Laundry Day!

It's the little things, right?

Like enjoying laundry (or at least that it's finished!).

Laundry on Ometepe Island

On Ometepe Island, you can see the women gathered along the shore at permanent washing stands with little roofs for shade!

The beach in San Jorge

On the mainland side of the lake at the beach in San Jorge, the same story plays out with people coming to wash both their own clothes as well as clothes of others for pay.

And my version, where for health (allergies, to be general) and laziness (I think I have a few better things to do), I have a machine to wash the clothes (or at least spin them around in soapy water) and dry the clothes (or at least spin them around to lessen the amount of water).


Then I hang them to dry in the beautiful garden (and a room inside when it's raining) and there you have it, clean laundry (or at least more clean, the lack of hot water and real washing machine always makes me doubt)!

Then all you have to do is unplug the washing machine from its extension cord to the kitchen, drain it through a hose you got from the shed down the stairs outside, move the machine back to its place, mop up and make sure the laundry outside dries before it's rained on. Simple! More or less. But a whole lot better than washing by hand!

Of Food Riots and Starvation

As I write this blog, I am sitting in a nice, simple suburban home near Chicago. I have not yet eaten breakfast, but the possibilities are laid out on the kitchen counter, cereal, oatmeal, toast, granola bars, fruit. Basic, but plentiful.

Multiple restaurants are nearby, fast food, pizza, American, Chinese, and I have enough money, I could eat at any one of them for lunch. I could probably even pay for you to join me!

The grocery stores shelves are full, and on par with American prices, an average serving of fresh fruit or vegetable is less than twenty five cents.

I probably won't eat the American average of 200 pounds of meat this year, but mostly because I don't want to, not because I can't.

So as I look at the newspaper for the first time since I left Nicaragua, I am amazed to find this article 'Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger' on the front page.

I had heard rumors of food riots from the people I've been with over the last week, one from a friend who is in the process of adopting a little girl from Haiti, and another from a friend who is extensively involved in fundraising work for Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic.

But the reason this article brought it home is because you need to realize this is affecting everyone. This isn't just a few countries.

Since last October, the price of beans in Nicaragua has risen above that of meat. Some would say then to simply buy meat, but the reason Nicaraguans didn't do that in the first place is because they can't afford to. They simply don't have the money.

At NPH we have the fortune of being supported by incredible people, so while we've changed our diet, there are new kinds of beans and different recipes are being stretched, we are not, nor are our children suffering from malnutrition.

But what happens to a country that goes hungry is bad for everyone. Economies are dragged down, governments are overthrown, education becomes an unattainable luxury in the daily struggle to survive.

And while I have a secret dream that Americans would help others out of the goodness of their heart and desire to live what they proclaim is a christian life, I would like to point out that if nothing else, Americans need to remember that our destiny is tied to our neighbors. As Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America go up and down, reach stability or overthrow governments, this affects us greatly.

So if you want to, please contribute to one of the many organizations that help feed the hungry in our world like Heifer International or Oxfam.

But no matter what, before you put that bite of food, please be grateful for the incredible gift of privilege you are being given in that small package.

Miracle

Eva and Alonso had a baby last Thursday!

Her name is Milagro (Miracle) Alejandra Morales Something. Ok, officially it doesn’t end with Something, but I’m not sure what Eva’s last name is and traditionally you have two names, then the father’s last name (which is also then the last name commonly used) and then the mother’s last name.

She has to sleep inside mosquito netting for protection

I visited them with a couple of friends on Sunday evening, a day after they’d gotten back from the hospital. Eva sat in a rocking chair as Alonso used my camera to take pictures of a sleeping Milagro until the flash woke her up!

I brought my camera because I wanted pictures of the baby, but once there I realized it would allow me to capture her at three days old for her parents too! I know I take for granted having copious baby pictures of myself (although less than my sister since she was first!). People live so simply because they have to, memories captured by camera are rare and special.

Eva explained to me as I held the baby to wipe sweat from my face on her to help her cool down. I didn’t catch all of the explanation why, but I know it’s because she can’t sweat sufficiently to cool herself down on her own while crying.

Eva is our cook (when not taking maternity leave) and Alonso works in accounting for NPH. When I reached their house, I was surprised by how basic it was, but quickly chided myself for expecting anything different. One living room, two bedrooms and zinc roofing. With no such thing as mortgage lenders and low wages for just about everyone, Eva and Alonso have worked really hard and accomplished a lot, which today, includes a new little miracle.

Ideal Body Type

Gordita, ‘My little fat girl.’

And I mean that in the most endearing way possible, really.

We were sitting around on the floor cushions in my room (I have air conditioning and therefore a coveted space) playing cards and a couple of the guys asked me to show them some of my pictures from my former life as a normal American.

When I got to pictures of my sister’s wedding from almost exactly a year ago, they gasped. But it wasn’t because of the photos (it was a beautiful wedding!), it was because I weighed more and to them, was so much prettier that way.

And, to be honest, I was shocked at their insistence.

I don’t think of myself as being obsessed about my weight, you all know I LOVE food. And while I enjoy doing active things, I’ve never been an athlete or loved exercise for the sake of exercise. At the same time, I’ve definitely been a child of my culture and rarely felt thin enough either.

“Prettier then, or prettier now?” I asked a couple other friends later on. But I wasn’t asking them for their opinion so much as I was rechecking my internal response when I heard their answer. I mostly felt… confused.

I’ve been exposed to one ideal for so long that I will never reach, that when I’m told that not just my mother, not just my boyfriend, but that pretty much the whole society doesn’t think I should get any thinner, or worry about the definition of my muscles, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.

This is not to say that women here are always just loved for who they are. They have plenty of complexes about how they look, and they are judged at least the same, if not more according to appearance. But being really thin is not part of the equation.

And I’ve noticed it’s starting to rub off on me.

So the debate inside is not a fat/thin debate, it’s about how much I and so many other women are influenced by the images around us. And what happens to generations of girls when those images, more curvaceous or less, are different than what they have or can attain healthily.

How do we help girls (and an increasing number of boys) accept a healthy version of themselves if they never see it? How do they accept their bodies in a healthy way when they see Mom and Dad constantly unhappy with their bodies?

One of the girls living here asked me a few months ago if I thought she was fat. She was 14 and proportionately plumper than I am. There was no way in the world I was going to tell her yes, in part because there’s no way that would ever help anyone, but more importantly because at her age, she’s just fine, she’s still growing into her body.

Regardless of my answer, I’m aware I affect her more when I don’t accept my body for what it is.

I’m not sure what the answer is. In part because there are as many attitudes and degrees of impressibility as there are body types. One reaction has been the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty .

What do you think of your body? How much has that perception been shaped by the media (for good health or bad)? And since, especially in the US, this tends to be a very sensitive topic, remember that you can leave a comment anonymously if you’d like to.

Getting Sick

So it’s summer, in Nicaragua, generally highs of 90 degrees, lows of 80, humid. And I was bundled up in my fleece, still cold. That’s when I was sure something was wrong.

Up until 9 o’clock my fever got worse until I decided I needed to take something to bring my temperature down so I could sleep. And then there was the diarrhea. I hate talking about it, but this would be far from an actual account of life in Central America if I didn’t mention it.

I was lucky, the next morning, I felt much better. But it did make me more sensitive to the statistic that approximately 4,000 children had died on Monday (and every day) because of diarrhea.

Getting sick here is part of what reminds me that I will always kind of be an outsider. Between the healthcare I had growing up that has made me healthy to resist disease today, and my knowledge that if anything really bad happened, I have health insurance and access to doctors through NPH, I will never live like a true Nicaraguan.

I also have an arsenal of medicinal technology available to me. I have had vaccines for the hepatitises, typhoid, yellow fever and rabies as well as the regulars for the US. I have malaria pills (while some will debate whether they’re worse for you than actually getting malaria), ibuprofen, a general antibiotic for short term use and other over the counter medications that can be prohibitively expensive for those without enough for food.

I have a dry home, a clean bed and the ability to stay there if I need to rest.

And most importantly, I have information. I self diagnosed myself on the internet with gastroenteritis (not always the best way, but it worked fine in this situation).

One of the boys that grew up in NPH recommended I take a shower to help bring my fever down because when he gets a fever, he takes a shower. But he takes a shower because, well, that’s just what you do. I understood the concept behind the idea, but I also knew that ibuprofen would bring it down for more hours helping me to sleep longer.

Whether it’s a family being taught how to minimize standing water to decrease their chances of malaria or a village learning how to stop the spread of AIDS, education is the key to improving health. And in a nation that spends $33 billion per year on weight loss products alone, obviously we hold health as an important value, maybe we should do something about it in a way that will help all of us.