Accion de Gracias

I have heard it said that Thanksgiving is the only holiday maintaining some sort of semblance to its original intentions. While holidays such as Christmas, Easter, and even smaller ones such as Memorial Day have strayed from their meanings, Thanksgiving is still a day set aside to feast together and give thanks for the bounties and blessings in our lives.

I have so many things to be thankful for, and many of those things that I have overlooked in the past have made themselves more visible in my life. When people ask what its like here and I tell them of the hardships that come with being a foreigner (a rich white one at that) in a place wrought with extreme poverty, I am not quite sure if I am making it clear that I am so happy here. Being in this situation, I am made more acutely aware of the undeserved, overabundant blessings from God in my life, and in this situation you cannot help but feel joy. I am thankful for warm showers (because with this I am an minority here) and for the times when I have electricity at the flick of a switch. I'm not sure when the change came where normally I'd be mad that I dare be inconvenienced but a power outage to the point where I am thankful that its on, but it happened. I am so thankful that I have health and education and some control (to a degree) over my future--I can choose to leave here and never see poverty again if I so desired, whereas these people have no such option. Many have hardly ever been out of the barrio that they grew up in, and do not or will not ever have the means to do so. I am so thankful that I do not go to bed hungry, that I can pile on clothes to keep me warm, crawl under blankets at night, and get a full nights sleep before I go to my job with benefits, that pays for all my needs as well as my desires at this point. I can't help but have more joy now than I have ever had in my life because I know that as I continue to learn the language, connect with people, and become better at teaching that my joy will increase even more.

With that aside, Jen and I took our Thanksgiving break and traveled to Nicaragua to this amazingly beautiful beach as a way to escape the cold weather in the mountains. Yes, it has been cold here---legitimately cold, to the point where we have cancelled 2 days of school. From our bus I got to see hours of the beautiful Honduran countryside, which is some of the prettiest that I have ever seen in my life. As far out as you can see there are blue-green mountains completely undisturbed except for the occasional small pueblo with the stark-white cathedral standing out against the lush greenery--a sort of lighthouse to the rest of the country letting others know that yes, there are people out there. We also got to see nearly the entire Pacific Coastline of Nicaragua since our beach town was only 12 km from the border of Costa Rica.

Wednesday night we arrived in Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. This place completely exceeded my expectations...I have always heard how dirty and dangerous Managua was, and after pulling into the city and spending a full day there I was surprised at how new and clean everything looked and how the neighborhood where the bus terminal was in the "bad section" of town looked nicer than many, many parts of Tegus. Sort of puts things in perspective. Recently Daniel Ortega was elected president of Nicaragua, who is the leader of the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) party---pretty socialist in nature. Ortega was president when the U.S. invaded during the Civil War in the early 90's, and even though this poor little country has been tugged and pulled by the world super-powers to "join their side," the general population benefitted from this type of government and thus elected Ortega again. This, I feel, is the problem with a two-party election system: One party is inevitably for elite portions of the population while the other who promises to protect and serve the common man might be corrupt, but there are no other options so people are left to choose the lesser of two evils. But anyways, I need not launch into political debates at this point. I brought all this up because Daniel Ortega erected some pretty impressive statues to support the FSLN movement, which are so unlike anything I've ever seen before. Like this, the statue to the unknown guerilla, with an axe in one hand, AK-47 in the other pointing up to the sky. Made me feel like I wasn't in Kansas anymore...

San Juan del Sur, our little beach town, was pretty used to seeing people from the states who come for the surfing. This place is not nearly as well known as Costa Rica (probably due to the aforementioned U.S. invasion to control the Civil War) but was so friendly and accomodating to us. We stayed at a hostel full of nothing but surfers for $5 a night and were 2 blocks away from the beach. Other than making it to our destination, we had little other plans for the weekend except finishing our books and becoming bronzed goddesses. I feel like I was more successful at one then the other, but then again who really wants to read when on a tropical beach anyway? Just kidding. I did finish my book and even got a few tan lines, and by tan lines I mean freckles on my shoulders and chest which give the appearance of color.

All in all, I had a wonderful time. Make sure to check out my pictures, which you can enlarge by clicking on them. I also have another video clip from the beach, but I apologize for the sound quality...the wind kinda does a number on that. To see this video, go to the post entitled "Now You Can See My Homemade Videos" under the September archives. Keep me in your prayers...I can surely use them. Pray that I can find a place volunteer at during the summer that isn't too far from my apartment, pray for friends, safety, continued Spanish learning, and that I can become more and more connected with people here. Until next time, leave me some comments. I check them all the time and they make my day :)