A Gallo Pinto Thanksgiving

This is how I know that God has a sense of humor:

After being in Ometepe for two weeks and living off of gallo pinto and bananas (and I mean that quite literally... the diet didn't vary at all during week two either), I arrived "home" last night to my "family" in Managua. My little brother bolts to the door to greet me as if we've been best friends our entire lives (this is why I love five year olds) and my host mom, dear old María Inés, comes trailing behind. She embraces me in a hug and a sloppy kiss (this is why I love Nicaraguan women) and says to me, "Kendall! We've been so excited for your arrival all day. And in honor of you being back, I made a big pot of gallo pinto because I know how much you love it!"

I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time (I'm sure God thinks He's just hysterical), and so for dinner last night, for the 126th straight meal (or something like that), I consumed a hearty plate of gallo pinto. And somehow, miraculously, I still really do love it.

Speaking of leaving the island, you will all be relieved to know that, yes, great grandma cried as we said goodbye. Or, ok, maybe she came down with a bit of a cold yesterday morning so her eyes were a little teary anyway. BUT, she also asked me if she could come with me and live in the United States, so if you ask me, I showed the Germans up. I said, ABSOLUTELY she could come live with me, but unfortunately she backed out at the last minute, so I'll still be coming homo solo.

A little note on great grandma: She is, quite simply, the most incredible ninety year old woman I know. And while that isn't saying much, she would still be my favorite 90 year old woman even if I knew thousands of them. There isn't a tiny little thing about about this lady that I don't like. In fact, if I live to be ninety years old, I want to be exactly like her. She rotates between four dresses and two pairs of sneakers, she spends the first two hours of her day raking the yard like the agile woman that she is, she has an adoring friendship with the family's parrot and tries to teach it new words every day, she sits in her rocking chair and reads the Bible from 2-3pm daily, she yells greetings to every single person that passes by the house, she loves (I mean LOVES) wrestling (¡la lucha libre!) and yells at the men on the T.V. while she watches it every night, and she spends 80% of her day laughing and cracking jokes. I'm telling you... if there is a more endearing person in this world, I'd like to meet him/her.

The only thing I'm unsure about, with regards to her, is the fact that, when she found out I'm twenty years old, her reaction was: "Twenty years old?! I'm NINETY! That means there is a seventy year difference between us. Sure doesn't seem like it, does it? It seems like there's only a forty year difference! Right?"

...Which would either mean that I would be fifty years old, or she would be sixty... neither of which seem particularly possible/logical to me. So I let that one slide.

Anyway, a little update on the project. As I left the island yesterday, I officially closed the door on the "research phase." (Now all that is left is the 25-30 page paper...) All in all, things went as well as I could have hoped for. I spent the majority of my time in La Paloma, travelling with the coordinator of APS-Ometepe from village to village. This was, by far, my favorite part of the whole process. I was able to meet the different promoters (all of them women) and talk to them about how their role within the community has changed as a result of their involvement with APS. Conversation after conversation, I heard the same thing: We are leaders now, we are more respected, we have been given the tools to help our community. One summed everything up when she said to me, "It's like the doctor says, we are becoming leaders. Leaders of the barrios. Sometimes in the street, they call me doctor! No, I say, I'm not a doctor. I'm a promoter. But as promoters, well, all of the world comes looking for us." I've decided to use part of this quote in the title of my paper, which I will begin writing today.

In addition to speaking with the promoters, I also spent a significant part of my time (as I wrote about last week) learning about the health issues of the communities. I spent three days of my time on Ometepe in a rural indigenous community called Los Ramos, where I was asked to help out with the process of a community health-needs assessment. As this is a community that largely lacks potable water, latrines, and access to a health clinic, APS wanted to identify the most glaring needs and follow-up on those needs with an initiative. So, I was sent to the community for that purpose.

The only problem was that, as soon as I showed up, I realized I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what I was doing or how to go about this. It also became readily apparent to me that I was not in any way qualified to do a health-needs assessment. In any event, I decided I had to DO something and start somewhere... so after speaking with the promoter of the community, we decided to go house-to-house, asking each family if they have a latrine and, if so, what condition is it in? I'm sure anyone with a public health background could point out major flaws and red-flags in this approach, but as I had no direction or preparation for the assignment, this is what we did.

We did this for about 4-5 hours, during which time we managed to visit about half of the houses in the community. After we had taken a lunch break at the promoter's house, I asked if we should go out and finish inventory of the second half of the community, to which she replied, "No. We are done." Not wanting to do an incomplete job, I pressed her on this, but she eventually explained to me that, in going house-to-house and asking about the state of the latrines--"ESPECIALLY in the presence of a North American"--we were creating expectations among the community. After this, they would assume (and can you blame them?) that they would soon be given latrines.

This set me back in a hurry. Like I said, I won't pretend that I knew what I was doing, and I'm certain now that there were glaring issues in our approach. I immediately was flooded with all sorts of questions and thoughts and frustrations about how the world works. For the life of me, I still don't know why I was sent to this community or for what purpose. Yes, I was supposedly asked to do a needs assessment, but why me? As soon as I was there, it became clear to me that the promoter had a good enough handle on the issues and needs of the community. So why did they need someone else (and a foreigner, at that, someone with NO knowledge of the community) to affirm those needs? It just seemed to me to perpetuate all of the wrong and troubling perceptions about the need for foreign involvement.

So after cutting my visit to that community short, I went back to La Paloma with a host of questions and unsettled feelings. I still feel an uneasiness about my presence there and any negative backlash that it might have created. I still feel confused about why I went and a little embarrassed by the haphazardness of our approach. And worse, I'm still not really able to make sense of it or figure out where exactly things went wrong and what SHOULD have happened instead.

So this is just one of the many issues that I'll be tackling in my paper over the next week. Like I said: all in all, it was a good experience and I'm thankful for it. I certainly recognize how unique of an opportunity it was; in no other context would I really have been able to study such a program and learn what I learned. As with any experience, it had its share of frustrations, failures, and discoveries. It was difficult and lonely at times, as I expected it to be. And it certainly left me with more questions and the need to resolve them, but that seems to be pretty typical of my experience here. It's certainly not something I regret.

So for the next week or so, I'll be working on the paper! And then, before I know it, the program will be wrapping up and I'll be travelling through Nicaragua for a week with my sister. :) But there is still much left to live and experience before that point, so I'll keep you all posted!

In the meantime... Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Know that I am thankful for each of you. Do me a favor and eat an extra helping of stuffing for me. I'll probably be celebrating with (here's a suprise)... gallo pinto. :)

Love to you all.