Future Fridays... to Breathe or to Eat?

Our friends, Becky and Nora, gave us an industrial-size cook stove…six gas burners and a big oven.  When we have delegations…hopefully we will have more in 2020…this stove is an absolute wonder for which we give thanks.  Now we cannot imagine not having it.

And then there is Inez at El Porvenir who cooks lunches for our delegations when they go to El Porvenir, the organic coffee cooperative…On. A. Wood. Cook. Stove.  And it is not some iron pot belly stove with an exhaust pipe that burns wood, no, Inez’s stove is some concrete and blocks thrown together to create a stove, and it sits in their house with no exhaust.

Wood burning cook stoves in Nicaragua are a problem that contributes to deforestation and to health issues.  In this blog, we will discuss just the deforestation.

Our friend, Lillian, went to Cuba many years back.  Lillian lived many years here in Nicaragua and she was telling us about her trip and her observations.  One such observation was that when deforestation got to a critical level, the government started giving people electric stoves.

Gas (propane in Nicaragua) stoves are expensive for the poor… they are a large up-front cost.  The small propane tank costs too much for the poor, but if they are ever able to get a stove and tank, the stoves are much cheaper to operate than buying wood (unless the family is like Inez’s family, who live midst acres and acres of trees where they can forage dead wood).

Solar stoves are not practical here, unless one lives on a huge plot of land with no shade, because the sun’s position in the sky, this near the equator, shifts so much.  There are low-burning woodstoves, but most people do not have them.  So, most people buy wood that is cut down by people in rural areas and brought into the urban areas on horse cart.  Many spend up to 30% of their income on wood.

If Nicaragua had enough funding to give people stoves as Cuba does, if Nicaragua also had funding to research and produce biogas like Cuba is doing, and if Nicaragua had the funding to – at least – supply families with low-burning wood stoves, the forests might start growing back rapidly.  It is amazing how easily plants grow in the tropics.  It all comes down to the funding…

-Kathleen

Stepping Over the Line

Okay, I’ve really been trying to keep a great deal of what I think about current events to a minimal in these blogs; but as our Brethren Church volunteer, Caroline, once said to a guy, “You have just stepped over the line, buddy.”

The Middle East is a quagmire and is home to 246 million people…mostly Muslims, but also Jewish people and some Christians.  The Middle East was divided up into countries after World War I, in 1918, by some dudes*  from Britain and France, not taking into consideration the nations that resided there… go figure!  It was like they took a ruler and started drawing.  So, no wonder it is a quagmire… a mess… and yet, we have to remember it is home… HOME… to 247 million people, not just oil wells.

When Pres. Trump said he was going to pull our troops out of “these endless wars”, I was good with that.  We have protested and voiced our opinions over the years to not go to war in the first place.  We have been against the ever-growing military and the industrialized military complex… just like Pres. Eisenhower.  So, pulling troops out is good, but…

But…

During the Cold War, when we ran shelters in North Carolina with our friend quoted above, we had lots of posters on the walls in the common room where the community and shelter guests ate together.  One was a Soviet woman and a U.S. woman embracing with the words, “Can we as Christians – at least - agree not to kill each other?”

We hold in our morals that all wars must end and people must be given a chance to make a home… but will evangelicals**  now break with Pres. Trump to protect their brothers and sisters in the Middle East?

• The Kurds have allowed the practice of Christianity among their people.  
• The Kurdish women are some of the freer women in the Middle East outside of Israel.   
• Even though most practice Islam, they are far from being fundamentalists.  

And yet, all everyone talks about is abandoning our allies… and yes, they were our allies… but they were so much more than that.  So much more.

Is that our reality now?

-Kathleen

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*  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553
**https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/10/kurds-trump-evangelical-christians-syria

Future Fridays - Cleanliness Next to Godliness: Muscles

As I go about my weekly laundry day, I give thanks over and over that we have a washing machine.  When we first moved to Nicaragua 25 years ago, we spent the first two months without the stuff we moved down here while it sat in customs.  Tiny Coury and Daniel, not being used to new viruses, threw up and had diarrhea about every two weeks and I washed linens, towels, diapers, clothes and even a sleeping bag on the pila, which is a concrete wash board.  I not only hated washing, I also was terrible at it.

When our washing machine got out of customs, it was a blessing!  Although all that machine did was agitate with an attached squisher that rang out our clothes as we fed each article of clothing through it.

Washing machines have gotten more energy and water efficient over time, but they are expensive (around $600 for a full-size basic efficient machine).  Our used machine was donated to us years ago and now breaks all the time.  It is rusting out, but I am so grateful still.

The poor in Nicaragua are on-the-whole very conscious about staying clean.  Some of our workers will turn their clothes inside out for work when they have to get dirty and then turn them right-side out before going home.  Their clothes are clean and ironed.  Their clothes are washed on a pila and wrung out by hand.  Clothes are sun-dried and often times because they cannot afford clothes pins or good wire, they hang their clothes on barb wire to hold them in place in the sun and wind.

Because they don’t have closets full of clothes or dryers, the iron is critical.  It dries the clothes as well as making them presentable.  And many Nicaraguans think Europeans and U.S. citizens are grubby and unkempt… fortunately our staff puts up with us none-the-less.  😊

With efficient machines maybe the poor could save some water, but the electricity is not affordable for the poor.  Dryers are not used; only the iron, which is one of the first appliances people buy, to dry and look neat with their limited clothing.

In the wealthier places in the world, keeping one’s clothes clean takes lots of energy: washing, drying, ironing, dry cleaning, chemicals for cleaning, etc.  For the poor of the world the energy is in the backs, arms, and hands… which makes for a cleaner world.

-Kathleen

Note: If you would like to give to the work of the CDCA, helping to pay for clinic daily washing needs, washing machine repairs, etc., give online here:

https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

Who Gets the Dregs?

This blog is little longer than most of ours in order to explain health care in Nicaragua.

Watching the U.S. Democratic debates, I was struck by the various proposals to give health care to all in the U.S.  Not endorsing any one proposal, I want to explain Nicaragua’s health system and point out the pluses and the minuses of each…

As part of the Nicaraguan constitution, health care is a right… not a privilege but a basic human right.

The way the current system works was explained very well by my daughter-in-law, Cassie, who worked as a medical intern under the Nicaraguan system.

There are three levels of health care:

• Universal
• Single Payer
• And Private care.

Universal means that ANYONE can walk or be carried into a public hospital or clinic, be treated and leave with no bill.

When Pat had what the neurologist thought was a massive stroke, she fell and cut her jugular vein and her carotid artery on a broken butter plate that she was carrying.

She was rushed to the hospital with our Dr. Flores pushing on her neck (he happened to be there) to staunch the flow of blood.  In less than 5 minutes after she fell, she arrived at the closest hospital and had no pulse. After 4+ liters of blood, ER care, surgery, and three days in the ICU, she died.

We had no hospital bill.
We felt that Pat received the best care possible.

That was our experience, but not all receive that level of care.  Chico, our once-bus driver, went to the same hospital coughing up blood.  He was told to go home to die with stage 4 lung cancer.  After helping him get a second opinion, he actually had TB and is still smoking and coughing but alive and doing fine two years later.

Not all receive good care and for elective surgery the wait is long.

The second tier of Nicaraguan health care is the single payer plan.  Those who work in the formal sector pay into the national insurance¹ (INSS).  With this plan, people tend to get a higher level of care, a more consistent level of care, and the waiting period is less, because they stay with the same doctor and have paid into the system.

Jessenia, our health promoter, is in and out of hospitals with diabetes.  She has survived, thanks to the INSS, an infection of the heart and is now battling a failing kidney and an ulcerated toe.

In contrast, Diana’s son broke his arm for the second time… or so she was told.  The doctor, scamming the INSS for more payment, x-rayed the arm and put a cast on the boy’s arm.  When Diana wanted the cast off, she got the arm x-rayed again to learn there was no second break at all.  Her son had worn the cast for 6 weeks for no reason.

The third level is private care.  Our Nueva Vida Clinic falls into this category as well as the more expensive specialists and hospitals.  Leaving clinics like ours out of the equation, most of the better trained doctors work in private care.  They also tend to work either with the INSS or as public doctors.  For example, my internist²  is also the government’s foremost specialist in infectious diseases, especially HIV.

There is no waiting in the private sector.  There is an abundance of tests in the private sector for more accurate diagnosis.  And the private sector gets the most income because the private sector is where the wealthy go.

Just like private vs public schools, when the wealthy have options then the public suffer… it is the same in health care.  If the wealthy of the Pellas family who own about half of this country had to go to the public clinics, the clinics would have everything they need.

So, when candidates talk about people needing health care options, remember options mean the rich have options and the poor get the dregs… like always.

-Kathleen

____________________
¹This is what the first demonstrations in April 2018 were about… raising the percentage people have to pay to the national insurance and taking 5% of what retirees get to enroll them in the national insurance, so that they would get better and more consistent care.
²I go to him because I have a compromised immune system, because I lack a spleen.

*If you want to contribute online to help patients at the Nueva Vida Clinic, https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

Future Fridays: Wash...Rinse...Dry...Repeat...

When the family gathered in the Vermont to see Joseph graduate from college, flying with Samantha (then age 9 months) was a first for her parents, Daniel and Claudia. As with all new parents, they made a mistake.  They packed her diapers in checked luggage without thinking!  If you have ever been a parent, it is almost certain that sometime or other you ended up without enough diapers!

They realized their mistake en route in Panama, but in that airport NO store sold diapers.  None!

Mid-way through the 6-hour flight on to Boston, they ran out of diapers… here came Nana and experience to the rescue!  Crammed into the plane’s bathroom, I twisted, folded, and tied a receiving blanket into a make-shift diaper that lasted until their luggage came off the belt at the end of the flight.

Years ago, with my little ones, I mostly used cloth diapers.

The poor never use disposable diapers because they are expensive.  Instead most use big cotton pieces of cloth that they wash constantly and hang out to dry.  If lucky, they have enough for 2 days-worth of diapers that are always getting washed.  No rubber pants, just a few diaper pins and large rectangular pieces of cloth.

Disposable diapers make up the third largest item of consumer trash in landfills in the United States and make up 30% of the non-biodegradable trash.  Disposable diapers will break down IF exposed to sunlight and the elements in 500 years, but most are turned over into the dirt meaning it will take thousands of years for them to break down.

Disposable diapers contaminate the water tables with feces and urine from the diapers.  Supposedly, one is supposed to rinse out the diapers in the toilet before disposing of them. Did you know that? I never have done that, but it is written on the side of boxes of disposable diapers.

Disposable diapers are a poor use of oil, gas, and other awful chemicals… and trees… so many trees.

From Small Footprint Family:*

Even factoring in the water and energy used to launder cloth diapers, in the full-cost accounting, from farm to factory to storefront, compared to cloth diapers, disposables:

• create 2.3 times more water waste,
• use 3.5 times more energy,
• use 8.3 times more non-renewable raw materials (like oil and minerals),
• use 90 times more renewable raw materials (like tree pulp and cotton),
• and use 4 to 30 times as much land for growing or mining raw materials.

The poor use simple cloth diapers, wash with soap and hang out to dry… no washing machine, no dryer, and no waste and no trees cut down and no crude oil.

Maybe we could learn from the poor and wrap our precious ones in cloth and wash the diapers so there will be a green world when they are potty trained.

-Kathleen (Nana)

Note:  If you care to help provide new mothers at the Nueva Vida Clinic with cloth diapers and pins, give online here:  https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

* https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/dangers-of-disposable-diapers