Friday, Feb 10,  (Mike Fronk)
 
The whole of our company converged on LAX around 7 a.m.  Some of the group met one another in the American Airlines check in line, but the real meeting occurred when we all rendezvous at our flight gate around 7:45.  This years group consisted of returning members; Louise Baumgart, Mike Fronk, Hal Hively, Larry Hixon, Dick Miller, Dave Neyer, Jim Ross, and Ron Ury.  Returning after a year's absence, Cristina Kurtek.  New to this years group were; Dave and Jason Talton, Keith Mcgregar, Christian Brost (our German intern), and Don Shelton (our Regional Minister). After our initial introductions we sat down to wait for our flight's leaving.

The highlights of the first flight were: Seats that were impossible to sit in if you were over 6ft. tall. A packed plane with $4 sandwiches or snack boxes and the movie, "Good Night and Good Luck." This was a good movie if you could see it.  The late leaving of our flight cut the 3 hour lay over we were to have in Miami down to an hour and a half.  After our 5+ hour flight, we walked through the airport and found our next gate for the flight to Nicaragua.

The flight to Nicaragua felt spacious compared to the Miami leg.  The plane was less than half full; this allowed everyone a chance to spread out.  The two and half hour flight gave everyone plenty of time to fill out the entry forms to Nicaragua.  Upon landing we submitted our forms and paid $10 to go through immigration.  After we received all the proper stamps we proceeded to our luggage and passed the last check point and walked out into the Nicaraguan night.

We met up with a man holding a CEPAD sign.  He turned out to be our host/guide/ interpreter Carmelo.  And later we met our driver for the trip, Pyllo.  Once we had loaded our luggage into the back of a pickup, we packed ourselves into the bus and proceeded up into Managua and the CEPAD Nehemiah Center which was to be our home for the next two nights.  With our arrival, there were some more introductions and the assignment of our rooms for sleeping. We called it a day.

Saturday, Feb 11, (Ron Ury)

Saturday, Feb 11 we awoke to the Nicaragua roosters, who were right on schedule at 4:00 AM. We had breakfast and then Carmelo briefed us on procedures. We were introduced to CEPAD directors Gilberto Aguirre and Damaris Albuquerque, who talked to us about the CEPAD mission and work. They told us that In the 1972 earthquake in Managua, almost 15,000 people were killed. About 30 protestant denominations formed CEPAD to aid victims of the earthquake. CEPAD then evolved into a development agency to aid the poor of Nicaragua.

In the afternoon, Aynn Setright, a US citizen who has been living in Nicaragua for 20 years, gave us a brief history of Nicaragua and a summary of the current political situation. (She was raised in Rawlins Wyo., about 125 miles down the road from Casper, where Dick Cheney and I were raised.)

When the Spaniards first appeared in 1523, the population of the indigenous people was about 500,000. By the early 1600's the population had been reduced to about 12,000 by, disease, Spanish brutality, and the slave export of people to  work the Spanish mines in Peru. It was not until the 20th century that the Nicaragua population returned to pre-Conquest numbers. Pedrarias Davila, the first governor of Nicaragua, ran the country with cruelty and corruption, more or less as his personal fiefdom. His rule set the stage for a tradition of "Caudillos", rulers of personality and favoritism, rather than of constitution and law, that would run and ruin the country more or less continually until the 21st century.

Some Nicaragua statistics: The population had grown back to 480,000 in 1900, over 1,000,000 in 1950, over 2,000,000 in 1970, and is now about 5.3 million. Current population growth is 3.2% annually. Over half the population is under the age of 16. Only 3% of the population is over the age of 65. The average life span of a Nicaraguan in 1940 was 42. This average has grown to 63 years.

More stats: 74% live in poverty, 17% in extreme poverty. 82% of the population lives on $1 a day. Average per capita income is $430 a year. Unemployment is 30%, with another 40% underemployment. 34% are illiterate, 77% of children do not finish the 6th grade.

Aynn told us about the current political situation in Nicaragua, which can best be described as a deplorable mess. After she finished her briefing, I think all of us felt a  sense of WOW about the overwhelming litany of problems experienced historically, and now currently facing Nicaragua. I think we were all helped a great deal in understanding what we were looking at and experiencing as  we subsequently traveled about and met some of the people of Nicaragua.

Later that afternoon we toured the city of Managua. The old section of the city destroyed in the 1972 earthquake has not been rebuilt with high rises or other "city center" types of construction. The city, with a population of over 1 million, simply spreads out over the country side from the shores of Lake Managua. I personally almost always had the sense of being "lost", with little sense of direction as to how to get to any particular destination.

Sunday, Feb 12, (Ron Ury)

Sunday, Feb 12, we started the day at the CEPAD Nehemiah facility with a church service led by Mike. We left CEPAD about 8:00 AM with our destination Maleconcito, about 250 km north. (About 150 miles).

Our first stop was Sebaco, where we left the comfort and smoothness of the Pan Am highway,  got fuel for our Toyota diesel bus, and proceeded north east along a potholed rutted asphalt road. (Baja Hwy 1 on it's roughest sections is good by comparison.) Our driver was reduced to driving at 10 to 20 mph while he dodged potholes. We stopped for lunch at Jinotega, a beautiful little town nestled in a valley in the mountains. We briefly visited the town cathedral and then proceeded north, this time on a winding dirt road towards Maleconcito, about 60 miles away. The road seemed to get narrower and rougher but the scenery was beautiful with vistas of mountains, lakes, forests, and coffee plantations.

The local people seemed to live their lives along the road, with many people seen walking, riding bikes, carrying firewood, riding on horseback, or riding an occasional ox drawn cart. Sometimes we even encountered another motor vehicle. Their dwellings of sticks, boards, corrugated aluminum, or cinder block were nearly all located within a few yards of the road. Very few had window glass or signs of plumbing. We had been given a statistic about Nicaragua that said that 50% of the population is under the age of 16. Based of what we saw along the road,  I would be willing to bump that % to 60 %.

We arrived at the small village of Maleconcito about 5:30 PM. (Maleconcito is not on the map, but it is about 6 miles south of Wiwili). We had traveled about 150 miles in about 9 hours. We were definitely in an isolated area of Nicaragua. There seemed to be children everywhere and they all came to stare at us. Bump that % up to 70 % for Maleconcito.  I suspect years go by without "Norte Americanos" showing up in Maleconcito. Needless to say, when we started taking photos, the sound of "photo, photo" was heard everywhere and we were kept busy with the cameras for as long as we were willing. (I have a small HP printer that I travel with and can print out photos on site. Over the four days we were in Maleconcito, I handed out about 150 photos. I suspect that some of these children had never seen photos of themselves.)

Luis Olivas, a community leader, was our host in Maleconcito. We had all of our meals at Luis' home. (Most of the food we were to eat for the week was brought by our group from Managua and was prepared by women at Luis' home.)  We  then went to our assigned "host homes".

Four of us assigned to each of four homes. Larry, Hal, Carmelo and I stayed at the home of Reemberto Hurtado Martinez, his wife Irma, and their children Rigoberto Hurtado (18), Darling Hurtado (16), Ervin Hurtado (14), and Yubolkis Hurtado (9). Reemberto and Irma's home was small, with a living area, a small bedroom, a kitchen area, and a "back room". Our hosts had arranged three beds in the small bedroom, "our" room. Hal went above and beyond the call of duty and slept on pads on the floor. The house had electricity, a small TV set, but no indoor plumbing. Water for everything came from a faucet in the back yard.

In a conversation with Reemberto and Irma that evening, we learned that Reemberto farms a bean field several miles away. The 14 year old goes to "high school" on Sundays at the local primary school. Regular high school is 6 miles away in Wiwili. The family does not send their children to high school because they cannot afford the dollar or two a day for bus fare, or alternatively, room and board with relatives in Wiwili.

We went to bed about 9:30 and then were awakened about 10:00 by a barking dog, which set off a doggie chorus lasting about 15 minutes. It then rained intermittently throughout the night. We experienced first hand the sound of rain on corrugated roofs similar to what we had been installing in our last 6 years in Central America. Sometime early, about 3:00 AM, we heard the first crowing of what would become a rooster chorus most of the rest of the night.     
         
Monday, Feb 13,  (Dave Talton)

Today, will be described by Dave, a 56 year old corporate attorney from Southern California.  While I have been to many 3rd world countries on business, my pattern of behavior is to get in quick, do my business and leave. Sure, I saw the poor, but from a distance-the distance was my friend.

Monday in our small village starts early.  At 4:30 a.m., I was awakened by the sound of chopping.  It grew louder and I could hear the sound of hushed voices.  A chicken and her small chicks appeared from nowhere and were walking around in the house as if they owned the place.  This same set of events would repeat itself for the rest of the week.

Christian Brost, Keith Mcgregar, Jason Talton (my son) and I were assigned to stay in the home of a family consisting of a mother, father and 3 children. The father supported his family by working in the fields with his machete. The mother worked from the home, sewing for the village using a manual sewing machine.  The house was a small one room concrete block structure with a tin roof.  The floor was compacted dirt, no electricity, no running water and no windows.  The father built the home over a 9 month period, eight years ago, after working in the fields by day.

The inside of the house was divided by plastic partitions suspended by rope. The family slept in one corner on the other side of a partition behind which we did not look.  We slept, we suspect, in their beds.  Attached to the house was a lean to covered kitchen, consisting of a wood burning, stucco covered, stone stove and some wood tables used for food preparation.

The early morning chopping noise was the sound of the father using his machete to cut wood for the stove.  By the time we got up, the mother had made tortillas and was cooking beans.  The wood had turned to hot coals.  The kitchen, as was the entire house was clean and spotless, not withstanding the chickens.

As we left the house that morning, our host family was smiling and interested in engaging us in conversation.  That was tough as they spoke only Spanish and our Spanish was very limited.  Nevertheless, we will never forget their smiling inquisitive faces. 

The love between the family members was open and obvious.  By our standards, these people had nothing.  They wanted to know us and were happy to share their home with us.  Later that week we would engage them in conversation through an interpreter and would attend their Church
service.

They were so proud to present us to their congregation.  We shall never forget this hardworking, kind, and loving family.  They had few possessions, except love.  We all grew close to this family, despite my self defense mechanism that pushed me to maintain some safe distance.  In the end, my safe distance barrier collapsed and that was good.

We left the host family home early, excited about our first day of work.  We ate together in one central place as a group.  The food was good, although I had never had rice and beans for breakfast and for every other meal as well.  We then proceeded to the community center.  We quickly found out that a smile
and a "hola" or "Buenos Dias" evoked a smile and friendly response from whomever we met.  The children were everywhere and especially attracted to us.

Our work was painting the inside walls of various rooms and wood windows.  By the end of the day, it looked pretty good.  Don spent much of the time scrubbing the floors to clean up the results of our messy painting. He was using his former white dress shirt. Ron took many pictures of the children during the day and printed them out so the children could have copies. These were probably the first pictures the children had ever had of themselves. Jason and others also took pictures of the children, who gathered around to see the pictures on the small digital screens of the camera.

At the end of the work day, some of us decided to engage the local children in a friendly game of soccer.

That night we ate together as a group, reflected on the day's events, met the village leaders and engaged in study.  Until we returned to our host family homes, we were surrounded by children.  We were met by our host family with inquisitive smiles and went t the bed early, as life would begin early the next morning.

Tuesday, Feb 14 (Dick Miller)

Breakfast included beans and rice, eggs, sliced pineapple, toast and jam, and juice.

We then went to the local primary school built by FISE (Fondo de Inversion Sociolde Emergencia), a project of the European Union. We visited the classrooms with their exceptionally well-behaved children and were introduced to the teachers and children. The school (Centro Escolar, Maleconcito) has 462 students on weekdays and then on Sundays, 230 students of high school age. The morning session on weekdays is for kindergarten through fourth grade. Fifth and sixth grades have afternoon session classes. The classes for high school grades, attended by 230 students, are held on Sundays only.

Don, Mike, Dave Neyer, Jim, and Christian painted the concrete walls of the outdoor stage white. Almost everyone in our group sanded the metal grill doors of the classrooms to prepare them for subsequent painting. Dave and Jason Talton, and Keith repaired damaged school chair-desks. Completing 25 repairs by the end of the day.

Lunch included rice, beans, a potato and chicken stew, turnips and beets, carrots, a cucumber, tomato, and onion salad, lettuce, tortillas, and sodas.

In the afternoon, some of us continued sanding doors while others began painting them white. Mike and Dave Neyer painted a rusty swing set.

Ron spent the day photographing the respective classes with their teachers and ended up with "class photos" of each class. Our translator, Carolina, was a miracle worker in how she somehow managed to get the large classes (30 to 60 kids,) lined up and pointed in the same direction with everyone's head in view. Copies of these photos were then given to the school principal the next day.

Supper included beans and rice, meatballs, fried plantains, a tomato, onion, and green pepper salsa, bread, and tang.

Hal led a discussion on the chapter, "Getting to the Margin". Some members of our team also interacted with local people at a nearby pub.
    
Wednesday, Feb 15 (Don Shelton)

The morning started early, my friends, as the clouds passed before the moon reminding one of the streets of New York at 7:30 a.m. on a workday.  The bustling of the clouds was a missed warning, which should have prepared us for the jolting start of the day.  The "Pool Sharks" were the first to experience the streets of New York in Maleconcito with the booming of music at 4:00 a.m., with volume designed to drown out the roar of machinery shucking, separating, and preparing corn for market.

This day began much like the others.  The roosters were all determined to announce their superiority with the musical, but not so melodious, crowing as they awaited the rising sun.  I found the roster that started his crowing an octave above middle "C," concluding with a chromatic slide to a "F," provided the most enjoyable harmonies of the week.  However, there is something to be said for anyone or anything that can consistently conclude a musical presentation by singing between the crack of a "B" and a "C." This is a talent not to be taken lightly, but a bottle of cough syrup, or a ringing of the neck, would have been helpful for our sleep.

As the chickens, pigs, horses, ducks and other assorted animals and birds enjoyed their breakfast, we, too, were treated to the Nicaraguan delicatessen delights which began with ham and scrambled eggs cooked to a light and somewhat fluffy texture, desired by people in a farm community.  Complementing the diced ham and scrambled eggs was traditional Central American rice with beans.  The rice was cooked to a fluffy perfection with the frijoles adding color and texture to this expected dish.  The presentation was as important as the food itself.  Few, if any, restaurants in the U.S.A. can compete with the presentation of rice and beans in a green, plastic container of ecological design.  Following breakfast the rice bowl could double as a dishwashing tub.

But, what would rice and beans with Diced Ham and Scrambled Eggs be without toast?  We would not know because toast completed the delicious and fulfilling meal.  Because so many people in Nicaragua do not have electricity, and even fewer have toasters, toast can be purchased at the store packaged much like bread.  For those who like toast that offers a stable table to hold jelly (one of which I am), the toast was perfect.  The guava jelly was just the topping needed to complete this delicacy of delight.

Although guava is a delicious fruit, the fruitier people among us were thrilled at the sight and taste of watermelon to complete this meal to start the day.  Of course all this was chased with coffee and/or the fruit drink of the day.

We were off to a great start of the day as we followed our guide over hill and dell, through the fields, over the cow pies, across the streams for a fifteen-minute (Nicaragua time) morning stroll to the base of a mountain that looked like pitons would be required if we were going to make it to the top.  It was at that moment that our Maleconcito leader said we were "here." To this day, I am not sure where "here" was, but wherever it was, we were there.  Our leader said, "The beans are on that hill."  Hill?

As we assessed the situation, we became confident we could each get our limit of frijoles, even without pitons.  As we started the assent it took a few moments to learn the difference between the frijoles and the Johnson grass, clover, and other undesirable plants known as weeds.  In spite of the advance brigade of ants sent out by the frijoles, we ascended the mountain, conquered the frijoles in the allotted time and managed the "fifteen-minute" walk back to "Casa Maleconcito." All agreed that the Nicaraguan two-hour lunch break was a great idea of which we took full advantage.

In keeping with Nicaraguan custom, the main meal of the day was served at noon.  Following a prayer of thanksgiving we were treated to the mostly traditional meal.  The rice was exquisite. The beans, as expected.  The beef stew tasted like something my grandmother would have made.  The tortillas were reminiscent of the tortilla's I used to have as a treat from time to time at Juanita's house, who lived down the street from me when I was a kid.  Of course there was the usual sugar fruit drink and coffee.  Our hosts were most courteous to serve U.S.A. style "French fries". They were excellent.

Following lunch we joyfully went to the school to finish the work we started on Monday.  We finished painting the classroom doors and the swing standards.  We repaired as many desks as material allowed.  The opportunity to serve the school was completed as the principal of the school presented a letter of appreciation with tears in her eyes to us.  It is truly amazing how a "Random Act of Kindness" can have an impact upon someone's life.  The question is this: Whose life was impacted the most, hers or ours?

On the way back to Casa Maleconcito we stopped at the "Bar Estrada" for some liberating libations and lies.  It was a good chance to celebrate the satisfaction of a good days work completed.  Upon our return to the Casa we were again treated to a meal with rice, beans, tortillas, and shell noodles with cheese.  As with the other meals of the day, the dinner caused our taste buds to dance with the joy of a harmonious day.

In keeping with CEPAD's philosophy that these trips are more about relationships than about work, we spent the evening sharing and asking questions of "Don" Luis.  The following notes were those taken as he shared with us:

Farming beans is not very profitable when you consider cost to production.
Facts about farming:
1. You must enrich the land.
    1. It is very expensive

    2. It would be best to use pesticides and fertilizers, but these   are too expensive.
   3. There are always high costs and the profit is always low or non-existent.
2. When the farmer sells the corn, the price is always low.
   1. 100 pounds of corn costs 60 cordobas ($3.50) to grow.  With labor and other harvesting costs, the farmer needs to get 140 cordobas to make it worth the farmer's time. 
3. Coffee and cattle are more productive than corn or beans.
4. Twenty percent of the farmers use compost for fertilizer.

"Don" Luis' life story:

When he was born, his family lived on the land of a private farmer.  His parents worked on that farm.  As he grew, he started a family and worked hard to maintain his family in the same area.  When he was a young man he asked his father to buy land for them to farm.  All the family within a three days' journey of the mountains bought and worked the land.  He felt free to work his own space.

In 1979, the year the revolution began, he had the ability to support his own family.  He farmed corn, coffee, and cattle in the mountains.  When the war started he had to be involved in the conflict. So, he had to be on a side. He had to leave his family.  His young children helped his wife during the  six years of the conflict that he fought as a Contra.  People in the area of the conflict had to be re-settled from time to time.  His family was moved to Maleconcito while he stayed in the mountains to fight.

In 1990 the war was over, but there were still disagreements.  He and his family were reunited in Maleconcito and they worked hard, starting from nothing.  All they had in 1979 was lost as a result of the war.  But "Don" Luis always thanks God, Creator, because "He has been helping me a lot."

He has been working the land with love.  It is hard to support his family of five children, two girls and three boys and seventeen grandchildren.  There were twelve children in his family of birth.  Two of them died in childhood.  Ten are still alive.  His mother died, and his father, 87, lives in another area.

He currently has eight milking cows, one bull, two steers and one horse.  He has about thirty montana's of land.  One montana = a square, 100 meters on a side.

They farm beans by clearing the land, plowing (using oxen and a wooden plow), and planting.  It is two months from planting to harvest.  They pull the beans, dry the beans and separate the beans from the chaff using wind.  They eat and sell the beans they grow.  The harvest we made today was a good harvest.  One montana of land can produce twenty 100-pound sacks of beans.  They rotate their crops between corn and beans.

Don Luis has been working with organizations that help communities.  One has been CEPAD.  When CEPAD started forming Commissions, he became a part of CEPAD's Commission for the area serving Maleconcito.  In this way he has helped people solve conflicts from the war.  He has served as a mediator, helping the community and people to see they do not need to be in conflict anymore.

When he returned from the war, he worked the land to feed his family.  He helped other people as often as he could.  He always felt it important to see the needs of people in the community.

When we talk of the war, there are lots of scars.  The political system in Nicaragua is conflicted today.  After the war, Nicaraguans no longer see each other as brother and sister.  Sometimes people are not even able to have family relationships.

Different organizations, schools, The European Union, FISE, CEPAD and others have helped after the war.  CEPAD helps to strengthen community life.  As we learn to care for resources it gets better.  The Kilambe Reserve has been formed to help protect the mountains.  They are seeking to find more effective ways to take the water from the mountains to cisterns to make clean water available to the people.

His best childhood memory is the way he was raised.  It was a difficult environment.  It was cold.   In this environment you have to suffer some.  Sometimes he had to cover himself with dirt bags or plastic bags to stay warm.  But, "we were happy as brothers living together.  We were happy and nice to each other.  We were raised with a lot of love and that gave me the strength to make it when times have been difficult.  In childhood I could not get to school.  My mother taught me.  She put a lot of faith in me.  I still have scars from my mother punishing me when I did not get it.  When I was not learning, my parents sent me to the fields when I was young.  I worked hard and felt/feel good about it.  My level of school went to the third level thanks to radio education."

Future Goals:

- Help friends get coffee to market effectively.

- Hold Community Association meetings at the Community Center.

Most of the families in Maleconcito do not have land to work.  Of those that do, 50% of the crop goes to the landowners, 25% to market, and 25% to the family.

Hurricane Mitch: Some houses in Maleconcito were flooded, but not very many.

"Don" Luis was born on August 19, 1952.  He is currently 53 years old.  He feels strong and desires to keep working.  "We say, ?The skin gets old, but the spirit is always young.'  This is a poor community.  For me, I diversify to have income to sustain family.  My profit might be 10% of my gross.  A family with only one crop is in a situation that is very complicated.  Most of these people are in debt and many lose their land.  When people have nothing to do here, they migrate to the city.
"I am a servant of the Lord and a delegate of the Catholic Church here.  I found the Lord, not in the air, but in my brothers and neighbors."

Thursday, Feb 16 (Louise and Jim)

At our guest's house we awoke with usual rooster's crowing and music from the Corn Grinding House across street.  The music was apparently lowered in volume due to the directions from Don Luis.   Don Luis had been informed by our host about the previous morning when the loud music became our 5:00 clock AM wake up call.

We met at the meeting house for breakfast consisting of corn flakes, watermelon slices, juice, toast, and of course, rice and beans.

After breakfast some of us were allowed to sit on a beautiful white horse belonging to Don Luis for a photo opportunity. At 9:30, we loaded up in two 4-wheel drive pick up trucks for a one and half hour ride to the mountains. We visited a coffee plantation at El Diamante Mountain. Our host and family talked about the process of coffee beans. We picked coffee beans from the plants for five minutes. A new experience for most. The next step in the process, the beans are run through a machine that removes the chaff (outer part of the bean) which is then used for fertilizer.

This organic coffee process uses less water by soaking the beans twelve to thirty hours. The good beans sink to the bottom and the beans that float are used for the community. These plantation owners do not have the necessary equipment to roast the beans. They bag it whole or ground and send it to a coffee broker, where it is then distributed to dealers who then ship to other countries.  Due to overhead, the Nicaraguan coffee farmers do not make a fair price for their hard work. We had sandwiches and cokes for lunch, and tasted fresh made local coffee in little glass cups (tasas). Solomon Alfredo told us of the problems making a living in the farm. Hal offered to check into the possibly of getting the coffee marketed in the U.S. (no promises made). 

After lunch we drove to the Coco River.  We all got into a panga (long canoe) and, with 23 people in the boat,  cruised about the river. The river is beautiful and quite shallow in most places. The boat felt "tippy" to several of us. We figured we could probably wade if we actually capsized. They use these boats to transport people and goods across the river. The Coco River runs north east from where we were along the border with Honduras to the Caribbean. After the ride we had snacks and drinks at the local cantina and visited with each other until about 4:00 o'clock.

On our way back we saw a beautiful rainbow in the sky. Church was cancelled again tonight.  We packed up for the trip back to CEPAD. We had dinner a six. We had meat stew, rice, beans, yucca root, cheese, tortillas and fruit. Louise shared her pictures of her cats with the children and they had a lot of fun.  A few of our group visited a "Catholic" church with their host family.  It turned out to be an ecumenical service, not Catholic. The rest of us discussed the things we liked and disliked about our study book. In essence, we discussed our understanding of the terms "Third World", "Margin", "Solidarity". We also discussed our experiences on this trip and discussed what we would like to do next year.

Larry received two letters from Don Luis: one regarding the need of help for the coffee farmers, and the other thanking us and expressing a need for help in finishing a partially built church.

We met again with Don Luis's family and heard more about their situation and that of their country. They also asked about our stories. We were also able to say a little of our thoughts about the people of Nicaragua. It was a special time for all of us. A nice ending to a busy day.

Friday, Feb 17 (Ron Ury)

Friday, Feb 17, we packed up our stuff and got ready for the long drive back to Managua. I asked Carmelo to talk to our hostess, Irma, about the possibility of our finding a way to help make it possible for their high school age children to go to high school in Wiwili. Hal and I agreed to try and support them with about $1.50 a day for the high school term. We hope we will be able to work out the logistics of finances and communication with their remote area through CEPAD. Our bus trip back to Managua was long, bumpy, but uneventful, with mostly beautiful scenery most of the way. Traffic going into Managua was clogged, making a bad day on the 405 Freeway look relatively good. 

That evening, we met with Doug Orbaker, a CEPAD coordinator, and US citizen, who has been in Nicaragua for 2 years. Doug began by reading "Oscar Romero's Prayer", a moving start to our session. (Oscar Romero was the Catholic Arch Bishop of El Salvador who was gunned down as he was giving mass in a chapel in 1980.) Doug told us more about CEPAD's work in Nicaragua and received our feedback and impressions about our time in Nicaragua.

Saturday, Feb 18 (Larry Hixon)

After a semi restful sleep in the beds at Nehemiah Group House, (a beauty contest was taking place at the Holiday Inn next door where they must have borrowed the sound system from the Rose Bowl), we greeted the "cultural" day with anticipation.

One of the sad tasks was to say good by to our guide and translator Carmelo Porta, partners@cepad.org.ni. His knowledge, humor and kind ways were greatly appreciated. He had been with us from the beginning!

We welcomed a couple of new passengers for the day's journey- Doug Orbaker's wife Penn (from Pennsylvania) and her visiting sister Beth from Venice Beach CA. Carolina and Doug were to be our leaders for the day. First stop was Volcanic Masaya National Park, one of the most visible active volcanoes in the country, featuring several naked, gaping craters and a constant stream of sulfurous gas, visible from as far away as the airport in Managua. The crater and its unique environs boast a visitor center, nature museum, hiking trails and a road all the way to the dramatic abyss, which the Spaniards declared to be the very gates of hell.
(Masaya is one of more than 40 volcanoes in Nicaragua, six of which have been active in the last 100 years. Masaya is one of only 4 volcanoes in the world with a constant pool of lava. Since 1995, it has put out as much as 400 tons of sulphur a day. Awesome is a descriptive word that barely begins to describe Masaya.)

One of the more unique experiences of the day was the boat ride on lake Nicaragua to view a number of the small islands (365 in the archipelago near Granada).  (Lake Nicaragua is vast, with a length of 96 miles and width of 39 miles. Think of a body of water whose length is about 4 times the distance from San Pedro to Catalina and whose width 1.5 times the S.P. to Catalina distance. While the lake is as close as 11 miles to the Pacific, it's outlet river, the San Juan, runs 114 miles to the Caribbean.) Arrangements were made so we could stop at one of the islands, swim (once again Keith made the biggest splash!) and have a fish lunch. The islands were formed when Volcano Mombacho erupted some 20,000 years ago, hurling its top half into the nearby lake in giant masses of rock, ash, and lava.

Today, the islands are inhabited by a few hundred campesinos and an ever-increasing number of wealthy Nicaraguans and foreigners who continue to buy up the isletas for their expensive vacation homes. After the leisurely lunch we motored back to the "mainland" going a different way- passed a small island with a number of monkeys! The island vegetation and wild life was unique and beautiful.

Our next stop was Granada. It is at once both the oldest city on the continent and the most developed tourist destination in Nicaragua. It is a fascinating city- full of bright colors, violent history, lake breezes and the sounds (and smells) of hose drawn carriages. We stopped at the square and spent some time enjoying the ambience of the city.

One of the treats of the afternoon was an hour and fifteen-minute "shopping spree" at the Masaya Mercado Viejo, built in 1891, most recently refurbished in 1997. It appears to be a successful attempt to convert it into a destination for foreign tourists. The "old Market" is safe, open and comfortable. There wasn't enough time (or interest?) in spending a whole lot of money, but its always interesting to see what members of the group buy.
Little did we realize we were headed for an LA type traffic rush hour as we traveled back to Managua, but so it turned out. We did a quick turnaround at "home" and went out to supper at the "local" pizza place. Excellent pizza! Don Shelton said he would be glad to come back to Nicaragua just for the pizza!

We did have a "summary" session back at NGH where we did some group details plus:

1. Discussed the requests from "Don" Louis- the need for $10,000 truck to help the organic coffee growers co-op and $10,000 to finish building the church he is related to.

2. Brain stormed the naming of this annual Central American connection effort.

3. Reported the membership of CEPAD with the Southern California Ecumenical Council and what that might mean in the future.

4. Committed the placement of this journal on at least two websites hoping that others might be encouraged to relate to CEPAD.
         
Sunday, Feb 19, (Ron Ury)

Sunday, Feb 19, we loaded our gear on the pickup truck, ourselves in the bus, said a final good-bye, and headed to the Managua Airport where we arrived about 7:00 AM. Our 2 plus hour flight to Miami went smoothly, we made our connections, and arrived at LAX about 4:30 PM. All of us were grateful to have returned home without accident, injury, or illness. (Note: Diarrhea doesn't count as illness).

Thoughts and Conclusions,  (Ron Ury)

The first thought that comes to mind is a feeling of appreciation and thanks for the people of CEPAD who did an excellent job of getting us around, translating, and making sure we didn't get into some kind of trouble. These people include: Pyllo, our intrepid bus driver, Carmelo and Carolina, our guides and translators for most of the week, and Doug, our guide and translator the last day. These feelings of appreciation and thanks are given also, (perhaps with even more feeling because of their circumstances,) to Luis and our various hosts and hostesses in Maleconcito, several of whom gave up their beds for us and welcomed us so openly.

The children seem, for the most part, well fed, healthy, and happy. It still seems miraculous to me that houses without indoor plumbing produce sparkling clean children wearing beautiful pink or white dresses and white shirts for school. The hard physical life of the people shows up at middle age, where the women especially, appear tired and worn.

This trip, the 6th for me to Central America, was again, a unique experience. The problems in Nicaragua seem overwhelming. If we crunch some of the Nicaragua statistics mentioned above, the statistic of 3.2% population growth, if sustained, gives us a doubling of population about every 23 years. In other words, by the time the small children we met reach my age (70), the population of Nicaragua will have grown from about 5 million to something approaching 40 million. WOW again.

As always, I left Central America with a strong feeling that somehow more continuity in our support and our relationships with the people we meet is needed. Somehow, it isn't enough to get acquainted and do some odd jobs for a few days and then leave forever. I hope our intention to make it possible for a couple of kids to attend high school works out. In any case, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems in Nicaragua and get into a negative funk and do nothing. At this point, I can't help but think that Oscar Romero's "prayer" that Doug read to us on Friday evening, says more eloquently than anything else I can imagine, the situation for all of us, no matter what our condition in life.

Here it is: Prayer of Archbishop Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that should be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.  AMEN