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Ofrenda de Cartas de 2009

2009 Offering of Letters video

Day Ten: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”

It’s our final day in Nicaragua and I’m trying my best to process all that we’ve seen and heard. 

Much like our trip around this beautiful country, my thoughts have come full circle.  It all comes back to the first lines of this file “What Bread for the World Hopes to Achieve In its 2009 Offering of Letters” document.

“The world has changed dramatically in the last 50 years.  But the way our country delivers aid to the world’s poorest nations is still being driven by the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.  In 2009, Bread for the World members will urge Congress to rework U.S. foreign assistance to make it a more effective in reducing poverty.”
    
But what does that mean?  Is our goal for all developing nations to be like America in every way or to do what’s best for them- to achieve success as they define it?  We’re a nation that leaves 45 million people uninsured, so we have to be very careful on how we advise others to run their country.     
I love the United States, but when 1 in 10 Americans are on food stamps, we’ve got some work to do at home as well.

At the same time I can’t help but think about what Belinda Forbes from Accion Medica Christiana said about cholera in the eastern coast of the country.  During a cholera epidemic, aid workers tried to get people to wash their hands after using the bathroom to fight the spread of the disease. The locals were convinced that their sickness had nothing to do with microscopic bacteria, but rather it was over-shrimping that was making the sea gods angry, thus causing everyone to get sick.   But navigating cultural differences is a blog post in itself.

Edward Abbey once said “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”  Development has to lead to somewhere better.    

One thing I liked so much about AMC’s work in Matagalpa was that people came to them.  After seeing how well pilot projects were working, locals formulated proposals and brought them to the Nicaraguan NGO, rather than some European or American aid organization imposes an ill-fitting agenda.  Church World Service funds helped start their work, but now they are truly country owned and country driven.   

In a similar way MCA in Nicaragua (Cuenta Reto Del Milenio) has partners, not beneficiaries.  Even this classification of aid recipients highlights how they work for and with Nicaraguans who seek to do for themselves- setting up a system that will be there long after the program has ended. 

Brian P. Duss is the multimedia associate at Bread for the World.

Day Nine: Vaya con Dios, Nicaragua

Chinandega is Nicaragua’s hottest town, and I’m not talking about the nightlife. It’s only the beginning of the dry season, and it was 98 degrees yesterday. Yikes.

This was our second day with Cuenta Reto Del Milenio, which is the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s project in Nicaragua. Establishing the MCC was Bread’s Offering of Letters in 2003. So it’s extra special to see development that we Bread members have been directly involved in putting into place. 

And we finally got the chance to meet Nubia Baca. People at the MCC in Washington have been telling us about Nubia since we began planning this trip, for good reason. She’s a force of nature, just like San Cristobal, Nicaragua’s highest volcano that looms over her finca (farm) and its 60 head of dairy cattle. Some of the women we’ve met in Nicaragua have been quiet and reticent. Not Nubia. Marcos, our translator, could barely keep up with her; he looked worn out by the end of the day. (Or maybe that was the result of spending the whole week with us…) From alfalfa fields to cheese-making…Nubia’s is quite the story. And you can read about her in the upcoming 2009 Offering of Letters handbook! It will be available in late January – check out Bread’s Web site to keep posted about it.

That’s my job now, to go back home, take everything we’ve seen, and craft it all into stories you can read in Bread’s publications and online. I always wish I had more time on these trips. People have been unfailingly open and welcoming to us. But it’s hard to drop in for just a little while (and with a film crew in tow) and try to get a handle on how people live. It’s a glimpse at best, but it’s one I’m honored to have. And I want other people to know more about Nubia, and the Consejo de Mujeres (Council of Women), and Pedro, who at age 34 just completed first grade and who is already planning for his young daughters to attend college someday. So, stay tuned…

Kimberly Burge is Bread for the World's senior writer/editor.

Day Eight: “It’s kind of like a buffet”

After our first full day with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (Millennium Challenge Account in Nicaragua) I am beat.  It’s all I can do to eat my piece of flan in the hotel bar while I type this blog.  Yes, I know, it’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it.  We’ve had our share of long days and tomorrow the crew heads out at 4:30AM once again.  Not to mention, Montezuma took a trip down south to exact his revenge on more than a couple of our team members…

The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) team in Leon and Chinandega is a force to be reckoned with.  Having written over 1000 contracts for $80 million in just a couple of years you can see why they have been so effective.

As we head to Annabelle’s plantain farm in our four-truck convoy it does feel a bit overwhelming.  Our entourage is a majority Nicaraguan staff, but it still feels a little weird, like we’re a gang of Gringos riding in to town to make sure our tax dollars are being well spent instead of what we’re actually here to do which is highlight their holistic and country owned approach to development that has made these projects so successful. 

One of the most interesting things about their projects is how they focus on gender equality.  Their genders specialist, Sylvia Torres, told us that they’re approaching 30% participation by women- which, I’m told, ‘considering the machismo culture of Latin America, is quite an accomplishment.’

Tomorrow we meet a rancher named Nubia Bacha- a widow who almost had to sell her land before MCA (know in Spanish as Cuenta Reto Del Milenio) gave her the technical assistance to save it.  Now she not only has 80 head of dairy cows but also started a woman’s cheese making collective.  She’s what you call a spitfire.

If anything, MCA wants to show us too many projects. It’s a bit overwhelming; there are so many things to see.  But if we want to do this right (for the video anyway) we need to stick to the plan and limit the number of subjects we t
ry and do justice. 
Less is more.
Half way through the day, our photographer said, “it’s kind of like a buffet.…”  Which is true- you can’t eat everything, you just have to make it through as much as you can. 

It’s reminds me of a story my dad told me about “someone” being pulled over by a state trooper for speeding.  They asked:

Driver:                  “why did you stop me when all these other people were speeding                                 too?”

State Trooper:        “You ever go fishing?”

Driver:                  “Yes.”

State Trooper:       “Do you ever catch all the fish…”

Good point.  And for us, it’s not about capturing all of the stories, but rather finding the right stories to paint a picture of what smarter development looks like on the ground.  And I think we’ve done that here.

Brian P. Duss is the multimedia associate at Bread for the World.

Day Seven: What bad tires and being flex-EEE-blay will get you

One of the things that make for stronger development is good infrastructure in a country. In many places, that begins with roads that can actually be driven on. I suppose you can call the roads we’ve traveled in rural Nicaragua passable, but only because we’ve had 4-wheel drive vehicles and determined drivers. And even then, we’ve had to have two tires repaired from punctures.

This “insufficient infrastructure” is a nuisance when we’re trying to keep to a tight schedule. For someone like a pregnant women in labor with complications, it’s life-threatening. It’s a sobering thought that keeps me from complaining about delays.

Flexible. Flex-EEE-blay. Marcos, our translator extraordinaire, told me our first day that it’s a Nicaraguan adage to live by. It’s a good one to take home with us as well.

And when you’re flexible and waiting for a tire to be fixed at a Texaco station in Matagalpa, you never know who you may run into. Doug Orbaker, a Presbyterian missionary working with CEPAD, who we met with earlier, pulled up to the gas station. He took a wild guess that we were the Bread contingent he’d heard about. 

He was hosting a mission group from Michigan. So, in one of those crazy moments of serendipity, I got to meet Hester Newton and Libby Kara of First Presbyterian Church in Muskegon, MI, a church that’s been involved with Bread for the World for 25 years. In fact, they told me that the church is celebrating this partnership with a special service this month. I’m always inspired by Bread members I meet. To make that connection in the mountains of Nicaragua is crazy and unexpected and wonderful.

Now it’s on to Leon and Chinandega to check out how the Millennium Challenge Corporation works in Nicaragua. Guess what one of their main projects is up there?

Yep, roads.

 

Kimberly Burge is senior writer/editor at Bread for the World.

Day Six: "Jo Tengo Hombre" (I have men)

These two days with Accion Medica Cristiana have been amazing. 

Balancing our need for video, photos, podcast audio and interviews for Offering of Letters handbook has been quite a challenge.  Some of our project visits require three of these things all at once.  The clicking and flash of the camera can’t happen when there’s a video camera rolling, the translation needed for a podcast radio interview is very different than that for a traditional print piece, and none of us can ever be in the background of anyone else’s shots- all of this combined with the fact that we’re an entourage of up to 10 people

In terms of video, narrowing your focus to one singular sympathetic character is of utmost importance if you hope to move an audience towards action.  But if you’re 15, like Ester, and you’ve never owned a television, being in front of a camera can been overwhelming, so we’ve been scheduling our visits so folks can take us in small doses. 

When traveling in Nicaragua, I’m told it’s custom that you pay for the meals and travel of your translator, driver, your crew obviously, as well as local NGO hosts.  This coordination and the fact that I’ve been handling all of the cash, had one of our crew jokingly referring to me as “Hefe” (boss) today.  Kimberly’s hotel in Costa Rica forgot to give her back her credit card so I’ve been covering her as well, which is why she teases me by calling me dad.

I can’t wait to see what Kimberly makes out of all of these great interviews she’s been getting.  And as the only woman on the team with seven men I can only imagine how tough it has been. 

We left Stew and his video crew up on the mountain last night.  They woke up at 4:30am with the family and got some amazing shots of them making breakfast and doing chores before documenting Ester’s trip to school.  It was at her AMC funded school that we reassembled the team and got some photos of her in class as well as some shots of the community health clinic next door. 

After lunch we met back up with Kimberly and spent some time with a family that had completed an urban gardening program.  With AMC training and support, a mother and daughter living next door to each other, transformed the land around their house- growing bananas, plantains, beans and some amazing fruit I’ve never seen before- not to mention putting in a grey water system that uses filtered laundry water for use in irrigation.     
Stew and company were quite a hit up on the mountain last night.  After an impromptu soccer match and shadow puppet show for the kids-using battery powered camera lights a screen they set up cots and hammocks with mosquito netting to make sure they were in the right place to start rolling cameras at first light.  Very impressive.  While making friends up on the mountain, Stew handed out powerbars to local guys while uttering his now famous phrase, “Jo tengo hombre,” which means, “I have men,” instead of “Jo tengo hambre,” which means “I have hunger.”  He got a few strange looks.  It was cold up on the mountain last night, but we have no doubt that he was able to keep warm, because after all, he has “Hombre…”  

Brian P. Duss is the multimedia associate at Bread for the World. 

Day Five: Ants in Pants and Pelibuey in Arms

So a vague itch turned into a strange burn and then a rapid panic. The next thing I knew, I was dancing around inside a latrine shaking off red ants that had somehow scurried up my pants legs. Mosquitoes I prepared for. Ants? Not so much.

Ant-free, I rejoined the team as they prepared to meet a family who will be featured in our Offering of Letters video. German (pronounced “Herman”) and his wife, Fidelina, showed us around their farm. They’re one of the families working with Acción Médica Cristiana, our hosts here in La Dalia, to learn new agricultural techniques and, ultimately, to purchase this land from A.M.C.

Besides a variety of fruits and vegetables and a small parcel of coffee (which won’t be harvested for two years), they also grow many herbs and plants that are used for medicinal purposes. Fidelina gave me ginger root straight from the ground to chew to fight my lingering cough. Other families from the surrounding community come to her for similar remedies. Not a bad idea when the closest farmacia is more than 15 miles down a mountainside.

We met their oldest daughter, 15-year-old Esther, as she walked home from school. Esther is beautiful and poised, and seemed completely unflustered when a bunch of gringos greeted her with the request that she pose for a photograph holding a baby pelibuey. This is my new favorite animal. (Red ants are out of the running...) A pelibuey is a cross between a sheep and a goat. Someone called it a naked sheep, and that’s about right.

There was an 8-day-old kid pelibuey at the farm, and Richard, our photographer, asked Esther to cradle it for some shots. First someone had to wrangle the thing. The mother was not happy that we took her baby away, and she voiced her displeasure the whole time. Richard described the sound a pelibuey makes: it’s like an old man throwing up. You’ll be able to hear the sound in a future Bread for the World podcast thanks to our intrepid multimedia associate, who will interview anyone or anything.

Fifteen minutes of an angry mama pelibuey making that noise. Horrible.

But Esther posed patiently, Richard got his shots, the baby ran back to its mama, and the kid-napping was over.

Kimberly Burge is Bread for the World's senior writer/editor.

Day Four: “Retarded Nations”

So my checked bag decided to spend an extra night in our connection city of Miami, but it finally arrived in Latin America!  Can you really blame it?  Miami is beautiful, even if only viewed through an airport window.     

This morning we met up with the rest of the crew for the week.  Louis our mini-bus driver, Richard the still photographer, Marcos our translator and the three members of our American video team.  They rented an SUV at the airport for remote filming and ended up wandering around for hours.  Magellan only made it around the world because he never came through Nicaragua.  Like the rest of the country, our hotel doesn’t actually have an address but rather an approximate description of its location.  The hotel’s Web site lists the address as “30 meters south of La Marseillaise Restaurante.” Some directions are even based on landmarks that don’t exist, “three blocks north of where the water tower used to be…”

Our first task of the day was meeting up with our guide from Accion Medica Christiana, a local partner organization of Church World Service. After a background briefing from Belinda Forbes (and project manager Dr. Reyna) at AMC headquarters in the capitol, we were off. 

Our trip got off to a rough start.  While stopping to pick up water and supplies at a gas station, we discovered a slow leak in one of the rental car’s tires and in the chaos of changing it, someone made off with our translator's travel bag.  I’ve gotta say though, since we had multiple bags containing tens of thousands of dollars' worth of video and audio gear, they probably picked the best bag.  Since American Airlines lost my bag for a few days, I had already replaced some essential undergarments and just passed them on to our translator, Marcos. 

We’re finally out in Matagalpa and I’m falling asleep while writing this blog post- with a dinner in my belly so fresh that I can imagine the chickens running around free just earlier today. 

I cannot spend enough time talking about how terrible the roads are here.  No wonder everyone is always running late…  Glad we chose to highlight road construction and infrastructure development as part of the video.    

I’m also fascinated by the differences between our more “time oriented” culture in the U.S. and the more laid back “event oriented” culture of our neighbors to the south.  It’s all relative though. When I was seven and my parents were working at a refugee camp in the Philippines, my dad used to joke with me that I ran on “third world time.”  Back then that term wasn’t offensive - now we say “developing countries.”  Once upon a time, developing countries used to be referred to as “retarded nations,” meaning literally, “slow to develop.”  But develop into what?  In the U.S. we may all have two cars and high-speed wireless cable internet, but we don’t have very good health care and women can’t afford to stay home with their kids for very long.  Compared to Europe, we’re the ones who are “retarded.”  With their healthcare, family leave and extended vacations- maybe they need to be doing development work in DC…
  
I’m missing the U.S., but I am pleasantly exhausted, remembering how much I liked being an expat NGO worker overseas.  We might not be making cash hand over fist, but we have no problem sleeping at night, and speaking of which… zzzzz…

Brian P. Duss is the multimedia associate at Bread for the World. 

Day Three: Casa de los Artes

I’m having trouble getting the stench of garbage out of my lungs and the sights of La Chureca out of my mind. It’s hard not to have your heart broken by places like that, and maybe mine should break a little bit.     

But when despair hovered too close, I felt small arms thrown around my waist in joy. The children were wonderful. They greeted us not as strangers but as new friends. It was so clear that the children at the Los Quinchos center felt safe within its walls, even surrounded by 100 acres of garbage. Imagine how they could thrive if they didn't live in a landfill.

We saw for ourselves at the Los Quinchos project in San Marcos. It’s the next stage of the program, taking children from Managua away for the weekend to the farm and cultural center run by the organization in the hills 45 minutes outside the city. Here in the fresh mountain air, I could breathe, and the children can, too.

We stopped first at the music lessons. Six boys were learning to play marimba, a Nicaraguan xylophone. They performed a polka for us! Cesar was especially intense and looked the part of folk musician with his straw hat pulled down over the hood of his sweatshirt.

I love that, at Los Quinchos, music and art are central to the work they do with children. It’s so easy to focus on the material needs of these kids; those are enormous. But so is their need to be kids. Art and beauty should be a right, not a privilege, a sentiment fully embraced here.

At the Casa de los Artes, three 16-year-old boys are working quietly on their drawing skills in the small library. In Managua, these boys were street kids, addicted to sniffing glue (which at least took away their hunger pangs). They’ve worked with Los Quinchos for several years now, one of them since he was six. In the back courtyard, there’s a mural in progress on one wall: a gorgeous depiction of Frida Kahlo. Here I talk to Francisco, who’s been involved at Los Quinchos since he was 11; he’s now probably in his late 20s. He wants to practice his English, which is better than my Spanish is ever likely to be. He tells me he loves to paint, and hopes to do it in many places. That’s why he’s working on his English.

It’s amazing the connections you can make with people over a few understood words. To reach the farm where the boys live, we drove over dirt roads with potholes the size of small craters. Looking out the window at the lush jungle setting and nearly whacking my head at one bump, I called our driver, Rolando, Indiana Jones. He grinned.

We ended our day at San Marcos’s newest hot spot – Los Quinchos Pizza Parlor. Zelinda Roccia, founder of Los Quinchos, is from Italy, and she’s brought friends and volunteers over to train some older girls and boys in pizza-making. The kids learn a trade, Los Quinchos makes a bit of money, and the town gets a new restaurant. If you ever get to visit, I recommend the pepperoni, with a Coca-Cola Light.

Kimberly Burge is Bread for the World's senior writer/editor.