I first heard about the 100 Thing Challenge while traveling in Belgium two years ago. Since then, the idea has grown much more popular. (See this website http://www.guynameddave.com/100-thing-challenge.html) Those who accept the challenge strive to reduce their stock of personal belongings to only 100 things. I find this idea appealing, though whether or not it is possible depends entirely on how you count (i.e., do you count every fork and every t-shirt, or do you count ‘forks’ as one item and ‘shirts’ as another?). On the website, the originator of the challenge says to count only items that are mostly or entirely yours, not shared by a family or roommates. Since I live alone, these rules mean I would have to count everything in my house. For fun, I recently made a list of everything I own, just to see how many things I have. It turns out that if you include multiples of any item – food, books, pens, cups – you will quickly reach 100, no matter how minimalist your lifestyle; whereas, if you don’t count multiples, it could potentially be very easy for anyone to get under 100 things.
I have never owned what I consider to be a lot of things. I move often – in fact, if I stay through the end of my service in the house I am renting, I will have lived here longer than in any place in the last 12 years – and so it behooves me to be able to fit all of my belongings into a mini-van. I came to Nicaragua with less than 100 pounds of stuff*, a fraction (though a significant one) of my total belongings. I have acquired many items since arriving here, mostly necessary household things: a stove, a mini-fridge, dishes, a broom, a hammock, etc. My life here feels quite modest – I don’t have a single rug, a television, or any upholstered furniture - yet I am amazed at how much stuff I own in comparison with many of my Nicaraguan neighbors.
Stuff clings to me like burrs. It seems every time I leave the house I come back with more. Be it books from the Peace Corps library, groceries, used clothing from one of Esteli’s Ropa Americana stores, care packages, new pens or markers, whatever. It amazes me how my house seems to fill up on its own, without any conscious effort on my part. I thought this process was particular to the developed world and that it would not be part of my life in Nicaragua. However, I now think that this tendency to acquire things is a cultural attribute that comes with having grown up in a materialistic society. It’s not even necessarily that I am spending money to acquire these items. Many times they are gifts or things someone else is throwing out.
I am planning to come back to the US with almost nothing, and it gives me great joy to think about all the stuff I will be giving away or selling at the end of my service.
*This might be a more accurate way of counting how much stuff a person owns. It would certainly be much less open to interpretation than ‘100 things’. Though depending on the weight goal, it might be impossible to own things like a piano or a refrigerator or, for that matter, furniture. Maybe one ton of stuff would be a good goal.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Flooding of the Rio Viejo
Here are some images of flooding in my site this rainy season. This first one is of me standing in the road that passes in front of my house after it rained yesterday.
Here you can see where people will be losing part of the corn harvest, on top of the beans they've already lost due to excessive rains.
This river went completely dry during last year's drought and subsequent dry season.
What looks like a creek here is actually a road.
The water level rose high enough to enter many people's houses, some up to knee deep.
Here you can see where people will be losing part of the corn harvest, on top of the beans they've already lost due to excessive rains.
This river went completely dry during last year's drought and subsequent dry season.
What looks like a creek here is actually a road.
The water level rose high enough to enter many people's houses, some up to knee deep.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Rainy Season Blues
I am getting pretty sick of the rainy season. It has been a rough one so far. Last year many farms lost their harvests due to drought; this year the farmers are losing again, only this time due to excessive rain. It has rained so much that the river actually changed course, overflowing its banks and taking over a dirt road as its new channel. Some families downstream have had to leave their houses for fear that they will be swept away in the night.
My yard is a complete swamp. My garden has drowned, and in its place a jungle has grown, practically overnight. Almost every other day I have to blaze a new trail to the latrine with my machete. I don’t even consider leaving the house without putting on rubber boots. And because there are so many places for mosquitoes to lay eggs, mosquito-borne diseases have been especially bad this year all over Nicaragua. Several of my neighbors have had fevers I’m convinced were dengue.
But the thing that is really making me hate the rainy season is that all of my clothes, my shoes, and even my bed smell like an old lady’s basement. I feel singularly helpless about the situation because on top of the excessive rains, we’ve had power outages. And when there’s no electricity, there’s no running water either, since our water system requires electricity. So ironically, we’re suffering both from too much and not enough water. Even if I could do the wash, there is a high probability that my stuff wouldn’t dry before it rains again, which would just start the mold cycle all over again. Just this once I would love to throw everything in a washing machine and then dry it in a dryer – even my pillows, my mattress, and my hiking boots, all of which are being taken over by mold.
I am grateful not to be among those who have lost their houses or their bean crops, of course; but I seem to forget every time I pick up a shirt and realize it’s too stinky to wear even though I’ve just washed it. Everyone says September and October are the rainiest months. We’ll see what they bring this year.
My yard is a complete swamp. My garden has drowned, and in its place a jungle has grown, practically overnight. Almost every other day I have to blaze a new trail to the latrine with my machete. I don’t even consider leaving the house without putting on rubber boots. And because there are so many places for mosquitoes to lay eggs, mosquito-borne diseases have been especially bad this year all over Nicaragua. Several of my neighbors have had fevers I’m convinced were dengue.
But the thing that is really making me hate the rainy season is that all of my clothes, my shoes, and even my bed smell like an old lady’s basement. I feel singularly helpless about the situation because on top of the excessive rains, we’ve had power outages. And when there’s no electricity, there’s no running water either, since our water system requires electricity. So ironically, we’re suffering both from too much and not enough water. Even if I could do the wash, there is a high probability that my stuff wouldn’t dry before it rains again, which would just start the mold cycle all over again. Just this once I would love to throw everything in a washing machine and then dry it in a dryer – even my pillows, my mattress, and my hiking boots, all of which are being taken over by mold.
I am grateful not to be among those who have lost their houses or their bean crops, of course; but I seem to forget every time I pick up a shirt and realize it’s too stinky to wear even though I’ve just washed it. Everyone says September and October are the rainiest months. We’ll see what they bring this year.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Talk at Ethical Society St. Louis
While visiting my family in June of this year I gave a talk at the Ethical Society of St. Louis. I spoke about my experience thus far in Nicaragua. The talk is now available online as a podcast from the St. Louis Ethical Society's website. If you'd like to listen, you can find it here:
http://www.ethicalstl.org/res_libraryaudio.html
http://www.ethicalstl.org/res_libraryaudio.html
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Fernanda
Yesterday I finally visited Dona Fernanda, the old lady who always stops in the street to talk to me. I usually see her when she is on her way to church, dressed in old-fashioned pastel colored dresses, usually with a scarf over her hair and a large cross around her neck. When she sees me she calls out to me, we embrace and air kiss, which is a bit awkward since she stands about four feet two inches tall. No matter how hot it is outside her cheek is always powdery and cool. She blesses me in the name of Jesucristo and tells me to come visit her at her home.
Yesterday afternoon I was walking home from a visit to one of the teachers in the school when I saw Fernanda sitting outside of her house. She was wearing a bandana and her hair hung down in two long, skinny braids. She was sitting on a rock smoking a cigarette. I walked over to her and sat down on a rock facing hers, and we had a lovely conversation, punctuated by Fernanda dragging on her cigarette and spitting into the dirt. “Soy grosera, no?” she asked me several times. I’m crude, aren’t I?
I asked her who lived here in this home with her, and she said she lived alone. But she isn’t afraid, she said. She proceeded to tell me that even during the war she wasn’t afraid, when she used to cross military lines in order to deliver babies. She never feared, she said, “porque para Jesucristo y una partera no hay fronteras.” For Jesus Christ and for midwives there are no borders.
Listening to her talk about her life was like reading a Gabriel García Márquez novel, all magical realism. She told me that she learned midwifery directly from God – no one here on earth taught her the trade. She learned how to sew in dreams, she said. “Son las cosas que Dios regala a una.” These are just things that God gives to you.
She has five children and nine grandchildren. Most of the grandchildren she delivered in her dirt-floor home. “They were born into my hands,” she said. I asked her if she was ever married, and she said no; her children were gifts sent directly from God.
Fernanda’s father taught her how to play guitar, and she used to write songs, she told me. But after he died she never touched the guitar again. I asked her if she could sing me one of the songs she had written, and she said no; she remembers the lyrics, but her voice doesn’t cooperate anymore. She could, however, recite for me a poem that had occurred to her as she saw me walking down the path to her house.
“Muchachita, que bonita
Me alivia mi corazón.
Espero que venga para una visita
Y le doy un apretón.”
Translated:
Such a pretty girl
Makes my heart feel light.
I hope she comes for a visit
I’ll give her a big squeeze.
As I was leaving, she did just that, and I promised to visit again soon.
Yesterday afternoon I was walking home from a visit to one of the teachers in the school when I saw Fernanda sitting outside of her house. She was wearing a bandana and her hair hung down in two long, skinny braids. She was sitting on a rock smoking a cigarette. I walked over to her and sat down on a rock facing hers, and we had a lovely conversation, punctuated by Fernanda dragging on her cigarette and spitting into the dirt. “Soy grosera, no?” she asked me several times. I’m crude, aren’t I?
I asked her who lived here in this home with her, and she said she lived alone. But she isn’t afraid, she said. She proceeded to tell me that even during the war she wasn’t afraid, when she used to cross military lines in order to deliver babies. She never feared, she said, “porque para Jesucristo y una partera no hay fronteras.” For Jesus Christ and for midwives there are no borders.
Listening to her talk about her life was like reading a Gabriel García Márquez novel, all magical realism. She told me that she learned midwifery directly from God – no one here on earth taught her the trade. She learned how to sew in dreams, she said. “Son las cosas que Dios regala a una.” These are just things that God gives to you.
She has five children and nine grandchildren. Most of the grandchildren she delivered in her dirt-floor home. “They were born into my hands,” she said. I asked her if she was ever married, and she said no; her children were gifts sent directly from God.
Fernanda’s father taught her how to play guitar, and she used to write songs, she told me. But after he died she never touched the guitar again. I asked her if she could sing me one of the songs she had written, and she said no; she remembers the lyrics, but her voice doesn’t cooperate anymore. She could, however, recite for me a poem that had occurred to her as she saw me walking down the path to her house.
“Muchachita, que bonita
Me alivia mi corazón.
Espero que venga para una visita
Y le doy un apretón.”
Translated:
Such a pretty girl
Makes my heart feel light.
I hope she comes for a visit
I’ll give her a big squeeze.
As I was leaving, she did just that, and I promised to visit again soon.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Back in the Day
Before I was assigned to my site, I was prepared to handle almost anything. I was willing to live an hour’s trek from a bus route, I would have been fine in a village without electricity. I did request to be placed in a place with running water, but a well system would have probably have been just fine. While I was still in the US, the idea of using a latrine for two years freaked me out, but by the end of training I had decided it wouldn’t be too bad. My one wish was that I wouldn’t have to live in a dirt-floor home.
When I got to my site I was pleasantly surprised. For an Agriculture volunteer, I’ve got it kind of cushy – we have running water for at least two hours every day, so I don’t have to haul water from a well; my house is wired with electricity; and best of all, I live right on a road – newly paved – along which pass eight buses a day. I can’t receive calls right in my house, but it is possible for me to find pockets of cell coverage in my community.
I sometimes think about what it would have been like to have been placed in this site back in the old days of Peace Corps Nicaragua, i.e. the nineties. At that time, the community had not yet gotten electricity, nor was there a running water system. And the country did not as yet have any kind of cell network at all. The road was a rutted dirt track that became impassable during the rainy season.
The odd thing is that one year ago I was prepared to take it, whereas now I don’t think I could. Contrary to what I expected before I got here, as time goes on, I am less, not more willing to give up comforts of any kind. I am accustomed to using my computer almost every day and listening to my ipod whenever I’m in the house. I download podcasts whenever I go to Esteli, which thanks to the easy bus transportation, is about twice a week. When I talk to my host family, I realize that they feel the same way that I do about modern conveniences. My host mom lived the first 39 years of her life without electricity. Now, when it goes out for one day she’s bored without the television. And she can’t imagine going back to hauling buckets of water – sometimes six trips a day – up the steep hill to her house.
I think the point of this is that it is very difficult to go back, no matter if you have a lot or very little. For those of us, like Peace Corps Volunteers, who choose to give up (at least for a time) many of the comforts we are used to, it is possible to prepare for that moment and to make the transition willingly. But once you’ve settled in to a simpler life, it becomes just as hard to give up anything that you’ve come to depend on as it was the first time, maybe even more difficult.
Note: Ironically, just after I wrote this the charger for my laptop stopped working, so I am currently without the ability to download podcasts, write blog posts at home, or watch DVDs. Hopefully the situation will be resolved quickly.
When I got to my site I was pleasantly surprised. For an Agriculture volunteer, I’ve got it kind of cushy – we have running water for at least two hours every day, so I don’t have to haul water from a well; my house is wired with electricity; and best of all, I live right on a road – newly paved – along which pass eight buses a day. I can’t receive calls right in my house, but it is possible for me to find pockets of cell coverage in my community.
I sometimes think about what it would have been like to have been placed in this site back in the old days of Peace Corps Nicaragua, i.e. the nineties. At that time, the community had not yet gotten electricity, nor was there a running water system. And the country did not as yet have any kind of cell network at all. The road was a rutted dirt track that became impassable during the rainy season.
The odd thing is that one year ago I was prepared to take it, whereas now I don’t think I could. Contrary to what I expected before I got here, as time goes on, I am less, not more willing to give up comforts of any kind. I am accustomed to using my computer almost every day and listening to my ipod whenever I’m in the house. I download podcasts whenever I go to Esteli, which thanks to the easy bus transportation, is about twice a week. When I talk to my host family, I realize that they feel the same way that I do about modern conveniences. My host mom lived the first 39 years of her life without electricity. Now, when it goes out for one day she’s bored without the television. And she can’t imagine going back to hauling buckets of water – sometimes six trips a day – up the steep hill to her house.
I think the point of this is that it is very difficult to go back, no matter if you have a lot or very little. For those of us, like Peace Corps Volunteers, who choose to give up (at least for a time) many of the comforts we are used to, it is possible to prepare for that moment and to make the transition willingly. But once you’ve settled in to a simpler life, it becomes just as hard to give up anything that you’ve come to depend on as it was the first time, maybe even more difficult.
Note: Ironically, just after I wrote this the charger for my laptop stopped working, so I am currently without the ability to download podcasts, write blog posts at home, or watch DVDs. Hopefully the situation will be resolved quickly.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Snake Oil
During my bus ride home yesterday, a man got up, went to the front, and started to speak to the passengers. These bus speeches are pretty common. Ninety percent of the time the speaker is either talking about Jesus or selling something. This guy was selling medicine. He started off talking about how we need to take care of ourselves, how we get tired and run-down, we can have nervous attacks or trouble sleeping, or just feel worn out. “Well,” he said, “I have a solution for all of you, ladies and gentlemen. Here in my bag I have a wonderful cure for what ails you.” He pulled out a small box. “This, my friends, is what you have been looking for. Inside of this box you will find a syringe, a fresh syringe with a new, clean needle. Inside the syringe is a powerful vitamin.” This man is selling do-it-yourself intramuscular injections of vitamins on a bus. What?!
He went on, “When you inject yourself with this vitamin, my friends, you will feel 100% better. You will feel fresh, young, healthy, and happy. And how much, my friends, do you think this injection would cost in a pharmacy? I invite you, friends, to go and ask. Ask them how much an injection like this will cost. They will tell you, my friends, they will tell you $140 cordobas. That is how much this medicine will cost you if you want to go out and buy it in a store. But I am offering you this wonderful injection, this amazing cure, for only 50 cordobas. And if you buy two, my friends, I will throw a third one in for free.”
Then he pulled out a pamphlet. “But please, my friends, if you’re going to use these vitamins don’t do it until you have cleansed yourself of parasites. I want you to look here at this drawing. This worm, my friends, he lives in your stomach. He has five mouths, he eats and eats and eats, and he never gets full. And this little animal, this is the amoeba. He attacks you when you drink milk. And this one, this one lives in the flesh of the pig. Those who have epilepsy, who suffer from nervousness, they have this worm. And there are many others, my friends.” He indicated a plethora of other drawings of worms and microbes. “So if you are going to take this vitamin, please, please, kill these parasites first. This medicine here” – he produced another box – “will rid you of all these creatures. Do I have any takers? The senora here, yes, and here this man, anyone else?”
He went walking through the bus handing out the boxes. I took one of each, just to look and see exactly what he was selling so I could look it up later at home. The injection was a vitamin B cocktail – B1, B6, and B12. The parasite med was called albendazole. When I got home I went straight to my shelf and pulled out the book Where There Is No Doctor, which is a great medical reference manual for places like where I live. The parasite medication this man was selling works for a variety of worms, which I guess is good if that’s what you’ve got. But it doesn’t work on the two most common parasites in Nicaragua – amoebas and giardia. Not to mention that a lot of what he was saying about the parasites he did mention was flat-out wrong.
But the vitamin is the truly appalling part of his package for wellness. Let me quote from several sections of Where There Is No Doctor. First, from the part about vitamin B12: “This is mentioned only to discourage its use. Vitamin B12 is useful only for a rare type of anemia that is almost never found except in some persons over 35 years whose ancestors are from northern Europe…Do not waste your money on vitamin B12 or let a doctor or health worker give it to you unless a blood analysis has been done, and it has been shown that you have pernicious anemia.”
And from a section called “The Most Dangerous Misuse of Medicine”:
“The common belief that injections are usually better than medicine taken by mouth is not true. Many times medicines taken by mouth work as well as or better than injections. Also, most medicine is more dangerous when injected than when taken by mouth. Injections given to a child who has a mild polio infection can lead to paralysis. Use of injections should be very limited.”
Later, in a section entitled “Medicines Not to Inject”, the first entry is “Vitamins.” “Rarely are injected vitamins any better than vitamins taken by mouth. Injections are more expensive and more dangerous.” Just below, B12 is given special mention. “Injecting [B12] can cause abscesses or dangerous reactions (shock).”
To bill this medication as a cure-all, to suggest that it is good for people to buy a few packages and inject away, is absolutely unconscionable. I can’t believe it is legal (and I’m pretty sure it is. Even if it isn’t, it is quite common) for any old schmo to buy a carton of vitamin B injections and hand them out willy-nilly to unsuspecting poor farmers. It doesn’t help matters that people around here tend to be injection happy. I wanted to stand up myself and tell people not to waste their money or put their health at risk by listening to this snake-oil salesman. Maybe next time I’ll work up the nerve to do it.
He went on, “When you inject yourself with this vitamin, my friends, you will feel 100% better. You will feel fresh, young, healthy, and happy. And how much, my friends, do you think this injection would cost in a pharmacy? I invite you, friends, to go and ask. Ask them how much an injection like this will cost. They will tell you, my friends, they will tell you $140 cordobas. That is how much this medicine will cost you if you want to go out and buy it in a store. But I am offering you this wonderful injection, this amazing cure, for only 50 cordobas. And if you buy two, my friends, I will throw a third one in for free.”
Then he pulled out a pamphlet. “But please, my friends, if you’re going to use these vitamins don’t do it until you have cleansed yourself of parasites. I want you to look here at this drawing. This worm, my friends, he lives in your stomach. He has five mouths, he eats and eats and eats, and he never gets full. And this little animal, this is the amoeba. He attacks you when you drink milk. And this one, this one lives in the flesh of the pig. Those who have epilepsy, who suffer from nervousness, they have this worm. And there are many others, my friends.” He indicated a plethora of other drawings of worms and microbes. “So if you are going to take this vitamin, please, please, kill these parasites first. This medicine here” – he produced another box – “will rid you of all these creatures. Do I have any takers? The senora here, yes, and here this man, anyone else?”
He went walking through the bus handing out the boxes. I took one of each, just to look and see exactly what he was selling so I could look it up later at home. The injection was a vitamin B cocktail – B1, B6, and B12. The parasite med was called albendazole. When I got home I went straight to my shelf and pulled out the book Where There Is No Doctor, which is a great medical reference manual for places like where I live. The parasite medication this man was selling works for a variety of worms, which I guess is good if that’s what you’ve got. But it doesn’t work on the two most common parasites in Nicaragua – amoebas and giardia. Not to mention that a lot of what he was saying about the parasites he did mention was flat-out wrong.
But the vitamin is the truly appalling part of his package for wellness. Let me quote from several sections of Where There Is No Doctor. First, from the part about vitamin B12: “This is mentioned only to discourage its use. Vitamin B12 is useful only for a rare type of anemia that is almost never found except in some persons over 35 years whose ancestors are from northern Europe…Do not waste your money on vitamin B12 or let a doctor or health worker give it to you unless a blood analysis has been done, and it has been shown that you have pernicious anemia.”
And from a section called “The Most Dangerous Misuse of Medicine”:
“The common belief that injections are usually better than medicine taken by mouth is not true. Many times medicines taken by mouth work as well as or better than injections. Also, most medicine is more dangerous when injected than when taken by mouth. Injections given to a child who has a mild polio infection can lead to paralysis. Use of injections should be very limited.”
Later, in a section entitled “Medicines Not to Inject”, the first entry is “Vitamins.” “Rarely are injected vitamins any better than vitamins taken by mouth. Injections are more expensive and more dangerous.” Just below, B12 is given special mention. “Injecting [B12] can cause abscesses or dangerous reactions (shock).”
To bill this medication as a cure-all, to suggest that it is good for people to buy a few packages and inject away, is absolutely unconscionable. I can’t believe it is legal (and I’m pretty sure it is. Even if it isn’t, it is quite common) for any old schmo to buy a carton of vitamin B injections and hand them out willy-nilly to unsuspecting poor farmers. It doesn’t help matters that people around here tend to be injection happy. I wanted to stand up myself and tell people not to waste their money or put their health at risk by listening to this snake-oil salesman. Maybe next time I’ll work up the nerve to do it.
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