Nicaragua Pt.1

So, because I have been gone for so long, I am going to split my trip into multiple posts.. mostly because I don't feel like writing out that much.


We left for Nicaragua early in the early in the morning.. and all we could take were our backpacks (and I guess whatever you could hold in your hands). Passing through the boarder was really easy.. because we were an American group, I think we got the privilege of not even having our bags and stuff checked- on the Nicaragua side, we had all our passports checked/stamped at the same time and then some guy called our name and handed them back to us. Easy peasy. When we got to the city of Managua, we stayed at a compound that's associated with some mission organization and often has groups staying there. We got dinner at a respected diner and chilled/played games that night.

Over the next 2 days, we traveled around Managua a bit, visiting interesting historic sites and stuff, and had some charlas (talks/presentations). The most memorable charla occurred in a trash dump. They tried to be really nonchalant about where we were going.. "to hear from a pastor in a place that's 'kind of dusty', so wear shoes." When we were getting towards a part of town with lots of trash around, I assumed where we were going, and was correct. We drove past a large recycling plant with garbage trucks driving around and tons of manual laborers visibly sorting through garbage on a conveyor belt. Shortly after, we pulled up by two little shantyish buildings down the hill where the garbage trucks were headed. One of the buildings was an abandoned church in which we were told by a very bright eyed and passionate young woman about the call she believed God gave her. Essentially, in the late 90's she was watching a show talking about people that live in trash dumps- surviving off the trash, without education opportunities, in hunger and in pain, and addicted to drugs. She consoled herself by saying that what she was watching must have been from Africa.. however, it wasn't. She heard God call her to the trash dump that she hadn't known existed, only a few minutes from her home. Over the next 20 years she brought many people to faith in Christ which brought about a church, school, and feeding program to the trash dump commnity. Within the last few years, the government provided government housing and, with the help of all the people working together and some American donor(s), they were able to build a school/church in the place that they were being forced to move to. Many of the parents now work at recycling plant now.

So, after she explained her awesome story, we took our bus through the dump to the town (still in construction) less than a mile away. On our way there, our Nicaraguan bus driver was blaring American hip hop music (Applebottom Jeans by Nelly) and I was seriously awestruck. Here we are, driving through a trash dump where only a few months ago kids were searching for food amongst the garbage- and families were living in little shelters made of rubble and trash... and as we sit in the bus, we are being hit by American hip hop music. Even weirder, the school bus had a TV screen in it, so we weren't just hearing the music, we were seeing the music video! So, this picture of vanity and consumerism was being visually and audibly blasted at us as we drove through this trash dump- and in this moment, I was forced to reconcile with the fact that both realities exist in the same world. The trash dump is still there today and it will still be there when I am back in the United States... and although there aren't families living in it, I still have to accept the fact that even when I am comfortable in the U.S. thinking about purchasing a nice pair of applebottom jeans, there are kids and adults around the world scrounging through trash looking for anything edible that they can find. It's not a fun reality to have in my mind but I feel better off facing it than forgetting it.

This same kind of contrast was visible in that my host family (and the other host families) often watched TV that seemed to display a standard of living and 'reality' that they will never in their lives feel. Maybe for them the realities of TV seem like separate and unattainable realities, just like they often do for us? In the same way that we can leave an impoverished place/people and go back to living a consumerist lifestyle, maybe these people can watch a show depicting a glamorous and surreal lifestyle and have no problem with it. Who knows.. but the fact that there are little Nicaraguan kids watching the same Disney channel shows that our 'kids' are watching still stands and is just strange to fathom.

Anyway... on our 3rd day in Nicaragua we met our families... and I guess I'll end this post there! I'll talk about all the home stay in my next post.. Hopefully i'll get these going every day.

And tomorrow/today I start my language/lit class!