A few Sundays ago, I went to a small, very poor community with a former student of mine, her mother, and her two younger brothers to visit her grandmother, who is also the pastor of a small evangelical church in that community. Susuman (the official name of this unofficial community) is located uphill from Matagalpa's dump, which is made apparent by the number of flies present at any given time, regardless of how clean the church was. Sarahi, my former student, had mentioned to me last year that she wanted to do a project in Susuman, and teach the youth in the community about how to save, start a business, and pretty much try to convince these kids that they have more options than their present condition.
Well this month we finally made it, and boy the phrase better late than never is most definitely applicable here. I am not even sure how to explain it, but basically, the people that live in this community are squatters, have built their homes out of government donated materials (in the past few years, the National Government has been giving out Zinc sheets which most of Nicaragua uses as roofs), and the families live off of $1 a day or less from materials found in the dump and then resold, or any other way they can make the money.
There is a school in Susuman, a three room primary school that was built from the salary of Sarahi's grandmother, as she is a teacher for the Ministry of Education, which at the time of my visit, had been closed down due to ownership disputes with a foreign missionary who had donated something or other and claimed it was then his/hers. But I got word a few days ago that the Ministry of Education was able to take it over, and now the school is up and running, saving the primary school kids a 5km walk to the next closest school.
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| Sarahi, her Grandmother, and her mom |
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| The Church |
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| Kitchen at the Church to feed those kids who don't have enough at home |
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| The Church and its Pastor! |
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| Kids watching a baseball game in front of the Church |
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| The Matagalpa Dump |
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| The Dump under 42X Zoom |
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| Little boy walking with the dump in the background |
Ok, so I didn't start writing this blog entry to make anyone feel bad, or pull at heart strings to get people to donate. Far from it. In fact, I wanted to write about it and Sarahi because I think she and her family are such an exceptional example of what charity means. They do not have much, and in relation to most people in the US, they have almost nothing of monetary value, but they know they are aware of the greater poverty that exists in their country and are actively trying to do something about it. They have asked me to do a few workshops on how to save, start a micro-business, etc. But in the process of the conversations, we also realized a need for much more. What turned out to be a single volunteer project is quickly becoming a multi-volunteer project, involving ovens, nutritition charlas, sexual and reproductive health charlas, psychologist visits, etc. It's a tall order, but hopefully we can make a small impact that will then ripple outward to make a bigger one. Stay tuned for more information, I have another meeting with Sarahi and family soon!
