...so Nicaragua was amazing! It was neat to get into another culture, I surprised myself that it wasn't more of a culture shock. I think the goal of digging the well took most of my task-oriented focus. It's only now, several weeks later, that I think back to how different the people in Santa Maria live. The houses consist of cinder blocks mostly, with small cooking porches and swept dirt yards. If things are growing in their yards, it's part of a garden or it's a tree. Coconut palms were plentiful and most every man or child could skivvy up the trunk to pluck one from the top. Good news, coconut water fresh from the tree tastes the same as the cartoned variety sold in stores!
The church where we were digging the well at was an open air rectangular building with a tile floor with plastic chairs as seating. The electricity was sketchy at best. It hit me the Sunday after I got back that my bass guitar was using more electricity than their entire church.
The streets were dirt. Not gravel, not sand, but true black dirt. Whenever it rains the water runs and creates huge ruts which the bikes, 3-wheel taxi's, horses, and a few autos seem to navigate without trouble. If you look around every house, the church, the school across the street, are immaculately kept. Yards are swept, school uniforms are spotless, plants are trimmed and neat, yet in the street there are piles of trash and brush. We asked one of our in-country staff about it and they told us that they use it to fill the ruts. It seems incongruous, but I guess there isn't much they can do otherwise.
They cook over coal/wood fires, they haul water by hand (formerly from hand-dug wells or rain collection cisterns), they do their laundry in vats of water they boiled over the fire, their babies take their naps in hammocks and I suspect they all sleep that way, the dogs and cats and horses starve, the pigs, chickens, and cows are fat and happy. The children go to school in open air classrooms provided it doesn't rain, their marching band consists of percussion and chimes, some children have health conditions that are not treated due to poverty and lack of access.
The people have warm, friendly hearts. There is a gender role distinction, but there is much mutual respect that I saw. The children are just like kids anywhere else, they just live out their lives in a very different reality. The cleansing of the well was like a day at a water park for them. They are politically active, they work hard, I think they thought of all of us a little odd, but welcomed us just the same.
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| Bubble blowing goes a long way to making friends! |
There are so many things I could say and compare, but there just isn't enough room. More to come at a later date...
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| The cleansing of the well was hours of entertainment |
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| Looking up a street in Santa Maria, Nicaragua |
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| We stayed in Leon (look at upper W coast) and Santa Maria was about an hour outside |
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