Future Fridays - the Over-consuming Poor?

For Future Fridays, we are going to post blogs on climate change and how it affects the poor and Nicaragua.  We hope you find these interesting and motivational.

We just watched a comedy news show clip of Pres. George H. W. Bush giving a speech on climate change and how we, the United States of America, as a nation had to start addressing climate change now… or then in the 1980s.

From the show we learned that evidently the Koch brothers, who were invested heavily in oil, funded scientists and politicians to deny climate change.  Until then most politicians and scientists knew human-made climate change was a fact.  Wow.

Two arguments I hear the most about the problems of climate change are:

• Over population… poor people keep having babies…
• And poorer nations have no regulations (next week, I address this).

Aren’t the poor such an easy scapegoat for almost every problem?  Why?

Because they have no voice.

Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere.  The poor do not fly anywhere, nor do they drive much… unless there are three on a motorcycle¹ … mostly they ride the public bus or their bicycles or walk.

They don’t have computers, air conditioners, freezers, washing machines, dryers etc.  - all those electricity eating appliances.

They build their little houses out of trash… left-over zinc pieces, pieces of wood they have gathered, etc.

They don’t throw away clothes, food, etc., unless it cannot be worn or eaten or used in any way.  They are not wasteful.

They take bottles they reuse to the market to buy that day’s oil and other needs.  They rarely eat meat, chicken, or fish.  And on what land they do have they plant herbs, vegetables, and trees.  No lawns.

In other words, they do not consume the earth’s resources like the rest of us.  A whole small village of poor children do not consume the earth’s resources or contribute to greenhouse gases like two well-off children²  in the United States.

Over population is not the problem… over consumption is.

The poor do not over consume… ever.

-Kathleen*

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¹ About 10 years ago, I once saw a family of five on a motorcycle…father driving with 2-year old in front of him, 4- year old between him and mother who was sitting side-saddled nursing her baby! Scared and impressed the bejeezus out of me!

²  Consider…the driving to and from school, the heated or air-conditioned house, the prepackaged foods that are eaten for snacks and taken for lunches, the closets and dressers full of clothes, the televisions, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, and kitchen gadgets.  The video games, the going out for recreation to the movies, the mall, the arcades, or driving to and from play dates….and it goes on and on.   The mountains of trash and recycling.

*If you want to give online to our work with the poor:  https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

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"Thank You for Believing in Me"

Stuck in my head is the Raffi song, Brush Your Teeth.  For some reason this morning I’m singing it over and over in my head…🎵 When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to two, and you don’t know what to do… Brush your teeth.🎵

We said goodbye to Dr. Inya Gonzalez five weeks ago.  Inya, the dentist of our clinic for eight years, is moving to Canada to be with her husband who had taken a job in Montreal in January.

At her despidida (going away party), there were tears, laughter, memories, photos and more tears.

Inya and Dr. Dirk Anderson of Rock Hill, SC, really gave birth to our dental clinic.  Dirk provided equipment for two rooms, supplies, and expertise from his many, many years of dentistry. 

Inya came in as a young dentist and learned, adapted to our work environment, taught others, and headed up the dental program making it something amazing.

Focusing on saving teeth, sealants are applied to children’s teeth as well as fluoride.  We hired a hygienist to clean teeth and stressed every six months preventive care.  We actually have patients who come in every 6 months!  We hired an assistant who was one of the first graduates in a dental assistant program.

Inya, Ligia and Fabiola have been a good team serving the community of Nueva Vida; the 20 feeding programs of ORPHANetwork, our partners in providing dentistry to children; and now the whole area of Ciudad Sandino that lost its low-cost dental care when the Nicaraguan government had to cut that program.  We, and many patients, miss Inya.

But we now have Dr. Julio Escobar.  He lives in Ciudad Sandino, which is really convenient.  He has seven years of experience, also nice.  He is funny…which is essential!  He worked with Inya a week before she left and she liked him… which is a relief.

When I said goodbye to Inya, she said, “Thank you for believing in me.”  I was surprised and taken aback.  Where did that come from?

Evidently little things we do matter to others.  Little things we might not note can lead to wonderful outcomes.  Inya grew and is a really good dentist, unfortunately Canada will now have her.

-Kathleen

Note: if you want to give to help keep the Nueva Vida Clinic's services going, you can give here: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

Sweating it Out...Week by Week

Money.  Money.  Money.  

 *sigh*

Kathy is our bookkeeper.  She enters all the in-coming and out-going funds for the CDCA on the accounting system in English and again in Spanish.  She provides us with weekly financial summaries so we can talk about what we are to do that week and next month.

Since the civil unrest of 2018, the CDCA’s finances have been stretched to their limit*.  Where we see it weekly, Kathy sees it daily.

Kathy wakes up in the morning and with her Book of Common Prayer, she has her daily worship time.  During that time and at night, one of the requests she makes in her prayers is that the CDCA will get the funds we need to operate. 

Kathy is 70 years old and the stress of worrying about how we are going to meet our bills and pay rolls is wearing.  When any of the rest of us have filled in for Kathy when she has been gone, we slowly go crazy seeing all the money just go out and out for need after need. 

She has done remarkably well for the last 25 years. 

Recently, Diana Ibarra began working in the office aiding Kathy; she  has helped tremendously.  Cheerful Diana taking over so many tasks has freed Kathy up to do the books in a timely fashion.  Diana also sees the money go out the door for needs but does not feel the immense responsibility to make sure there is actually money there for the needs.

None of us like to fund-raise.  We all hate searching for funding, constantly asking people for donations, coming up with new ways to get people to give, etc., but we do what we can with what we have and wait for our weekly meetings to see how well people responded.  Thank God, for me, it is only once a week!

-Kathleen

*If you can help with ongoing costs of the clinic, or for other needs, that would be wonderful!   You can give here: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

Feeling like a Miserable Cow

Amazing things will happen today if you choose not to be a miserable cow is my wallpaper on my computer.  I am frequently these days a “miserable cow.”  I suffer from depression and it seems to be getting the best of me.  I don’t cry…no, I just cannot do what I need to do.

As in the United States, many of the street people here in Nicaragua need serious mental care.  Mental health issues seem to be the last societal issues to be dealt with; probably because it costs money and is on-going.  

Earlier this month a local TV station, Channel 4, brought volunteer medical professionals to the Nueva Vida Clinic on a Saturday to provide free care. Among the varied doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and dentists there was a psychiatrist. Hopefully mental health is becoming identified nationwide as critical.

When Pat died,* I laid awake thinking how were we going to address the many and varied mental health issues that present themselves in the poor of Nueva Vida.  Stress increases heart disease and diabetes.  Depression increases the desire to just die.  Grief can overwhelm a father and cause a family to go hungry.  Trauma can trigger crippling anxiety.  And the children…

Pat was wonderful with children…her play therapy helped so many kids talk about abuse, trauma, grief, and fear.  Much of her work went into learning disabilities in children and helping families and schools cope with their over-active children and helping the children learn how to learn.

God, the Universe, Fate…what have you…provided Dr. Acuna, who volunteers at our clinic three mornings a week.  She works with our patients to help them cope.  She is loved by the patients and she gives her time freely – at least for now.  We hope to find sponsors for her,** so that her need for an income can be met and she can continue working with us.

Feeling overwhelmed…feeling unable to care for your loved ones…feeling panicky…or just like a miserable cow…is crippling.  Poverty holds millions in a state of trauma, grief, fear, and hopelessness…having a trained listening ear is invaluable.

-Kathleen

*Pat Floerke, our loved community member and counselor at the clinic, died suddenly on December the 18, 2018 after a fall - probably due to a severe stroke - and severed her carotid artery and jugular vein.
**If you can help with ongoing costs of the clinic, that would be wonderful! You can give here: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

Jumping in at the Deep End: 20 Years of Nueva Vida Health Clinic

We have not been posting blogs for a while now.  We are trying once again.  Please let us know if you find them helpful.

The Center for Development in Central America’s health Clinic in Nueva Vida has now been open for 20 years!!! 

WOW!  And for those 20 years, I have been the Director…me, with a master’s of divinity degree.  How?

There are many people to praise or blame for this.  One such person is Nora Laws.  Nora  and her wife Becky (a physician's assistant and pediatrician, respectively) have been long-time supporters of our work…donating their time as well coming down to hold health clinics in remote areas of Nicaragua.  They are also dear, dear friends. 

After Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Nora called and said that she was ready to come in two weeks with trunks of medicines to see victims of the hurricane, if we wanted her…duh!  Yeah!  She had one condition:  she wanted me, a mother of three young boys, to be her pharmacist…thus, I began working with medicines.

Another major player was Dr. Don Stechschulte, the doctor from Bucknell University who came with that first Bucknell delegation also right after Hurricane Mitch.  As he saw 100 patients a day in a throw-together “church” (actually a room with a dirt floor and scrap metal walls), he depended on me to know what medicines we had and what the desperately poor patients had as resources.*  When he and the Bucknell folks started raising funds and awareness for the clinic, they asked me to run it.

Then there is Mike, my beloved, who attended a meeting of NGOs working with the hurricane victims and discovered that the one clinic running in the area was about to be abandoned.  Mike came home on a Thursday and told me the clinic was the CDCA’s on Monday if I wanted to run it.  And thus, I became the Director.

For me, a divinity student, this is the way The Divine works…using many to shove some of us into the roles we need to fulfill.  I had no medical knowledge, but so, so many doctors, nurses, public health professionals taught me.  I still have few organizational skills, but now we have Josefa Rayo as administrator, who has more organizational skills in her little finger nail than I do in my whole being.

The Nueva Vida Clinic has served tens of thousands of patients and grown and adapted….and thanks to Nora, Don, and Mike…I’ve been fortunate to be a part of it.
-Kathleen

If you want to support the clinic…$20 for the 20th anniversary would help greatly and as Mike says, “the more zeros you have and can add to that $20, the better!" 😊

*For example, the poor cannot buy yogurt or applesauce for gastritis, but might be able to round up some papaya.