18 Feb 2014
The last three and a half weeks have been
very full! Work started, our program coordinator from the U.S. visited, two of
my community-mates and I visited Granada, and we celebrated Padre Fernando
Cardenal's birthday at our home, to name some of the bigger events.
First off, Granada. Granada is one of the
more touristy cities in Nicaragua today, located next to Lake Nicaragua (one of
the biggest lakes in the world and I believe home to the world's only
freshwater sharks! Bull sharks swim up to the lake by way of the Rio San Juan
which feeds into the Caribbean.) Earlier in Nicaraguan history, Granada was
home to the Conservatives of the country, while Leon was home to the Liberals.
There was a debate about which city would be the capital of the country, but
eventually Managua, which lays between the two cities, was named the country's
capital.
It was nice to take this two-day, one-night
trip before work started. Granada is about two-hours' travel from Ciudad
Sandino. While it was nice to see the city I had heard much about, it was tough
to see how 'touristy' it was; by this I mean, how different it was from other
heavily populated areas of Nicaragua. The clean, well-paved and fairly quiet
streets didn't show the reality of much of other parts of the country I've
seen; it was a different world. I can only imagine someone passing only through
Granada and what their false impression of the level of poverty in Nicaragua
might be.
After the Granada trip, I went to a talk at
Casa Ben Linder (the weekly social justice talks in Managua) on the topic of
unpaid work of women in the fair-trade market. A doctoral student from Britain
shared the work she's done on her dissertation while in Nicaragua. Women's
direct and indirect labor put into fair-trade production isn't always accounted
for by fair-trade companies, including women's domestic work that allows the
men to work out of the home as well as women's work to bring water to the home
where some of the direct production takes place. The presenter shared a story
of how a company had only accounted for the men's work, but hoped to take a
progressive stance by including the entirety of women's work in the cost of
production. While some cooperatives have been formed to give money directly to
women living and working in communities that are involved in the production,
some challenges remain as to whether more work is created for the women through
these cooperatives where, in addition to being out of the home to be at the
cooperative, these women might still do a lot of the domestic work or more
domestic work is passed onto their children. Furthermore, sometimes the
cooperatives offer job training for women to have their own businesses, but
these might create even more work and/or be reinstating gender roles with the
certain jobs trained for, such as pastry-making. This talk, along with other
talks at Ben Linder, have been giving me food for thought and reflection.
Next up was a big birthday weekend! A fellow
Nica JV, Yoli (short for Yolanda) celebrated her birthday at the end of
January, so we went out dancing in Managua which was a lot of fun! The next day
we celebrated Padre Fernando Cardenal's birthday at our home here in Ciudad
Sandino! It worked out that he was able to visit our home and, in addition to
celebrating his birthday, we also did a small re-dedication of our home, which
is named after him and his brother, Ernesto Cardenal. Below is an excerpt from
the Jesuit Volunteer Directory regarding the name of our home:
“Casa Cardenal is named in honor of two modern-day
saints of Nicaragua and champions of liberation theology: brothers Ernesto and
Fernando Cardenal. Ernesto Cardenal, a diocesan priest who studied under Thomas
Merton, is known as one of the preeminent poets in Nicaraguan history. He was
named Minister of Culture for the new Sandinista regime in the wake of the
Nicaraguan Revolution. He served here for eight years and was infamously
scolded by Pope John Paul II for not obeying the request that he resign from
his role in the government. Currently, Ernesto Cardenal lives in Nicaragua
where he writes poetry and promotes Nicaraguan culture. Fernando Cardenal, SJ,
became a Jesuit priest in 1969 and moved to Medellin, Colombia, for his first
apostolate. It was there, surrounded by people in abject poverty, that he says
he found direction and vowed to dedicate his life to 'the liberation of the
poor and to the struggle for justice.' In 1979, Cardenal was named Minister of
Education for Nicaragua and led the country in raising literacy rates. Like his
brother, Fernando was scolded for his role as an ordained clergy member serving
in the government. The Jesuits expelled him for his disobedience but he was
eventually readmitted to the society. Today, Fernando Cardenal, SJ, works as a
Jesuit priest and is the Director of Fe y Alegria in Nicaragua, a Catholic,
popular-education network with schools around the country, including three that
host JVs in Ciudad Sandino.”
The birthday celebration and rededication at
our home was a lot of fun and also very special for our community. It was
really exciting to meet Padre Fernando Cardenal, whom I had heard and read much
about. He is also the national director for the Fe y Alegria popular education
movement, which includes the school where I work. A few volunteers put on a
very nice musical performance in our living room and invited us all to sing the
song “Casa Abierta” together. It's a really nice song if you're able to look it
up. Next, we invited Padre Fernando to leave his painted hand on a mural in our
home. Every JV here in Ciudad Sandino, at the end of their two years of
service, places their hand on this mural, where there is a quote that reads:
“Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace el camino al andar.” or roughly “Traveler,
there is no path. You make the path as you walk.” After the rededication, we
enjoyed a beef stew with rice and a fresco drink that my community-mate
Edwin and I whipped up. Then for dessert, we had an awesome cake that my
community-mate Colleen made. Before the end of the night, Padre Cardenal
invited us to have dinner with his Jesuit community and also to hear a talk
that he has given in many parts of North America regarding his life and work,
especially in the context of the Nicaraguan Revolution. (I'm almost certain a
video of his talk at John Carroll University can be found online. This past
Thursday Pd. Cardenal actually gave a similar talk for the Casa Ben Linder talk
of the week!)
The day of the birthday celebration was also
the first day of our U.S. coordinator Billy's visit to the country. He spent a
total of about 12 days here, visiting our work-sites and having conversations
with volunteers as communities as well as individually. It appeared to be the
first of its kind in the last two years, so the JVC U.S. office is reestablishing the strength of its support for volunteers in the country. While Billy is a new
coordinator for the JVC program in Nicaragua, he appeared to be learning a lot
while down here and hopefully makes more visits like this to better support
Nica JVs in the future. On Billy's final night here, all of the volunteers as
well as people who support us here in different capacities enjoyed a Salvadoran
pupusa dinner together in Managua.
As for work, my first day was on February 2nd
and that day I had a meeting with Billy, Fr. Joe (our in-country coordinator)
and the principal at Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. I believe I mentioned this in
a previous post, but again for some context, when I arrived to Nicaragua, it
appeared that the Fe y Alegria volunteer job descriptions were being
reevaluated. A decision was made to not have volunteers teach at the schools,
due largely to lack of experience in teaching and discipline, not to mention
how those skills might function in a Nicaraguan school context. For this
reason, my job description of “teaching English, possibly religion, with
opportunity for extracurricular and pastoral work” was decided to change to
“doing English reinforcement for small groups, pastoral work, and social
projects at the school, which might include sports and visiting families in the
community.” This decision was brought up in a conversation as to what the
school might need with this “no-volunteer-teaching” policy as well as what my
interests might be. Since this meeting with the principal, in-country coordinator,
and U.S. coordinator, I have been spending time at the school getting to know
the teachers, staff, and school by attending meetings, observing classrooms,
and chatting with adults and students at the school. I have yet to finalize my
work schedule, but hope to do so soon enough. The students arrived to the
school on Feb. 9 and it's been nice to get to know names and faces little by
little. As expected, the school has been a lot more active with the students
around.
Finally, this past weekend, my community-mate
Rose, a JV in Managua Emily, and I attended a wedding of a family we know in a
rural community called El Arenal. The family was my first home-stay family
after arriving to the country, and they were Emily's home-stay family when she
first came to the country over a year ago. Rose has also become a good friend
of the family. The wedding was for the son of our host-mother and it was really
nice to reconnect with the family and to also see all the effort put into
wedding preparation. There was a mass at the local church and then everyone
gathered at their home to celebrate with food and dancing. It was a really nice
time and fun to see how our host-family celebrates weddings. We helped make
some of the frescos as well as decorations for the party.
Some things coming up on the agenda include
a talk tomorrow at Casa Ben Linder given by Walter Sandino, the grandson of
major Nicaraguan Revolutionary figure whom our city is named after, Augusto
Cesar Sandino. I'm really looking forward to it! And then next Monday is my
dad's birthday back home, so send some birthday love his way! And the following
weekend, my community- mate Katie and a JV in Managua Maddie are celebrating
their birthdays! Lots of birthdays on the horizon!
Hope everyone's well!
Alex
