LATINOAMÉRICA

Today I have a music video for you from the group Calle 13. It is full of shots of South and Central America as life really is. There are women in traditional dress from the Andes mountians like I saw in Bolivia, rural school children and children of the street, and fisherman and farmers.

Chorus:

Tú no puedes comprar al viento, 
Tú no puedes comprar al sol
Tú no puedes comprar la lluvia,
Tú no puedes comprar al calor.
Tú no puedes comprar las nubes,
Tú no puedes comprar mi alegría,
Tú no puedes comprar mis dolores.

Vamos caminado, aquí se respira lucha.
Vamos caminando, yo canto porque se escucha.
Vamos caminando, aquí estamos de pie.
Que viva Latinoamérica.
No puedes comprar mi vida!

You can´t buy the wind

You can´t buy the sun

You can´t buy the rain

You can´t buy the heat

You can´t buy the clouds

You can´t buy my happiness

You can´t buy my pain

We walk, here you fight to breath

We walk, I sing, because you hear

We walk, here we sant

Long live Latinoamerica

You can´t buy my life!

Managua In Real Life

I took these two photos just the other ay and had to share them with you. They were both taken on my balcony, just off of my bedroom (yes, I have a balcony). The first was taken around 5:00 p.m. just as the sun was going down. 

The second photo is of the mango tree that grows to one side of our patio. Mango season starts in late March and you can see how big they are getting already. As much as I'm looking forward to having fresh mangos, I am not looking forward to having them fall on the tin roof in the middle of the night. I've already been woken up with a start one night, convinced something important had toppled over.

Mumbacho - A Volcano Adventure

When you find yourself in Nicaragua with a free weekend, I can think of no better way to spend it then hiking a volcano. Three of the other SALTers and I left Managua early one morning. After two buses, one market, and a bag of fried banana chips, and a moto taxi that looked something like this:

We found ourselves waiting about half way up the volcano. We had just missed a shuttle bus that had taken a group of people up and the next one wasn't expected for another 45 minutes. Luckly, a truck drove by, and after the natural reserve workers flagged it down, we hopped in the flat bed. We shared our ride with two men, one older, the other our age. Both carried large guns, probably loaded. They worked for local coffee plantations, protecting against animals and people who liked to help themselves to the coffee crop.

After a steep twenty minute ride, we reached something like a base camp where we directed to a converted army jeep filled with people which would take us the rest of the way us. Like most Nica transportation, it was crowded, full of people from all over the world - Nicaraguans, Germans, and New Yorkers.

Once we reached the top, we were free to wander as we wanted - just so long as we made it back in time for the bus down. Mumbacho is an active volcano, but its last eruption was in 1570. Nevertheless, there were places where you could see the smoke and sulfur creeping out of the earth.

Mumbacho over looks the city of Granada and Lake Nicaragua. At one of the best look-outs, we pulled out our packed lunch of cold spaghetti, bananas, and cheese and crackers. I'm fairly certain the other hikers that wandered past us were jealous of our meal. 

The volcano has countless plant species that are native only to that region, many of them different type of orchids. I love being able to see bright flowers in the middle of winter. Even though the temperatures have been colder, a low of 68 is a far cry from what I'm used to.

On our way back down the volcano, I sat to an ENT doctor from Germany. He told me about what life was when he was growing up. How his uncle crashed in a German plane some where in France during war. How, when he wanted to visit his grandmother, he had to cross four boarders, all within his own city. How before his cousin passed away, he gave him a piece of the wall that he had taken when it finally fell. I listened him as the jungled passed beside me and thought about the two paths that had brought us both to this conversation and how different we were. Inspite of that, we were both there, enjoying the same thing and sharing a bit of who were were for a moment.

San Juan del Sur

Just after I arrived in Managua, we left again for San Juan del Sur for the MCC Spiritual Retreat. San Juan is a short 2 hour bus ride to the south and has a beautiful beach and cove along the Pacific Ocean.

We had a lovely weekend, spending time on the beach, exploring and growing closer as a team. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

All the SALT and Yamen-ers of Nicaragua

There is nothing like enjoying a sunset on the beach.

We did some exploreing and hiked out onto the rocks far on the edge of the cove.

I was so thankful to have this weekend to relax and get to know the team here better. It was such a nice change from the big cities of Santa Cruz and Managua.

What I Learned in Bolivia Part 2

This is the second part to a two part summary of what I learned in Bolivia. The pictures I've included really don't have anything to do with anything, but they are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

6.     Space and Independence. This is a lesson that isn’t as easy to admit. I wanted to believe that I could be flexible and merge into a new culture with minor difficulties (I can imagine many of you shaking your head at me and my over confidence. I know, don’t worry. I learned my lesson). I discovered while I tend to go with the flow, my easy going-ness has a limit. If I don’t feel like I have a choice in the activity that is planned or in my participation, I get resentful and cranky. Likewise, if I don’t have space I feel comfortable in and that I can retreat to to recharge, frustration builds, and I get more and more unhappy.

7.     Small things can add up to big things. While I was living with another family, there were things that were different, but I always told myself it was ok, it wasn’t a big deal and I needed to be open and learn from them. This is a good attitude but only to a point. By my second month in Santa Cruz, I had accepted so many small things and hadn’t put up any boundaries to protect who I was. I began to loose myself. On the surface I was fine, but underneath, there was a lot of tension and frustration.

 

8.     Love boldly, in spite of the future. Talita Cumi is a children’s home with a limited budget and they rely heavily on financial and volunteer support. There are many white people that come through, helping for a while and then going back home to the States. Working there isn’t easy, and staff changes are inevitable and more frequent than anyone wants. Yet, every day, when I walked in the door, I was greeted with a kiss and a hug. Sometimes as I would walk across the patio, a smiling face would shout out from the boys house “Alyson! Juegamos Uno?” “Alyson! Can we play Uno?” They knew I would leave them, yet they loved me anyway. They didn’t put up barriers. Instead they accepted me while I was there and sent me on my way with a hug and a prayer.

9.     Comfort food. Crummy days are inevitable but I quickly learned nothing can turn them around faster than a stash of comfort food from home. During the three months I was in Bolivia, some of my favorite people from home sent me: homemade cookies (that was my Grandma, isn’t she great?), cheetos, and earl grey tea. Plus, I still have the huge jar of peanut butter that was probably the best going away gift I got. I’ve been rationing it carefully so I don’t run out too quickly.

10.     Tangible life skills. In addition to life lessons, I learned life skills, new things that I can do that were completely foreign to me before. I can now:

a.     Create jewelry

b.     Cook empanadas

c.     Seal the empanadas closed with a pretty fancy braid on top

d.     Pound masaca (mixture of fried bananas and cheese that squeeks between your teeth when you bite it) Though I probably won’t use this skill since I don’t think masaca is very good. If it really sounds good to you, I’ll make it sometime, but otherwise, I think I’ve eaten my last bit of this stuff.

e.     Paint silk scarves

f.      Maintain a conversation in Spanish that includes more than my favorite food and where I’m from

g.     Hail a taxi, bus or trufi from the side of the road and haggle the price if the driver tries to give me the ‘gringo’ (white person) rate.

What I Learned in Bolivia Part 1

 SALT – Serving and Learning Together

A huge emphasis of the SALT program is learning and being open to learning. I’ve spent so many of my years sitting in classrooms, learning from a person standing in front of me. There, I had a goal, some specific bit of knowledge I was working towards. It’s a completely different thing to set out on a year with no idea what I am going to be learning. Of course, I had vague ideas about cultural differences and language challenges but for the most part, I jumped in, feet first, with no idea what the water would be like.

In the four months that I’ve been outside of the states, I’ve learned so much. Somethings that are hugely noticeable, others are vague impressions that will linger for years.

Leaving Bolivia closed a chapter on the first part of my year and began a new one. Like all good students, I’ve been reviewing my time there, processing what I learned and moving forward a little richer for the experience.

1.     Generosity doesn’t know an economic bracket. This tends to be a common theme when people talk about time spent overseas, but its one thing to hear about it, and another to experience it. I lived with a family that was lower-middle class and I spent my days working with orphaned, abandoned and abused children who had been hurt and then forgotten by the world. Nevertheless, first my family and then the children of Talita Cumi overwhelmed me with their kindness and openness.

2.     Unconditional Love. I’m pretty sure my family thought I was an odd duck. I liked to spent time in my room writing, rather than watching TV in the living room. I wanted to go places by myself, even though I kept getting lost. The portions of food I ate were ridiculously small compared to theirs. Sometimes I only wanted to drink water for a meal and I even would walk around in my bedroom without shoes on. Yet, in spite of the fact that I did so many strange things, they called me their daughter and cried when I left.

3.     Togetherness and Interdependence. My host sister was 20 years old still lived at home and didn’t intend to move out until she graduated from college and got married, at least five years down the road. Their other daughter was married, but still spent every day at her parent’s house. I moved out of my parent’s house when I was 18, and except for a couple months here and there, I haven’t lived there again since. There, it is assumed that the parents will take care of their children as long as is needed.

4.      Cultural Influence. There are so many little things that influence us that we are even aware of – eating with your fingures, how loud the music should be at church, how you invite people to events, how you politetly decline an invatation. Entering another culture is hard and frusterating. It is almost inevitable that feelings will be hurt and there will be misunderstandings. If you don’t start with flexibility and openness in your heart, you are setting yourself up for a rough road.

5.     Ant Killing. The best way to kill an ant is not just to squish it. If you just squish it, you might watch it walk away, albeit limpingly, five seconds later. No, the best way to kill an ant is to squish and drag your finger on the table. Plus, you can kill so many more at one time with this method.

Christmas!

This year was my first Christmas away from my family. It was different, but better than I thought it would be. We even had a Christmas tree in the MCC office!

Christmas Eve I spent at Adam and Marisa's (another MCC couple who is serving here for three years) enjoying a spread of potluck food and the laughter that comes when you mix people of different cultures together.

Christmas day was spent with the rest of the MCC team, singing Christmas carols, eating cookies and decorating Christmas cookies while watching Elf. It was a good evening and it was so nice to be able to enjoy some very American Christmas traditions.

An Update

Last week my friend Ben asked me if I would like to do a video update for my church Journey in Worthington, MN. I thought it was a great idea and spent the next couple days talking to myself to get ready. And then I sat down infront of my computer and couldn't figure out how to start! Ask any of my writing teachers, I've always been horrible at intros and conclusions.

However, if you'd like to hear me ramble on for a while about what I've been up to, say 'um' a couple times, and make my coffee confession, you should take a look!

Once I started jabbering, I really enjoyed doing a video update and hope to do another one soon. If you have an specific questions you'd like me to answer, just let me know! 

I'm Still Alive!

Dear Family and Friends,

Its just about a week after New Years.  I’ve been sitting at my computer for a while, trying to think of something profound to write. Something that will sum up and justify my past month and a half of blogging silence. Instead, I sent a couple emails, looked at photos on facebook and played another round of Tetris.

The simple truth is, leaving Bolivia and readjusting to live in Nicaragua was a hard transition and when I feel unsettled, it’s hard for me to write and make things come out smoothly. Starting in a new place in November made it even trickier. I entered my job just before Christmas break when everyone is busy with personal things and there isn’t a lot of easy work for the newbie to do. My host family situation has been challenging in ways I didn’t expect and spending the holidays with them has been a strained and uncomfortable affair.

But having a slight break for Christmas has given me time to examine what I want to focus on and how I want to start creating a life here and I’m confident that things will improve the longer I’m here.

I hope to be posting more frequently again and catching you up on the adventures I've been having.

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Years

Alyson