Day -5: Despedidas

We are now in that final stretch where every time we see someone we part with hugs and promises to return to Nicaragua some day. In between packing and liquidating our belongings, we've been visiting the local churches for one last culto, a round of hugs and prayers for our journey. It's very much the reverse of our first week in Nicaragua when we were driven around from church to church for a round of introductions.

We've had our share of goodbye parties, or despedidas, too over the past few weeks with friends and co-workers. The picture above was taken with Revda. Pilar at a goodbye service at the 2nd Church in Managua. Doña Pilar was the church president when we first arrived and it was her who welcomed us at the airport and made sure we were comfortable and well-taken care of during those first few weeks while we were finding our feet. The hard part is saying goodbye, but it's great to know we've got friends here thinking about us head back north.

Day -19: Español

Without a doubt one of the things I will miss the most about Nicaragua is the opportunity to speak Spanish every day. I've found learning a new language as an adult to be a perpetual motion process. You have to keep learning and practicing and moving forward or you start to slide backwards. I'm pretty proud about how far I've come learning Spanish. No one would ever mistake me for anything other than a gringo, but I do OK.

But even after short trips to the states I start to feel rusty, so I'm worried that I'll go back to the U.S. and it will all melt away. Now of course we're moving to California and there are tons of Spanish-speakers who live there, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity to practice. But the great advantage of being immersed is that you have to use your Spanish every day all the time. I'm not sure that'll be the same in California, but we'll see.

With the girls it is a different story. Maya is two and a half years old now, and she's just now starting to talk more confidently in both English and Spanish. Like almost all kids raised in a bilingual environment, her language development has been slower. (Bilingual kids universally start slower but catch up to their age-mates over time.) Some of her first words were an adorable mix of both languages like gat (halfway between gato and cat) or lun (luna and moon). Even now there are certain things that she'll only say in one language or the other, and she's definitely starting to separate the two more consistently. It has been fascinating to see how different her process has been from her sister. Since she's Nicaraguan by birth we feel a responsibility to help her maintain both languages, but she's so young that it might be pretty difficult.

After four years of Nicaraguan school, Quinn is perfectly bilingual, and she's old enough that it seems more likely she'll be able to keep up her Spanish even in the states. We are hoping to enroll her in a bilingual public school in California when we get there. I never cease to be amazed by her ability to switch effortlessly between the two languages. She still has some "spanish-isms" that creep into her English, by which I mean she says something in English that has the structure or vocab of a common Spanish phrase. One time when the power went out she informed us that "The lights went" (spanish: Se fue la luz). Or she will refer to "touching the guitar" instead of playing it, since Spanish uses that verb instead.

At times when I overhear her talking with her friends her Spanish accelerates to such a velocity that I can barely understand her. I used to worry that I should be able to always understand what my kid is saying, but now I think it might be a metaphor for parenting. Maybe at some level kids always speak a slightly different tongue than their parents.

Day -36: More faces

Laura Jean and Pastora Celia Manzanares, during our recent trip to the Northern Regional Assembly. Celia is currently pastor of the Eighth Church in La Colonia, although she and her husband may soon be moved to another church in the 3-year rotation that comes after every national assembly. La Colonia was the church that hosted the theological classes for that region so we got to know Celia and her family really well during our visits. In particular Quinn and her grandson, Cristian, are thick as thieves. Her she is showing off her diploma for completing the 2-year course on ministerial formation.

Day -39: Quincho

Tonight we're crossing another thing off our fun list! We're going to see Carlos Mejía Godoy perform! You can think of Godoy as the Bob Dylan of Nicaragua, author of a distinctive style of music, the bard of the 1979 revolution and still a hard-working performer at age 70. He usually plays a few times a week but we've never gotten around to seeing him live. The song below is "Quincho Barrilete" an ode to the indomitable youth of Nicaragua, and a song that I will for the rest of my life associate with our boss, Felix Ortiz. He knows why.

Day -40: La Musica

Last month we went to Rosa Grande for one of La Misión Cristiana's regional assemblies. Most nights after dinner a bunch of the more musically-inclined pastors would sit around and play. It was a real treat to listen to. I've been blogging a bit about the music that is used in the worship services, but those songs are mostly from Managua churches. In the campo it's an entirely different musical culture and a different set of shared songs. Here they are planning an accordion plus several variants of guitar (the big bass guitar is called a guitarón). The video is a bit dark, but the sound comes through nicely.

Day -41: Bucket Lists

Laura Jean tells me that I am not allowed to use the term "bucket list" to describe the long list of things we want to do before we leave the country because that list is for things to do before you kick the bucket. And she's right that finishing up our time in Nicaragua is not remotely like dying. For one thing, we know the exact date: 41 days from today. However, a good friend did once tell me that "leaving Nicaragua is a little like grieving" and that seems about right.

It feels like we are marching through a long list of last things. Every time we visit a church or a community we are conscious that we probably won't be back soon (I won't say never) and that we are saying goodbye to friends and places. In January we attended regional assemblies in San Juan de Limay and Rosa Grande, and those may well be our last big multi-day trips to el campo, which has been such a part of our work rhythm here. More frantically, those remaining 41 days are already filled up with meetings and finalizing projects and a long list of "must dos" that seems to accelerate as we get closer to the date.

This weekend we took a few days to cross something off our "fun list" and visited the Islands of Solentiname, an archipelago of some 30 islands located in the far south of Lake Nicaragua where it drains out into the Río San Juan. The islands have an incredible cultural history: in the 1960s father Ernesto Cardenal helped organize a community there around the principles of liberation theology, and also fostered a remarkable renaissance of painters and artesans who still live and work there. The remoteness of the islands has also preserved its remarkable biodiversity. The only power on the islands comes from solar panels and there are birds everywhere. It was a great trip, although too short, as everything seems to be these days. (Pics hopefully coming soon.)

Thing I Will Miss About Nicaragua: the natural beauty of the country is remarkable and you don't have to go far outside of Managua to find it. Of course there are beautiful things everywhere you go, but I will miss the tropical forests, the surging greenery everywhere you look, the birds, even the bugs (I guess).

Bedtime

I have a small parenting confession to make.  For a long time, I never understood the way I heard many parents talking about their children's bedtimes.  As if it were something sacred, fixed (and usually, very early).

Our older daughter went through some phases in which bedtime was difficult, and gave up naps before I was ready for her to, but has been a pretty good sleeper overall.  But bedtime, as in the timing of it, has often been haphazard.  For most of the first year of her life, she slept in our bedroom, and her bedtime tended to be quite close to ours.  Once we moved to a place where she had her own room, getting her to bed earlier was much easier, and so was getting her to sleep all night.  But if anyone asked me "What's her bedtime?"  I would say, "Well, it depends on the day..."

Almost four years later, enter kid two.  Of course newborns care nothing for what hour of the day or night it is -- they have their own internal rhythms.  But it didn't really take the baby *that* long to sleep many hours in a row at night.  She kind of spoiled us at first, actually, because she slept so well so soon, but then woke up more during the night as she got a little older.  

Somehow, when the baby was not quite a year old, just a few months ago, we found ourselves with sleep pattern we didn't much like.  The big girl would go to bed, and then the baby would play with us for a couple hours, and we would try so hard to get her to fall asleep so that we could fall asleep.  Then she would wake up a few short hours later, and need to be soothed back to sleep (almost always by nursing).   We were tired and our lives felt crazy.  Something had to change.

So, being the people we are, we read a book. :)  A book that promised us "Five Nights to a Perfect Night's Sleep."  It was short and rather dictatorial in tone.  We decided to try it, and ... it worked!  The baby got much much better at falling asleep on her own, and falling back asleep when she wakes up at night.  (We backslid on a few aspects: "Never pick up your crying child."  "Do not under any circumstances let the baby nurse to sleep.")

The book suggested a holistic approach -- make sure your baby gets lots of food to eat (we were at this stage trying to convince the baby that big-person food is good, too) throughout the day, give lots of snuggles and cuddles, have a "transition object."  And, it suggested a bedtime of around 6:30 PM.

Well, this has given us a lovely structure for ending our days with the girls.  We put the baby to bed, then have "cuddle time" (usually reading, these days Harry Potter) with the big girl before her quite brief bedtime routine.  Reading the book also toughened our resolve in terms of being less responsive to post-bedtime requests for food, water, or "Mama!"  And then we still have time to fritter away on the internet, watch TV, or even have a little adult conversation before going to bed.  I still often stay up too late, but that is only because the internet has so many shiny things (and I do silly things like resolve to blog daily during Advent).  Our girls wake up every morning, earlier than we would choose on weekends, but happy and rested and ready to go.

Bedtime is amazing!  Because the girls know the routine, one or the other of us can do it by ourselves when we have an evening meeting or class.

So, Tim and I have been feeling like our older daughter has been emotionally fragile the last few days, today she came home from school exhausted, and gets really upset really fast.  Tim pointed out this evening that it's the 4th in a row that we've taken the girls out in the evening (which we sometimes do, if there's something worth doing).  Oh, right... so she's having trouble behaving because she's exhausted.  Go figure.  

Bring back bedtime!

A Day in the Life (Exhibit A)

A lot of people ask us "so, what's a typical day like for you?"  Our first response is usually laughter, because it often feels to us like a typical day is something that doesn't really exist in our life here in Nicaragua.  But, I'll share with you what I anticipate for today (and be sure to update if things change, as they often do).  It's kind of a special day, because Tim is traveling, but it's also not totally atypical, because we do a fair amount of traveling to the many rural churches of La Misión Cristiana.

Tim's big trip today is to install the second biodigester, just a few kilometers from the site of the first one, in a small village called Tamarindo Malpaso, at the parsonage of the 20th Christian Mission Church.  This church is in the Western Region, where they are doing the biodigester pilot project.  We have visited the region many times, for intensive theology courses, Regional Assemblies, planning meetings and other trainings.  It's in the general direction of León, and of course you keep making turns onto smaller, rockier roads as you get there.  We're right at the end of the rainy season, so it's finally dry enough to do construction again.

To this end, Tim went by the central office of La Misión yesterday to pick up the pieces of zinc for the roof and a bag of cement.  At 5:30 this morning, he went to pick up the church president, the Reverend Rolando Boniche, and his assistant, Sonia Cabezas, at their houses before heading out of town (the drive usually takes 3 to 3.5 hours).  They will meet the engineer who helps with the construction on the way, and he has the rest of the materials.  They should arrive at the church in Malpaso by 9:30 am.  The  church there has already dug the pit in which the biodigester will sit, so the actual construction should only take a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, back here in Managua, the girls and I are without our car, so a few minutes after 6:30 I put Maya in the stroller and we walked Quinn to school.  Quinn very much saw it as an adventure (as did Maya),  and chatted excitedly the whole way.  We got to school a few minutes before 7 (when she is supposed to arrive).  Maya and I got back to the house at 7:20, and Maya had a little bit of second breakfast.

A bit before 8, Cristina, our housekeeper/ nanny, arrived, so now I get to close the door to our bedroom and get some work done at the desk.  I'll work from home today, probably grading (overdue!) papers for my Ministerial Formation students and generally trying to get things organized in anticipation of the end of the year.  I hope to also spend a couple of hours today working on writing curriculum for the Ministerial Formation project.  Of course, at 11:30 or so I'll go pick up Quinn from school and we'll all have lunch together before I go hide again get back to work.  I'll take another break mid-afternoon to help her with her homework (yes, homework!  in kindergarten... Nicaraguan schools are a little different than my impression of U.S. schools).

If all goes as expected with the biodigester installation, they will have it built before noon.  They'll probably eat lunch there (prepared by the church receiving the biodigester), and are hoping to have a meeting with the pastors of the region after lunch.  That should take an hour or so, if they leave by 2 pm they could even make it back to Managua before dark.  We'll be eagerly awaiting Tim's return!