Off to the Campo

We are heading off to the campo, countryside, Saturday. We will be living there the majority of time this year as we build relationships and start projects. We will have another house, but are still looking to find one to rent. Will update the blog as we can since we will not have as easy access to internet as we have had. Check out the new pictures on our photo link.

Machismo

Before coming down to Nicaragua I was aware that the men here can be very machista. This word means that they treat woman as objects, not as equals. For example, it is a regular occurrence to walk down the street and get whistled at and then be called somebody's amor (love), even while walking with my husband. I did not realize how much this would bother me. I see the inequality between men and women everywhere I go. I have ridden many buses and taxis and I have never seen a woman driving. At first I did not think much of it, but the more I observe the more stuff creeps up that screams inequality. In the city one can see women and men both working, but in the country one will only see the men working in the fields with other men. Don't get me wrong the women work, probably harder than the men, but they are cooking, cleaning, watching the kids, carrying water, gathering fire wood, and other things I am sure I have not mentioned.
I saw this first hand a week ago while I was working on a small micro-hydroelectric plant in the country. Seth and I showed up to help the community to build a sand trap, but when we arrived I noticed I was the only female and remained the only female working the entire time. At first I was a bit intimidated, feeling inadequate about how I could really help, then I realized this is a rare occasion to show them that men and woman can work together on projects. For the two days of work not one of them talked with me, except for Seth and my boss. I worked as hard as I could trying to prove a point and at the end of it all I felt pleased. At the very end one man asked me my name and it felt like a small victory.
Nicaraguan women are starting to rise up, but not in the best manner. There is a group of women called the feministas that think women should be over men. I consider myself a free liberated woman, but I don't agree with this mentality. God created men and women as equals, not for one to be over the other. Look at Christ's example about how he treated women and not just the righteous ones, ones that were outcasts. If God wanted women to be treated less than human then would Christ have interacted with so many women in the bible? Both women and men were created in God's image, so equal in God's eyes. Men and women were given different attributes of God, so we can better know God.
I know this is something I will not be able to change in my three year term here, but I feel that God can use me and my husband to show that we are equal in our marriage.

We have come along way...3 months already?

We finished Spanish training on Friday, so we are now fluent...not really. We have learned all the grammar, but far from being able to speak correctly. It seems like the more we have learned the less comfortable we feel speaking because there are so many mistakes that we make...but people are very patient and gracious with us. Seth is more willing to speak, whereas I have become more timid in my speaking...which has switched since when we first got here. I just need to try and not get nervous about making mistakes. Our goal by this time next year is to be able to speak Spanish sufficiently. One thing that will help our progress with speaking Spanish is we are getting ready to start our jobs, so we will be forced to speak Spanish a lot more than we are now.

This week we will be helping with repairs on a small hydroelectric generator in a small community called Malacatoya. Obviously those of you who know us know that this is not our area of expertise. Our partner, Aso-Fenix, has expertise in renewable energy, so we are learning from them. We will be working there for this next week, and then we will be heading to Esteli for a wedding of a former MCC volunteer and then we have our team meeting in Matagalpa.

After that we will be moving close to the communities we will be working in. We had previously thought we would be living in Teustepe, but plans have changed. We will have a house in a town called San Jose de los Remates and we also have access to a house owned by the Mennonite church in a village called Bromadero, so we will be living in two places. The reason for the change is because we will be working in two different regions, Teustepe and San Jose de los Remates. One of the houses only has water and an hour of electricity for 1-2 hours a day from a solar panel, so there is no electricity in the village. The other house will have water and electricity. We are excited to get started building relationships with the communities and begin the work God has laid out for us.