bienvenidos a managua

I live in a little box with a tin roof and concrete walls that are painted lovely shades of teal and red and yellow. Hot water is not an option, a washing machine is a rare luxury, and there are chickens everywhere. This is a comfortable middle class situation here in Nicaragua.
The new MPI team of Program Directors spent its first two weeks in this new tropical home going to language school in Managua and living with host families to immerse ourselves in the language and culture. My host family (Esmerelda and her two children Stefanie and Steven) was warm and funny and very patient with my limited Spanish skills. The city is suffering from extended blackouts lately (usually 5-8 hours per day), so we found ourselves conjugating Spanish verbs for homework by candlelight most evenings. The Sandanista party says that a couple of the country’s few power plants are “not functioning properly” or something. (Government is another interesting subject here.) In the afternoons and on weekends, we toured the city and learned as much as our translating abilities would allow about the politics and history and geography of our new home country. A few highlights:
• A Sandinista rally celebrating the 28th anniversary of the revolution (lots of cries of “Viva Sandino!” and “Viva la Revolucion!” and “Arriba los pobres del mundo!” which was a pretty intense cultural experience for a bunch of white kids from the States. Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega spoke. Unreal.
• A visit to the colonial town of Granada (also the oldest city in Central America), where we took a boat tour of some small volcanic islands and got to see some cute little monkeys from about 10 feet away! They were fighting in a tree over a plastic bag of sliced mangoes that one of the tourists must have given them. The funny thing is they were in a mango tree.
• A lovely trip to the beach (Pochomil, about a 2 hour bus ride) where we napped in hammocks and ate camarones al ajillo (garlic shrimp) and drank Cokes in glass bottles all afternoon.

Mornings of Spanish grammar lessons over instant coffee, afternoon siestas and adventures, and lots and lots of rice and beans. So went our two lovely weeks in the neighborhood of Barrio la Luz. Yesterday we moved back into Manna Project’s permanent residence for Program Directors a little ways outside of the city. (It belonged to an ex-government official before it came into the organization’s hands a few years ago.) We will be spending the next two weeks with last year’s Program Directors so they can turn over the programs to this brand new team of seven fresh graduates (from Vanderbilt, Brown, CU Boulder, and myself from Texas). The coffee here at the house is drip, not instant, which is nice, and we have access to the internet (when there is power), and still lots of rice and beans.

A very pleasant surprise: over the past few weeks, I have met more fellow NicAmericans than I thought I would find in this country that was torn by a gruesome war not many years ago. But there are so many people just here in Managua doing things similar to what I’ll be spending my next year attempting: empowering and teaching and building up a people that has been dealt a rough hand over the past few decades (hurricane, earthquake, war, etc). There is a lovely sense of community among all NGO workers.

We have so much to learn these next few weeks: how all of the classes are run (music, drama, literacy, English, women's exercise, etc.), how to take over management of the child sponsorship program at La Chureca (the city dump), and where each of us fits into the picture here. The new ideas are already flowing, and I think it's going to be a wonderful year.

I must say that I am falling in love with my new life here every day.

Please e-mail me at julie@mannaproject.org if you have any questions or ideas or lovely thoughts.

Besos,
Julie