Five months ago we took cupcakes into school to celebrate Lia's birthday, and the next day school went online. The rest of the school year finished out that way, at first with emails back and forth and then with a platform called Seesaw. I had joked that online school should be called on-the-parents school because of the extra work we were doing, but I'm sure everyone was doing more work than normal trying to improvise in these complicated circumstances.
Cases didn't seem to emerge quickly here, and we wondered why. Could it be the climate and the humidity that causes it to move more slowly? Could it be that there was simply not a very active tourism industry that meant fewer travelers? Could it be that Managua is not so densely populated, with mostly one-story homes? The neighboring countries all put in place strong public health measures, locking down borders and in-country travel, and still were reporting cases. Here, the Ministry of Health promoted hand-washing, but not much else. Public school, buses, markets, and such were all operating as normal.
Then in June there was dramatic increase in concern. There were still few official numbers to go with what people were experiencing but many people we talked to seemed to have a relative or connection of someone who had recently died abruptly. There were two people from our local church who died, including a man who was in my small Sunday School class.
Our work changed significantly during these months as well. Our two Nicaraguan staff began to stay home; one of them could do work virtually. We had our babysitter who helps with Miriam during the workday begin to stay home as well. Our three SALTers had left back in March, but our YAMENer from Guatemala didn't even have that option. Over the following months, we began doing many more meetings virtually and partner organizations were all carefully monitoring the situation and taking precautions of their own.
The biggest change for our work is that MCC needed to look at adjustments in light of the financial situation. Among cuts and consolidations was the consolidation of the MCC Honduras office with the MCC Nicaragua office. This brought staff changes and the country representatives for Honduras and their family left at the end of July. Two staff remained to close the office and pack up, leaving in August. Everyone worked really hard to make this transition possible, but it is still a sad and challenging transition to go through. In the new arrangement, the relationship with the Costa Rican Mennonite church is now directly with our Area Directors and our office is responsible for the MCC programming in Nicaragua and Honduras.
At a family level, our kids have been remarkably flexible and resilient. We have been able to get out to the park or to go together to the office on a regular basis. Lia has done a lot of reading this summer, especially enjoying any Nancy Drew book she can get her hands on. We made it through the whole Narnia series at bedtime, alternating between the books in Spanish and English. Silas has learned how to hula hoop and has spent lots of time with Legos. Part of the daily routine has been to practice piano (Lia) and recorder (Silas) and read "20 and 20" (minutes in English and Spanish) for a 10-day chart towards family movie nights. Miriam also had to adjust and learn how to share her living room kingdom with her brother and sister. She has shifted to talking more in English more during these months. She enjoys playing with Pollys and playing with her siblings, but she likes when they do things on her terms.
We have been able to do a few weekend city escapes with Nathan and Angelica, the two other MCCers in our neighborhood. We've gone out to hike at the Chocoyero, hike the coffee hills at Las Nubes, and we've gone with one other family who had also been taking precautions to the beach one day and to the Apoyo lagoon.
Recently MCC Nicaragua was able to support the three Anabaptist church conferences in a food assistance response for people who had lost work in these recent months. Nathan, Angelica, and I were able to go and help at their packing day.
In the recent weeks, there has been a perception that there are fewer cases of COVID in Managua. The few indicators that we have to work with seem to suggest that as well. Two of the private hospitals have had reportedly had very few or no COVID cases in recent weeks. Our partner organizations and some churches have started to step back into their buildings. Our kids' school was able to use a charter flight for some of their staff out of the country (still no commercial flights here) and they plan to start an adapted in-presence school day with a virtual option on August 31. At this point, it looks like Lia and Silas will go to school; their classes will be using facemasks and social distancing.
Thanks to all for your prayers and support. It's certainly been a strange time, but we have felt that support. Bendiciones, God bless you...
