June 3, 2003

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I rode home from work on the bus.

I wish you could see what it is like to ride a bus in Managua. Most of the public transportation buses in cities in Nicaragua are old North American “Blue Bird” yellow school buses. They are all at least 15 or 20 years old, mechanically challenged, and usually have a pretty shabby paint job; yet they are proudly polished and washed clean by their drivers inside and out each day.

Riding the bus is not pleasant: the engine is too loud, at rush hour they drive too fast and barely stop to let passengers on and off (to get the most passengers in the shortest amount of time and avoid incurring fines for lateness), and at the end of the work day buses are inevitably overcrowded, to the point of making it difficult to get off when you get to your stop.

Buses here communicate something about culture and reality. The pride, dignity and cleanliness of the people, even if the things they own aren’t brand spanking new. The common need, born out of poverty, to use resources to their very last legs. The phenomenon—also due to the economic situation—of Nicaraguans using the second-hand things from other countries. Tension and stress due to hard work, long hours, and poor incomes. The persistence and resourcefulness of the people. Male chauvinism alongside religious piety.

A few months ago I was in the United States with my son Galen for three months doing mission interpretation. I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave Nicaragua for that long, and I wasn’t expecting mission interpretation to be as meaningful to me, but it brought me, as a mission co-worker, full-circle and gave me many unexpected gifts. It was a chance to reconnect with my hometown of East Lansing, Michigan, and a time to strengthen relationships with family. It was a time of celebration, as we visited uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, and grandparents. It was also a time to visit churches interested in Nicaragua and to explore with them the ways that PC(USA) worldwide ministries and the faith of Nicaraguans are related to justice and peace-seeking issues at systemic and personal levels. It was a time to challenge people in the United States with a foreign reality and to update many on the meaning of mission. It was a time to get in touch with U.S. reality and culture in a way that I haven’t had the chance to do for some five years.

The contrasts between the United States and Nicaragua hit me hard when we came back here at the end of February. I wasn’t expecting to experience culture shock. It was a sweet reunion with family and friends here, but also a jolt to my spirit that allowed me to see and experience Nicaragua with fresh eyes, ears, and heart.

When I ride the bus home from work, I see tired people trying to make ends meet. I see young women in bank-teller uniforms and young men with gang tattoos. I see middle-aged businessmen and I see university students toting their backpacks. I see the bus driver and the driver’s assistant (the one who collects bus fare and herds passengers onto the bus) acting as a team to beat the other buses, and beat the time clock. I see children who eat only one small meal every day. When I ride in my car with the windows rolled up and the air-conditioning turned on, senses dulled to the roar of traffic and the heat of the day, I am untouchable, invulnerable; I am in a protected fortress. It’s easy to say “no” to the children begging at the stoplight and to ignore the people trying to sell me a package of cashew nuts, a steering wheel cover, a toucan, a pack of gum, or a pair of sunglasses. I see scores of other vehicles, big suburbans with tinted windows, tires lifting them high off the pavement. The contrast between the grinding gears on the crowded public bus and the protected environment of an air-conditioned car is a metaphor for the contrast between poverty and comfort.

One of the issues I struggle with is the balance between compassion and callousness. In Nicaragua I am standing with people in the overcrowded bus and also sitting in an air-conditioned vehicle with the windows rolled up. I live in a comfortable house and have health insurance, but I also have friendships and daily contact with people who live in different degrees of poverty.

My prayer is the prayer of a song called “What I ask of God”, a popular protest song in Latin America, whose first verse says,

What I ask of God, is that I am not indifferent to pain,
and that dry death does not find me alone
without having done enough.

I leave you with these thoughts. You are in my prayers.

With love,

Ellen Sherby

The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 254