GROW Week 2

While last week's blog was difficult to condense, this week is going to be impossible. Instead of highlighting a single event, I'm going to try (key word try, haha) to give a glimpse of some of the most outstanding moments from our second week in Siuna. It's hard to limit them to a blog-worthy length--I never feel that I'm painting the entire picture. But here goes my best shot:


Melvin
After being the strange foreign gringoes for our first few days in Las Quebradas, we've finally become the cool kids--sort of. Though they still stare and whisper like we're the weirdest thing they've ever seen, almost all of the kids in the community have made it a habit to show up on our doorstep every morning, afternoon, and evening--like clockwork. Sometimes we talk with them about life in los Estados Unidos, sometimes Amos teaches them Chinese, and sometimes we just sit and read while they observe us in our natural habitat (so to speak). One day, in the midst of Love in the Time of Cholera (a great read so far), I noticed that our friend Melvin, 14, was peering over my shoulder. He caught my eye, and sheepishly asked, "What does this word mean?" He'd stop me periodically to ask, sometimes to guess for himself. He was clearly interested in learning English, and before we had to leave to work in the garden he asked me to lend him the book when I finished. Days later, I realized that Ronald, 13, no longer attended school but worked in the fields with the other "adultos." Since Ronald is a very responsible type and a youth health promoter for Salud Sin Limites, I realized that this decision probably wasn't his first choice. I asked Melvin if he was still in school, and he answered, "There is no secondary school, but my mom teaches me."

It was a small moment, and a story I'd heard many times in my readings and experiences in global health--but to hear those words coming from the teenager sitting across from me, I couldn't shake a feeling of just... guilt. I remembered all the mornings I'd woken up (late) for high school, hating the whole system and all its parties for keeping me locked up 8 hours a day. I even thought of my time at Duke, when I'd skipped over readings because "I didn't have time" but I really just had other ways that I wanted to spend my time. And then to think that this kid, who still has his whole life ahead of him, would relish that experience--but will he ever get to have it?


¿Estas casada? (Are you married?)
There's an inevitable series of questions that people ask me here, usually going about the same way each time: Where are you from? What is the weather like there? Do you like Siuna? Will you come back one day? Once, a funny character I encountered on the trail to the community garden asked me, Nicaragua is in total ruins, isn't it? Next comes, how old are you?, and then, always a shock--are you married?

No, no, no, no. I am not married, nope. It always throws me off guard just to be asked that. Yet I've come to realize that, by Siuna's standards, I'm about to be an old maid. People get married here much, much earlier than we do in the U.S., partly because of the average level of education and partly because of early, unprotected sex (the wedding ring that comes after the baby). Yet even in wealthier, more educated families, early marriages are a standard--Juan and his wife Yamileth both went to the local university, URACCAN, but they had their first child at age 17. And early marriage is only the half (or rather, less than half) of it--in a meeting at Las Quebradas, Fabian quoted the statistic that an entire 70% of mothers in Nicaragua are single mothers. The widespread lack of condom use results in many men having their fun with women for a while, then jumping ship before the little one comes. Juan told me that he had 20 brothers and sisters--all with different mothers. It's becoming all too common a practice, leaving mothers and children with little means for survival in already tough circumstances.

On a funnier note, another question that was posed to me--Is Amos your husband? We got a good laugh out of that one.


A Big Slice of Watermelon
After just two days of our beans-and-rice diet in Las Quebradas, Amos and I realized that we were intensely craving fruit. "Strawberries," I said. "A big slice of watermelon," he suggested. Our mouths were watering the whole walk back from the garden, and our lukewarm water just wasn't enough to satisfy.

We finally noticed that these cravings, which became worse and worse over the course of the week, came from a complete lack of fruits in veggies in our meals. Plaintains were served with every course, but those are more starch than vitamins, and since they were in the meal that got me sick I haven't really touched them since. The few days of this lack caused our mealtime conversations to always gravitate towards food--we dream of hamburgers, pizzas, and other indulgences while we shovel in more beans and rice, beans and rice. But this is the only existence the people of Las Quebradas know. You can see it in their short stature and metallic smiles (good teeth are a rarity). While we'd spent most of the year supporting this community garden project on the grounds that it provided affordable access to these dietary needs, we've finally realized that it is to provide any access to fruits and veggies, because outside of what is imported from Managua--there are none. It made me think of the talk that Dave Law of Joy-Southfield Community Development (GlobeMed at UMichigan's local partner) about the "food desert" in Detroit and how it is affecting local nutrition. Juan and Fabian have even speculated that, with the establishment of this garden, Las Quebradas might even be able to sell its produce in Siuna (as opposed to importing from Managua, as it customary now). This would be a great future for our first project. Maybe one day, if Amos and I return, we can finally find that big slice of watermelon in the markets... until then, we're making do with orange juice and Gatorade.


Cosmo Crossing Cultural Barriers
There is a certain laugh that children have when they find something they shouldn't. During one of my recent "showers" (we pour water from a bucket to bath, old-school style :) ), I heard it. I knew what had happened immediately. They had found my Cosmo.

It was straight out of something from a movie. I finally got Amos' attention, and he withdrew the naughty (but not actually) magazine from the still-giggling young'uns. When I finally came out, they were gathered around with innocent eyes, and Amos asked what could have been the problem. "Was it the last part? Or the part about bikinis?" They burst into giggles all over again. "They keep laughing whenever I say the word bikini." (Giggle giggle giggle.) When they'd finally calmed down, I asked them what they were looking at, and they all avoided my eyes. The ones I knew by name had been getting water, or just weren't there--uh huh, sure. "Mentirosos," I shook my head, but I couldn't suppress a grin. They burst into giggles again, and I had no choice but to brush it off, and hide the forbidden magazine someplace far away with the burden on my soul that I had just inadvertantly stolen the innocence of about ten rural Nicaraguan children. Well, at least they couldn't read the articles...