Camoapa, Nicaragua

Yeah yeah, I know. These are long and you just got two. Download em to your blackberry and you have some reading material for the bathroom.

Pics of Camoapa can be found here:

Pics of the mural we painted with the children can be found here:

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CAMOAPA

Rachel, the organizer of Hogar Luceros Del Amanacer (Home of the rising sun), and Alayda, the social worker, showed up in the food court of the mall in Managua to meet us. We introduced ourselves, shopped around for paint supplies to get ready for the mural I was about to paint, bought some equipment to prepare for Erin’s environmental classes, and we took another 3 hour ride into the countryside in the mountains of central Nicaragua. We got out of the car in a medium sized town, about 35,000 people, and checked out our new accommodations (with a lovely view of the wall I was going to turn into a mural).

Camoapa, and our new home, reached a new level of grittiness for us. The flies cover everything during the day, and the Mosquitoes come out at night. There were major wind storms when we first got there, so the mosquitoes weren’t a problem, we just thought that the corrugated zinc roof was going to blow off. Later I had to appropriate the fan used to dry the beans to keep the bugs off us my head. Our room has a small single bed, a wardrobe and poster of Jesus. Erin’s been sleeping on the bed with our mosquito net and I am sleeping on a stack of old mats on the floor. It’s actually pretty comfortable. It’s been a little damp because we have a leak, and every time it rains, which is often because we’re in the rainy season here, a small puddle appears at the foot of my bed, inevitably dampening my sheets and mats. We’ve developed all kinds of small habits and idiosyncrasies to adjust to our accommodations. We’re making it work, and after two weeks we’re pretty much used to bizarre sounds at night (animals, trucks, nature, people, etc), taking a shower in a stall with a cold bucket of water, eating rice and beans three meals a day, waking up to children sweeping and working outside our door, and much more.

It’s been a truly rich experience getting to build relationships with the children and adults here. One day we took the kids to play soccer, *ahem* – futbol, and we got icecream and videos on the way. The movie store was a new experience for me. All the movies are pirated. All of them. Many have several movies on one disc. When I asked how much they cost to rent they looked at me like I was crazy and said I had to buy them, which was only $1.50. Sadly, the movies are in horrible quality and some don’t have subtitles. Combined with their 13 inch TV, we’re sorely missing good ole American style cinema.

Camoapa is an interesting place. In the whole town there’s probably only 5 white people. So people generally stare at us when we walk by. They like to shout little phrases in English when we pass by, like “hello,” “good bye,” “give me five!” “how are you?” Some times it’s cute, some times annoying. Just recently we encountered a first group of aggressive street kids who not so tactfully ask for money and then follow us. It would have been intimidating, except they were 8 years old, which was more sad and pitiful. The locals at the internet café know me well, however, and I have a special relationship with them. It’s difficult to find peace and quiet there, however, as kids come in and play video games with the volume cranked up, or the owners are blasting music. I’m used to it. The town itself is nestled in the countryside, so motorcycles are as common as people on horses.

There are pulperias (corner stores) on every corner. Maybe it’s because we’re white, or because our accent is funny, but often when I ask for something the people just stare at me blankly…it can be really awkward. If they don’t understand what we’re saying they either just stare, or they say something that they think will make us happy (which drives me crazy, cause if you don’t have something tell me instead of some round about excuse). Erin made a good point, people here just want to please you. The children are unbelievably well behaved and hard working. Discipline is taught over critically thinking. Maybe that’s a good thing, because the situation here is hard. Life is hard. We have seen levels of poverty beyond what we could have imagined. It’s considered luxury here to have a floor in your house. Many people live in shacks of sticks nailed together, wrapped in plastic sheeting and a zinc roof slapped on top. Pigs, dogs and chickens run around in the backyard and through the houses. People here make it work and many of them have a smile on their face.

One of friends, the cook – Maria, introduced us to her family. She is 32, has 5 children, no husband, and is a grandmother. We met her family, and they were an absolute joy. We even got to hold and feed the 7 month old baby grandson of Maria, who by the way has a living grandmother 15 years younger than my own. There are 5 living generations in this family.

The children here, and the support staff is incredible. I was expecting an orphanage full of troubled children, but it’s different. In fact, all but 4 kids still live at home. All of them are fairly impoverished and live in shacks. They are the sweetest, most adorable little boys (pluse two sisters) who have very little attention spans but are an absolute pleasure to volunteer for. I have made a huge break through for myself by being here. Ever since are horribly traumatic summer with kids when I was assistant leading camp at the age of 14, I have been stand offish with kids. This experience, along with Erin’s encouragement, has paved the way towards a whole new world of possibilities. Good thing, cause Erin drools at the sight of babies, and I know my grandma wants some Great Grand Kids ASAP.

 

Children here are different than in the US. For starters, they are put to work early, and they work all day long. We wake up every morning to the sound of them sweeping and cleaning the school. They are constantly being tasked throughout the day, and I never hear a complaint. This place is a really good spot for them. I see other kids just hang out in the street and goof off or cause trouble. Here there’s structure and some attention, although compared to American standards it’s pathetic. I love how resourceful they all are. There is a farm up the road about a mile where they work. We’ve visited there on field trips for Erin to teach. I love this video of Noel “cutting the grass,” because it represents this place so well. Here, lawn mowers are a machete or a pig or a horse.

 

Right when we arrived they harvested their beans, and have spent the past two weeks preparing and drying them out. What a process. They have to do something to the beans every day for about a month (fan them out, scrub them, move them, move them again, dry them again, repeat).

 

One day, on a nice afternoon we all went to the park a few blocks away, by the church (which if I haven’t mentioned is the center of town and life – one night we woke up at 4am to explosions and a marching band celebrating a woman’s 20^th anniversary working at the church). I started a game of tag with a few of the boys and before I knew it there were about 20 kids running around the tiny playground. It was a blast, and no ordinary playground (at least by American Standards). Instead of rubber everything, there were large rocks and hunks of cement with rebar sticking out of it. We enjoyed our attempt to explain the lawsuit phenomenon to one of the teachers, who just laughed when he heard about the woman suing McDonalds for spilling hot coffee on herself. I really love how people here take responsibility for themselves, which truly puts in context how ridiculous the US can be. We have laws, rules and regulations governing everything. Having been abroad for over 2 months now, I’m finding my standards to be somewhere in the middle of the US and her. One think I don’t understand about this country, Nicaragua, is the lack of attention to details and aesthetics: which applies to paint jobs on rooms, the laying of electrical work, hanging pictures (which is rare, since there are hardly decorations aside from a poster of Jesus), and just about every thing else that you would pay any attention to when constructing. It’s all sloppy and poorly done. It’s not like they don’t have time, there are always people sitting around doing nothing. I suppose I’m missing something.

Over all, we have grown used to Camoapa, and really appreciate how small and quaint it is. For the most part it’s safe. Sadly, Erin can’t walk down the street alone without being whistled at or given a rude comment. There’s something inherently backwards about the machismo culture. It’s a form of oppression. But I digress…

 

I can’t believe how much I’ve learned abroad: Spanish, the differences in our cultures, intricacies of Erin and my relationship, combined with a heaping handful of interpersonal growth. It’s exciting to watch each other grow, together and separately. With growth comes growing pains, and there has been plenty of that too. The close quarters and lack of personal space isn’t always easy, and we have had some blowups. But we’re working it and Erin is starting to accept that I’m always right. Joking.

 

Oh the food. There’s a great quote from Erin, “I feel like I’ve gotten fatter, but I’m starving.” People in Nicaragua use three spices: salt, sugar and ketchup. Add Rice and Beans, drench it all in boiling vegetable oil and that’s what we’ve been eating for the past month. We’ve been craving vegetables more than anything, which is why we jumped at the opportunity for a ride into Managua with Rachel, the heart of this organization. Managua is a godforsaken place. It’s city center was destroyed in ’72 by an earth quake and it can’t afford to rebuild it to the new standards. So it’s a massive sprawling suburbia full of dirt, crime, traffic and pollution. Driving around was horrible, and we got a ticket in a rotunda. First time in my life I witnessed racial profiling. The traffic cop gave us a bogus reason for giving us a ticket. It was really interesting to see their process here. The cop takes your license and you immediately have to go to the bank and pay the ticket, then return with a receipt to get your license back. Ironically Rachel had to make an illegal maneuver which was extremely dangerous to meet back up with the cop to get back her license. She got her license back and we were on our way, except she kept going on about how we were stuck leaving the capitol during dusk so the dirt road full of pot holes at the end of the 2.5 trip was horrible and scarey at night and many people die. Two great things came of our visit, however. We got to hear a wonderful lecture from a non-prophet along the Atlantic Coast which is providing electricity to small villages and involving them to make the difference, and we went grocery shopping and bought vegetables! I pacified myself in the front with semi-fresh grapes that I bought. The side of the main road home was littered with trash.

 

There were tons of little shacks with fire wood and honey set up. Apparently the first people who these goods on the road made good money, but then everyone got the idea and now they all sit there idle, barely making a living. This phenomenon encapsulates the predicament of this country (hard workers with bad management)

 

 

 

Moving on to greater things, Erin is a wonderful teacher, and it has been a real privilege to be her occasional assistant, photographer, and partner. She made 5 several hour lesson plans, all taught in Spanish. She’s getting quite good at speaking, and is much better than me, which is made apparent when people go to her when they have a question for me. It hasn’t all been easy for her either. Many times she’s set up a wonderful lesson plan and only 5 or 6 out of the 16 kids can attend because the others have to work at their local jobs (keep in mind they are between 7 and 15). She led a spectacular 6.5 hour hike up the local mountain, Mombachito. This was an incredible experience. Erin had us do solo nature walks, bird watching from home-made binoculars, and led with nature lessons packed into the hike. One of the boys wore his flimsy sandals that day, which was a joke when we hit the last stretch through the forest in about 150 yards of steep mountainous mud.

 

 

This was a hike unlike one we’ve encountered in the US…kids running around every where, climbing other people’s orange trees for the fruit, buying ice cream from the locals, running with big sticks, lunch at the top was two pieces of white bread with mayonnaise in the middle, soda and ice. I think I was most shocked that they carried ice all the way to the top. I also don’t understand how these children get proper nutrition. Along with the “sandwiches” and soda we also had cookies. Twenty minutes later, when the sugar passed through my system, I was starving. But the view at the top was spectacular enough to distract me. The top of the mountain was very special. The peak came to a sharp point with an extremely narrow ridge. We watched the town shrunken and far away, as rain clouds passed dumping on the country side.

 

After lunch Erin had the kids read Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax” out loud (in Spanish of course). Overall the day was exquisite and so has our experience been in Camoapa.

 

The mural. My part of this volunteering gig. I decided to wait until getting to Camoapa and meeting the children before working on a design. At first I had lofty ideals of giving lessons about color theory, perspective and shading. But when I mixed in the fact that everything has been in Spanish, I didn’t get too far. The artistic abilities, and motor skills, of some of these kids made it a challenge to put together something that everyone could be a part of. On our first visit to the farm I took a million pictures and that night used the laptop to make up a landscape, a vision of this school moving to the farm (which it should in about 2 years) with a small road leading the future.

 

 

We spent the first weekend preparing the wall. Saturday was 5 hours of grueling scrubbing to get the dirt, grime, whitewash and soot off the wall, which is 25’ x 9’. Sunday was priming it white. I acquired a lump of coal, to draw out my design, from a teacher who took me on a walk to his Aunt’s house, where in the back there was a whole operation making horse stirrups where they apparently use coal (which was perfect for drawing). In the past 10 days I’ve watched this mural grow into something that these children, the teachers and Erin and I can be proud of. I’ve encountered my fair share of challenges, for sure. For example, the neighbors on the other side of the wall have a wood burning oven for cooking beans, which pours smoke over the top of the walls and into my lungs. It’s also the rainy season, and it can rain 3-6 times a day. I have to use watery house paint, which isn’t very brilliant, and very difficult to mix with. Kids want to touch everything…and paint gets every where!

 

But it is so satisfying to wake up and hear them talk about what party they painted and want to work on next. They line up every day to ask to help paint, and I usually have had 2-5 helpers at any given time. Management hasn’t been easy. I have to mix all the paint and tell people where and how to apply it to the wall. I decided early on that this would be more of an impressionist style, so the entire wall is made of thousands and thousands of dots of paint. I was inspired early on to incorporate the traditional Nicaraguan style of art, so the foreground has been filled with flowers, plants and vegetables full of bright colors and dots of paint.

It’s been a challenge to let go of my attachments to the mural looking good, because I sure as hell want it to. I’m proud to say that every single kid and just about every adult has put paint on this wall. And I think it looks pretty damn good. One of the best experiences with the mural, besides connecting to the kids, is getting to spend 4-8 hours a day painting…I’m in love with it!

 

 

 

We kicked off the end of our stay with a grand ole fiesta. It started with the children giving reports on different classes of the animals they’ve been studying. Sadly, the head of the program and their only certified teacher spent over 30 minutes tallying points for each presentation to carefully and painstakingly decide who was the winner. This was hard to watch. How could such different work from such different kids (5 to 16 years old) be lumped together and judged. I could see Erin banging her head against the wall. But the school redeemed itself with an amazing appreciation ceremony to us where they spoke of what environmental lessons they learned. We were thanked for our hard work and contributions. Channel 8 local news even came and interviewed Erin in Spanish, who we later watched on TV!

 

 

We were given an extra treat when one of the little guys, Jose Manuel, sang for us.

There was comedy acts, dancing, a piñata, and extra fried food. The evening wound down and we spent our last night teaching the boys who lived in the school how to play yahtzee. That took a tremendous amount of patience. In the later part of the night we went to a discotec with our adult friends who lived at the school (Sebastian and Alayda). We were the only ones there. We got liquored up and our Spanish skills were flowing. The following morning we took an amazing 3 hour stroll to drop our good friend, and cleaner of the school, Margarita, off at her University (4 miles up the road). We finished our visit off with a teary goodbye to our friends and kids. It was especially difficult to leave what we had built with the kids, punctuated by seeing what role models we had become for them. We will miss them dearly. In fact, when the school moves to the farm we plan on coming back to paint a new mural!

 

We are now in the touristy but beautiful town of Granada. We will leave here in two days and fly to the Atlantic coast to visit the Corn Islands for a week and then meet my dad and step-mom in Chile. Way to make it this far! You get a bonus video of one of the teachers putting handmade boxing gloves on the two youngest boys and pitting them against each other (just a typical day here).

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