We're Really Shaking it Up

In Casa los Mangos we recently hosted the first, of what will hopefully be many, Fiesta de Mujeres Libres. Its a small group of women, half Nica, half American, that get together and have drinks, snacks and talk, dance, have fun. We made a big sign declaring: "Arriba las Mujeres del Mundo!!!" that is taped to our kitchen window. What we didn't anticipate, but really love, is that since its on the window (it was the only place the tape would stick) people that walk by the house outside can read it too. Now we've got passers-by hollering: "Arriba! Arriba las mujeres!" "Arriba todo el mundo!" or, "Arriba las mujeres del mundo????" Either way, it's out there.

Saturday we dressed up with fifteen kids and marched through the Cusmapa streets with home-made instruments and signs declaring "Viva Cusmapa" "Celebramos Alegria!" and other banners of the like.
Sunday we took a group of women to the park at the center of town to knit in public.

In both occasions the people passing by were very surprised. People stared at us in the park. People rushed our of their homes to see what the noise was passing by.

We're going to do it all again this weekend, and we're hoping to double our numbers.
Ooooooo what fun and ruckus!

It's a Craze!

When I started our women’s knitting group once a week I never imagined knitting would be so popular in Cusmapa. Our group that meets every Wednesday evening for two hours started a couple months ago as three women, it is now about 15. There are also a handful of sisters and cousins and nieces that come those evenings. The women bring many knit squares every week to contribute to the blankets we are making to donate to the Casa Materna. One girl in the group, who is actually a high school student of ours as well, has begun to make little hats to donate. I love that the women are all positive about the community side of this project.

Even more incredibly, all the little boys in our neighborhood are knitting now too, them and many of their cousins and siblings and friends, maybe twenty kids all around the age of eleven. Now that they have all gotten into knitting, the word is really spreading fast. Everyday kids I’ve never seen before come knocking at the door asking to learn. Students come to me asking to learn, or to inform me that some friend or cousin or sibling of theirs wants to learn.

There are too many requests now for me to fulfill them all. I’ve asked that all the more advanced knitters teach the new knitters so that I only have to teach more difficult stuff. Little Memo, who lives across the street, is happy to help and yesterday taught four little girls the basics. I think this will work out great, it makes it all more community oriented, which was part of my initial goal.

So, now that you all know how this project of mine is succeeding, that it is inspiring and teaching so many kids in Cusmapa, that it is snowballing quickly, I will tell you I am almost without supplies. I’ve told all the kids they have to knit with pencils as needles, which works great in the beginning until they become more advanced and want to make bigger things, or more complicated things. Our supply of yarn is quickly depleting and the people here have no money to buy such luxuries on their own.

ANY money or supplies you or someone you know would like to donate would be greatly appreciated and put to good use. Callie will be in the States in a month, so she could carry supplies back with her when she returns to Nica. Monetary donations can be wired here to me, or sent to my parents who can deposit them directly in my bank account. Needles can be made from dowels, a pencil sharpener and some sand paper, and it is much cheaper. Plastic needles are fairly inexpensive especially if large sets of multiple sizes are purchased. Sometimes yarn can be found at second hand stores, garage and estate sales, and craigslist is a good place to look too.

I have to say, I think this knitting craze in Cusmapa is one of the most important things I’m doing here. I think my classes are super important, but the people involved in the knitting are INTO it. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a small cooperative grow from this that can help provide a little income to some families. That would be absolutely incredible.

I arrived back Managua yesterday. I can not get back to my happy mountain home, however, because there is a national transportation strike. No buses are running in the whole country, the non-union taxis take you on these crazy back-alley routes to avoid union taxis throwing rocks through their windshields. A Fabretto truck was going to take me up but during strikes they don't take the vehicles out in the Managua area because cars get set-fire. So, here I am, stuck in the capital, and I miss Cusmapa. Oh well, asi es, as they say.

In other news, I have a new piece of body art that I love. It is a tree as seen by my friend Marlon in Cusmapa, he is nine years old.

I'm in the States

It's a little weird. I miss this guy------>

Well, I miss them all, I've gotten used to all the unpredictable energy. I've fallen in love with all the color and light and dust and dreams.

It HAS been a long time

I know, its has been. And I have wanted to write, and I 've tried to write. I must have gained the confidence of more people here because the stories have been spilling and overflowing and I'm brimming, all with ideas and emotions to express, but I think its just too much. I feel overwhelmed. I can't get them in order to tell. Maybe you don't need all the details, maybe just knowing I'm learning and loving is enough. And I am.

The Men They Honor in Cusmapa....

Father Rafael Maria Fabretto is considered a saint in this little pueblo. His picture hangs in every house, and his memory is honored on multiple occasions throughout the year. The celebration of his birthday includes burning a candle continuously the entire month in front of a shrine made to him complete with the very robe he wore in his lifetime, wrapped in cellophane.

A well meaning man to be sure, who did more to help a poor community in his lifetime than most of us can ever dream of. He was an amazing man with a giant heart who surely saved the lives of many. We should honor men like him, we should remember them always for their hard work and compassion. But we should remember them as the men they were.

We should remember that men are not perfect, and like any man, Father Fabretto was not perfect. In his lifetime he owned this little pueblo, he bought up all the land and helped it to grow from just a couple families to the several thousand people that live here now. Today, legal property ownership can be a challenge to arrange as deeds and distribution of land are mingled still in his memory. There are alliances and obligations among the people here as many are “old” Fabretto people; who as children grew up under his wing, watch, and guidance in education and spirituality. In the community now, these people are honored; they are the community leaders, regardless if they are doing their jobs at the Fabretto school well, or if they even have good intentions.

I can only imagine the power of influence Father Fabretto must have had in his lifetime over these people. I wonder perhaps if he, as the man he was, pressured more of himself onto the people here than we know; if he had relationships we do not know about and that those who do know - don’t talk about. I wonder if this community is his beyond mere ownership of the land.

Almost twenty years later, after Max’s death, the people here are beginning the same practices of honor for him. His photo hangs in the Oratorio, on welcome signs for visitors. He is remembered in prayers beginning the day, meetings, and blessings for the new year. Max was a good man as well, he worked hard for his community and for Fabretto, and he was a happy man, friendly and welcoming to all. Max should be remembered for these positive qualities, however, he should not be turned into the saint that they paint him as. The man had twelve children with almost as many women, seven on which are in Cusmapa. He left behind burdened mothers and abandoned children, who in his lifetime he certainly could not have afforded to support even had he wanted to.

Last week Fabretto fired one of the school directors in Cusmapa after finding out he has two illegitimate children in town that he is not supporting. Fabretto decided they can not have anyone like this on staff when we are trying to teach values to children; that our employees are obligated to always be positive examples for the entire community. So while we are honoring one man for this behavior we are casting another away. I suspect, also, that if we began investigating into the personal lives of all our employees we would find similar faults in many of them.

If we honor a man like this, turn him into a saint after his death, what are we teaching the young men here? How can we expect men here to change when they see machista behavior celebrated?

SAT in El Naranjo

02-20-08 El Naranjo with Marcos

My first outing to observe an English class in the SAT program was to El Naranjo, a community a bit more than an hour’s journey away from Cusmapa. I went with Marcos, the English teacher for the program, who I have promised my help with his classes, more because I want to know the rural areas around my little pueblo than because I want to teach more English.

El Naranjo is one of twenty-some rural communities that surround Cusmapa, it is not the farthest away, but it is one of the more remote. To get to El Naranjo you go on a motorcycle to just beyond Angel Tres, another community, on the main road heading down the back of the mountain. From the main road, a bumpy dirt one, you take a turn back up and around the mountain on a smaller and very rocky road, perhaps better called a trail. This trail is steep, so steep that on the moto you move very slowly, often rocking around so much on rocks that Marcos balanced and guided the bike with his feet on the ground. The incline is so extreme that we had to pull ourselves forward as far as possible on the bike to prevent our weight from tipping us backwards and the bike from flipping back down the mountain upon us.

At the top of the mountain the trail ends at a little cluster of homes where we left the bike, paying a small amount to the woman there to care for it while we were gone. I imagine this must be helpful to her, as she lives in a circumstance the same as all the people in the communities. A house made of sagging adobe bricks and sticks, constructed such that any animal or disease-ridden insect can come and go freely through the walls. Worse, the rains in the wet season all come through, leaving not a single thing dry in the house. The structures are small, with dirt floors, and many, many occupants. This woman does have a nice location, however, from the top of the mountain where she overlooks the many valleys beyond.

The hike to El Naranjo from there is about forty minutes straight back down the other side of the mountain. The trail goes downhill fast and is slippery this time of year with all the dust and dry dirt on the rocks. I am curious how the hike must be in the rainy season, especially in its height during October when I imagine the trail must be more like a river. At that time in the year I think many communities are left totally isolated; the people unable to leave and no one able to venture in. The walk is beautiful, though strenuous. Every time the trail switches back the other way there is a new view of the mountains rolling out beyond to Honduras, El Salvador, and the Pacific Ocean.

We arrived in El Naranjo a little early, enough time to gather ourselves, have a drink of water, and for me to play a little with a bunch of kids just getting out of school. In the communities, sometimes it feels like you may be the first gringo the people have ever seen. They stare, mouths open, and won’t answer your questions until you’ve tried for a response at least five times (in my case this could be a language barrier issue). If you take out your camera, they stand like stern soldiers for every photo, giggling in between. And when they see themselves in the camera screen, they laugh wildly, pointing at themselves and their friends and siblings, like they’ve never seen their own reflection before and they’re shocked at how they look.

The class I went to observe is first year high school English, the students are all in their first and second year of high school, twenty of them altogether. Every SAT student is required to take four years of English, as is every high school student in the country as mandated by the ministry of education. The group of students in the class is diverse, as the SAT program is designed to accommodate. SAT (Systematica Aprendizaje Tuturial) is a rural education program that Fabretto is sponsoring in six communities around Cusmapa, now in its second year of five. The idea of the program is that the teachers go to the communities rather than the students all traveling the distance to Cusmapa.

There are no high schools in the communities, public education is offered through the sixth grade, at which point, if students complete primary school at all, they are likely not fully literate. This is where most people in the rural areas end their education, and as they age and never see the written word anywhere in their environment, they lose what little they have and move forward with their lives in the routine of mere survival. SAT is the opportunity for these people to break this trend of ignorance. There are students in the program who have been out of primary school for years, who have families, and are in the same class as thirteen year olds, all beginning their high school education together.

Most of the students are from El Naranjo, with several walking the distance from other communities in the area. One student is a public primary school teacher, he gives his classes in the mornings and stays into the afternoon for SAT. It is incredible to think this man teaches primary school when he himself is not educated beyond the very level he teaches. There are several older teenagers in the class, returning to school after years away. There are at least two mothers, one very young, the other older, whose children waiting outside the building during class wandered in an hour into the ninety minutes. The children of the younger mother, a six year old girl caring for her fourth month old brother, came into the class part way so that the baby could breast feed while his mother took English notes.

The class went well, the students were all extremely attentive and Marcos engaged them well. The program seems like an extremely interesting and rewarding one to be involved in, not only for its many qualities I have thus described, but because the students are all there because they choose to be. Marcos himself is an interesting and talented guy. He is twenty four, my same age, married with a little girl. He learned English, which he speaks and understands much better than any of the Nicas I have met with university English degrees, all from spending time with American volunteers who lived in Cusmapa over the years, and by translating American hip-hip music into Spanish. His pronunciation is fantastic and he can carry a coherent conversation in his second language. After realizing the potential of his English abilities he began attending a university in Somoto on Saturdays working toward a degree in the subject. He just began his second year of study in the five year program.

After finishing the class, then chatting with little Karlita and her four month old baby brother as they waited for their mother (stealing a quick photo), Marcos and I began our trek back up the mountain. I was tired coming down, with aching thighs, but going up my lungs heaved the whole way. Two thirds of the way up, my legs were burning and a little farther along they started shaking. The sun was hot and bright and I was sweating beads down my face. Marcos, with the wisdom that comes with being a local, had the usual Nica bandana, not just to wipe away his sweat, but to drape over his dark hair to cool and protect himself from the sun. I will remember this next time, and a bigger bottle of water too as I shared much of my water with Marcos, who, also in the Nica tradition, brought a bottle of Coca-Cola with him rather than water.

At the top of the hill, we arrived back at the spot with the moto to find that the gas cap was not screwed on; that it had certainly been tampered with somehow and some gas perhaps stolen. Marcos checked the level of fuel that we had and guessed (correctly, thankfully) that we had enough to return home to Cusmapa. We said nothing and continued on our way, silently acknowledging that it is sometimes easier to just let it go. The moto trip back to Cusmapa went a bit faster - down the steep trail is a lot faster than up it, though a bit more frightening for me. Marcos is a good driver though, and I trust him, though he did tell me he fell on the bike just the day before. I hope that I can make more trips to the communities with him in the future. SAT is a great program, I think one of the stars of Fabretto, and I hope I can be more involved in it in the future.