The Healing Power of Television

A few years ago, after hosting dozens of groups in Nicaragua, Kathleen decided to stop listening in on our delgations’ evening reflections.  She explained her decision to me by saying, “If I hear one more person ask, ‘If they’re so poor, why do they have a television?’ I’m afraid I may do someone bodily harm.” 

Kathleen has enough experience to know that TV is a top priority for the poor, and she understands something that never occurs to those of us who’ve always had enough: poverty is boring.  Really boring.  And if you are worried about where your next meal is coming from, or whether or not gang members will break into your house tonight, or how you will come up with bus fare to get to a medical appointment, it’s hard to stop the compulsive worry about things you can’t fix.  That’s why patients at our clinic so commonly suffer from hypertension, acid reflux, insomnia…when you’re stresses are literally matters of life and death, a little distraction goes a long way, and those that can turn to the healing power of television.

My husband and I have chosen not to have a television in the house.  Like many others of our age and middle class background, we strive to spend our family time at home reading and playing with our kids instead.  Let’s be clear though, we’re not that virtuous.  If it weren’t for the miracle of downloadable TV and movies, we’d definitely have a TV. Frankly, our access to internet and computers gives us the luxury of pretending to be holier-than-thou, when in effect we’re just getting all the good TV without the distraction of ads.  And sometimes, even a little bit of not-so-good TV is exactly what the doctor ordered.

My friend Martha is dying of cancer. It’s a hard thing to watch when it happens to anyone, but it’s especially hard because Martha is so young, because she has a beautiful and talented 10-year-old daughter, because she’s still so full of life, and because she’s suffering so much.  In the middle of a chat, Martha will frequently be taken over by a pain spell that makes giving birth look like a walk in the park, yet she refuses morphine because she says that’s for dead people. I come home after a visit with Martha and my mind is racing, worrying about things that it does absolutely no good to worry about because there’s so little to be done. I’m distracted, I’m having trouble sleeping, and my jaw feels like I spent the night gnawing on a hunk of old Hubba Bubba. If I feel this way as a friend watching from the fringes, what must Martha and her family be going through? 

I rarely find myself with time alone at home, and when I do, I am usually washing clothes or desperately trying to rescue my garden from whatever has tried to eat it since I glanced at it last week.  Yesterday I found myself with a few hours alone and I started off by trying to get lots of things done.  But I was mulling and stewing and imagining conversations with people I’d really like to give a good talking to.  It was clearly unhealthy to be left to my own devices.  So I turned on “Modern Family,” a show that my TV snob of an Irish husband claims is unbelievable melodramatic fluff about rich people.  He’s absolutely right…and it was wonderful. I watched not one episode, but many, many episodes in a row.  I thought not once about things beyond my control, but allowed myself to get caught up in the story, shake my head, laugh out loud.  I desperately needed a distraction, and the TV gave me some relief.

Martha didn’t grow up with a TV.  Her family was too poor to afford a television and she tells stories of standing outside the neighbor’s house watching their TV through the window.  She bounced from house to house during childhood and survived in situations that would have torn a weaker woman apart.  She’s worked hard to give her daughter a better life, and last week Martha bought her a television. In a household where sometimes they scramble to buy food, where I bring them gifts of q-tips and gauze to clean her kidney drain, Martha bought her daughter a television.

Looking in from the outside, we might ask the question Kathleen dreads the most: If she’s so poor, why did she buy a television?  But I have the privilege to see a little ways into Martha’s life with her daughter, and for me, the picture changes: When a 10 year old’s world is falling apart, when all of her stability has been pulled right out from under her and there’s not a damn thing she can do about it and there’s not a damn thing any one of us can do to stop it from happening, she needs a little distraction.  Maybe she needs to laugh at idiotic cartoons.  Maybe she needs to lose herself for a little while in the fantasy worlds created in that black box.  Maybe losing herself for a little while will give her the strength she needs to face what’s surely ahead of her.  If I were one to judge, I would say that Martha’s given her daughter a very valuable gift indeed.  I would say that Martha is a very good mother.  – Becca

Media Circus in the Cotton Fields

It’s planting time in Nicaragua and the organic farmers are doing LOTS of planting!  There is the usual acreage of sesame (our farmers are the No. 1 exporters of sesame – conventional or organic! – in the country!), more than 1,000 acres of organic peanuts being planted for our project with Once Again Nut Butter, and more than 400 acres of organic cotton.   

Last week we took a potential cotton buyer out into the field to see cotton seed being put in the ground, and boy did we get a show!  We’ve taken buyers out to cotton fields before – most notably Bená Burda of Maggie’s Organics when she was getting footage for the filming the video “Fabric of Humanity.”  So I’m used to overwhelming farmers in the fields with cameras rolling and interview requests while they’re trying to plow with oxen under a hot sun, and last week the tables were turned on us!

We arrived in the Malpaisillo area, where we work with 4 different co-ops – 3 of which are women’s co-ops – to meet with a co-op of organic farmers who are growing cotton for the first time this year.  The minute we stepped out of the truck, the co-op’s president was greeting us in his ratty straw hat and smiling for the cameras – his cameras!  The co-op had videographer and photographer team on-site to capture our visit for their own propaganda (much to our surprise), and for the next two hours proceeded to march us from one site to another in a well-choreographed media moment. 

We saw new cotton plants coming up in the field, chatted under a tree about the importance of organics for the co-op – they told the story of how when agronomist Raúl first began working with them they were burning their cow manure which is now their most valuable fertilizer.  Mike and our client talked on camera with many people: the most-experienced member of the co-op, the oldest member of the co-op, and definitely the most media savvy member of the co-op.  Meanwhile, I stayed in the background taking pictures of them taking pictures and chuckling, delighted to find myself on the other side of the fence as their videographer, photographer and two co-op members with cell phone cameras recorded the day’s activities.

The pièce de resistance came at the end of the visit when they brought us out to a field to see them planting cotton with a mechanized planting contraption that they had invented themselves.  To say that the farmers were proud of this contrivance would be putting it mildly – they were bursting by the time we got out to the field! Because our organic cotton seed has a lot of fiber left on it, it sticks together in clumps, making it impossible to plant using a mechanized planter pulled behind a tractor.  

While most of our co-ops plow with oxen and all the others plant cotton seed by hand, this co-op has several tractors and wanted to make use of their resources.  So they attached four metal wheels behind a tractor with a bench.  Four men sit on the bench and drop the cotton seed by hand into the ground, then the wheel rolls it under the dirt.  Simple, effective, faster…a truly appropriate technology!

And next time I go out to the fields, I must remember to fix my hair in case they bring out the cameras!  – Becca

U.S. denies aid, Nicaragua threatens to expel US AID

Last week, the U.S. State Department made a decision that will effectively deny Nicaragua $12 million in aid this year.  Now, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries are considering expelling US AID. What is going on here?

U.S. Ambassador in Nicaragua, Phyllis Powers

Each year, in order to receive bilateral aid from the U.S. and for the U.S. to give the green light for World Bank, IMF and Interamerican Development Bank loans – which make up a large portion of the Nicaraguan budget – Nicaragua must be granted two waivers by the U.S. State Department.  These waivers, which indicate that a country has complied with certain conditions, are mandated by U.S. law for aid to continue. One waiver, the one that the U.S. denied Nicaragua last week, indicates that the country has sufficient transparency and governability.  The second waiver has to do with land disputes involving U.S. citizens or companies in Nicaragua: the country must prove to U.S. satisfaction that it is making progress resolving property cases involving U.S. citizens or it will be denied the property waiver and another chunk of bilateral aid.

According to the State Department, the U.S. has denied the first waiver this year due to insufficient transparency of public finances.  In particular, Nicaragua receives money from the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA – member countries include Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia) which is not built-in to the government budget because it is administered by bi-national and private agencies.  These funds are, however, included in Nicaragua’s balance of payment statement, which has satisfied IMF and World Bank oversight.  Though there is discord even within Nicaragua about the accounting of ALBA funds, but this has been the case since 2007, and the waiver has always been granted.  What has changed this year? 

Ros-Lehtinen

For one, there is growing pressure being exerted in the U.S. by extreme anti-Cuban factions – including the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Obama’s recently appointed Latin American policy adviser Ricardo Zúñiga.  Ros-Lehtinen, Zúñiga and others like them are threatened by ALBA’s strong alliance with Cuba – since ALBA is financed mainly by Venezuela, it’s no surprise that they would target ALBA funds in Nicaragua, which continues to have strong ties with Cuba.

Additionally, the U.S. was displeased with last year’s Presidential elections when the opposition was unable to beat Ortega, and with the country heading into municipal elections this year, it’s possible that the State Department is hoping to give the opposition a push in November by denying the waiver.

But the waiver issue is not really about how transparent or how democratic Nicaragua – or any other country – is or is not.  Because international aid is not about helping poor countries improve their situations.  As Nicaraguan economist Carlos Pacheco likes to remind our delegations: It’s about politics.  Conditional aid – from the U.S. or any other country – is the carrot that precedes the stick of military might.  

Here’s an example: In the past four years, a handful of European countries have withdrawn aid, citing Nicaragua’s eroding “democracy” and “institutionality” as the reason.  Some speculate that Europe’s own deteriorating economy is really to blame, but more probably it has to do with who will control the African continent.  Historically, Europe has controlled Africa, first through colonialism, and now through the neo-colonial carrot of conditional aid.  Lately, however, China is pouring money into Africa, and Europe fears that the Chinese will gain control of the giant continent in its own backyard.  In order to better concentrate on keeping a hold on Africa, they are withdrawing from Latin America, Nicaragua included.

From my perspective, if the U.S. wants to influence politics in another country – as all countries do – fine, but don’t call it aid.  Sending aid that is earmarked for healthcare (Nicaragua will lose healthcare funding with the waiver denial) only when a country meets certain political conditions is wrong.    Not only is it wrong, but it also ineffective.  Will the waiver denial push Nicaragua to make better decisions about budget transparency and improve U.S. – Nicaragua relations?  Quite the opposite. 

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega

Nicaraguans of all stripes – even fervent critics of Daniel Ortega and his administration – are absolutely up in arms over what they see as U.S. interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs.  For hundreds of years, Nicaragua has been at the mercy of the whims of politicians in the U.S., and they are tired of it.  This weekend, President Ortega responded to the waiver denial by saying, “From this moment on, they can forget about Nicaragua making institutional political decisions while being subjected to blackmail and pressure. We’ll make decisions when the people decide.”  His typically anti-imperialist response has drawn criticism from moderate sectors in the country, but it also struck a chord in the region: all ALBA countries are currently considering expelling US AID.  “What lessons of morality and social treatment are the Yankees coming here to teach us?” He asked, “At the end of the day, they see the Nicaraguan people as enemies, because for them if the Nicaraguan people are a dignified people that defend their sovereignty, their self-determination, their independence, then they are enemies.”  -- Becca

They yanked our eyes open & showed us how to live

Dr. Margaret Cubine with Sarah, 2009

Yesterday as my good friend Marilyn was burying her father, our Seminary theology professor Dr. Dill Allison, we learned that our Bible professor from college had also died.  These two deaths have left a hole in our hearts.

Dr. Margaret Cubine was one of our Bible professors in college.  She was the “odd” one.  She smoked then and she would sit back in her chair and puff on her cigarette and challenge us to really think of the messages in the Bible…not the comfortable ones we had learned in Sunday School growing up, but messages of justice; and she challenged us to think more broadly – or as they like to say now – to think “outside the box.” 

She took many students – including Sarah, Mike, and me – on a “Riches to Poverty Tour” of Atlanta.  We started with the wealthy homes and then in the course of a day worked ourselves to the ghettos of Atlanta where we stayed the weekend learning and having our eyes yanked wide open.

Dr. Allison taught Mike and me theology.  We argued with him over many of Calvin’s ideas…John Calvin, the one on whom Dill wrote his dissertation.  We argued predestination and what that means.  I remember writing a paper claiming that maybe we were predestined to live lives in service, but God would not predestine souls to hell.  Dill cleared his throat and shoved his glasses up on his nose and said, “Well, maybe Calvin went too far there.” 

Dr. Dill Allison teaching class

With our eyes opened – thanks to Margaret – Dill encouraged us to work for change through a course on liberation theology…in the 1970s…in South Carolina, no less!  We read Rosemary Reuther, Mary Daley, James Cone, and Gustavo Gutierrez.  We were challenged to not only look at poverty and recognize the pain and injustice there, but see that because of our faith it is imperative to address poverty and injustice and work to change them.

And look where we ended up.  Taking our youngest son to school, we leave poverty to go to an area of wealthy homes up on the ridge surrounding Managua, and then back to the poverty of Ciudad Sandino.  We live in the only country where liberation theology strongly influenced government policies in the 1980s…though its influence on policy is now seldom seen.  The challenges Margaret and Dill set before us are still in our hearts.  They showed us sides of the Divine and sides of humanity that in turn showed us how to live.

We would be different people…lesser people without them.

Here, many call on the presence of those fallen in times of death by saying:

Margaret Cubine 

   ¡Presente!

                                                              

Dill Allison   

   ¡Presente!

And we thank you, our dear teachers. – Kathleen

Breathing Room

As someone who has asthma, let me assure you that breathing is NOT over rated!  It is frightening to gasp for breath.  On Easter I ended up in the hospital because my breathing was horribly difficult.  The harder I tried to breathe, the more afraid I became, which makes breathing that much harder.

When I went to the hospital we just got in a car and drove for 40 minutes…THAT was frightening enough for me.   In Nueva Vida, when a child has a severe asthma attack, the father most often has to put the child on a bike and ride to the hospital in Ciudad Sandino.  This is dangerous.  Nueva Vida has five gangs and they come out like vampires after the sun goes down.  In February, they beat Pedro’s son to death and last week stabbed to death a friend of our clinic staff.  It is extremely dangerous.

We have identified over 400 children in Nueva Vida with asthma.

Our asthma program has expanded due to a grant through Boston College.  We have place nebulizers in homes of health promoters so that parents can try to manage the crisis within the community; therefore, not have to leave the dangerous barrio to go to the hospital.  Through this program we have four support groups for parents to share with each other and learn from our nurse. 

We have an excellent brochure to teach parents about when to use inhalers and when to go to the hospital.  It also shows pictures of what triggers asthma, thanks to a student at BC.  AND we have cortisone inhalers to prevent or reduce greatly asthma attacks.  We are the ONLY clinic that offers these inhalers in Nueva Vida.  Prevention is what is needed.

We work with parents to help them change or cope with their environment as they can to reduce asthma attacks…there are so many triggers: smoking in the home (47% of the adult population smokes!); poorly ventilated wood burning cook stoves (many older women suffer from emphysema but have never smoked a cigarette!); burning of trash outside every home once or twice a day; dust in the dry season; mold in the rainy season; and the neighboring city dump that burns its trash including toxic plastics (the smokes billows through Nueva Vida).  It is no wonder even a 3-week-old baby came to the clinic having problems breathing!  

Can you imagine having a child grasping for breath?

Now add:  needing to grab your bike or walk 2 miles to the hospital?  

Now add:  having to first leave your home and hope that a gang of young men who are on drugs will not decide to take your bike or rob you or knife you?  It is unthinkable…yet, so very, very real.

This Father’s Day, give the fathers of Nueva Vida peace of mind by preventing their children from having an asthma attack…give a gift in honor of your father to our asthma program…for $25 we can buy preventive inhalers to aid a child for 6 months.  For $40 we can buy a nebulizer to put in the home of a child who is affected with asthma.   Go to www.jhc-cdca.org/helpFD.html 

-Kathleen