La casita

This story would never have happened if Dad hadn't tried to bring his ham radio to Nicaragua.  I did more than my share of grumbling or ridiculing my Dad's idea of setting up a tower and radio in order to participate in an international contest. But the leftover lumber from this project turned out to be fun family project.

Here's Dad's tower. I think this may have been the first time I helped him set up something like this, and gained what might be a hint of understanding about why this hobby, which seems backwards to most of us, is so fascinating to my dad. I thought about it in terms of a comparison with a the fixed gear bicycle. In an age of driverless cars, there is something beautiful about the simplicity of a bicycle, and to take it one step farther, a bike with a single gear that doesn't even freewheel. Maybe, in an age of easy and instantaneous digital global communication, there is something tantalizing about sending out a signal off a wire that can be heard around the world. That said, I'm not looking at studying for a license anytime soon though.

For us, the best part of this tower was the base.  Rough cut 2 inch by 4 inch 2x4s. Somewhere in the process of setting up the tower, I started to imagine what kinds of possibilities we would have with this wood after we were through.  Here's Silas helping measure out the cuts.

Family picture in the little house.  We used everything we had and ended up with this minimalist little house. With some imagination, it was a house. But the person who I hoped would enjoy it most, little Miriam, didn't seem to see it as anything.  So a few weeks later, we went for some more wood.

 

During the Semana Santa / Holy Week when the kids were off school, we added a roof and some boards to create the idea of some windows and doors. Here's Lia and Silas with the painting.

 

We put a hook up under the roof to be able to hang a little hammock seat.  Here are some friends from church over, playing "store" at the window.

One of Silas's favorite uses for the house is to climb onto the roof.  I'm also happy to be finding more ways we can enjoy being together outside on the front patio.  Here, Miriam squats and says "cheese" while Lia takes her picture with a little New Testament.

The "store" window also works nicely for a desk for Miriam. 

And the flower box and smiling children. Casita completa.

Book "review" / current events

Let's try a different kind of blog post this time: a book review. 

I put "review" in quotes in the title, because this will probably have more to do with events around the book than the literature itself.

The author of interest is Sergio Ramírez.  Last year, he became the first Nicaraguan to be announced as the winner of the Cervantes Prize for Spanish literature.  At the moment, he is in Spain to receive his prize.  He has an interesting background, which I won't make claims to understand in any detail, but he was among the FSLN revolutionary effort, and between 1985-1990, he served as Daniel Ortega's Vice President.  Since then he has dedicated himself more exclusively to literature, although his perspective on politics seem to be around as well, through articles in La Prensa, sharing on Twitter, and of course, through his books themselves.  Interestingly, his view of the reorganized, rebranded FSLN which returned to power in 2006, is critical.

As I'm writing this evening we have unusual protests and government resistance that has actually sent our kids home early from school today and cancelled classes tomorrow. People were recently protesting because of a perception that the government wasn't doing enough to put out a fire in the Indio Maiz nature reserve. Just as those protests were settling, a separate issue stirred public anger as the government approved a reform to the Social Security system, which will have businesses and individuals paying in more, and ultimately receiving less.

Like I said, Sergio Ramirez is in Spain, about to receive his literature prize, and he writes on Twitter, condemning the "violence and repression against the protesters".

Desde Madrid, en donde me encuentro a pocos días de recibir el Premio Cervantes, condeno la violencia y represión contra los manifestantes que espontáneamente están expresando su inconformidad con las recientes reformas a los derechos de seguridad social. #Nicaragua pic.twitter.com/Pqozn5a9W4

— Sergio Ramírez (@sergioramirezm) April 19, 2018

At the beginning of the year, I sat down to write some resolutions, and among the was the idea that I should get around to reading something by Ramírez, since he's apparently a great author from Nicaragua. So I picked up his latest book, Ya nadie llora por mí  (Alfaguara, 2017), without really knowing anything about the book.  I just was going to read it to read Ramírez.

The story is of a set of characters who are wildly interconnected across small world Managua, who attempt to find the step-daughter of a very wealthy and powerful businessman. It's a fiction novel, but it is packed full of present day references: people, places, products, etc.  It was interesting to read the book, travelling along to the real-life places where the characters take us.  The characters have their unique qualities and there is some humor along the way, but the story itself is sobering. 

The businessman's wife, encourages her husband to hire a low quality private detective to keep the search for the young woman, Marcela, out of the public eye.  The detective, Dolores Morales, a former Sandinista who lost a leg for the cause, accepts the case. He and his official and unofficial team, begin at the businessman's estate on a wealthy hill behind Club Terraza and eventually find their way to one of the poorest parts of the city, at a church/soup kitchen in the enormous Oriental Market.

The plot shifts from finding Marcela to understanding why she was missing.  This begins to open up themes of domestic violence and of a society where power and justice can be bought. It sheds light on the dramatic economic inequality, even though everyone is at the same time close and interconnected. It describes a police force that is essentially available for hire to the powerful, and uses brutal tactics in public and torture in private to extract information and maintain control.

There is a glimmer of hope for Marcela, and her mother, as they find allies who organize to support and publicize their cause before sending her to safety out of the country. But, ultimately, the powers  are able to weather the embarrassment and re-frame the story in order maintain their economic and sociopolitical position.  Like the title suggests, there is nothing or nobody to cry for anymore.

In light of current events, the book raises timeless questions.  How can a people's demand for just and democratic government be realized? And, how can just and democratic government for the people be sustained?

Migration: Who decides?

In the evenings while the kids lay down to fall asleep, I've gotten into the routine of listening to podcasts or news with headphones on while washing the dishes, sweeping the day's dust, picking up toys, etc.  The other night I was listening to an episode of This American Life on the idea of border walls.  Really interesting stories.  Part of it was interesting because the first two stories they told were places I've been and can picture in my mind:  Ceuta, Spain / Morocco and Nogales, Arizona / Nogales, Sonora.

These past months we've had various experiences with border crossing scenarios.  Together with our MCC staff, we've worked through facilitating travel to/from Nicaragua and many other places for people participating in service or various exchange events.  Recently, Rebekah and baby Miriam flew with a group for meetings in Colombia, and a few weeks ago I was travelling to/from Costa Rica by bus.  I visited the community of Cuatro Cruces, south of the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border, and heard how one church has been reaching out to Nicaraguans who come to work with pineapples.

1. "Immigration" is a worldwide debate.  Interestingly, the term "immigration" usually implies "permanence," which seems like an inaccurate term for much of the movement that people are describing in this debate. 

We see from where we stand, they say.  From where I stand at the moment, we have people coming and going between here and Costa Rica and between here and El Salvador on a regular or seasonally related basis. Especially for people whose livelihood is tied to working the land, people will get up and move when it's too wet or too dry and they lose a harvest.  They will get up and move when there is higher wage they can earn for a season and then return.  Some stay longer than they thought, but "permanence" happens for other reasons. "Migration" seems to describe what people set out to do, and can be observed in the short/medium term; "Immigration" is observed over the long term. This ordinary movement, of course, is disrupted or intensified when high-stakes border walls or barriers are put in place.

2. Migration as a problem and as solution are probably two sides of the same coin.  A fitting phrase, maybe, since this often stems from things financial or economic.

As a "problem," it is often said that when people move, it can leave people disoriented, vulnerable, can lead to family disintegration, and so on.  The labor rights activist César Chávez, whose family crossed a border when he was young, would argue that moving can weaken a commitment to make things improve and/or gives business an opportunity to exploit people who don't have a legal recourse.  When people are able to make it work where they most deeply rooted, without the need to move elsewhere, the "problem" of migration is avoided.

As a "solution," a strategic move can put someone in a more financially or socially advantageous position. You travel to Costa Rica, at a border point of entry or a blind spot, spend some time with oranges, coffee, pineapple, and then come back home to Nicaragua with money in your pocket, or you send it routinely back to family members. This year, the Ministry of Labor in Nicaragua increased minimum wages, which are divided by categories of work, by 10.4%, but the lowest category, agriculture, will only reach a minimum of US $4.49 for an 8 hour day of work. If there's a better deal somewhere else, people will naturally move.

3. From a theological point of view, we say it's important for God's people to stand with the sojourner.  Like the previous, awkward U.S. decades-long policy towards Cuba, the church also has a "wet foot, dry foot" conundrum. While people are living in challenging situations, we ask how we can support them so they can stay.  When people decide its time to go, we ask how we can help them leave. Staying and Migrating are both options people deserve, or rights. Maybe part of the "immigration problem" is when we who can travel freely are tempted to make the decisions for others.

South of the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border, I was encouraged to hear about the Cuatro Cruces church's social action committee, who has built a community bus stop and installed bathrooms along the community soccer field. They also responded to a blind Nicaraguan man who was living nearby and didn't qualify for Costa Rican benefits. They built him a house. There was another young Nicaraguan man who came with his family when he was younger, who went through local public schools and married a Costa Rican woman, but he can't work the better paying jobs because he doesn't have proper documentation.  He's a DREAMer, Central America style.  The church built their family a house too.

Cuatro Cruces, Upala, Costa Rica

Holiday Happenings

These last weeks have been quite eventful around the holidays.  We enjoyed a delicious lechón roast (small pig) with the MCC team, prepared and hosted by others on our team this year.  For the last week of Christmas, Rebekah's sister Esther, brother-in-law Yohannes, and their children were here.  We enjoyed Christmas together, celebrating Miriam's first birthday, and a trip to historic Granada and the dormant volcano Mombacho. 

MCC team Christmas

Christmas with cousins

Miriam's first birthday!

Exploring Managua

Cathedral replicas, Paseo Xolotlan in Managua...

...and the scavenger hunt to find them in Granada

Other pictures in Granada...

Mombacho crater loop hike

Awaiting Residency

I (Derrick) grew up with the tradition of reading stories from the year at Christmastime.  Here's the storied I shared this year.

“We are calling to let you know that your application for residency has been approved”: the long awaited phone call that I could never quite imagine. It came while on a bus ride towards Nicaragua’s east coast; we were about 4 hours into our trip when the phone rang. “I’ll be in as soon as I can when I’m back,” I told them.

Let me introduce you to a word in Spanish: el trámite.  Trámites are legal processes, involving lots of letters to the appropriate people, proper documentation from various sources to back up any request, and the right approval from the right people at the right time.

In the story of getting legal residency in Nicaragua, I’ll mostly skip over the first part about gathering the documents.  But for just one example of this run around, there was the background check, that started with a simple online request in the U.S. and the letter came in the mail. Unfortunately it expired before all the other documents were in order, so I had to do it in Managua through Interpol.  With Interpol, you deposit the fee in Interpol’s bank account, drive across town to the central police station, present the deposit receipt, a mug shot, passport photocopies, etc. and wait until you’re called and approved to pick up the document. Unfortunately Interpol’s check is only valid for a month.  I ended up requesting an Interpol check three times. 

From December 2015 through April 2016, I was gathering, translating, getting apostilles, etc. for our documents. I went with our lawyer to present my application on April 18, 2016 at Immigration. They gave me a flimsy slip of paper, the colilla, that said to check back in June.  Little did I know how long I would need to hold on to that little slip.

My first conflict while waiting for residency came around a border crossing in late May of the same year. I went to Immigration to ask if there was any exit visa or anything required to travel to Honduras for meetings later that week.  The official flipped through my passport and told me that nothing was necessary, I was fine to leave. On the bus, leaving Nicaragua, there was again no problem.  However at the end of the week, as I came back into Nicaragua, someone noticed that I had not gotten an extension after my courtesy visa was cancelled. I tried to explain that I had just been to Immigration and they assured me that it was in order.  Eventually they agreed to let me in temporarily and wrote in my passport: 5 days to abandon the region.  I went to Immigration in Managua and told them my story. There was not a chance to pay a fine; I would have to cross into Costa Rica (which is outside of the CA4 region), stay 72 hours and return.  With few options, we decided to make the lemonade from lemons, take the family to a hotel with a pool in the city of Liberia, Costa Rica and try to simply enjoy the weekend.  Back from the trip, I had a fresh 90 days and from that point on I was very careful to get my extensions.

Still waiting on Immigration a year later in May 2017, a second conflict came up when MCC Nicaragua’s RUC number was about to expire that month.  The RUC, the Registro Único del Contribuyente, is the identification number for paying our taxes in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, in order to renew the RUC, we needed a legal representative, registered with the Ministry of the Interior.  However, the Ministry of the Interior wouldn’t recognize me as legal representative until they saw a residency card.  And Immigration still was saying that the residency application was still in process.  In this case, maybe there was an interest in keeping the money coming their way.  We made our case to the Ministry of the Interior, and they accepted my power of attorney document, but only after getting a lawyer’s authenticated copied, stamped with these little timbre stickers. They issued us the document certifying the change of legal representation. With this document, we were able to make the same change with the Directorate General of Income, to successfully renew our RUC and keep the MCC office open.  We celebrated with donuts.

Month after month I would make my trip to Immigration to wait in lines to first ask if there was any update on the application. After the inevitable “no,” I would pay C$500 (around $16) for a thirty day extension stamp in my passport.  I would sometimes sit there at Immigration and my mind would start to wander. Which official was in a good mood? What would be the way of asking questions or probing in order to get the most positive result? What behaviors were other applicants demonstrating and did that help or hurt their cause? Really, all I could do was wait.

We ran into another conflict when the bank asked for updated information about our organization, in order to keep our account open.  The Ministry of the Interior issues a Proof of Compliance each year after we turn in our financial statements for the previous year, but until I had residency, they would only issue them for limited periods of time.  We got one of these Proof documents to make our updates with the bank, but in the time that they were carrying out the trámite, the process, the document expired and the updated changes were denied.  We requested another Proof, but this time the Ministry of the Interior said they needed to see something more of an update or documentation from Immigration, which Immigration had told us on multiple occasions they only provide for residency renewals, not first time applications.  We were starting to get into a tight situation. 

When we started this process, we were told that applications of this sort are usually approved in around five months.  I wasn’t the only person waiting.  Many people speculated about possible reasons as they waited: delays because of the election, changes in Immigration procedures, increasing centralization of the government, suspicion of NGOs and foreign workers, and so on.

A year and a half after turning in my application, I got that phone call from Immigration. “Thanks be to God and thanks to you all!” I told the official.

*****

While I often felt powerless in my visits to Immigration, it seems important to acknowledge that I did have benefits and privileges throughout this process. We had a lawyer to support the preparation of my application and to give us council along the way, our office assistant Yolanda is familiar with these various government ministries and was something of a lawyer/advocate at times for us as well, we had financial resources to cover the expenses of the process, and the list could go on. This process was slow and gave us some headaches along the way, however, many people around the world are struggling with these political systems with much less support and in much more challenging circumstances. 

MCC Central America Retreat / Retiro de CCM América Central

At the end of November we were glad to welcome the MCC teams from Guatemala/El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua/Costa Rica programs for the somewhat biennual Central America Retreat.  We appreciated the space and hospitality of the Amos Center here in Managua, just around the corner from our children's school. There were a variety of complications and adjustments that were necessary in the planning process, from changing the retreat center to last minute appeals for a visa for a YAMENer from India (got it!). There were all kinds of challenges at the border, but at the end of the day, everyone was accounted for. We were glad to have Silvia Regina and Jaime Prieto facilitating on the theme of Neocolonialism and Colonialidad, which has to do with internalized mindsets that have roots in (neo)colonial structures. A heavy topic to take on, for sure, but they did a great job of combining some social and historic discussion, skits and stories, and group reading and discussion on passages from the gospels. The week also included some sightseeing, giving our visitors a chance to get to the Xolotlan/Managua lake shore one afternoon and then the following afternoon to the Masaya volcano and Catarina overlook of Laguna de Apoyo/Mombacho Volcano/Granada. The week concluded with an amazing "cultures night" where teams shared skits, songs, dances, etc. from Central America and other countries that some YAMENers represent.  Such a talented and creative group! While the days together are "retreat" in the sense of pulling back from our ordinary work, we were glad to have the chance to spend an evening with the Guatemala Reps family and then a few days with the Honduras Reps family to actually slow down and take a break.  Many good times.

Al final de noviembre estabamos contentos para dar la bienvenida a los equipos de CCM de Guatemala/El Salvador, Honduras, y Nicaragua/Costa Rica para el retiro centroamericano que ocurre más o menos cada dos años. Disfrutamos el lugar y la hospitalidad del Centro Amos aquí en Managua, muy cerca al colegio de nuestros chicos. Habían varias complicaciones y ajustes que fueron necesarios en el proceso de planificación, como cambiando el centro de retiro y hasta solicitudes en el último momento para una YAMENera de la India (lo consiguimos!). Había todo tipo de dificultades en la frontera también, pero, al final del día, todos ya habían llegado. Estabamos muy contentos de tener con nosotros Silvia Regina y Jaime Prieto para facilitar sobre el tema del Neocolonialismo y la Colonialidad, que tiene que ver con perspectivas interiorizadas que tienen sus raizes en estructuras (neo)colonialistas.  Un tema pesado para abarcar, por supuesto, pero hicieron un trabajo excelente a través de una combinación de discusión histórico y social, dramatizaciones e historias, y discusión en grupos con lecturas bíblicas. La semana también incluía unos tiempos para algo de turismo, dando a nuestros visitantes la oportunidad de conocer el malecón del lago de Managua, Xolotlán en una tarde y pasar en el día siguiente para conocer el volcán Masaya y el mirador en Catarina con vistas de la Laguna de Apoyo, Volcán Mombacho, y Granada. La semana concluyó con una "noche cultural" tremenda en la cual los equipos compartieron dramaticaciones, canciones, danzas, etc. de América Central y otros paises representados por los YAMENeros.  Que grupo más talentoso y creativo! Aunque estos días juntos son un "retiro" en el sentido de salir de nuestro trabajo cotidiano, después del retiro estabamos felices de poder pasar una noche con la familia de representantes de Guatemala y después un par de días con la familia de representantes de Honduras para realmente disfrutar un descanso.  Fueron muchos tiempos muy ricos!