piensa globalmente, actua localmente

microfinance goes cyber

2008-06-06T01:26:00.000-07:00

Laura and her daughter Laurita

Melba and her machine

Exequiel (MF teacher), Laura, Melba, Julie

Melba + bag = lovely

Laura and her "Anthropologie goes to Nicaragua" apron

Last year, Laura and Melba took out loans to start businesses- buying clothing in bulk at the market in the city and bringing it home to the community to sell to those who didn't have the time or means to get into town. They also did some sewing- blankets, aprons, curtains. They have worked hard all year and are 3 installments away from paying off their loans. These ladies decided they're ready for the next step. Laura has been making aprons for volunteers who want to take a little of our microfinance program home to their kitchens. We talked about their different markets and profiting by catering to those different needs and wants- namely that Nicas want cheap and that Gringos want unique. So we came up with the idea to design one or two aprons to sell on the internet through MPI's webpage. We studied popular styles from Anthropologie and independent boutiques and added to that inspiration a little Nica flair. And Melba is getting involved by copying the design of a linen bag I got at Target. It's going to be a lovely project and a wonderful way to support these ladies. Stay tuned for a snazzy webpage so you can order them online.

missing melissa

2008-05-16T11:37:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is Melissa's 23rd birthday, and she is going out to dinner at some swanky place called Bobo in New York.

This is our first time in four years not to celebrate birthdays together, and it sucks.

Melitha, I hope you feel very special and loved and celebrated on the day that marks 23 years of your lovely presence in this world.

loveandmiss.
-j

mirando desde afuera

2008-04-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

we went to an art exhibit at the alianza francesa as part of the creative arts program. the french ambassador to nicaragua is apparently also a photographer, and he took some photos of el salvador on a diplomatic visit. the students had to choose a favorite photo and write about the feelings it elicited. great field trip.

free time, free rice

2008-04-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

This morning, Dane and I took MPI's Nissan Patrol to the shop for a fluids change. The guy says, "No problem, 40 minutes, an hour max." So we wait. And wait and wait. After an hour and a half, we ask how it's coming. "No problem, don't worry, 5 more minutes." So we wait. And wait and wait. 2 hours and 40 minutes after we get there, I ask if we can please get the car back because we are late for the Literacy class we teach. I hand over $114 (an ungodly sum here in Nica) in exchange for our keys and curse customer service in this country. Someday I'll learn that when someone in Nicaragua tells you, "No problem, 5 minutes," it absolutely does not mean 5 minutes. It means closer to an hour. And if you remember that, life is a lot more tranquila. I am such an American, expecting things when they are promised. Psh!

On that note, here's a great way to turn free time into something good: freerice.com
(better vocabulary and free rice for the third world!)

¡más energía!

2008-04-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

this almost makes me look like i know what i'm doing. pff- exercise instructor... who let me sign up for that?

spring break, possible puppies?

2008-03-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

Dane and I stood together and waved this morning as our last Spring Break group rolled their suitcases full of hammocks and seashells into the airport to head back to college life. This month has been a whirlwind. More than 70 college students, professors, and priests passed through our doors this March to spend their Spring Break time learning what we do and who we love and how important it is to wear sunblock this close to the equator.

Dane and I led two groups back-to-back (exciting, but completely exhausting). The Texas Episcopal college ministry brought down 19 Texas, Baylor, and Texas A&M students and 2 priests. It was so encouraging to have my college ministry supporting and experiencing my life here. Then a group from Worcester State College in Massachusetts came to work on the Microfinance program we run in Cedro Galan.

In other news, we think our dog Sydney is prego. Dane claims that the birth control shot he gave her said it would work for 6 months, but I think he made that up because he wanted puppies.

Tonight is Matt's last Monday Night Meeting. He's heading back to the states next week, and I feel sad. It feels like the beginning of the end. Here's to you Matt...

jingle bells, my laundry smells, all the kitties died

2007-12-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

the little kitties have all passed on to the great beyond, which was sad for about a day, but now i have my life back. the best part was that the day the second-to-last kitty died, i had to borrow the el farito key from carolina, jasmina, and doña juana's next door. i said hello to their little kitty "missyfoo" as i always do, and carolina told me that her mom wanted me to have her because i love her so much and they are getting a new kitty soon and can't take care of two. i got pretty excited and called my mom to ask if i could get her some shots and fly her home with me for christmas (ridiculous, i know, but i was emotionally raw on the subject of kitties). she reminded me that our cat mr. lucky does not do well with company and that it would just be a disaster. plus i'm allergic. oh well.

marcela has photoshopped a killer christmas card for us to hand out to our friends in the community before we leave. see below:

this week, we are drilling our little creative arts students on the songs they have learned and the countries we have studied in preparation for our holiday performance this thursday evening. after that we'll clean out some closets and do a little traveling before heading home for the holidays.

i tried to make cookies here once, but it turned out more like a giant sheet of oatmeal cookie. today, i am attempting sugar cookies rolled in walnuts. wish i had some holiday cutters. maybe i'll exacto-knife some candy canes and snowmen into existence.

in other news, my laundry still sort of smells like mildew. all i want for christmas is a dryer.

meow

2007-11-26T14:55:00.000-08:00

what a week.

vanderbilt had all of thanksgiving week off, so 9 good-hearted college students decided to miss out on turkey day and football in the good ol' US of A and came to visit us here in managua. it was a whirlwind of trips to the grocery store, good conversations with new faces, tours of managua and our programs at el farito. the group kindly brought us a suitcase of requested canned and packaged thanksgiving ingredients, and we cooked for two days and had a killer turkey day party (erin's parents and kathy august handled the two turkeys for us). 40 gringos and nicas arrived and sat out in our pool house and ate themselves silly- my mom's stuffing recipe, hand-mashed potaoes, green bean casserole, candied yams, home-made mac and cheese, and tessa's four perfect pumpkin pies. all of our hammocks and couches were occupied for all hours of the afternoon with victims of the food coma. it was beautiful.

meanwhile, my life has been commandeered by four furry little noise-makers that we found outside of our room in the laundry area two saturdays ago. a momma cat birthed her babies on top of a suitcase and got scared away by all of our noise. enter julie. my mother can never let an abandoned animal go lonely and hungry, no matter how many times she's told us we can't have another cat or get a dog. it must be in my blood to go out of my way to be inconvenienced by saving the lives of sick, helpless animals. so in the past week, i've been to the vet three times, with questions and sick kitties (once with "solo gas"). we've all been trading off getting up in the middle of the night and dropping what we're doing during the day to give a syringe-full of infant formula to the kittens. it is extremely annoying and incredibly cute. today the vet told us we need to be feeding them a lot more often, which worries me because even every two hours is too often for us with our classes to teach and meetings to hold and groceries to buy.

needed: cat nanny. no qualifications necessary. just clean hands and talent with a syringe. also tolerance of incessant mewing. will pay in pineapples.

we're almost done with el farito classes. next week, rehearsals for our creative arts holiday performance.

i'm at an internet cafe, looking at a heart-breaking central american sunset. life is beautiful and full of cute kitties and sweet children and good friends.

cloudy days and rainy walks

2007-10-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

The furious downpours have taken some mercy on us. They are only in the afternoons now. Yesterday, there was a river gushing over the road at the dip in the entrance to our neighborhood. Tessa had to load abuncha Nica moms and kids into the micro to weigh it down before she could drive through so as not to get swept away. She said there were tree stumps and buckets and a telephone pole being swept by as she drove, with all of the moms and kids cheering her on. Meanwhile, I was at the house making lesson plans and taking pictures of the dogs. I was jealous of her adventure, so I offered to drop her off at the community an hour later, hoping to see some action. But we just got stuck for about 30 seconds in the mud, and the river wasn't nearly as dangerous-looking. I decided to turn around and go home because my hunger for adventure was getting risky. Tessa started to walk to music class, but then the buckets started, and Dane said there were no kids there, so we canceled. Excercise class was graced by a period of no rain, and we had a great time kicking and jumping to Shakira and yoga-ingto Ravi Shankar.

In other news, I acquired yet another electronic commitment that I will not be able to keep, but it should be really great until the buzz wears off. It's a daily photo journal, and the idea is to post one photo a day, taken that day. Having a camera with me makes me look at everything differently, and I like it. (Note: if you click the left side of the picture, it will take you to the previous day's entry, and right side goes to next day.)

i'ma whine for a sec, k?

2007-10-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

it has been raining for three days straight. three days. sometimes there is an hour of respite, and then the sky starts spitting again, opens up and dumps buckets of water on us, spits, stops, buckets, spits, buckets... 72 hours. everything is muddy. the laundry won't dry. every paper is like cloth, limp and wimpy. we have found at least 3 leaks in our roof, but we can't have them repaired until this silliness stops. we've heard the entire month of october is one giant shower. there go the buckets again...

all i want is a hot bath!

Clowns, Scorpions, and Jesus

2007-10-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

I am a terrible blogger lately! Apologies, especially for those of you who count on these entries to procrastinate at school and work. :) Here is a little taste of what's been going on...

Last week, we went to a fiesta that was held for no reason we could determine. Our Nica friend who works in the preschool in the municipal dump admitted that the purpose of the costumes and balloons and music and piñata was "para destraerlos" (to distract them). Little kids in costumes are always good for a laugh, and considering that the participants of the costume fun live below the extreme poverty line in a trash dump, creativity and resourcefulness combined to make some really cute and funny pictures.
See more here: http://flickr.com/photos/juliamariemills/sets/72157602220297723/

On Saturday night, we had a murder mystery party at the Manna house for our advanced English class and a few other Nica friends. Marcela was still on her visit home in the States, so the story was that we were on a cruise ship, and Marcela had been pushed overboard. Our students were charged with solving the mystery of her untimely death by questioning the characters present, which included:
The Merman in the cruise ship pool (Matt)
The Italian Supermodel (Tessa)
The Captain with a lisp (Dane)
The Lounge Singer (Erin)
The Castaway (our photographer-from-New-York visitor, Brian)
The International Beach Volleyball Champion (Geoff), and
The Narcoleptic Pirate (me)

We had a great time and after the mystery was solved and lots of great new vocabulary was learned (lounge singer, alibi, narcoleptic, etc.), we spent hours chatting in Spanglish over snacks and dancing to all kinds of world tunes, and by around 11 pm, nearly everyone ended up in the pool in their clothes. Even though lots of these people are in their twenties and in college, they still know how to act like kids and have a great time. Alan, one of our students, showed me and Geoff his scorpion tattoo and told us a Spanglish story about the time he almost died twice. One day, when he put on a pair of shorts, he felt a sharp pain followed by loss of feeling in his tongue and leg, which prompted his grandmother to ask if he had a scorpion in his shorts, to which he replied, "No, Granmother, I do not have one scorpion en mai charts." So she patted his leg to feel for foreign objects, and when she did, the scorpion stung him a second time. When he was finally taken to the hospital, his whole nervous system a mess, he was given an injection to which he had a severe allergic reaction. Obviously, he lived, but it was during this fiasco, Alan told us, through desperation and prayer, that he came to believe in Jesus sincerely, rather than superficially as he had before. To mark the significance of this event in his spiritual life, he got a tattoo on his left thigh where the scorpion stung him. He also got a tattoo on his right thigh of a heart with two pistols "because I like" and one on his ankle of an Aztec sun, Alan shrugs, smiles, and concedes "because I am crasy!" and jumps back into the pool, playfully taking an innocent bystander with him.

endless summer

2007-09-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was lovely. We woke up at dawn, loaded three surfboards in the microbus, picked up our Nica friend Exequiel, and swerved around potholes and ox carts until we reached the beach. Geoff, Tessa, Dane, Exequiel and I passed the morning pushing our boards out through the waves and riding them back towards a deserted shore.

In the afternoon, Dane and I spent a couple of hours at El Farito with siblings Erick (7) and Maqueline (12). They didn't have school, so we took a break from our usual Tuesday afternoon homework and tutoring time to do jigsaw puzzles and play musical instruments. Erick and Maqueline showed me what Dane and Tessa had taught them earlier that afternoon in music class. They played quarter and half-note rhythms so proudly on their little hand drums and maracas. Erick said we should start a band and call it "Los Roqueros."

Every day, Erick and Maqueline ask if today is the day we get to work. And they always call it "work" so excitedly. (I forget sometimes that a child's work is play.) Maqueline is 12, and she can't read yet. Every day is a struggle for her. And for me to teach her. Patience with her and with my own language dificulties is a task. Sometimes when we're working on recognizing syllables, she gets really frustrated and embarrassed and throws her head back and forces a laugh. It amazes me that she forces the laugh so well instead of crying. Because I would probably cry. But yesterday was so relaxed and easy. Spanish flowed from my mouth like thoughts in my head, and the four of us sat on our carpets and laughed and played and read to each other in a way that was so unlabored.

In the evening, Tessa and I taught the women's exercise class in what I think was the MOST HUMID weather we've had since we arrived. In the states, we pay big bucks for rooms that are heated so we can do yoga while purging our bodies of toxins. Here, sweat is free and plentiful.

Dane and I frequent a coffee shop here when we have a free half hour. It is owned by a Nica/American couple, and they pretty much just copied Starbucks. It's the most American thing around here. And sometimes we feel guilty for sipping overpriced coffee drinks while we're supposed to be assimilating to Central American life (which I LOVE, by the way). But sometimes a latte on a big leather chair in warm lighting with A/C and wireless internet is all you need when you miss the comforts of home. Yesterday I was looking at a poster ad for an iced green tea drink that was recently posted on the wall. It was a sort of blurry picture of a family splashing with their feet while sitting by the pool- totally summer. And I realized that that poster probably won't come down in October. Here, it's always summer. So come visit.

Paz y amor,
Julie

Here we go....

2007-08-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, we had a party at El Farito for the community to officially say goodbye to the old guys and welcome the new kids on the block, and it was so lovely. (See right for my moment of glory officially introducing myself to the community.) Goodbye and hello hugs flow together like something so bittersweet. The people of Cedro Galan have hearts the size of... I don't know- something really big. So, it's official. The old Program Directors have packed their bags and given their hugs and cried their tears and boarded their planes back to the good ol' US of A, and this Tuesday we seven newbies suddenly found ourselves riding that bike with no one holding onto the back. Chaos ensues... Just kidding. Sort of.

Here is a rough recap of my week:

Literacy:
We had over 30 students register for our Spanish literacy class this month, and we had to turn some away! We have four levels of literacy, and the kids break up into their groups to read and discuss and write together. The main method of teaching in schools here seems to be "copy page 82." So we try to bring some creative thought to the table and encourage the older kids to challenge themselves with new books and to really understand what they're reading. The youngest kids (my group) are still working on recognizing letters and syllables and sounds. We spend a lot of time clapping out syllables and talking about the difference between "G duro y G suave" (hard and soft G). And we also spend a lot of time saying "No pega. Espera por tu turno. Puedes esperar hasta despues de clase?" (Don't hit. Wait for your turn. Can you hold it?)

Last week, we made some school visits and observed the grades from which most of the students in our respective groups come. It was great to see the kids with whom we spend every afternoon sitting in their desks with their uniforms and turning around to smile and wave every chance they got. I missed out on snack time because apparently you have to bring your own dishes from home to have rice and beans and pineapple juice from the buckets that get delivered to each classroom mid-morning. Next time I'll be ready.

Microfinance:
Big news! We gave out our first loans yesterday! "Tiendita Melba," "Reposteria Johanna," and "Boutique Happy Baby" are three brand-new or seriously improved businesses run by three women in Cedro Galan. Yesterday, Melba, Johanna, and Laura (with her daughter Laurita by her side) took comprehension tests to make sure they understood the rules and process of the program, and after they passed with flying colors and signed their payment plans, I handed them a total of about $480 USD (C$8900). Johanna will be fixing her industrial Kitchen Aid mixer so that she can start making her community-famous cakes again. She is also buying more professional packaging and establishing relationships with local businesses who will sell her cakes and treats. Melba will be selling underwear and shoes from her house. Laura will be buying more supplies to make quilts and children's clothing. These three have a great relationship with one another, and we will continue meeting every week to discuss concepts like publicity and how not to spend more money than you make (a concept I have yet to embrace).

Creative Arts:
Weeellll, that was interesting. Our first creative arts class had potential to be fantastically creative and artsy, but instead, we found ourselves huddled in the middle of El Farito for the better part of an hour and a half with 30 screaming Nica children because of the torrential rain and thunder. Before chaos ensued, however, we had a lovely discussion about the puppet show we took a group to see last Sunday in the city.

There was so much more, but let me sum it up by saying this: This week, we seven twenty-somethings suddenly found ourselves acting as English teachers, Spanish teachers, math teachers, baseball coaches, art directors, microbusiness consultants, bus drivers, public health specialists, exercise instructors, loan officers, and about a thousand other things that we've never been before. In Spanish. Needless to say, overwhelming! But here I am on Friday afternoon. I lived to tell about it! And I think we even had some fun! We have a lot of work to do in the weeks and months to come. I have so much more Spanish to learn and so much more about classroom discipline and what the holes are in these children's education and how to fill them and how to make this microfinance program work. Here we all go, into the unknown, but we've got feet in our shoes and brains in our heads and lots of good friends, large and small.

Besos.
Julie

"Duck, Duck... um.... qué?"

2007-08-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

Things to do when there is no power at night:
-boil some water (because there's gas)
-take a shower (because there's water) but you have to make sure that you know how to tell shampoo from conditioner bottles in the dark
-turn on some lanterns in the kitchen and go fly hunting (because fly swatters don't require electricity)
-read with a headlamp
-curse the name of Daniel Ortega, who is probably responsible for the fact that you can't wash your clothes
-write a blog until your computer battery runs out
-make hand shadows with a flashlight
-listen to someone play guitar
-taunt neighbors' dogs a safe distance from their fences
-stand on your head

So, there's actually quite a bit you can do for five hours a day when there is no electricity here in Managua. It's not so bad.

In other news, Dane and I have started the first official new program of MPI's Team Nica 07-08! There were already two beginning English classes rolling when we got here, and at one of them, there was a handful of younger kids who hung out during the class, and I think some summer volunteers had worked with them a little to teach some greetings and numbers and "dog" and "cat." Dane worked with them one day and asked if they would rather play games or do more English worksheets, and they nearly unanimously voted for worksheets. Who can deny that kind of enthusiasm? So on Wednesday, we had our first Kids' Beginning English class! We learned greetings and farm animal vocabulary and then played a matching game with a flash card puzzle and did a crossword worksheet. Copying seems to be the main method of teaching in Nicaraguan schools, so getting the kids to try to figure out solutions on their own is a bit of a challenge, but they eagerly grab their crayons (sometimes from each other's vice-like grips) and try real hard. We finished up with a game of Duck, Duck, Goose to cement two of our new vocab words. Sometimes the kids would forget the word "Goose" and ask for help before they tapped their victim on the head, which gave the chaser an unfair advantage, but it was fun. Good things ahead.

bienvenidos a managua

2007-07-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

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

The first rung on the ladder to success...

2007-04-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

is ten feet high.

Microfinance captured my heart last March in the train station in Rome when I bought a book called The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey Sachs. Changed my life.

The idea is simple: It takes money to make money. Duh. The thing is, we're not in New Yor City talking about big real estate investments or arbirtrage transactions that make millionaires into billionaires. We're in a slum in Central America talking about a $50 stove that turns your backyard into the village bakery and provides enough income for you to feed your family breakfast send one daughter to school.

Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for microfinance efforts in third world countries. The Grameen Bank is a for-profit institution; these are not hand-outs. Microfinance involves making $200ish loans to entrepreneurs who could make significant profits from such investments. But of course they have to pay them back with interest (usually equal to the inflation rate in the country). This is the stuff of poverty alleviation.

Loans are usually given to women, as research shows that they tend to be more likely to spend their earnings on the family than men, and Manna's focus in Nicaragua is on helping poor women become self-sufficient in a male dominated culture.

MPI gave individual loans of $115- $200 to six women last March in Cedro Galan after an economics professor and group of students from Worcester State College in Massachusetts visited the site and got things started. They have been turning the program over to MPI in recent months.

Enter Julie. I can't wait to help this program grow. I've got some ideas and can't wait to learn. How do you say interest rate in Spanish?

Manna Project International

2007-04-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm moving to Nicaragua! Got a phone call on Thursday evening just before my finance exam that I've been accepted as one of MPI's Program Directors in Managua. (There are going to be ten of us, I think. Mostly Vanderbilt grads, one Brown, and one Colorado.) You can imagine how easy it was to work out seven-part time-value-money problems for three gruelling hours while visions of spider monkeys danced in my head!

Manna Project International is my dream non-profit. I read a book about economics and poverty by a Harvard professor last year. It changed my thinking about the crisis of extreme poverty and my ability to make a serious impact by, at the very least, understanding the issues and making the right personal political and financial decisions. I admit that I dared to dream that I would someday play a bigger role in the fight to empower the world's most underprivileged, but I resigned myself to the reality that it would probably just have to live there in my dreams. I dragged my feet toward the looming future of nine-to-five and taxes and high heels and car payments. But here I am, packing some white t-shirts and lots of mosquito repellent and buying a one-way ticket to Nicaragua to make some friends and teach and learn and live the way I had only dreamed was possible for my first year in the "real world."

The program's goal, in short, is sustainable community development. Manna wants to be able to one day pack up and leave behind a community of people who are empowered in all of the ways that have been proven to lift families and communities and nations out of the cycle of poverty. Sounds like a big task, but Manna has tried to focus on a few programs that will really make a big impact in two communites outside of Managua. After-school math and sports and creative arts programs provide all of the benefits that they do for kids in the developed world, but they are considered luxuries in a place where even private schools cannot afford a drama or music program. A women's health program teaches women about fitness and nutrition and young mothers about breast feeding and prenatal care. There are tons more. I hope to be involved with maintaining and developing lots of these programs, but my favorite-favorite-favorite is the microfinance idea. (Who ever thought I would get excited about anything involving the word finance?! Not my dad, I will tell you that much.)

I am tearing through about ten books about microfinance right now (okay, two). I am learning so much and will definitely blog at you about it later. I don't think I've been this excited about anything since Ben & Jerry's came out with a Dave Matthews Band flavor when I was in high school.

I have so much to think about. And learn. And do. I am just impatient to get down to my new jungle home and get down to business. But for now, all I can do is take this life change one step at a time:

Step 1: Get vaccinations. (hep A, hep B, typhoid, yellow fever, rabies, etc.)
Step 2: Learn Spanish. (Que?)
Step 3: Cancel magazine subscriptions.

I think that's enough for now. Watch out spider monkeys, here I come!

www.mannaproject.org

"Be the change you want to see in the world."
-Gandhi