Nicaragua, day seven
Today I went to Mass with Clorlinda & Jose (grandparents), Tomasa (cousin) & Rosa (aunt). It was pretty interesting – I took some pictures and attempted to sing some songs and then watched the priest give communion to everyone. They have Mass for 25 minutes every other week, which was interesting. I was thinking about the fact that church is much more about community than the actual practices (like singing and learning). Since they already have the community around them that takes care of them, they don’t really need another one – that makes church more of a place for them to do stuff they can’t do on their own, like communion.
Something else I noticed is that instead of saying “hola” or “hello” to everyone you pass by along the road, you say “adios” or “goodbye”. I thought that made much more sense, especially if you’re not going to really stop and talk to them and you have to keep going. That’d be a nice little signal in the States… say “hello” if you can stop and chat and “goodbye” if you have to hurry and get to your location. Though from what I’ve seen of Latin America, even if you have to hurry and get to your location, you still make time to sit and chat.
Afterwards, my aunt invited me to go to school with her, which I wasn’t sure what for, but I figured it’d be interesting. We went and watched some people discussing things and since I couldn’t really hear them, she had to explain everything to me. Apparently, the community pays dues every week to help other people in the community afford to build houses that they don’t have. Then, after the people build their house, they start paying back how much it cost little by little. Their vision is to have everyone in sturdy houses by the end. This totally surprised me and I thought it was an incredibly advanced idea – it seems again to be “necessity is the mother of invention”. Since the government is not going to help them out, they’re going to figure out a way to survive better! I think our own states/cities could learn a lot from this… I wonder if any of the poorer cities in the U.S. have anything like this. Maybe I could help to implement something?
Afterwards, we got ready to go to the birthday party of my other sister. I didn’t realize I was going till later, but luckily I had already bought a present! Since this seemed to be very important, I made sure to do that… We went to the party a little late (which was nice) and then ate some food and talked a little bit. I met a TON of family and a few neighbors. Afterwards, with all my dancing lessons under my belt, we danced! We must’ve danced for almost 2 hours – girls and girls, guys and girls, everyone together… it was awesome. We danced Reggaeton and Cumbia and Merengue, and it was ridiculously hot. I was so sweaty that my hair was completely wet with sweat. I felt extremely unattractive, but still all the guys wanted to dance, cause I was the American girl. J Kinda funny, but whatever. It was still really fun. And it’s not like how it seems in the States where dancing is just foreplay in clubs – it’s really dancing just to have a good time. The most we touched was hands to spin in circles or something like that. I wonder if I just have a bad image of clubs because I’ve never been to one… it makes me want to give it at least one good try to see if I like it… We’ll see!
When it started to rain, as often seems to happen here, we headed back to our house (again, about 50 feet away). DaMaris, Javier and I started talking about the things in my community discovery sheet – about government and public services and how they viewed U.S. culture. It was extremely interesting and very sad at the same time. The government doesn’t seem to ever affect the poorer people in a positive way. Essentially, if someone is really sick and wants to go to the doctor to get help, they have to pay 200 cordobas, or about $12. While $12 isn’t a big deal to us, that’s the equivalent of 2.5 weeks of work for them. So essentially, it would cost people in the U.S. about $750 to go to a doctor one time. This is ridiculous. They were extremely upset at the government especially for putting them in this position. Although they pay taxes, it seems that they never benefit from them. Their roads are made of mud and their electricity goes on and off. What Javier said was that there’s only services to benefit the rich – the people who don’t really need it like they do. This seems to be why family and community is so important for them. If the government’s going to screw them over, then they’re going to take care of themselves.
After talking about a lot of sad government stuff, we also discussed the image of U.S. people and what’s different about those cultures. They said (again) that they see the people of the U.S. as great people – respectful, kind and good. I believed them a bit more since I was their third student and they weren’t just saying things. However, they didn’t like our government too much – though there were definitely mixed feelings. The U.S. has given some money to Nicaragua for projects that have helped Nicaragua. At the same time, they’ve tended to abandon Nicaragua when it’s convenient. For example, they might like to vote for a certain political party that would help the people more, but since it’s not good for U.S. business, the U.S. won’t support Nicaragua unless the people vote for the other party that helps U.S. businesses but doesn’t care for it’s people. That’s frustrating for them, obviously. What good is democracy if you’re voting for your freedom or your stomach? Of course, they tend to choose their stomach.
A funnier thing that my cousin’s family and I discussed was the difference between how we point things out and how they do. They tend to point things out with their lips while we tend to point things out with our eyes or our fingers. You never notice those things till everyone else is doing something different. We both tried to the opposite and had a hilariously difficult time doing them! Yay for crossing cultures… J How fun to do it with a family that is constantly laughing and having a good time. I feel like laughing with people allows you to connect a level more deep than anything else…
Something else I noticed is that instead of saying “hola” or “hello” to everyone you pass by along the road, you say “adios” or “goodbye”. I thought that made much more sense, especially if you’re not going to really stop and talk to them and you have to keep going. That’d be a nice little signal in the States… say “hello” if you can stop and chat and “goodbye” if you have to hurry and get to your location. Though from what I’ve seen of Latin America, even if you have to hurry and get to your location, you still make time to sit and chat.
Afterwards, my aunt invited me to go to school with her, which I wasn’t sure what for, but I figured it’d be interesting. We went and watched some people discussing things and since I couldn’t really hear them, she had to explain everything to me. Apparently, the community pays dues every week to help other people in the community afford to build houses that they don’t have. Then, after the people build their house, they start paying back how much it cost little by little. Their vision is to have everyone in sturdy houses by the end. This totally surprised me and I thought it was an incredibly advanced idea – it seems again to be “necessity is the mother of invention”. Since the government is not going to help them out, they’re going to figure out a way to survive better! I think our own states/cities could learn a lot from this… I wonder if any of the poorer cities in the U.S. have anything like this. Maybe I could help to implement something?
Afterwards, we got ready to go to the birthday party of my other sister. I didn’t realize I was going till later, but luckily I had already bought a present! Since this seemed to be very important, I made sure to do that… We went to the party a little late (which was nice) and then ate some food and talked a little bit. I met a TON of family and a few neighbors. Afterwards, with all my dancing lessons under my belt, we danced! We must’ve danced for almost 2 hours – girls and girls, guys and girls, everyone together… it was awesome. We danced Reggaeton and Cumbia and Merengue, and it was ridiculously hot. I was so sweaty that my hair was completely wet with sweat. I felt extremely unattractive, but still all the guys wanted to dance, cause I was the American girl. J Kinda funny, but whatever. It was still really fun. And it’s not like how it seems in the States where dancing is just foreplay in clubs – it’s really dancing just to have a good time. The most we touched was hands to spin in circles or something like that. I wonder if I just have a bad image of clubs because I’ve never been to one… it makes me want to give it at least one good try to see if I like it… We’ll see!
When it started to rain, as often seems to happen here, we headed back to our house (again, about 50 feet away). DaMaris, Javier and I started talking about the things in my community discovery sheet – about government and public services and how they viewed U.S. culture. It was extremely interesting and very sad at the same time. The government doesn’t seem to ever affect the poorer people in a positive way. Essentially, if someone is really sick and wants to go to the doctor to get help, they have to pay 200 cordobas, or about $12. While $12 isn’t a big deal to us, that’s the equivalent of 2.5 weeks of work for them. So essentially, it would cost people in the U.S. about $750 to go to a doctor one time. This is ridiculous. They were extremely upset at the government especially for putting them in this position. Although they pay taxes, it seems that they never benefit from them. Their roads are made of mud and their electricity goes on and off. What Javier said was that there’s only services to benefit the rich – the people who don’t really need it like they do. This seems to be why family and community is so important for them. If the government’s going to screw them over, then they’re going to take care of themselves.
After talking about a lot of sad government stuff, we also discussed the image of U.S. people and what’s different about those cultures. They said (again) that they see the people of the U.S. as great people – respectful, kind and good. I believed them a bit more since I was their third student and they weren’t just saying things. However, they didn’t like our government too much – though there were definitely mixed feelings. The U.S. has given some money to Nicaragua for projects that have helped Nicaragua. At the same time, they’ve tended to abandon Nicaragua when it’s convenient. For example, they might like to vote for a certain political party that would help the people more, but since it’s not good for U.S. business, the U.S. won’t support Nicaragua unless the people vote for the other party that helps U.S. businesses but doesn’t care for it’s people. That’s frustrating for them, obviously. What good is democracy if you’re voting for your freedom or your stomach? Of course, they tend to choose their stomach.
A funnier thing that my cousin’s family and I discussed was the difference between how we point things out and how they do. They tend to point things out with their lips while we tend to point things out with our eyes or our fingers. You never notice those things till everyone else is doing something different. We both tried to the opposite and had a hilariously difficult time doing them! Yay for crossing cultures… J How fun to do it with a family that is constantly laughing and having a good time. I feel like laughing with people allows you to connect a level more deep than anything else…
posted by Sings in the Sunshine at
5:57 PM
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