escape to the country...

I should have posted last week, upon returning from our rural homestay...but for some reason it has seemed especially difficult to verbalize what it was about the community that so impressed me. In other places we have heard moving presentations about the history of the community, we have seen incredible organization, we have been welcomed into homes.

But this place, this place just felt healing almost. Granted I think we all felt a little trapped in Managua, and who doesn't feel slightly liberated upon leaving the city - but even taking those things into account, this community just struck me as remarkable. I think everyone felt it; students spent late nights talking and dancing with families, afternoons out riding horses, climbing up the center of an old enormous tree, hiking through the mountains, getting to see a little of their fair trade coffee farming and learning how to 'coffee cup' (sort of like wine tasting, for coffee). We all wanted to stay longer and many vowed to return.

What made that place so alluring? I'm still not sure I know but it seems like it's got to be the combination of natural beauty and the genuineness of the people in their interactions with both us and each other. It was certainly a blessing for us to be there.

I'm lucky enough to know that I'll go back in January with a short term delegation of college students and again with the spring semester group. It's much easier to say goodbye when you know you get to return.