Bree is my hero, and other thoughts

So, let me start by saying Im sorry if any of you are worried. After Xela, Guatemala, I traveled on to Guatemala City, stayed the night in San Salvador, and continued on to Managua, arriving here on Wednesday afternoon. I just have had really limited access to phone and internet...My travels were fun, mostly, but also a lot of bus time. The second half I felt much more prepared and nothing really happened worth writing about. I spent the night at a hostel, I watched the movie crash on the bus, I slept, I looked out the window. However, I am fine, I am alive and well in Nicaragua.

For those of you who dont know, Im here visiting my friend Bree Pearsall, who is a year long intern here in Managua at an organization that does a bunch of things, including a women's sewing cooperative, a fair trade coffee finca, a medical clinic...probably other things as well, Ive only been here 2 days really to learn. Let me just say, for those of you who know Bree, she has not been letting us know what an awesome job she is doing here, how extremely different her life actually is than most of ours right now, and what an incredible person she is. This blog is a tribute to Bree, mostly. Those of you who don't know her will be so jealous that I do.

First off, I arrive at the bus station in Managua with no money, so I pay this teenager way too much to help me find an ATM and make a phone call. I wasnt about to walk around in Nicaragua by myself, this place kind of scares me! Its maybe just because I am new here and still feel foreign, whereas I feel comfortable in Mexico now. Bree picks me up from the station, wearing a skirt and earings, but driving a HUGE rickety old stick shift pickup truck just like a real missionary or peace corp worker would do. She tries to start the car, it does work. Then she tries again....maybe 6 times. Doesnt work. Finally some nice nica men here pushed the car and we shifted into second or whatever, I was just a passenger, and we were on our way.

Bree drives like a maniac. She owns the road, which you have to do here. Not only that, she knew her way around here like nobody's business. On the way she told me interesting historical facts about places, knowing everything about everything, and yet telling me humbly that she knows very little. yeah right. The city where she lives of Managua is not very quaint or pretty at all, and she likes it that way, but I think its pretty nonetheless just due to nature. Apparently it is the greenest capital in central america, they say, and it is filled with trees, mountains, lakes, and the sunset is very lovely here. Bree spends her time working on a mostly american base (meaning mostly american employees) filled with palm trees and other beautiful greenery, yellow flowers scattered on the ground, a dorm with hammocks and all the beer and cokes you can drink, an office with air conditioning, and nice american girls her age. There are several yapping dogs, a nice german shephard, and two MONKEYS. One of them roams around free and will let you pet her. the other is attached to a long chain because it bites! but the biting one has a funny personality. She spends here time here doing official duties and errands, but sometimes drives into town to run erreands.

At home she lives with this wonderful nicaraguan family. Her mother, Gloria is fantastic and has a really brillant personality. She talks about things like politics, gossip, globalization and buying things at your local market instead of a grocery store. She gave me a bandaid yesterday and bought special cookies for us when i came. Gloria, her two daugters and the little girl (niece) who live there are spectacular, and they all love Bree, probably because she spends loads of time with them chatting and watching TV each night. Their house is humble but inviting, something lacking electricity, sometimes lacking water, but seems to always be hospitable and welcoming. There was a bat in the shower last night, a mouse in brees room, and she sleeps with earplugs to as not to be awakened by the roosters or the gats on the tin roof. Bree is living like a poor person. A poor person who eats well and travels on the weekends, lets be honest, but still this place where she is living sort of put me into extreme shock, and she hardly even let us in on how crazy here everyday life is. There is I think one mirror in the house, in the living room. You have to wear shoes all the time because even the bedroom floor is covered in lots of dirt. She eats the same thing everyday, beans and rice, and a little fruit sometimes. Apparently they are sometimes lacking electricity for hours at a time, and she reads by one little bitty candle. and never ever complains about these conditions.

This was impressive, but more than that was when she took us on a tour of managua yesterday, and seemed to know everything in the world there is to know about nicaraguan politics and history. I learned so much, I feel like I am on an educational field trip.

The best part of yesterday, the best part perhaps of my entire trip and maybe my life... was when we went to go to talk to the sugar cane workers who are protesting, sleeping in hammocks tied to trees in the middle of the city. We started to talk to them (wait, BREE started to talk to them, i was scared because they were all staring at us and that makes me uncomfortable, but soon after i forgot about myself and relaxed). They told us their story, that they had been working in a northern town with the sugarcane crop, and the company they are working for is making them work with dangerous pesticides that are harmful to humans. They are spraying over the fields where people are working in airplanes...They would not be so harmful if the people working with protective covering and books and goggles and masks, but the company refuses to buy it for them. What is more, the pesticides are contaminating the water, so much so that not only are people hurt from working with the pesticides, but even their families are sick from the water...3-4 people are dying per day, mostly of kidney failure, but it also eats away at their skin, depigmenting it with white spots....already 2000 have died. The media is not covering it because the company is owned by the richest family in nicaragua that owns almost half the businesses and this dynasty family pays off the press and has an arrangement with the president. The workers are getting no compensation or medical care. I stood there, looking at that mass of sad, tired faces, telling their story, and felt so sad about injustice in the world, and so sad that I could not save all those people from their plight. I hate injustice, and I realize that there is only so little one person can do. We might bring them food just to help a little. but really, they are on my mind so much, and they are not the only ones. So many seem to be suffering at the hands of others in the world and I dont know what to do about it. I am understanding more and more why violent revolutions happen....Ill write more later about things like this...

For more information about workers harmed by pesticides I recommend reading this book: The Death of Ramon Gonzales.

I am really happy to be here- we are having a good time and I am really learning about a place I would probably never have come to or been interested in if Bree weren't here.

I have to go, this is getting long!!!

bye!