Visit to La Concha

Some of our closest friends in Nicaragua live in a little town called La Concha, about an hour outside of Managua.  As often as possible we enjoy heading up their for a visit to spend time with them.  Here are a few pictures from our time together.

 

Jemima and I love to hang out together.  Everyone tells me that she is my daughter because of her blondish colored hair.  This is very rare here, unless it is dyed.

 

Alison is a bright girl, always ready to play a game or get help with her homework.  Here I am with Jemima, this picture pains me, but I promise that we are pretty good friends!  And note: I am wearing a sweatshirt here.  This is another reason why we love leaving the hot city of Managua for a visit to La Concha.

 

On Sunday afternoon, we headed out on a little hike.  In this white house lives two extended family members, one is ninety and the other is thirty-two.  They work hard, live very simply and raise animals to sell in town.  They invited us inside and we had a lovely visit with them.

 

As we continued on our hike, we came up to a group of boys that were playing baseball.  They stopped their game for a moment so that we could pass by and also gifted us with some mandarins off their tree. 

And then we got out onto our path.  It was beautiful!  We could see the nearby volcano and lake, and all of the trees were filled with fruit almost ready to be harvested.

 

We continued our walk, gazing around us and stopping for a couple of pictures.

 

When we finally returned back home, we shared the fresh mandarins and played some games.  We are grateful for this family and their friendship to us.

If you are interested in reading about other times that we have spent in La Concha, check out:

• One Week in Photos                                                                                    
• Election Results and Experiences                                                                
• Offline and Entering the Pueblos                                                                 
• The Campo

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Anyone?

One of our absolute most favorite things about living in Nicaragua is the incredible access that we have to fruits and vegetables.  Much of the produce that we buy in our neighborhood, at the local markets or in the grocery stores is grown less than 30 km from our home.  We have definitely taken advantage of what is means to eat fresh and locally, while being able to try new fruits and vegetables that we did not have access to back home. 

We have also enjoyed having a juicer and try to make a few fresh juices each week.  Our favorite combination right now is carrot pineapple juice with a touch of ginger.  

Remember back to this post about our visit to the Farmer’s Market in Minneapolis?  We thought it would be fun to document a recent purchase that we made at the market only five minutes from our home.

       

• 2 lb. onion – 30 cordobas or $1.25
• 3 garlic heads – 10 cordobas or $0.40
• 1 watermelon – 50 cordobas or $2.07
• 6 carrots – 20 cordobas or $0.80
• 12 limes – 20 cordobas or $0.80
• 3 avocados - 20 cordobas or $0.80
• 6 star fruit – 25 cordobas or $1.03
• 2 sweet potatoes - 30 cordobas or $1.25
• 2 beets - 10 cordobas or $0.40
• 1 bunch of radishes - 20 cordobas or $0.80

In total – 235 cordobas or $9.73

Let us know what this would cost at your local supermarket or farmers co-op!

Conversations of Peace

It all began when our ten-year-old neighbor Natalia and I were together in the kitchen, working together to prepare a salad.  With curiosity, she began picking up items from our food shelf and asking what exactly they were.  She commented that she had never seen a can that looked like this and asked what exactly you use a jar of peanut butter for.  She then looked in my fridge and asked what broccoli and cauliflower were.  I patiently answered her as she continued to ask questions.  In the end, she commented, "Wow, we really have different things on our shelves and in our fridge."  

For a moment, I was a bit disappointed that Kevin and I have not "integrated" our eating habits as much as I thought that we had.  I guess we don't eat gallo pinto and tortillas twice a day like Natalia does, but we do have them several times a week.  My mind was suddenly filled with the many differences separating Natalia and myself, differences that have led to a greater understanding of what it means to live and exist with people who are not like me.  But then I began thinking about the differences that we have between us and thought that this "betweeness" does not mean that there is some type of barrier.

I slowly responded, "Yes, we do.  We do eat differently."  I then asked her if she thought this impacted our friendship.  She shared that she did not think that it really did, if anything she has been able to learn from me and I have been able to learn from her (ten-year-old wisdom, I tell you!).  

This led to a beautiful conversation about our differences - the foods that we eat, how we celebrate holidays, what we do in our free-time, how we worship God - but the incredible thing is that we can still be friends.  I shared with her some stories of conflict in our neighborhood, in our city and in our world and how many of these conflicts occur because of differences in beliefs, differences in culture, differences in ways of doing things.  We reflected on how sad this is, how if people really were able to listen to one another and learn about our differences, that we could grow as individuals and as humanity.  Instead of hurting and harming one another because of our differences, we could be challenged to learn and love more deeply through those very differences.  

The way of peace is walking the road with the other, dropping the label and being willing to learn.  We have to be taught the way of peace, the way of love and the way of nonviolence, but we also have to being willing to learn this.  As John Lewis said, “In the bosom of every human being, there is a spark of the Divine. “

Trip Home

Last month, I (Cassie) took a trip back to the snowy north (yes, there really was snow in May!) in order to complete my Continuing Education Hours for my Social Work License.  I was able to attend a few different conferences and really enjoyed being back in the world of Social Work.  Although I am practicing in a sense with my work here in Managua, it felt wonderful to be back in the classroom, learning about the latest research and methods for applying this to our practice.  I was also able to fit in some friend and family time.  Below are a few pictures from my time at home, I won’t bore you with pictures of the classrooms I sat in for many hours.

 

I was glad to come back and still feel a bit immersed in the Latin Culture.  I was able to use my Spanish off and on and was glad to know that I hadn’t forgot it!

 

I enjoyed a wonderful 24 hours with my oldest niece Lauren and SIL Carrie.  It was so good to see them and it meant so much that they made the trip.

  

Some family time with food.  I had my first burger at the famous, Matt’s Bar and we enjoyed brats at the Minneapolis farmers market.

 

I spent a day at the Jubilee and Ten Thousand Villages sale selling these beautiful handmade cards from South Africa.  I also co-taught with my mom for a day in her English Language Learning (ELL) classroom, using a Nicaraguan book called Mi Delantal.

  

 

I spent one weekend in Chicago celebrating my friend Mandy’s Bachelorette Party.  It was a fabulous weekend and I can’t wait to stand by her side in August.

 

I made sure to eat the foods that we miss so much in Nicaragua – Thai, Ethiopian, Indian and Korean.  I wasn’t able to bring any of these foods back for Kevin, but I did pack a bag of apples (he was sooo excited!) and some other favorite treats of his.

 

My sister flew in for a day from Colorado to surprise me.  It was a quick 24 hours together, but so incredibly sweet.

   

 

And just a few more pictures with friends and family.

 

And on another note, the electronic world has really changed since we left in 2011 for Nicaragua.  A few things that were most markedly different were:

• Everyone seems to have a smart phone.
• The gates at airports are no longer rows of chairs, but rather booths with ipads (see picture above).
• You can buy your newspaper with a credit card.  This is quite different from how we get our papers here.
• Friends of mine stream live videos of their dogs while they are at doggy daycare. 

All of this was a bit overwhelming for me, the gap between these two worlds seems so great at times.  But I do know that there is good in both.