Grandma and Friend

As many of you know my grandmother passed away April 22. She was 87 and still living in the house my grandfather built in 1960. I was fortunate enough to have family willing to fly me home for the funeral. It gave me time to be with family and have a time of closure. I am extremely grateful for the technology that exists today because I was able to talk with her frequently. I always loved to call her because of the excitement I would hear in her voice once I said it was Sarah. I knew it meant a lot to her that I would call all the way from Nicaragua. She always thought it was costing me an arm and leg, so she would never talk long, even though I would tell here I am calling from the computer and it is cheap. She was just happy enough hearing my voice and chatting a bit and so was I. I was close with my grandma. She was a women of God, who wholeheartedly searched after Him. I remember her saying when I was staying at her house, ¨This is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it¨. No matter what the day brought she would rejoice in it.
It is funny the things you start to remember after a loved one dies. I have memories of playing dolls with her as a kid, spending the night in the camper when they visited us in Colorado, playing chicken scratch with her, the way I felt so comforted being in her house and with her, but most of all how much she loved me and all of her family and her devotion to God. There are times I still think she really can't be gone, but then I know she is gone from this earthly world. I do have hope though...I know I will be reunited with her again in heaven and what a glorious day it will be to be in the presence of my Lord and savior and to reunite with family I have deeply missed.

Water...what a precious gift it is, be wise in it's use

Water is vital to all life, but there is not always enough for everyone in the world. Part of our work is helping our partner, AsoFenix, to install solar powered water systems. Since we have been in Nicaragua we have installed one system and there are two awaiting funding. Our systems use solar panels to provide energy to pump water from the well to large storage tanks. From the tanks water is gravity fed to the houses, so women and children no longer have to carry water.

Lately I have been thinking about how as North Americans we take for granted being able to turn on a faucet and have water when we want it. We have never had to walk several miles just to have drinking water or concerned ourselves whether our water is safe. We just assume the water we drink is safe and most likely it is. This month's National Geographic magazine focuses on Water. I thought water issues were bad here in Nicaragua, but it is not nearly as bad as other poorer places in the world (Africa and India). North Americans on average use 100 gallons of water a day, where as the world's poor get by with 5 gallons of water a day (National Geographic, The Burden of Thirst). That is incredible, no?? How about that the majority of the water in poorer countries is not potable, but the people have no other choice because we need water to survive. Around 3.3 million people, mainly children under 5 years old, die yearly due to dirty water, lack of sanitation and proper hygiene (National Geographic, The Burden of Thirst). It seems like providing clean water, proper sanitation and hygiene should be easy, but it does not happen and it is mainly due to lack of money. Check out the National Geographic website http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/table-of-contents
The articles I enjoyed the most were The Burden of Thirst and The last Drop.

Water is vital for all life, and with less than 1% of fresh water accessible to all of us (National Geographic, Editor's Note on Fresh Water) we all need to be cautious in how much we use.

Holy Week

Holy week, the week of Easter, is a big holiday week here in Nicaragua. In fact, many stores and businesses are closed for part of some or all of the week. For the time off people seek out water (beaches, rivers, lakes, pools, and even inflatable kiddy pools). This is a hotter time of the year, so it makes sense finding places to cool off. During the week people also spend time making baked goods, deserts and special dishes.

We spent the beginnig of the week with Ricardo and his family to celebrate Ricardo's birthday. We had a nice dinner at their house and spent time talking.
Later in the week we returned to Asiento Viejo to visit the Reyes. Santo taught me how to make a typical Holy Week desert called Amebar. Seth spent time with Ricardo and his sons building a house. Their eldest son, Ricardito, and his wife are building a house on his dad's land, so they have a home of their own as well as to keep a better eye on the land. Unfortunately, a week ago someone had gone on to their land at night and cut down all of their papaya and banana trees. Making Amebar is made from green papayas, green jocotes and non-ripe mangoes. The fruits are cooked with sugar, sugar cane, cinnamon, and cloves until the consistency is sticky like syrup. It is good, but very sweet.
Later in the week we were supposed to meet up with some friends at a river to go swimming. They were walking from their community and we drove in to the spot on our motorcycle. When we arrived at the spot there were so many people we were not able to find them, so we ended up finding a place to swim further down stream. The place we found was nice and we were the only ones there at the beginning. After spending some time in the water, Yeri, a young girl who lived nearby came up to us and asked us if we would like some arroz con leche (rice pudding). We said yes (it is very common for people in the country side to offer strangers food) and then enjoyed time talking and swimming with her. We found a place we will return to several times before leaving Nicargua.

What Have We Been Up To?

Here are some things we have been doing with AsoFenix since January.

AsoFenix inaugurated a micro-hydro project in the community of El Roblar. The mayor is cutting the ribbon. After the ribbon cutting a women sat down to sew using the electricity. The community provided food for all that came and had quite the party to inaugurate their hard work.
We spent time with a group in the community of Candelaria, where AsoFenix did a water project in 2004. We have done several follow up projects there (pig project, small gardens). We constructed 7 cement wash boards, so the people can use the water from the wash (gray water) to water their gardens.
We have been apart of a couple of community meetings doing base lines. More or less we are gathering information from the community before we do projects in order to have data to compare to after the project is completed and know how the project has changed their lives.
We have also been working with the AsoFenix interns doing projects. We made three improved cook stoves in the community of Potreritos and installed solar panels in individual houses in Poza de la Piedra. An improved cook stove is designed to use less wood because the heat does not escape as easily and there is also a chimney, so the smoke no longer lingers in the kitchen. The stoves are made out of a clay dirt, horse manure and sand mixture. You place the mixture into the mold and pack it down and then add more of the mixture and so on. Once it is drier you cut 4 holes to fit the size of their pots and one for the chimney. The families then need to let it sit 3 days before adding a clay sealant.In between these projects we have also helped plan for future groups and/or interns, visited communities to help maintain relationships, and helped in planning for future projects with Jaime (our AsoFenix boss). We may not always be doing the things we know the most about, but we do enjoy our partner and the work we are doing here.

La Sequia...The Drought

In the area where we work (Teustepe) normally the rainy season is from May/June-October/November. However, we have had a drought since August in an area that is already located in a drier zone. During the summer, December-May, the majority of the leaves fall off the trees, everything turns brown and there are no streams. The communities we work in are all agricultural based, so they only have work in the winter (May/June-October/November). Due to the drought most farmers did not make any money this past year and to make it worse they were unable to store up food for the dry months (summer). So if you don't have enough food saved up and no money because you had no harvest to sell...what do you eat? We know several families that only eat once a day or twice a day but they only have corn tortillas and rice trying to stretch out the food they have until their next harvest. Hearing these stories makes my heart ache because all of my needs are met and how I never worry about if I will have enough food for my family. To add to this when we visit people they always give us food or a drink because that is their culture, but I think to myself save this food or your money for your family, but I can't say that because I would offend them. As you can imagine it is hard to figure out how I can help when there are so many people suffering. One thing the government has done is a work program for food. The may be working on roads or other city buildings and instead of being payed they are given bags of rice, beans, corn for their families.

Bramadero, the community we lived in part of our first year, is having issues with their well...it is drying up. The water project was completed November 2007, when we arrived. This community has struggled more then other communities when it comes to water. Before AsoFenix installed the water system the community had hand dug 18 wells that never filled with water or dried up after one season, so they had to walk 45 minutes to another community for water. Usually, it was women and children that carried the 5 gallon buckets on their heads. Now we are seeing that due to the drought the level of water in the well is dropping. We have had to lower the pump twice, but it takes the pump 4-5 days to fill the 5, 000 gallon tank that feeds the village, so the community only has access to water every 4-5 days. AsoFenix is concerned about whether there will be enough water for the rest of the dry season and looking for funding to dig another well. Since the water level is dropping we have encouraged the other communities we work in to conserve their water to prevent being caught in the same situation.

In fact, the drought has been so bad that it has caught national attention, on the front page of the national newspaper (La Prensa) there was an article of the severity of the situation in Boaco and how Teustepe has been hit the hardest. The drought has been so bad that people's cattle are dying because there is not enough food or water. People do not have enough food and in some cases there is not enough water for drinking. We are now entering the hottest time of the dry season with hopes that the well in Bramadero will not dry up, their will be enough food for families and that the winter begins on time and brings with it plenty of rain.