Nicaragua, day eleven
Today we ate pancakes! That was SO exciting! I’ve never been so excited for pancakes in my life, but after a week of rice and beans and eggs with platano for breakfast, pancakes were another bit of heaven. It’s funny what you miss from your culture. I’m definitely going to make chocolate chip cookies when I get back!
We basically had a huge process group for Nicaragua today. First we heard from a couple ex-LASP students and then we debriefed in mini process groups (except business) about our week.
We found 4 central themes within our group of people that were priorities for the Nicaraguans: 1) Family, 2) Community, 3) Tranquila/contentment and 4) Survival. It was neat to put it in concise terms and then our questions that we would carry with us were about priorities – where do we hold priorities and where should we? Also, they were about what our responsibility should be as business students for the future? Everyone else did presentations and one of the things that struck me was when Megan talked about mixing and appreciating both cultures – both of hers from the U.S. and from these different places she’s visiting. It was the first time that I realized that I didn’t have to entirely ditch my culture, but again, I could take the good from it and toss the bad – the same that I could do with these other things I was seeing. It almost gave me permission to be okay with being an American…
After that, we went to Masaya again to buy gifts and then headed back to Cepad Nehemias hostel to be one more night. At the hostel, we had a speaker from Cuba who addressed a lot of different things, but I especially learned a lot about Machismo. First of all, I never thought about it as a worldwide phenomenon. She explained it biologically and socially and culturally, which made a lot more sense. Apparently, it’s common for people in Nicaragua to have babies around 13 or 14, which I could never even imagine! I’ve also never noticed that Jesus was a man and we think of God the Father – all images of men. But when she said that, I started to think that all the male attributes like justice and wrath and vengeance and discipline, I tend to put into the Father. All the female attributes of compassion and mercy and love and kindness, I tend to put in Jesus. So, one of the reasons that I never felt that I was lacking either Father or Mother in God is because all attributes are represented in the trinity. Very interesting for me. The Holy Spirit has always been very a-sexual because we never really see a reference of sex that much. It’s always “the spirit” which I see more of like a conscience almost. It’s funny how we see things like that…
Afterwards, we went to a cultural sharing activity where we heard choirs and watched dances and we sang a bit for them as well. It was beautiful to watch the dancing and I taped a bit of it, cause it was just amazing. The dresses were incredible, as well as the movements of the girls! During the concert, these three little boys were in front of us, asking questions and telling us how they wanted to marry us and how they thought gringas were so beautiful. It was really quite adorable. They were fascinated by my camera and just wanted to be around us. Later on they came and sat with us and then asked if I could buy them a book of poetry. It wasn’t very expensive and since I’d realized earlier on in the week that gifts were a sign of affection, I of course purchased the book for them. They were so excited and so adorable. One was named Luis and the other Alberto – the other one was shy and sorta ran away, so I never got his name. They were just so precious, asking questions and running and telling their friends things and then coming back to sit with all the gringos – oh, so fun. This was the first time that it felt more like a movie-star type situation. But it was so fun to just be with the little boys – I’ve decided I’m going to have all boys when I’m a mom. (We’ll see what the Lord says about that!)
We basically had a huge process group for Nicaragua today. First we heard from a couple ex-LASP students and then we debriefed in mini process groups (except business) about our week.
We found 4 central themes within our group of people that were priorities for the Nicaraguans: 1) Family, 2) Community, 3) Tranquila/contentment and 4) Survival. It was neat to put it in concise terms and then our questions that we would carry with us were about priorities – where do we hold priorities and where should we? Also, they were about what our responsibility should be as business students for the future? Everyone else did presentations and one of the things that struck me was when Megan talked about mixing and appreciating both cultures – both of hers from the U.S. and from these different places she’s visiting. It was the first time that I realized that I didn’t have to entirely ditch my culture, but again, I could take the good from it and toss the bad – the same that I could do with these other things I was seeing. It almost gave me permission to be okay with being an American…
After that, we went to Masaya again to buy gifts and then headed back to Cepad Nehemias hostel to be one more night. At the hostel, we had a speaker from Cuba who addressed a lot of different things, but I especially learned a lot about Machismo. First of all, I never thought about it as a worldwide phenomenon. She explained it biologically and socially and culturally, which made a lot more sense. Apparently, it’s common for people in Nicaragua to have babies around 13 or 14, which I could never even imagine! I’ve also never noticed that Jesus was a man and we think of God the Father – all images of men. But when she said that, I started to think that all the male attributes like justice and wrath and vengeance and discipline, I tend to put into the Father. All the female attributes of compassion and mercy and love and kindness, I tend to put in Jesus. So, one of the reasons that I never felt that I was lacking either Father or Mother in God is because all attributes are represented in the trinity. Very interesting for me. The Holy Spirit has always been very a-sexual because we never really see a reference of sex that much. It’s always “the spirit” which I see more of like a conscience almost. It’s funny how we see things like that…
Afterwards, we went to a cultural sharing activity where we heard choirs and watched dances and we sang a bit for them as well. It was beautiful to watch the dancing and I taped a bit of it, cause it was just amazing. The dresses were incredible, as well as the movements of the girls! During the concert, these three little boys were in front of us, asking questions and telling us how they wanted to marry us and how they thought gringas were so beautiful. It was really quite adorable. They were fascinated by my camera and just wanted to be around us. Later on they came and sat with us and then asked if I could buy them a book of poetry. It wasn’t very expensive and since I’d realized earlier on in the week that gifts were a sign of affection, I of course purchased the book for them. They were so excited and so adorable. One was named Luis and the other Alberto – the other one was shy and sorta ran away, so I never got his name. They were just so precious, asking questions and running and telling their friends things and then coming back to sit with all the gringos – oh, so fun. This was the first time that it felt more like a movie-star type situation. But it was so fun to just be with the little boys – I’ve decided I’m going to have all boys when I’m a mom. (We’ll see what the Lord says about that!)
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