do art, and study. Ants -- big ones -- in the bathroom. The first week it was cockroaches. Television is on most of the time, especially telenovelas, graphic news, music videos, and Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish. Music, coming from somewhere down the street. Children yelling, neighbors talking in the street -- or in the house. Esteven, endless source of entertainment!"

Because we were so busy with activities and homework, I didn't get to really experience the culture as much as I'd hoped. But one cultural gem that I did learn about was the "gigantón": We were playing games with the kids in the back yard when we heard drumming, and they all started yelling excitedly and ran off down the street. After a while, we discovered what all the excitement was about. It was a "gigantón," a group of people marching down the street with drums, let by a very tall paper-mache and cloth person and an "enano" or elf, with a huge round head. As they made their way down the road, all the kids from the neighborhood followed, Angelica and I with them, overprotective Americans that we are--we were the oldest people in the crew; everyone else was probably under 13.

One of the bonding experiences we had with the kids was doing art with them and the neighbors. Angelica was an artist, so she brought paper, crayons, and colored pencils. My bonding experience with the women of the house happened when I got sick. "All three of them came into my room to ask me how I felt and if I was sick, and then they proceeded to try to fix me. It was actually really sweet. Doña Rosa admonished me for not telling them the second I got home, because "I could have died quietly on my bed without anyone knowing!" I assured her that it wasn't that bad. But Marilet, who's a nurse, took my temperature, gave me some pills, bought me some crackers, and ordered me to drink a bottle of Pedialyte for rehydration. When I threw up later, Doña Rosa made me a special "tea," which was lime and baking soda- flavored foam. It was one of the strangest concoctions I've ever drunk, but it did the trick, and I felt much better in the morning!"

I was glad to be feeling better because that was the morning we left for our trip to the rural community of Sontule, northeast of Estelí. Sontule is part of the Miraflor Union of Agricultural Cooperatives. Almost all of the men in the community are coffee farmers and grow organic coffee that is sold on the Fair Trade market. Of course, that means that all the best stuff is exported and they only get to drink the second-rate coffee. The farmers in Sontule have been organized into cooperatives since the early 1980s, which made it a target during the contra war, and their coffee storage building was burned out at least 3 times and otherwise attacked during the war. In 1995, the women decided they wanted to start a women's cooperative, which does many things, one of which is an eco-tourism project that involves living with families.

Two other students and I stayed with the family of Vilma Ivania and Guadalupe Castillo. Their house was an 8-minute walk down a two-track road off the main [gravel] road. My impression of their house, surrounded by plants, was "like a little green paradise among the dryness. Some would say, wow, what poor living conditions, but by rural Nicaraguan conditions, it's quite nice! It's pretty big, with tile floor, concrete in the kitchen, a porch and a side patio with hammocks. No running water or electricity, though. We do things like write in journals by candlelight, go to bed at 9pm, and take bucket baths. Their shower is outside, heavy black plastic wrapped around four wooden posts, surrounding a large stone slab to stand on.

Thursday we went with Ivania to the well to fetch water. Lucky for them it's a pretty short walk. On our way back she took us to see their other well, which is used for bath and wash water. Then she showed us around their garden. It consists of coffee plants; mango, banana, lemon, and orange tree; achiote, which makes a red dye; and pataculo, which is a spice. They have lots of varieties of lemons and oranges-- lemons the size of grapefruits, oranges that taste like lemons--we know, we tried one...

The weather there was like being back in Guatemala -- so beautiful and pleasant! It was the only time during our stay in Nicaragua when we needed blankets at night. In fact, we wore pants and long sleeve shirts to bed.

Ivania is an amazing, powerful, strong, articulate, feminist. She and her husband are confident that Daniel Ortega (who was the FSLN president in the 80s) will win the presidential election in November. During the war, she was part of an armed vigilante women's group until they moved to Sontule from Estelí. Her job then became to take care of the kids and the house while Guadalupe was out working and fighting. She told us a story about the first instance that would become a common occurrence during the war: They had been living in Sontule for two days. That day, she was alone in the house, taking care of a lot of children, when all of a sudden she heard bombing and shooting. She took the kids and ran for the mountains. The youngest was her son, Alvaro, who was 4 months old, born by a C-section from which Ivania was not yet completely healed. There were so many kids to keep track of, she accidentally left one of them behind who had been sleeping, whom she had to go back and fetch. The Contras burned the house and everything in and around it. She stayed in the mountains with the children for two whole days with practically no food. And yet she says that she liked the war--because she was never scared by it, and she believed in the principles that it supported and struggled for.

While there, we visited the neighboring community of Cebollal (a 40-minute drive down the gravel road), where they do the quality-testing (called "catación" or coffee-cupping) of the coffee that the farmers grow. We got to watch and participate in a demonstration of the process, which made the coffee fans in our group very happy. We also went on a walk through an orchid reserve and got to climb inside a giant tree that a ficus/phycus plant had killed. The other name for ficus in Spanish is "matapalo," which literally means branch/tree killer. They start in the tops of trees and their roots grow down, twining around the tree and eventually to the ground, essentially strangling and stealing nutrients from the trees. It was pretty amazing.

We ended our stay with the Castillo family just like we began it--with a dance party. They may not have electricity, but they are able to run a television (where they get most of their news from) and a boom box from a battery. The first night, Hannah's birthday was the occasion for the music and dancing. Not too many other people live with Ivania and Guadalupe, but a couple of their children and grandchildren live nearby--so there were probably about 7 adults there and at least 5 kids. It was a splendid weekend--but too short for my taste! I think the stays in the countryside were my favorite part of the program in each country.