It Works!

When last we left the biodigester, it had been successfully installed but was not yet functional. The biodigester's big plastic bag needs to be first filled with 50 buckets of (ahem) cow poop and 50 buckets of water (perhaps with a dash of molasses). And then we wait for the bacteria to do their work. The bag begins to inflate with methane gas and after a few weeks it is ready for use.

Pastor Eustachio had told me when I saw him in March that the biodigester was working really well, but we had not been able to return to see for ourselves.  Thankfully a visiting group from Ohio was really excited to make the 3 hour trip to San Pedro to learn about and see the biodigester project. [*]
So, as you can see, it works!  This is the fully inflated biodigester, with the beginnings of a brick protective wall around it.
Pastor Eustachio explains to Hno. Boniche (the presidente of La Misión) and members of the Ohio group how the biodigester works.
And here's the result: a successful blue flame coming out of the stove-top!
A daily bucket of manure and another of water provides about 4 hours of gas for cooking. The one drawback is that the big pots used for soup or other large dishes don't fit on the small range, and so the family still uses the wood stove for some meals. So the biogas is not replacing 100% of the family's wood use, but it's a start!

This month we are laying plans to build the second biodigester (rainy season permitting) in the nearby village of Malpaso. The generous help of several of the groups who have visited La Misión Cristiana this summer--including the brothers and sisters from Ohio who trekked all the way to San Pedro--has been key to moving ahead on this project.

[*] Actually we just said goodbye to the eighth group (out of nine) who has come to visit and spend time with La Misión Cristiana this year. This may help explain why blogging has been light non-existent over the last few months.

Mission Moment

Nicaragua is up to bat again for Global Ministries' weekly prayer -- you can read it here or below.

June 22, 2012

Prayers for Nicaragua: Mark 5:21-43

Most Holy God, we thank you for your healing touch in so many lives, for those you raise up, and those who reach out to touch you.  There are so many in this world, both near and far, who need to be made whole.  There are places where it is hard to see life, people who have been suffering too long.  

Most Beloved God, we lift up to you the people of the Christian Mission Church of Nicaragua, we thank you for their faithful service to you, their work serving the least and reaching the lost.  We thank you for the ways that your liberating Spirit moves through them to empower so many to reach out for their healing, to rise up and live abundantly.

We pray for the church as they receive visiting Disciples and UCC groups this summer.  We ask the eyes and ears of delegations be opened, that they might learn and grow, and know the healing and empowering touch of your Spirit.  Help them, and us, to work to restore wholeness.  In Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen.  

Mission Stewardship Moment from Nicaragua:

This year La Misión Cristiana is blessed to host more than eight groups from Disciples and UCC churches. Building relationships with other churches has been a part of La Misión’s DNA since its founding and they are excited to show Nicaraguan hospitality to so many North American sisters and brothers this year. For us, some of the best moments of these visits come in the gaps between the events on the official schedule. Jokes, laughter, stories about family, questions about food or songs, the accumulation of small bits of shared time, over the course of a week sometimes grows into friendship.

Shared worship services are also powerful moments. In one worship service last year, a rousing praise song was given an unexpected jolt by the sudden disappearance of light and the electric sound system. (Power outages are not uncommon here.) But like an a capella closing to a rock song, the congregation didn’t miss a beat and kept singing in the dark amidst a forest of cell phones and quickly-lit candles.

More recently, the pastor of one of the visiting groups was asked to preach at a local church, with Laura Jean translating the sermon into Spanish. Now you might think that such a set-up is a recipe for miscommunication or puzzlement, but the sermon touched a universal nerve, preaching how God calls us to do the uncomfortable and the difficult even when we think we are not up to the task. God asks us to go out into the “deep water.” As it happened, the denominational president, Rolando Boniche, was in attendance for that service and he later told the group that the message of the sermon reached him just at the moment when he needed the uplift.

There are so many ways we might fail to connect with our fellow humans. Language barriers confound us, national borders separate us, and the hassles of everyday life distract us. Speaking as parents of small children, we know how easy it can be to not to look beyond the crisis of the moment. It is good to remember in the midst of all that, that connection is indeed possible and there are churches everywhere willing to head out into that deep water and find what God has in store for us there.

Good Intentions

As I was writing that last blog post about life in the countryside, I kept turning over in my head a blog post written by a friend of ours titled "To Hell With Good Intentions." It's smart, eloquent and challenging.  I'll just quote part of it, but the whole thing is good.

For all of us who go to Nicaragua – or indeed, any place poorer than where we are from: India, Mexico, Appalachia, Detroit – our first instinct is to fix it. Whether we will admit it or not, the very first thing we do when confronted with a terrible situation is to furiously work through possible responses to that problem in our mind until we hit upon the “magic” solution.

I know this because I do it all the time. Even after ten years of living in Nicaragua, I still do it. I go to Nueva Vida, the neighborhood created by Hurricane Mitch resettlement, and with everything I see, I work through scenarios to “fix” what is “wrong” in Nicaragua.

I do it too.  I think this instinct is a mixture of good intentions and a subconscious desire to recreate something safe and well-understood amidst the chaos of a different culture.  But I have noticed, after having lived here almost 2 years, that most of my first impressions were untrustworthy.

For me the process cultural acclimatization started out like this: first I encounter something new and unusual.  Cold showers? What's up with all the trash in the streets?  Even more mundane things like, why do they only sell cookies in "wasteful" individual-sized packaging?  My first reaction is to see these things as an irritation (and maybe not even consciously). Or maybe the result of Nicaragua's poverty, and hence, a problem to be fixed.

In fact, it's remarkably easy to pin these differences on poverty because, well, Nicaragua is a poor country and the very real problems of poverty are visible.  But with time you start to realize that many of those "problems" are subtly mixed together with differences in culture and it can be difficult to tease them apart. There are actually really obvious reasons for many of those initial differences I saw.  For example, they individually wrap the cookies because food goes stale much, much faster here than in more temperate climes -- it would actually be much more wasteful to do it the way I wanted to!

I don't mean to minimize the problems that Nicaragua faces, just to say that poor campesinos don't necessarily look at their packed dirt floor and plastic chairs and see a problem to solved.  It's just part of the culture.  I've heard many folks tell us how they prefer the country lifestyle to the more "affluent, western" version they could find in Managua.  Poverty doesn't encompass who they are.  Another section of the post also stuck with me:

When I first came to Nicaragua, I thought I was coming to help Nicaraguans. I was sorely mistaken. None of us are needed here. No matter what my skills are, Nicaraguans are capable of doing everything I will do here, and in most cases, do it better, faster and more efficiently. So what is it exactly that I do?

It's an unsettling perspective, but it kinda fits with our experience here.  In fact, when we first got here we were a bit of a liability.  We spoke Spanish poorly, we didn't know the culture, customs, history or our way around the city.  The folks from the church basically took us in like we were war orphans.

OK, maybe not thaaat bad, but I think it is only now, after a year and half in Nicaragua, that we are starting to pull our weight.  We both bring skills to our work, but they are not unknown skills.  We might not be needed, but I know that the church is happy to have us and the many visiting congregations as partners in their work.  It's a reminder that when we work together in partnerships we can accomplish more.

Life in the Campo

Life in the countryside begins early.  Sometime around 3 or 4 in the morning the rooster begins to crow even though the sun is far from up.  (By the way, spanish-speaking roosters say ¡qui-qui-ri-quí! not cock-a-doodle-doo!) A part of my brain starts to wake up even though I won't drag my body out of bed for a while yet. But that's the luxury of being a guest -- around us the house starts to stir, as it does every morning.  Men head off to work to take advantage of the cool. The kitchen springs to life with the sound of tortillas being prepared.

A fair portion of our job as missionaries is visiting churches and communities outside of Managua.  For Laura Jean's theology education project we have been visiting the campo for 4 to 5 day intensive workshops about once a month.  Usually there is no hospedaje in these communities, so the only place to stay is in the houses of church members, who never fail to show us outrageous and humbling hospitality.  For example, someone usually gives up their own bed for us to sleep in.

Living in Managua is a big change from the United States, but heading out from the capital into the campo is an even bigger cultural jump. In Managua if you want you can live a North American lifestyle, but in the country a shower consists of a bucket of cold water and a small plastic pan to pour it over your head.  For me, dumping that pan over your head in the chill of the morning takes a fair bit of courage (but it definitely does wake you up).  And of course there are no toilets, only latrines.

The houses typically have packed dirt floors and--be they made of concrete, brick or wood--are designed to maximize air flow to cool off the house during the day. The roof is made of traditional brick tiles or metal sheets (which are hotter and louder in the rain). You'll share the house with dogs and chickens and insects. If you want to sit down you can pull up one of the ubiquitous stacking plastic chairs that populate every Misión church. Rice and beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner -- along with cuajada (a salty cheese), plantains, eggs and (since you are a guest) chicken.  And coffee, thankfully.

For better and for worse the natural world is only an arms length away.  The bright green burst of jungle vegetation is constantly in the corner of your eye.  In the dry season you are dusty and wind-whipped.  In the rainy season you get wet and muddy (but then the sun dries you off).

A wave of infrastructure development has come to Nicaragua in recent years and many places we visit have electricity or are getting it for the first time.  With electricity comes cell phones and bright red satellite TV dishes sprouting up on the tops of houses -- even in the campo TV cannot be stopped.

On my first visit to the campo the communities we visited seemed so isolated, like we had traveled to the very edge of the world.  It was only on later trips, while talking with some of the teenagers in the congregations, that I could see that life was normal and boring no matter where you went.  Kids dressing to impress, hanging out in groups, texting on their cell phones.  (I think there is something universal about adolescence -- the adult cultures we grow into may be very different with diverse expectations, but the process of finding your way into your culture, of deciding what type of person you want to be, has very common outlines.)

In the tropics night falls like a rock at around 6pm and by 7pm it is totally dark.  Some nights there is a worship service, other nights people sit around chatting and singing and finishing up in the kitchen, but not too late since the rooster crows early and the next day is coming soon.

Maya and Quinn, Pictured Again

It's been awhile since we've posted pictures of the girls, so here are some recent ones.




Maya, ready to crawl!


"Why yes, I actually am a superhero, why do you ask?"

 
"Hi Nana! Look at these pink flowers I found!"

 
Looking for a good book to read or chew. (And yes, Maya is now a champ at pulling herself up. We are doomed!)

 

 

   
Quinn in Los Mangos, playing while Mama is teaching her class.

 
She shoots, she scores ... Gol!

Quinn at the beach on Ometepe.


Quinn and friends busy decorating their casita.


Quinn and Mama practicing swimming at the Laguna de Apoyo.


Maya and Daddy on Ometepe.

Ben Linder

Twenty-five years ago this week Ben Linder, Sergio Hernández and Pablo Rosales were killed by Contra soldiers while working on a mini-hydroelectric project for the town of San José de Bocay in northern Nicaragua.  Of course thousands of Nicaraguans -- Sandinistas, Contras and average citizens alike -- were killed during the Contra War, but Ben Linder was an American citizen killed by CIA-trained soldiers. As a result, his death made international news and brought down even more scrutiny down on Ronald Reagan's murky war.

Linder was an engineer who had been inspired by the Sandinista revolution and had come to Nicaragua in 1983 wanting to help.  Not one to stay in Managua attending rallies, he eventually made his way to the dangerous northern border region.  He put his engineering skills to work building mini-hydroelectric plants for the small war-torn villages in that region.

By all accounts, he was a good guy -- idealistic, committed, friendly and hard-working.  He was also apparently a very talented clown -- you know, juggling, unicycle, the whole 9 yards -- and we always see his red-nosed clown face gracing Nicaraguan murals from that era.  His killing came in the midst of the Congressional investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal and was immediately sucked into the vortex.  When Ben's parents traveled to Nicaragua for the funeral his father placed blame for his son's death: "Someone who paid someone who paid someone, and so on down the line to the President of the United States."  Administration officials replied stating that Linder had "put himself in harm's way."

Since the '80s, Linder has been an inspiration for many of the foreigners who come to Nicaragua to work for churches or development groups (um, like us!).  In Managua there is a Casa Ben Linder which organizes weekly talks on development and current events, and just this past week organized a 25 year commemoration.

[Update: Here's a nice two-part write-up from Nicaragua Dispatch about Ben and his legacy: Part 1 and Part 2.]

Maya Crawling

What's this?  No blog posts for over a month?  Bad bloggers!  No cookies for you!  As penance, here is a video of Maya as she is starting to crawl.  More to come soon!