Tis That Time of Year

Last weekend some of the MCC volunteers got together to make Christmas cookies. Each person had in mind the cookies/candy they wanted to make that was part of their Christmas customs. We made pepper nuts, peanut brittle, peanut butter fudge, short bread cookies, sugar cookies and chocolate peanut butter covered ritz crackers. My family's tradition is to make and decorate sugar cookies and peanut brittle. I had never heard of pepper nuts, but they are a small cookie (tastes like a snicker doodle) that both Beth and Matt make with their families for Christmas. The other recipes were things we wanted to try to make. We had a good time and it felt a little bit like being home, which was a blessing.
That same night Alan and Beth hosted an advent service at the MCC office. There was singing, scripture reading and we lit the four candles (they represented Peace, Hope, Joy and Love) of advent in one night. It was a great time to focus on God as the Christmas season is approaching.

Breaking and Entering

Being white (gringo or chele) here in Nicaragua we always have Nicaraguans telling us how dangerous Mangua is and we need to be very careful. Of course we are careful, but we feel for us it is no different then living in any big city in the states...the only difference here is we stand out more. We have always felt safe here in Nicaragua and still do, but have now experienced a piece of the danger everyone has warned us about.

This past weekend we returned to the MCC office after being out in the country side for a couple days to find the office had been broken into. Someone was staying in the office, but had been gone all day. Every house in Managua has bars covering everything, so I figured we were safe...and we were to an extent. Someone had broken in through a bedroom window by prying the bar that covered the window. The person rummaged through the directors room (she is on home leave so we don´t what was stolen from her) and then to our room. We had several things stolen (most of it only had moneterial importance, but a few things had sentimental value). The odd thing about the robbery was that there appeared to be poop smeared on the wall where the person entered and then the bathroom floor was covered in water and there were a pair of pants in the trash. After describing to the police what had happened they were certain who the perpetrator was. The young person has a colostomy bag (now the smeared poop and the pants in the trash make sense) and steals so he can get money for drugs. He was released from jail three days prior.

Once a ¨face¨ was put to the robber, I could not stop thinking about how sad that persons life must be. His life is ruled by his addiction, so much so that he did not even take the precautions to not get caught (the cops knew it was him as soon as we described the smeared poop on the wall). They mentioned he was young, so what hope does he have being an addict? I am sure he will get caught, end up in jail again, but get out and do it again. There is no money or governemental program here to help him to get off drugs or perhaps he does not want to get off. The thought that contiunes in my mind is that only God´s love can rescue him from his life of addiction, so that is my prayer that he will be open to know God´s love and through that God will change his life.

November already?

It is hard to believe that is has been over a month since our last post. What has happened in that time? Well, we celebrated our year anniversary of being in Nicaragua, spent a week in Costa Rica and have been slowly gearing up to start projects in the country side.
We meet up with Seth´s parents in San Jóse, Costa Rica, for a marriage retreat and then spent some time with them. The retreat gave us time to be together without distractions and focus on our relationship with each other and God. We also soaked up some rays and relaxed on the beach on the Northwest coast of Costa Rica.
We have become busier in our work here, preparing to start several renewable energy projects this next month. We have been in the country side a lot more this month doing community surveys and attending community meetings. We will be doing one solar powered water project. The solar panels provide the energy to pump the water from a well to a tank higher than all the houses and then gravity helps to take the water to the houses.
In another project we will be installing solar panels to provide energy to people who don't have any. We will also be doing two micro hydroelectric energy projects, but they don't start until January. Seth and I will be doing capacitations about health, hygiene, agriculture, nutrition, reforestation during the project in every community.
In December we will also be helping to translate for two learning tour groups from the states. The groups are interested in learning more about renewable energy projects and what our partner (Aso Fenix) is doing in Nicaragua. We are excited to get the projects started and see how God will use us.

Muddy Days

We spent the last several days visiting new communities where we will be starting projects with our partner in the San Jose de los Remates area. The only way to get into two of the communities was to walk in or ride a horse in (however, we were told it was too muddy for a horse for inexperienced riders), so we hiked in. Our journey began with a light misty rain with mountains covered in fog, but we were prepared we had our rain jackets and our boots for the rain/mud. We began hiking up the rocky trail and as time went on the trail continued to have a steady incline, Nicaraguans look for the most direct way to get somewhere, there are no switch backs, just straight up. Luckily the trail was not muddy, just rocky, so it made it easier to walk. Except the boots I had on were the typical black rubber boots that come up almost to your knee that Nicaraguans wear. They work great to keep your feet from getting wet or muddy, but there is no support, it is almost like going barefoot or like wearing jelly shoes to walk on rocks (I am dating myself by using this example, although I guess they are back in style).

After an hour of climbing in the rain up a steep mountainside in rubber boots we arrived to our destination, the village of Corozo, basically located on top of the mountain we were hiking up. As soon as we went into the first house the rain began to poor cats and dogs or the saying in Spanish is frogs and lizards. The rain let up a little and we needed to talk with someone else in community, so we left. We were told to take the "road" outside their property to get there, but the "road" was horrible. We were not quite sure what she meant by horrible until we saw it and then walked on it. The "road" was basically a bunch of big muddy holes. You did not want to step in the mud because you would sink, so we looked for rocks to jump to. Jaime, our partner, knew what he was doing, so I followed him. However, there was one spot that I think he got lucky and I did not.

We were crossing to the other side where it looked a little easier to walk, I saw the way Jaime went, so I began crossing in the same way. First couple steps were no problem, but the third one I took I sunk down into the mud a little ways and I thought I was going to lose my balance and fall face forward into the mud. Luckily I was able to keep my balance and I took a couple more steps when my left foot sunk into the mud up to my knee. I was trying to move my foot as much as I could to become unstuck and I thought I did until I pulled my foot out and the boot was not attached. Fortunately there was a rock within stretching distance that I was able to step on with my barefoot while I tried to get my boot out of the mud. I was unable to get the boot out of the mud, so Seth came to help me. He was struggling because the boot was not right next to us and it was almost covered completely in mud. Jaime saw what was going on, so he came to help. I was amazed because at first he was walking on top of the mud, like it was as hard as the ground and then the final step his right foot sunk into the mud up past his knee (he is quite a bit shorter than me). I am sure as he was coming to help me he was thinking how did she get stuck and then when he sunk into the mud his face was so shocked that it was hard not to crack up. While Jaime was trying to get himself unstuck, Seth was able to get my book out of the mud. The boot was full of muddy water, but I was glad I was not going to have to walk barefoot. Meanwhile, while all of this was happening another Aso Fenix volunteer was laughing hysterical and taking pictures of the adventure, so enjoy the pics.

Un Día Largísimo

We were heading to Bramadero to provide a learning tour for a group from MCC. We left Managua at 8:30 a.m. The group was in a microbus and we were in the MCC truck. We were heading up the rocky steep dirt road toward Bramadero when the microbus was not able to make it up due to too much weight, so everyone in the bus got out and as it backed down the hill to try again, a tire popped. Since we had the truck we drove half the group up to Bramadero, about 20 minutes from where we were, then Seth returned to pick up the rest of the group. The time in Bramadero was flawless; the food was good, people were friendly and the group was interested in the projects done in the community.

It was time to head out (around 2 p.m.) as the sky began to darken and it was obvious rain was coming, it was only a matter of when. Since the microbus and driver were waiting where we left them (or so we thought) and people did not want to get wet in the back of the truck the MCC group paid the owner of the local bus (an old school bus) to take them to the entrance. As we were driving down it began to pour and along the single lane dirt road, now a muddy road, we came upon the microbus, we were all astonished it had made it that far. The bus continued down the road, while we waited for the microbus to turn around, with the rain we knew it was going to have problems. We came upon a steep mainly muddy hill where the microbus was unable to climb due to only rear wheel drive and no weight. So, two people who were in our truck got out to sit in the back of the microbus, it backed up enough down the road and got going fast in order to make it up the hill. We finally made it to end of the road where we caught up with the group in the regular bus. Due to the rain the local bus was not able to return to the top and unfortunately the people would not have a bus ride the next day unless they walked all the way out.

We got out to the gravel road, where we all thought it would be smooth sailing, but the fun was going to continue. As we were behind the microbus going up another hill it just stopped. The microbus was unable to shift out of third gear. The rain is still pouring as the driver is trying to fix whatever was wrong underneath the bus, so his entire backside was covered in mud. He was not able to fix anything, but he thought he could continue on only with third gear. The group had to get out and push the bus up the hill and hopefully they would make it into Teustepe, the nearest town about 10 minutes away. After we got the bus up the hill Seth noticed the tire on the truck was flat. So the 5 of us in the truck got out to change the tire as the rain did not let up at all. We got our tire changed, but we were all soaked when we get back in the truck. We made it to Teustepe, where the microbus looked for a mechanic and the group waited in a restaurant for the microbus to be ready. Those of us in the truck went to get the flat tire fixed, which is at the entrance of the town where the main highway is located. Upon our arrival there was a long line of cars on the highway, waiting to cross the river. There is a river that passes there and people have been working on a new bridge since February, so there is a dirt road detour that is lower than the bridge and often when it rains is overtaken by the river and no one can pass, but normally it only takes an hour for the river to return to normal.

As the tire is being fixed, Seth is talking with a guy who said the river had been that full for two hours, so it was going to take a good two hours to lower. At that time it was about 4:30 p.m. In the mean time the microbus found out a cable to the shifter broke and the mechanic would not be able to repair it there. The group decided to find a bus heading for Managua, but they had to cross the river. At this point people had been walking to the other side of the river using the bridge under construction. The group found a bus that was turning around to return to Managua, but there was so much traffic that it was not moving. In the meantime, we were waiting on the other side when the police arrived and opened the bridge for only cars to pass. There were parts of rebar sticking up out of the cement that the police covered with planks of wood. Upon arriving to the other side (around 6:00 p.m.) there was utter chaos, three lanes (normally a two lane highway), cars/trucks/semis going in different directions and everyone was at a complete standstill. We saw the group on the bus headed for Managua, still in the same place where they got on at. The police were trying to get the traffic moving by getting vehicles turned in the correct direction, but there was not much room for turning around. We would move 10 feet and then be at standstill for another 20 minutes or longer then we would move another 10 feet and so forth. We did not get out of the traffic until 8:00 p.m. and finally made it back to Managua at 9 p.m. This was a very long day, but we were all glad we had a normal campo lunch (very filling) since no one got to eat dinner.