a new kind of dance party

It may seem oxymoronic to place a costly sound system within a pile of garbage, to pair a Northamerican college student with a dirty Nicaraguan child, or to see joyful dancing within a neighborhood of need. But last week within the trash mountains of La Chureca, Dia de Luz (Day of Light) called for a partnering of such opposites. Love, Light & Melody is an organization that works within the Managua municipal dump, loving on its inhabitants and seeking to serve them as they encourage both adults and children to seek a better life. Founded by musician Brad Corrigan (originally of Dispatch), this group plans Dia de Luz each year with the intent of bringing gringo and Nica together, uniting us as humans, and manifesting a joy through music that celebrates life.

This concert by Braddigan (the name of Brad’s current band, inspired by and centered around La Chureca) was preceded by many events throughout the week intended to connect and serve dump families. Many Manna PDs, along with a spring break group from UNC-Wilmington, were invited to assist in planting flowers around homes and participating in field games. Gringo and Nica dug together, played together, and ultimately danced together as the week drew to a close with the concert. And in this final event there was something surprisingly powerful. Set before a backdrop of garbage and smoke, Brad sang of walls falling down and the hands of a mighty creator. And filling a dusty field before the stage were people from the dump and the suburbs, from the developing world and the first world, from dirt floor shacks and air conditioned mansions. With dirty feet and painted faces, people tossed water in the air and danced hand-in-hand, perhaps oblivious to the the juxtaposition they formed, but fully aware of the delight found in unity and music.

The following day as Braddigan played a benefit concert at a beach hotel, he spoke of the need to bring the poorest of the poor to an ocean resort and the wealth holders of the world to a destitute dump. All people should be allowed to witness the beauty of the beach – and the beauty within a neighborhood of trash. Brad spoke of bringing our worlds of difference together and how significant it might be to break down the disparity between rich and poor and to expose each extreme to the struggles and splendors of the other. We are handicapped by the layers of separation existing within our globe, those that are perhaps forced to exist in order to maintain an apathetic comfort. So what a striking and influential picture Dia de Luz was in revealing for a moment the beauty of differences broken down in order to witness a union of humanity!

I can now confidently say that dance parties with trash and face paint are my new favorite kind…

Emily

sb09, nicaragua-style

For some college students, spring break means seven days of sun-tanned, alcohol-sodden fun. But for those who make the trek down to Managua, the week is far from parties and carefree lounging (although we throw a bit of that in too!) The arrival of Vanderbilt last weekend marked the beginning of Manna’s spring break season. Each week of March welcomes one or two groups of university students who live and serve alongside PDs in order to connect passionate young people in the States to the faces and hearts of the developing world.

Vandy’s group arrived eclectic and enthusiastic, excited to jump into life here. The week began with an overnight trip to Laguna de Apoyo and led into busy days shadowing literacy and math classes, helping in English groups, and co-teaching women’s exercise. The group witnessed La Chureca, planned a community-wide field day, and ate with a Nicaraguan family. And amidst, or perhaps despite, such a packed schedule, these students really loved on the Nica kids as if they’d be present here beyond a simple seven days. With stickers and candy and hugs and games, gringo and Nica came together over goofy photo shoots and four square competitions and semi-crazy (totally chaotic!) water balloon tosses. Yet with the culmination of the trip around a campfire Friday night on the beach, I realized how their reflection could so spur my own.

As the leaders of this Vandy group, Kyle and I walked away from the week with a new delight and fervor for life here. It is both gut-wrenching and incredibly precious to accompany someone as they witness a place as real and as injust as La Chureca. Leading these wide-eyed students through the mounds of trash, through the smoke and vultures, past the dirty children with their light hair and distended bellies, I was compelled to behold it all anew. And to see it with fresh eyes was to see it with a vulnerable heart, with a renewed sensitivity to the fact that life in this place is neither good nor right. Over the past seven months here, of entering this “neighborhood” within a dump twice a week, my emotions have become impervious, somehow indifferent to the poverty of this place. I used to cry; now it seems normal. And in this way I see the entries of these spring break groups as an immense gift – they keep us zealous and passionate, each time offering us new eyes through which to see the world we serve.

Thank you thank you, Vandy.
Emily

poetry and snow cones

Maddie and I often say that we need a nap and a cocktail after MPI’s biweekly Creative Arts class. Thirty children are a handfull for sure – but when given handbells, drama props, or the deadly combination of glitter and glue, all semblances of order and quiet disappear. So perhaps we were insane to think it would be a good idea to take these students on a field trip, but Granada (a neighboring colonial town) was hosting a poetry festival. Why not expose them to a cultural world outside their neighborhood?

After permission slips were signed and attendance requirements stated, we were left with 14 poetry participants. On Thursday after Feeding Program, Maddie and I loaded the kids in the van and kidnapped Amira and Tressa to help us supervise. The ride to Granada involved many small heads and arms flapping out the windows, some tooting recorders (which they found under the seat, who knew?!), and one stop at a gas station for a poor “I’m going to vomit” niño. But we arrived to the festival with children intact. After dividing into groups, we wandered the main city square and meandered among the booths of poetry books. Despite the aura of refinement and literature, I’m convinced that the kids’ favorite part of the trip was eating raspados (gooey Nica snow cones) before we headed for the van to hit the highway.

Although it seems fairly insignificant to take a child to a festival and give her a snow cone, I have been recently realizing just how small is the bubble of a world in which these children live. They go to school and they come home. They play soccer in the dirt streets in their barrio and occasionally board a bus with their mothers to buy rice and beans at the market. And that’s all. No family vacations or school field trips or outings to the movies. No exposure to museums or libraries. But part of MPI’s mission is to empower these children – to encourage them in their abilities and to offer them opportunities beyond their limited world. With this mindset, an afternoon trip to a cultural festival in a new city is not only significant, it’s vital. It can open eyes and expand minds to see that a world of prospects lies beyond what they know as day-to-day life.

With a newfound love for poetry and snow cones,
Emily

maddie reports

In The Manna House-

Two new Program Directors arrived: Kyle and Josh (another Josh! Who would have thought). They're absolutely splendid and have fit into our Manna family perfectly. Both are intelligent, enthusiastic, patient, kind, and most of all…they're boys! Let me tell you, evening out the gender ratio in this house has definitely made everyone happier. Too many girls can get a little catty sometimes.

I kid you not, MILLIONS of fire ants attacked our house twice about a week and a half ago. We think the boys might have disturbed a colony while creating their "man cave" in our unused garage (don't ask, I have no idea), and as a result the ant army retaliated. If anyone is interested, you can kill them with the following: boiling water, water + bleach, or fire. I don't recommend the last option.

As I've mentioned, we have two rottweilers, mother and son. The son may or may not have gotten mumsy pregnant when she last went into heat. Another word of advice: it is pointless to try to keep rottweilers in heat apart, because they will inevitably find a way to be together. We're still waiting to find out if she's pregnant… if not, we're getting her spayed asap.


In Programs-

Microfinance: after reviewing our applications and conducting interviews, Mary Rose and I have decided to hand out five $150 loans and one $100 loan. They'll be making payments twice a month, and each date that a payment is due we will have a meeting with all the participants to discuss how their businesses are doing, offer encouragement, strengthen relationships and friendships, etc. I'm very excited about this program and hope everything will go well!

Creative Arts: Emily and I have decided to make the next 3-4 months "country" themed, and this time we are sticking to our themes! February is Nicaragua month, March is Costa Rica, and April is Ecuador (the location of our sister MPI site). Ecuador might leak into early May, but our summer volunteers are arriving May 12 and will be entrusted with planning from then on out. We're pretty excited about this date. Also, we've realized that the children behave better when doing arts and crafts as opposed to "rehearsing" skits.

Intermediate English: Kyle has come on board with me, which has been a great help. We now tend to divide the class into two groups and thus get more work done/offer more individual attention. My students are getting a little rowdy, and I might have to soon give them the "I do all this for you please respect me or don't come to class" speech… though I'll probably use nicer words. In any case, they're progressing well and have already learned 3 new vocabulary lists.

Child Sponsorship: I've decided to step down from this position, as I wasn't contributing much to the program and wanted more time to plan my other classes/catch up on other work. However, I still manage to make it to La Chureca once a week/every two weeks and maintain my relationships there. We also went to a presentation at Casa Ben Linder today, wherein several Churecan children talked about their new organization (they do radio bites) and passed around photos of their barrio. Needless to say, we MPI people new at least 70% of the people that appeared in the photos. Guess we're doing our job pretty well!

Community survey: Mary Rose and I are about to conduct a community survey on Manna and how community members view us as an organization. This is the first time that Manna has internally conducted a survey like this and we're very excited about conducting it and compiling the results.

Maddie

elena

If you know our cook Elena, you know that she is perhaps the spunkiest of Nicaraguan women. She is sassy enough to keep the dogs in check , patient enough to put up with our 10-people-who-just-got-out-of-college messiness, and just crazy enough for spontaneous fully-clothed swims. Last week, we gave “Mamita” a day off from our home and made a visit to hers.

The ten of us piled into the micro at 9am Friday morning, excited to make the journey up the carretera to kilometer 34.5. The ride was bumpy, to say the least, but we arrived at her humble home soon enough, our stomachs grumbling. (She’d promised us a delicious brunch!) Elena ran out and greeted us warmly, showing us her kitchen and introducing us to her children and nephews and nephews’ children and children’s nephews…

As Elena began to cook eggs over the fire, her daughter Ana taught us how to make corn tortillas from scratch, rolling the white dough in a circle and then slowly flattening it out. We helped stir pancake batter and squeezed oranges for juice, laughing at the fact that we felt like we’d entered Colonial Williamsburg. The kitchen was set apart from the house, a small room with a dirt floor and holey walls. Plates and knives and various unidentified metal tools hung from the cracks in the wooden planks. Yet Elena was in her element, playfully smacking her daughter with a spoon and laughing at our gringo naivete.

So we ate a fresh breakfast and held some fluffy chicks, walked the land and heard about growing up in rural Nicaragua. Again and again, I’m blindsided by the joy of this place and the gracious nature of its people. Elena and her family live hand to mouth. They cook over an open flame. They sleep four to a room and bathe with a bucket and claim plastic lawn chairs as their only furniture. Yet Elena enters our spacious house three days a week, prepared to cook our expensive food and clean our rooms that are cluttered with excessive clothing and superfluous technology. When we stumble into the kitchen at 10am, headed straight for the coffee, she has been up since 4:oo – serving first her own family and then making the trek here to serve our messy family of gringos. With no judgment, no resentment, no bitterness. Elena’s service to us here is a lesson in grace and humility.

Until next week,
Emily

finding joy in beaches and basura (trash!)

As a reward for studying hard and acing their end-of-semester tests in December, Maddie and I organized a trip to the beach for our respective intermediate and advanced English classes. This morning we filled up two large micro-vans with gringos and Nicas and started the hour-long trek down pothole ridden highways and bumpy dirt roads. The weather couldn't have been more perfect or the water more refreshing. Norman and Gabriel jammed out on the guitar. Dayana and Fabiola collected nearly a hundred sand dollars. The boys played sand soccer and the girls tossed the Frisbee around in the ocean. Emilio was buried in the sand and had his body shaped into a beautiful sirena (mermaid). Adriana, Gelme, Elena and Olga had a sand and water splashing fight. I learned that Mercedes' favorite song is "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and more about Olga's life as an aspiring attorney. All in all the day was wonderful and injury free, phew! Getting to know our neighboring Nica community via our English program has been a HUGE blessing thus far and I'm excited to deepen these friendships in the upcoming months.

Last week our Child Sponsorship team had a long overdue meeting with the La Chureca clinic staff and Ministry of Health officials to sort out some long standing questions and concerns. We thankfully made some headway and plans but continue to be frustrated by miscommunication that seems to plague our program. But wait, good news… we're graduating a number of children who have reached and maintained healthy weight, woohoo! Thus, we'll have ample room to enter more needy children in the upcoming months. I'm saddened to see a number of my favorite children and mothers go – familiar faces will be exchanged for new families and stories once again – but overjoyed that some of the children have grown and have some semblance of 'healthy bodies' amidst such a toxic environment.

Working in La Chureca has been by far the most challenging and shocking, yet joyful and rewarding, experience that I have had thus far in Nicaragua. It's one of those "you can't understand 'til you see it" kind of places, and even then you may not believe it exists. I feel compelled to overcome these insufficiencies and somehow share this incredible place with you. Here is a trailer for a short film being made about Día de Luz, a day long concert and celebration sponsored by 'Love, Light and Melody' in La Chureca. The film documents last year's event, which is when I was first exposed to La Chureca while on a spring break trip with the Nicaraguan Orphan Fund. Please check out the video and other pictures on this website to get a fuller picture of this place I have grown to know and love.

http://www.lovelightandmelody.org/index.php

Peace, Christina

back where we belong

Manna PDs returned to Nicaragua earlier this week, eager to begin another six months of sudor and amor. We’ve been well-fed, well-cleaned (with hot water!), and well-Christmas-ed up – totally ready for Nica life to begin once again…

And it’s now going in full force! We’ve been joined by two new PDs, Kyle and Jed-Josh (see pic below) and the ten of us have been busy preparing for programs, cleaning the house, taking rides on our newly-fixed motorcycle (thank you, Kyle!), and trying to keep our psycho male dog from impregnanting his mother. (We think a litter of incest puppies is on the way…)

Two days after our own arrival, we received a group of occupational therapists from Worcester State University, two professors and four students. After a restful weekend at beautiful Laguna de Apoyo (a gorgeous crater lake just outside Managua), these visitors began work at a school for children with disabilities and a special needs orphanage. While these women spent the week pouring their hearts into therapy for numerous children with both physical and emotional delays, Manna PDs had the privilege of serving them through transportation and interpretation.

And it truly was a privilege. In driving around Managua and attempting to translate between gringo and Nica, my eyes were opened to a population that is often overlooked and mistreated. Because special needs children require such specialized attention and expensive care, many developing nations simply do not have the resources or knowledge necessary for proper growth.

Yet both the school and the orphanage handle these children with amazing love. Sitting in a cement “playpen” with five deaf, autistic, or downs toddlers, tears streaming down my cheeks, I couldn’t help thinking about how different their situations would be had they been born into the prosperity of the United States. It’s a sad truth indeed. But more importantly, I was blown away by the daily enthusiasm of these babies’ caregivers and the way that these Nicaraguan women exude such a deep gentleness and grace. While money and training are undeniably essential, a mother’s love (and the orphans do call these women “mamá”) is powerful.

Who knows what the next six months will hold?! But we’re thrilled to be back home where we belong.

Emily