quite taken

Sunkissed and exhausted after a lovely Sunday afternoon of mojitos, good political conversation, and a long walk along the malecon (a boardwalk of sorts along the shoreline), I’m feeling quite taken with Cuba.

Clearly I’m in the honeymoon stage – but Cuba seems to have all of the marvelous parts of tropical Latin America (and more) with so much less of the crud. Of course any place has its crud. Dirty streets, smog in the city, noise, long lines, bad service, cat calls and kissing noises when you walk by…but there’s less of it here. And so much less of the really awful crap – next to no crime or violence, low levels of corruption, and rare is the beggar or passed out drunk or child asking for money.

Imagine this: it’s not ‘risky’ to make the 25-minute walk home from work/the MLK Center, with a purse, alone! And when I commented “I probably shouldn’t take my computer since we’re going on the bus” my host moms laughed at me. The fact that crime is almost a non-issue makes taking care of a group of young foreigners a whole lot less stressful and it changes the way communities interact. I should probably put that the other way around – it’s likely because of the way communities interact.  Whatever the cause, it changes everything, this absence of fear of the people around you. I don’t know if I realized how much that fear has affected my experiences in Latin America over the last four years. And now that it’s gone, it feels…well, liberating.

And the conversation! I’ve had incredible conversations with Cubans on just about any topic – clearly I’m spoiled with my host family – my two host moms are progressive, highly educated pastors. They differ in perspective and table discussions are fascinating and always educative. But beyond them, I’m continually amazed with how *much* Cubans know about their own history, about global history, about politics and economy and health. It’s really fun. They also talk more than I’ve ever been talked to. Hardly ever in my life have I had to really fight to get a word in edgewise…Cubans give me a run for my money. I’m working hard to listen more and am enjoying what I’m hearing. I’m certainly learning. My perspective and paradigm are being stretched and pulled in interesting and exciting ways.

I’ll say it again. I’m taken.

que linda es!

My Cuban adventure has begun!

It is baffling to me to think that a week ago I was running around with my shoulders to my ears on one of the coldest days of the year in Minnesota as I prepared for departure. It has always stretched my understanding that a person can be in two entirely different realities in such a short span of time. I’m one lucky girl: this spring I have been given the opportunity to work with CGE’s new semester program in Cuba for three months. The 12 students, 2 professors, and I hopped on a charter plane in Miami on Monday afternoon, and a half hour later landed in Havana.

Walking down the roll-up staircase to exit the plane and toward the one-room airport, we were embraced by the soft-sunlight and gentle heat of late afternoon in ‘winter’ in Cuba. There were a few questions about our visas and the typical waiting that happens when you travel in a group of 15 before we headed to the Martin Luther King Memorial Center (our home base for the next three months) in the working class neighborhood of Marianao.

To our surprise we were greeted there with dinner and our homestay assignments! We hadn’t even put down our bags before we were being welcomed into our new families. And they have been beyond welcoming; students are acclimating incredibly well and programming is moving along beautifully.

I feel incredibly blessed to be here and can’t wait to process and share some of the things that we’re experiencing. That being said – blogging will be a challenge given the internet situation here. Wi-fi is nearly non-existent and when you can manage to get a connection the social networking sites (among many others) are blocked. My dear mother has agreed to ‘administer’ the site if I can manage to send her text (and maybe even pictures occasionally) through email.

Thank you for all of your kind thoughts and support through these last few weeks of transition. I am so grateful for such an incredible support system!

girasoles...

In Spanish the world for sunflower is girasol. The verb girar means 'to turn' or 'to rotate'; so sunflowers, more than just being of the sun in Spanish are acclaimed by their title to also be always turning toward, always seeking the sun. That I would also be so.

A dear friend posted this video on facebook this week and while I had read the poem (by a Nicaraguan poet) I had not been so captivated by it until I watched this compilation. Nicaraguans love their poets. But more than that, they love poetry. They live poetically. This video was a visual reminder of the beauty in a broken place like Managua, but more than that, a poetic reminder of what it looks like to live out one's ideals in the face of brokenness. You'd have to plant sunflowers. Hope you enjoy.

Habría que sembrar girasoles

A Vincent Van Gogh
Habría que sembrar girasoles 
a lo largo del camino,
sembrarlos en la tierra, 
en la ciénaga, en el barro,
plantarlos bajo el odio, 
como se planta el fuego. 

Habría que sembrar girasoles 
aunque la tarde prosiga
con su rumor de polvo. 
La caverna está en el centro, 
y tras los días, los girasoles
subvierten al desprecio,
pero habría que sembrar girasoles, digo,
—no por insistencia—
sembrar girasoles con afán 
de prolongar partidas,
regarles la noche con ajenjo,
cubrir de arena la sorda vida.

Habría que sembrar girasoles de pesadumbre,
de tallos largos que sostengan
la gravedad del hombre,
sembrarlos a lo largo del camino,
plantarlos en los techos de las casas,
en todas partes, con su luminosa forma.

Si hacemos esto,
de aquí a veinte años,
aprenderemos a dar abrazos a las piedras
antes de arrojarlas al Sol. 

Francisco Ruiz Udiel 

not in a dozen lives...

"People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that's true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives."

- Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Well, it's the final week of another semester here in Central America, come and gone.

Came and went and I didn't write a single post! How did that happen? For a girl who loves to process, it sure was a quiet four months. Don't misunderstand, there is never a lack of fascinating material to ponder here. The process with students has been as life-giving and question-provoking as ever. Latin America is a Garcia Marquez novel come to life; constantly blurring the line between reality and fantasy and the intensity of it all is almost too much to handle sometimes, even for my drama-loving self.

My silence should not be noted as an indicator of anything other than confusion. Or disbelief. Maybe stupor? No, that's not quite right, my senses certainly haven't been dulled. things have felt heightened if anything. Perhaps: awe. Yes, that's much closer to accurate. And it's funny; I came into this experience this time with much more of an idea of what I would see and experience. But that didn't make it any less difficult to process. In fact, the more deeply I get to know individuals, communities and movements, the harder they are to sum up with words or stories. The more difficult it is to attempt 'explaining' much of anything with a few paragraphs or pictures.

I love the quote at the beginning of this post because I know that I, as a student, certainly thought I'd grow into an understanding of the world I was learning about. And it just hasn't happened. I know so much more than I did then, but overall I am definitively more bewildered. The quote reminds me of the deep beauty in realizing that something is so complex and incredible that you will never fully understand. It frees me from the feeling of having to come to some conclusion or tidy analysis. Those two simple sentences feel quietly joyful to me, sweetly pleased at the fact that the wonder life induces isn't something we'll grow out of. Certainly not in five semesters in Central America. Not in a dozen lives.

So maybe being in awe this time around hasn't been good for my commitment to correspondence, but i think it's been good for me personally. More than ever I've worked at being present in each day and withholding judgments of things I can't fully understand. Clearly I've had a difficult time finding the balance between doing those things well and also staying true to the pleas of the people here to 'tell their stories' and my internal desire to give voice to marginalized places, under-publicized movements and vulnerable peoples. I know that finding that balance will be a continual struggle, but tonight it's one I accept joyfully.

clamoring...

I like beginnings. I like change and the chance to start again and the possibility that always accompanies a fresh start. The new year, however, has always seemed like a sort of false new beginning. The calendar changes, but for those of us in Minnesota not much in our sensory world encourages us to think new or fresh. Here, in the tundra, it seems spring would be a better time for a calendar change.

Regardless of the new year not feeling like it has much external significance for me, it does always present an opportunity to ruminate and reflect, and those are activities that I quite enjoy. This year, as I thought about what I'd like to change, the laundry list was longer than I'd like it to be. Despite being home and being surrounded by loved ones, I have been frequented by more headaches, unsatisfied with my job, and beyond grumpy about the dark and the cold.

In reality, when I think from a healthy perspective, I am aware that I am incredibly blessed. Inside, so many days, it is hard to remember that. And it just doesn't seem like it should be so hard to remember that. Doesn't seem it should be hard to be happy. So then I'm hard on myself: 'how can I be unhappy when I'm so privileged, when I'm so fortunate?' And of course, that doesn't usually help me feel better.

What does seem to help, is being intentional about being present, being grateful, and spending my time doing things that 'wake me up' to beauty. Writing is one of those things. I had all but stopped and I'd like to start again. Without stressing about not having spectacular things from far away lands to write about, and without having to make each post entirely perfect. I'd like this to continue to be a space in which I continue to reflect and clamor toward happiness. Thanks for coming back to read and reflect with me.

Happy New Year.

Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I'm not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?

- Mary Oliver, Halleluiah

returning...

It was about two weeks ago now that I boarded the plane to fly back to Minnesota. As, usual, departure was awfully early, but the airport process went smoothly, Chepe and Eliett came all the way out to bid farewell and with Joao's incredibly positive demeanor accompanying me, I even made it through the good-byes without many tears.

But airplanes still seem strange to me. To begin, I simply don't get the physics of it; but beyond that, it's just always a sort of surreal experience. It's as if we can teleport from one reality to another (with a few hours of cramped legs and bad/overpriced food along the way) - moving through space and time in way that isn't at all natural.

I scored an exit row all to myself and a few minutes after taking off decided to open my window. The first time I flew I remember being fascinated by every aspect of it, but lately I'm usually asleep by the time the wheels leave the ground. Perhaps I was more nostalgic than normal this time. I wasn't just leaving for a quick vacation, or another round with a new group of students. This time I was flying home to family, flying home to start setting up life again in the midwest.

And out my window were the most picturesque clouds, and aren't clouds an incredible thing? These were those kind-of storybook clouds, the type of clouds I saw so often surrounding God's throne in Sunday school class, or at least saw surrounding Homer as he debated with the Big Guy on the Simpsons. I smiled to myself about these being the first two images that came to mind, but was also somehow comforted by these clouds, painting for me such an unreal backdrop to this terrifying and beautiful moment as I was being hurled away from a place I love toward another place I love.

How blessed am I? To have found various places to call home and to have seen the passion of so many people, so willing to share their stories. To have walked the streets of Managua daily and learned to see them for what they are in their raw, chaotic beauty. To have lived in a place that never let me forget that people are suffering all of the time and that I have an enormous responsibility to them and myself. To be in love and to be so loved so well, to be healthy and able to travel and work and to still believe in change.

Certainly, I returned home grateful. I've talked often about perspective, and hopping on a plane and flying from a place like Managua to place like Minneapolis will give one more than a healthy dose of it. Of course this transition is never easy, or entirely smooth, but it probably shouldn't be. I continue looking for a job and missing the people I care about in other places and working through anger that swells up in response to big and little things that are 'different' than how I think they should/could be. Those 'clashes' or moments of heightened perspective motivate me, and although I'm in a city that may look a little more 'refined' there is plenty of work to be done. It's comforting to sit here in Northfield and still feel within me the desire to keep on as part of that struggle. I'm beyond blessed and so grateful to be here.

much has happened...

I have been terrible about blogging this spring! To all of you who continue to check in despite my inexcusable absence - thanks for being persistent.

Since I last wrote much has happened:
- Our semester students partied hard, said their goodbyes and headed home (all but one - who is still in rural Nica)
- A lovely 'may-term' group arrived from Furman University and brightened up our May with their enthusiasm, laughter and kindness
- I woke up one rainy night terrified, and convinced that I was being electrocuted...until Joao convinced me that my hand had just fallen asleep :)
- I got to see sloths (with their babies), a paca, howler monkeys and all sorts of colorful birds in their natural habitat on a tour of a sustainable farm near Matagalpa
- Chepe and Eliett got married and I was honored to be a witness in their civil wedding!!!

And now, my time here in Nicaragua (and Central America, for that matter) is nearly over. I write, during a short break from packing up my room here at the CGE house as I prepare to vacate and make space for a large travel delegation that arrives on Thursday. I'll be crashing at my boss's house until my departure and in this last week and a half plan to spend a weekend at the beach with Joao and time here around Managua saying goodbyes.

It's unbelievable to me that I'll be in Minnesota so soon and even more unreal that I've spent nearly two years in Central America. I've been debating about what to do with my blog when I return to the Twin Cities. Perhaps I'll continue, perhaps I'll let it rest peacefully at the close of my time here. Although, as I continue on my path, I'm certain that my transition to home will bring with it a whole plethora of new observations and reflections...so I would guess that I'll keep writing. Thank you again for being such faithful readers. Hope everyone is enjoying spring - wherever they may be, and for those of you in the Midwest - I'll get to enjoy it with you soon!