February 22, 2007

Dear Friends,

A few days ago I went with Galen to a birthday party for one of his new classmates. It was at a Pizza Hut, a “package deal” party complete with clown, the indispensable piñata (Superman hanging in the air, kids whacking him until the candy spills out of his legs, head, and abdomen), and a huge cake with meringue icing.

As I was sitting there with the mothers, our children being entertained by the clown, one Nicaraguan woman asked me, “How long have you lived in Nicaragua?” “Nine years,” I replied. She then said, “And what do you like about Nicaragua?”

I hesitated. There was so much I could say, yet I wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally, I said, “There are a lot of things I love about Nicaragua: the culture, the people, the food. And it’s very rich in history.” Our conversation ended when the clown cranked up the volume on the amplifiers and set the children dancing to “reggaeton” music.

Since that day I’ve been thinking about what I love about Nicaragua. So here is a laundry list of my Nicaraguan “love-affair”:

Expressiveness

When I came back to Nicaragua in January after four months of mission interpretation in the United States, I felt a physical joy using Spanish again. It’s not just Spanish words: there is a culture of communication here that makes use of facial expressions, hand gestures, and varying tones of voice that brings conversations to life.

Culture

Nicaraguans are strong in music, poetry, art, dance, and drama. Most Nicaraguans could recite verses of their world-renowned poet laureate, Ruben Darío, at the drop of a hat. And I’ve seen more than one of my CEPAD colleagues recite a lengthy poem by memory with great dramatic suspense. Then there are the folk dances, beautiful handicrafts, and appreciation for national singer-songwriters like Carlos Mejía Godoy, Katia and Salvador Cardenal, Philip Montalban, Norma Elena Gadea, Otto de la Rocha, among others.

Ethnic cultures and history

Being a country the size of the state of North Carolina, Nicaragua packs in a whole lot of ethnic groups, each with its own language and culture—especially along the Caribbean, where Miskitos, Mayagnas, Ramas, Garífonas and English Creole populations span the length of the coast. The history of each of these peoples, added to the history of indigenous peoples on the Pacific region, Spanish colonization, and more recent history of U.S.-led invasions, dictatorships, and revolution makes Nicaragua a fascinating place to live. I’ve met people whose grandfathers fought with Sandino in his rag-tag army against U.S. marines in the 1920s, and once had lunch with a woman who was the great-great-granddaughter of a U.S. marine who had an amorous relationship with the Nicaraguan woman who ironed his clothes. These stories are tucked into every inch of Nicaragua.

Heat and humidity

Here my skin breathes better and wrinkles less.

Fresh food and fried food

In markets and along the road in make-shift stands you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables, and freshly made tortillas and cheese. And then there are the fritangas, charcoal grills on city sidewalks roasting beef, chicken, and ripe or unripe plantains. My favorite is fried green plantains accompanied by big rectangles of fried cheese and shredded cabbage salad with a vinegar dressing.Yum!

Mountains and volcanoes

I live an hour from the Pacific Ocean, and from a high point in Managua I can see volcanoes ringing Lake Managua and just south of the city. My favorite places in Nicaragua are the lush, majestic mountains of the north-central region of the country. A mist rises from the earth in the early morning, obscuring the beautiful views of deep valleys and pine-covered peaks.

Clouds

When I was a little girl I had a large stuffed camel named Harold. He was the ringleader of all of my stuffed animals, and I believed that on certain evenings when the clouds looked like stringy pink islands in the sky, Harold would journey out, ambling from one cloud to another. In Michigan, these nights were few and far between. But here in Nicaragua I am often astounded by the majesty of the clouds, and many a night think of Harold on one of his “Harold Walk-Out Nights,” tripping along from one pink island to another in the Nicaraguan sky.

Resilience

This is harder to “enjoy” because the underside of the resilience that most Nicaraguans have is a culture of threadbare survival, of falling short of meeting basic needs. Yet Nicaraguans keep on keeping on, selling bags of water and washing windshields at streetlights, persistent in their pursuit of survival. I still see Antonio (remember Antonio, who approaches cars with rock-in-hand to ask for money, then disappears for weeks at a time?) I give Antonio a coin every now and then, and he peers at my car’s coin holder by the gear shift and asks me to give him the other coins, too! Nicaraguans’ resilience and their capacity to live life and even share laughter in the face of great difficulties, violence, and hunger amazes me.

I hope that you, too, can find the things you love about your life where you live. And that maybe, if you haven’t yet visited Nicaragua, you might feel encouraged to do so!

With love,

Ellen Sherby

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 58