A Joyful Noise

Nicaragua sounds like a war zone.  Bang bang bang pop pop pop POW!  Fireworks are going off all day and night...it's December, and we are celebrating! 

It all officially starts with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, called Purísima, this Saturday, and it's the biggest holiday in the country.  Families show their gratitude for miracles that the Virgin Mary has granted them by setting up altars to the Virgin in front of their houses. These altars always have an image of the Virgin Mary, and usually have white baby’s breath flowers arranged with candles, tinsel, lights, and the whole altar is framed in palm fronds.
 

On Saturday the Griteria starts -- literally called "The Shouting." At 6 PM on the dot, homemade mortar launchers are lit and fireworks pierce the air at once, all over the country. Neighbors come to the altars, sing traditional songs to the Virgin, and then are given gifts – it's like Trick-or-Treating with Christmas Carols.  People go from altar to altar "shouting," filling sacks with their bounty: refresco-filled bags, fresh nacatamales and fruit, sugar cane, soap, matches, tupperware and bowls.
 
This year, Managua has been entirely transformed: government ministries and offices have sponsored giant altars lining the main boulevard downtown, and when lit up (together with our new iconic yellow trees) make a spectacular sight. The Managua airport's altar has a beautiful mosaic of Mary in the center, the national Port company's has an actual boat in it, and the altar for the government energy company reads "ENATREL with Mary, joyfully extending Nicaragua's electrical grid!"
 
Some people question why a country as poor as Nicaragua would spend so much time, money and electricity on a religious celebration. In the book Poor Economics, authors say that Third World countries spend more on festivals and celebrations than First World countries, and the reason once again it boils down to something I've mentioned before: poverty is really boring.
 
So imagine! Now, for the price of a bus ticket, Managuans can take their families out to see this spectacle. If you were down there tonight, you would find crowds of very different Nicaraguans enjoying the show, their faces utterly lit up with joy as they pose for pictures with their favorite altars. This festival allows people to forget for a little while the drudgery of the every day, to lose themselves in a little beauty and joy.
 
And it's stimulating the economy -- an entire boulevard full of street vendors is grateful to be doing a booming business all the way through January.
 
This Saturday, as groups of families weave through the streets carrying sacks, stopping at each altar to shout “¿Quién causa tanta alegría? ¡La concepción de María!” “Who causes so much joy? The conception of Mary!” You can be sure that there will indeed be a lot of (very loud) joy. ¡Que viva María! ¡Que viva!  -- Becca

First Candle: Hope

Advent is the season of the Church Year in which Christians celebrate the coming of Christ.  Instead of nine candles in the Menorah, there are five candles in an Advent wreath and each candle stands for some idea, person, or event that differs among the churches. 

Jubilee House Community Advent celebrations 1980s

We hang banners we made in the 1980s with Community members who lived with us then.  They are worn and tattered…and loved.  We try in the wind to light our wax covered Advent wreath and we sing…all sorts of songs at all sorts of tones and volumes. 

Our first banner and candle stand for HOPE.  This works well with Hanukkah…Light is a symbol of hope.  The light at the end of the tunnel.  The candle in the darkness.  The first rays of the sun in the darkest hours of the night. 

Yet…Real Hope is not always found in the light.
 
Real hope comes not from seeing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel...it comes in the darkest of night…it comes in the times of most despair. 

 In the early days of our work with the poor, Mike and I had a seminary professor, Don Coffey, who gave me a piece of advice: “God will accomplish what He wants…just remember it will only be in His time…for example God will say, ‘I am going to break this boulder,’ and then will send a drip.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  In time that boulder will break…it will…but just not in my time or your time.”

And so for ten years we worked with the battered, raped, and homeless in the States.  Drip.  Drip. Drip.  And not a dent in the rock of poverty. 

Photo by Paul Dix

When we moved to Nicaragua in 1994 we desperately needed the hope we had found in the Nicaragua we had visited in the 1980s…they seemed to have taken a sledge hammer to poverty…But in 1994 in the aftermath of the Contra War, we found a whole country of battered and raped people.  Hope was in short supply. 

 But Hope did reside in at least one man, César Fajardo, who despite fighting in the insurrection against Somoza in his teens, investigating human rights violations by his own people in his twenties, and losing his chance of overcoming poverty with the end of the Sandinista Revolution, he still had Hope…enough to believe in our work and become our Director of Projects. 

We work with people who have Hope, who believe that good will win in the end.  And for us when we see real Hope…well we too can only believe… 

The boulder will break.  It will indeed. Hope.                   

-Kathleen

Enough to Keep the Lamps Burning

Hanukkah starts this year on Thanksgiving* eve.  All that most of us know about Hanukkah is that it is a Jewish holiday where gifts are given for eight days, there is a top thing and Jews light candles.
 
Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights and the Feast of Dedication.  It is a remembrance of the revolt of the Maccabean Jews, the reclaiming of the Temple in Jerusalem, and its dedication.
 
The Greek Empire under Antiochus IV conquered and ruled the Jewish people from 175 to 164 BC.  He massacre thousands of Jews, defamed the Temple, made it a place to worship Zeus and tried to eliminate the faith.
 
According to Jewish tradition, the Temple needed purified olive oil to keep the lights constantly burning, but they only had enough for one single day.  The oil miraculously burned for 8 days, the time needed to press and purify more oil.  In other words, it lasted just long enough.
 
Becca wrote a blog about how at this time of year our funds are low.  We start not fixing things; we cut down on non-essential medications, etc.  We start worrying about how we are going to pay our bills.  But like the Maccabean Jews, donations come in to cover just the right amount.
 
It is amazing, really, how the work seems to keep going.  We will get funds to hire someone needed for a year and then fret how we will get the rest of the funds for the next year.  We write grants, we send our requests…and nothing comes, we get turned down.  But somehow we keep paying the bills…never a gusher of oil, but just the right amount to keep the lamps burning.
 
So we celebrate Hanukkah as the Jubilee House Community.  We light candles on our Menorah, sing Light One Candle by Peter Yarrow, and eat dessert every night for eight days.  When we have a Jewish volunteer or family here, they say the prayers in Hebrew.
 
For us, the fact that Hanukkah comes on the eve of Thanksgiving is important, because the funds to carry on do not come out of thin air…they come from you and many people like you who care about others and who care about this work.  We are thankful to you and for you. 
Happy Hanukkah and Happy Thanksgiving
 
-Kathleen
 *Thanksgiving for US citizens

Throwing in Our Lot With You

Today we told Rogelio not to buy doorknobs to replace the broken ones on exam room doors at the clinic, just put hooks and eyes on so that no one can open the door while the doctor is taking a pap smear. 

Yesterday we asked Neville to only take $4 cash to put enough gas in the car to run his errand, we’d fill it up later when we could pay with a credit card.

Tuesday we decided to fix the faucets on only the two most important sinks at the clinic, the other broken faucets will have to wait.

Tomorrow we’ll buy a new fuse to fix broken windshield wipers on the ambulance, but will wait to take it to an electrician to see why fuses keep burning out.

As you can see, we are in a bit of a fix.

Like most non-profits, the majority of our donations come in December, many of them just before the New Year, which makes the holidays a happy time, but… 

…unfortunately, most of our expenses don’t come in January, they all seem to come right now.  In addition to the usual (electricity bill, phone, insurance, internet, gas, paper for the photocopier, etc) we’ve got two big expenses:

 

• farmer co-ops are harvesting sesame, peanuts, cotton and coffee.  They need to pay farmhands & COPROEXNIC needs to pay the farmers for the crops…hundreds of thousands of dollars.

• Nicaragua has exceptionally good labor laws including a 13^th month to be paid to all employees on 30 November.  While this is awesome for workers all over the country, it is a lot of cash out the door at once for small  organizations like ours – we have 25 employees and we pay them all as well as we can…so an extra month for everyone at once is expensive!  Above all else, we make *sure* we have money set aside to pay our staff…but that means things get tight in other areas.

In short, we don’t sleep well in October and November. 

We’ll be honest with you: right now we need help to make it to the end of the year.

  

And friends, we’ve learned that you have to have money to know people with money…so we’re not holding out for any sugar daddy in a shiny suit.  We’re throwing in our lot with you. 

Please…

If you haven’t yet signed up to donate $10 a month, please do so now.

If you haven’t yet made a donation this year, please do so now.

If you have already made a donation, but can spare an extra $20 (or $200, or $2,000!) please send it now.

Please re-post this on Facebook, on Twitter, email to your friends, because we need their help too.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. – Becca & Kathleen

Gestational Diabetes - Who's Screening?

 Last week I wrote about the rise in type 2 diabetes here in Nicaragua.  While I was researching for the blog I read about gestational diabetes and thought, “Oh dear!  We do not screen for that!”
 
And this is how a great deal of our health work expands…we start to deal with one aspect and then we are presented with a whole range of levels of health care that we are not doing and neither is anyone else in our area.
 
For example: gestational diabetes should be tested in a pregnant mother at 26 to 28 weeks.  The Ministry of Health does this testing, but not a full screening. The danger of gestational diabetes is twofold: 1) overly large babies and 2) babies have an increased chance of going into a hypoglycemic coma in their first hours or days of life.
 
Gestational diabetes has to be controlled by diet, which is difficult when the women are poor and carbohydrates, sugar and fruit are the cheapest foods.  

To test, we would need a quiet space that women can lie down for up to 4 hours if needed.  We would need to provide the drink for the testing and protein for when the test is over.   We would need to help the ones that have gestational diabetes stay on their diets.
 
The reality with health care in a poor country is that the need is so great and the layers upon layers needed to address the problems are overwhelming.  We know that we can do only so much but it seems that we could address this need too or so we think…or so we hope.  We will keep you posted.       -Kathleen