5 months!

Happy spring. In Nica, and perhaps wherever you find yourself, it is a time of renewal and of change. A few days ago, the first rain of invierno (winter) fell, signaling the start of the rainy season, although it’s currently 95 degrees without a cloud of mercy in sight.Además, I’m five months, or almost one-fourth, of my way through life as a Nica JV. WHAT. Incredulity aside, I would like to share the movements of my soul based on that observation. I feel that I am settled in…I no longer double-take when piling on to a crowded bus, or hand-washing clothes, or getting diarrhea. I feel comfortable in community and inaugurated into my library position. Though I still feel the pangs when a co-worker or Nicaraguan friend shares some of her poverty, telling me of her murdered cousin or pregnant 16-old-daughter, these moments too have passed into a zone of acceptance.The question is, what next? Because it’s wonderful that I’m currently comfortable, but I am also sensing that I am ready for more. A few minutes ago, I was reading Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed in a rocking chair, contemplating popular education and solidarity, when an ice cream vendor passed our barred windows, ringing bells to announce his business. He wore a torn baseball cap from LA, had bug-eyes and was soaked in sweat. He strained against the weight of his ice cream as he pushed it up our dirt alley beneath the sun.I was struck by the world of difference between us. Here I am, comfortable as a JV in Nicaragua, and there are the Nicaraguans, the workers, the hungry, the oppressed, with whom I am forming relationships. Do they feel comfortable with the situations in which they find themselves? My co-worker Yelba goes home to an abusive husband and a load of her children’s laundry every night, and comes to work the next day having shrugged it off. She has accepted it. Is that fair? Where do I fit in?And so, about to start the second quarter of my Nicaragua time, I am ready to dive deeper into relationships, to make more of an effort to be uncomfortable…because I have grown through my initial discomfort, and I am ready for more.I challenge you to read and reflect on Dom Helder Camara and the following poem Pry Me off Dead Center. They very much touch my heart in its current state.Thank you for reading and thinking about what you have read. No go out and set the world on fire. You know what to do.