Hey Friend,

We will be "celebrating" the first anniversary of Mitch this week. Hurricane season is finally coming towards a close, but of course, this time last year it was coming to a close as well. Strangely, total rainfall this year has been almost the same as last year’s rainy season (67.7 inches in 1998 compared to 63.3 inches for the same period this year). However, the distribution has been radically different—last year we received almost half of that rain from Mitch.

In the areas where Mitch did the worst damage last year, there has been severe flooding again this year, with many crops damaged and some destroyed. Lakes, rivers and streams came up much more slowly this year, so loss of life has been much less—between 20 and 30 persons have died due to flooding this year. Flooding has also been severe in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Although we did not get clobbered directly by Floyd, Harvey or Irene, they left their mark on the region.

Many Mitch-damaged roads and bridges have been repaired, but several of the principal bridges in the northwest were only barely begun before rains began in May. Some of the work was hampered by the numerous land mines that remained from the Reagan administration’s 10-year war against Nicaragua (1980-1990). Mitch rearranged the mines strategically placed during the war in unpredictable patterns, so first the mines had to be found and removed before the debris of dirt and concrete could be cleared. Many of the provisional bridges have been washed out, some repeatedly. The trip up the highway towards Rodeo Grande, Pimienta, and El Obraje in Chinandega can take 8 to 10 hours because existing bridge structures are single lane and must be crossed slowly and carefully. That trip normally takes something under three hours.

Rodeo Grande, Pimienta and Obraje are three of the PROVADENIC communities currently inaccessible by vehicle. Donald, the health promoter for Rodeo Grande, was at the farm for a veterinarian workshop two weeks ago and he said he’d had to put his clothes in his duffel bag and, holding the bag in one hand out of the water, swim across the river bordering his community. Stories from other promoters were similar. Ishmael, who lives in a particularly remote community on the Atlantic coast rode out two hours on a mule to the "main" road, then caught a bus to the first bridge, which had been washed out. He crossed the ravine on foot, then caught another bus over the next section until he came to another washed-out bridge, then took a third bus into the provincial capital, then a fourth bus from there to Managua. All of these community leaders met at PROVADENIC’s conference center, where they patiently waited for the ride out to the farm. I happened to be in Managua and as we rode out together around 8:00 p.m. I noticed a certain anxiety about getting to the farm and dinner, and realized that none of them had eaten since they’d left their homes early that morning.

Do I think that the rural people of Nicaragua are closer to the truth than we are in the States? Not exactly. If there are two paths, the path to Life and the path to Death, rural Nicaraguans and North Americans are both on the same path to Death. It’s just that rural Nicaraguans are not as far down the path. They are closer to the crossroads, and they can still see some things more clearly. When the people of Sabana Grande in Estelí lost their source of water, they reasoned that it was because they had cut the trees along the river and that they should plant trees to reforest the watershed. When our children in North America suffer from asthma, we blame the environment or we blame the power companies or we blame the scientists for scaring us. But we usually do not blame ourselves for demanding the electricity that burns the sulfur coal that poisons our children’s lives. We are so "developed" we can no longer see how what we do destroys the quality of our lives or the lives of others. Here, the destruction that rural communities wrought, they wrought upon themselves and they cannot escape it. In accepting that reality, many communities here in Nicaragua have already taken an enormous step away from the precipice, back towards the path to Life. That is what makes working here so rewarding.

What do I think needs to be done? Whatever presents itself to your heart, working in the Spirit of the Lord. Care for your families, get to know your neighbors, join a local faith community. Develop a serious habit of recycling. Look into ways you can take advantage of sunlight to reduce the use of coal-generated electricity and other fossil fuels. Buy a new refrigerator and freezer made without ozone-depleting chemicals and with maximum energy efficiency. Walk to work. Get rid of your televisions. Read more. Learn to hear the people speaking from good hearts (see Matthew 12:35), be they scientists, doctors, teachers, pastors, plumbers, taxi drivers, farmers or missionaries. But be serious about it and think about why you live as you live. Let your reflection direct your actions, learn from your actions and let your learning inform your reflection.

Reflection and action. They are the key words of Paulo Freire for the education of the oppressed. From my perspective here in the "primitive" world of rural Nicaragua, I see no society so oppressed as that of the United States, where we are oppressed with an overwhelming abundance of material goods and the corresponding absence of community and connection. Material comfort does not make community impossible, but it makes it appear to be less essential to survival, easier to trade off.

May God bless each of us in our journeys away from the precipice, towards Life, towards God’s Kingdom on Earth.

God’s Peace.

Mark Hare