Feliz Navidad

Cuso Nicaragua's Coke-bottle-adorned Christmas tree.

It’s 35 degrees Celsius outside, and strangely enough, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  My coworkers and I decorated a tree with repurposed plastic Coke bottles for a festive flair, and our grocery store plays “Feliz Navidad” on repeat.  The first lady of Nicaragua ordered even more giant electric trees erected for the season, leading to intense media backlash and producing a magical effect akin to a Seussian dreamland.  If you walk down the main drag of Managua you’ll find a string of giant altars to the Virgin Mary.  Making no pretensions about separation of church and state, government departments compete to produce the most over-the-top display of affection towards Jesus’ mother.  This ranges from depictions of Mary nestled inside a crest of flowers, to Ninja Mary fighting a multi-headed dragon. It’s hard to imagine the Department of Finance in Canada putting on such a display.

Ninja Mary

This time of year causes me to reflect on why I became a volunteer in Nicaragua in the first place.  I want to make a difference in peoples’ lives.  How have I done that?  Over the past three months, I helped to develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation system that will allow Cuso International to track the impact of the poverty-reduction programs it supports.  Cuso International’s model is to send skilled volunteers to work in local NGOs as consultants who build capacity for sustained impact. I’ve had an opportunity to witness these impacts first-hand.

Take Ronald Anzoleaga, for example, a Bolivian economist who, since arriving in Nicaragua in May, has trained 161 female coffee producers in entrepreneurship skills: how to create a business plan, how to negotiate, and how to market a product to make it stand out from the competition.  By empowering women, he’s helping them develop a more secure economic footing.

Ronald with entrepreneurs in Esteli.

What about Andre, a soil scientist from Edmonton, who on his previous placement in Nicaragua worked with local scientists at an agricultural university to set-up a soil lab?  Back for a second placement, he’s conducting soil experiments to find ways to help farmers mitigate the effects of climate change in the dry corridor of Nicaragua.

And let’s not forget Jennifer, an eco-tourism specialist from Winnipeg.  Jennifer is working with members of a poor community in northern rural Nicaragua to develop an eco-tourism plan.  She is trying to help locals leverage stunning hiking trails, rivers and mountains by enhancing community organization and online promotion.  In doing so, she is creating new opportunities for an agricultural village plagued by three years of drought.

Jennifer speaking to community members in a Palmira town meeting.

By monitoring impacts in a way that is quantifiable and systematic, I’m helping to ensure that Cuso’s programs continue to receive funding, so that Ronald, Andre and Jennifer, among others, can keep empowering women and creating opportunities for poor communities. 

To ensure that Cuso volunteers can continue doing this important work, I need your help.  I am currently only $142 short of my fundraising goal of $2,000.  Please consider helping me to reach my target, by going to my fundraising page and clicking on the link to DONATE NOW.  Each dollar you donate is matched nine times by the Canadian government. That means when I attain my $2,000 goal, Cuso International will have $18,000 - enough to send another volunteer for a one-year placement. You will automatically be sent a tax receipt for all donations over $10 (keep in mind that the tax deadline is December 31^st). 

Thank you to everyone who has supported me in this work.  From the sweaty, electric tree-lined streets of Managua, Matt and I want to wish you and your families a very happy holiday!

Kate and Matt

Warming up to Managua

You could say Managua and I got off to a rough start.  Not 24 hours after arriving in this sweaty city, bowel trauma had me locked in the bathroom.  Tests revealed that I’d contracted a bacterial infection, likely from eating at the fritanga new friends had introduced us to the evening before.   Lured by the promise of fried cheese, fried beef and fried plantains, I neglected to heed warnings from veteran volunteers to wait a month before eating at such dives.

Other challenges emerged once my stomach stabilized.  Crossing the street, for example.  All commercial activity in Managua is scattered along either side of a four-lane mini-highway.  A normal day demands playing human Frogger at least twice. My strategy is to wait several minutes for a perfect moment and then run wildly across like a madwoman, my heart pumping.   The locals, on the other hand, appear unfazed by the ordeal.  I watched a woman walk unhurriedly across the four lanes of traffic while carrying a basket of bananas on her head, and pushing a baby in a stroller, confident that cars and buses would slow down.

On top of the risks of bacterial infection and death by street crossing, there are security concerns.  Travel advisories recommend exercising a high degree of caution in Managua as incidents of armed robberies have been reported and foreigners can be targets.  Matt and I take this warning seriously and return from simple errands depleted from keeping our guards up.  I handed my Nicaraguan colleague a map and asked him to label with a magic marker any areas he deemed unsafe.   He returned it to me nearly completely blackened out; only a narrow strip down the middle was unmarked.

But despite our rough start, I’m warming up to Managua.  I’ll never forget my first visit to Roberto Huembes market: a dizzying indoor maze of hammocks, fruit, handicrafts, household appliances, and mounds of unrefrigerated meat.  Still learning my numbers in Spanish, I mistakenly handed a woman 50 cordobas for some limes (about $2) instead of the requested 15 cordobas (about 50 cents).   Rather than accept the extra cash, she patiently smiled and repeated the price until I understood.  It was a small thing, but I was warmed by this act of empathy and honesty.  

On the bus back from Ometepe Island this weekend, I noticed myself looking forward to returning to Managua.  Unlike the quaint island town we had just visited, Managua boasts limited natural beauty and its inhabitants are guarded.  It's been missing a downtown core ever since a massive earthquake destroyed the city in 1972 and relief donations were stolen by corrupt officials. Any Managuan will tell you that you ought to get out of the city on weekends to visit either Leon or Granada, nearby towns with more tourist charm.  But for now Managua is the place where we have a bed, a coffee maker and a small collection of books.  It’s where Matt and I spend evenings inventing up new uses for the pitaya and the yucca. For now it is home.

Thank you for supporting my work in Nicaragua with a donation to Cuso International! Here's my fundraising site. 

Impressions on my role in Nicaragua

I am lounging on the hotel terrace in Managua while heat lightning plays on the top of Mount Momotombo, the nearby volcano. It is too early for stars, but not mosquitoes. Palm trees and corrugated metal roofs hide the streets, where wild dogs bicker.

Where would I be without Carefree Kate, the camerawoman? A chew toy for the strays, I think. She speaks for us both, these days, as her Spanish is better. I am her sweaty bodyguard and packmule, tongue-tied. I am reborn a caveman: need coffee; I don’t understand; I would like rice and beans and cheese, please; can you speak slower?

My first Spanish lesson: the teacher’s hair is greying by the second. Consider my clumsy conjugations and sentences punctuated by mysterious lacunae. No holding forth here, no pontificating, Matt the dim-witted tilts his head to the side—helplessly ignorant. I will sit in the corner while the smart kids patter. I will ride the short bus home and lick the window. I am learning how to be a fool.

Fortunately, for now, I am only required to growl. Our friends advise that while I’m walking with her, Kate is less likely to suffer the advances of the piropos, cat-callers and whistlers, gawkers and oglers, lechers and gropers. Today she strolled past three campesinos, who lay down their rakes to stare at her body—her arms were showing. They didn’t respond to her “hola!” or make eye contact. It was as if her greeting was inappropriate, a failure to perform her role of being a passive body: meat.

There is nothing to do in times like these but laugh; for in all the wandering I’ve done laughter is the only thing I’ve learned. It heals wounds, lessens stress, dissolves fear. “Life is just like underwear,” I say to Kate. “You put it on one leg at a time, unless you’re amazing and can jump into your underwear with both feet.” Then, to demonstrate, I hold my boxer-briefs at arm’s length and leap towards them. Mid-air: amazing, I’m going to make it! A millisecond later: I’ve made a terrible mistake. And my feet get caught in the elastic; I collapse onto the floor clutching a sprained finger.

From Kate, giggles—nourishment of clowns.