Saturday, June 23, 2007

Happy Birthday, Beth!

¡Felicidades! Today is Beth's 26th birthday!

Honduras Retreat

We just got back from 10 days on the north coast of Honduras where we had an MCC mesoamerica retreat. We stayed in a great hotel right on the beach, and after the retreat we spent several days vacationing on several islands off the coast. It was our several days on 'Tropical Island Paradise', as we called it. We snorkeled (Alan for the first time), ate freshly caught fish, kayaked to a deserted beach, and coated ourselves in sunscreen.

Here are some pictures from the Tropical Island Paradises of Cayos Cuchinos & Utila. We'll post more pictures from the snorkeling later.

Finding the perfect donut


So I've had this silly 'quest' for a long time. I ate this white cream-filled donut as a kid, at Dunkin' Donuts and a local donut shop, that I just loved. In recent years, however, I have been foiled in my attempts to find this yummy donut. I visited donut shops in the northeast (didn't make it to a Dunkin' Donuts on my last trip to NY). I visited donut shops in the midwest (the Dunkin' Donuts I tried in Chicago left me disappointed). Even in Los Angeles, where there's a donut shop on practically every corner, this white cream-filled wonder was not to be found.

Imagine my surprise, then, passing through Tegucigalpa, Honduras, en route to an MCC retreat, to find a Dunkin' Donuts shop. What the hey, I thought. There might be a chance this place has the donut of my dreams. And so I went in. And stepped to the counter. And looked at the racks of donuts. And blinked twice. And there it was, a perfectly round, powdered sugar-covered beauty, with white vanilla cream bursting from the side. I immediately bought one (globalization in action right there) and enjoyed every second of it.

I also bought one for breakfast the next day. Who knows when I'll get to eat another of these, my favorite donuts? And we had our picture taken in the shop, as documentation of the end of my quest (for now). I'm also planning my next trip to Honduras...
--Alan

MCC Nicaragua's Mascot

As we promised in our most recent newsletter, here is our story about turtles.
For nearly 20 years, MCC Nicaragua has had a turtle. No one knows where he/she came from. It's just always lived in the back yard. Previous generations of MCCers have provided various levels of care for 'Amaranta' (the source & meaning of the name are also unknown), from fruits and veggies to bread and milk. Amaranta happily crawls around the yard, wallows in the mud, and tries to get in the office. We actually think the latter is 'her' main life objective. If one of the two back doors are left open even a crack, one is likely to see Amaranta making a maddeningly slow dash inside to the refridgerator.

The amusing thing is that Angela, our MCC country representative who also lives in the house portion of the office, doesn't like turtles. You can't hear the turtle coming, and suddenly you've got a thing brushing up against your foot. It can be startling.

So, our main objective as an MCC team is to keep Amaranta out of the office. It almost becomes a game. She comes in; we take her out; she tries to come back it; we take her back out. One day she was actually running from me, trying to make it under the couch before I could pick her up. Fortunately, she's not that fast.
Here is Amaranta, along with the two of us posing for a photo. --Alan

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Messiah College

We really enjoyed spending time with the group from Messiah College who was here for a couple weeks working with Food for the Hungry. They spent a day with us, hearing about MCC Nicaragua, hanging out with some young people from Anabaptist churches here, and heading to one of our partner organizations for a Misa Campesina (Catholic mass in the style of the accessible, contextualized masses in the countryside). We also enjoyed tagging along with them as they went to Chinandega, hiked through a bat cave, and swam in a crater lake. And we were glad to get to know their guides, including Andrea (who has other great pictures posted on her blog). It was great to meet them and hear their thoughts and reflections. It's a good place, that Messiah College!
(At right . . . hiking up Volcan Masaya in the evening. Spanish missionaries put up the cross to claim the volcano, which had received many human sacrifices and was known as the mouth of hell. Now that is a missionary! :))

Misioner@s: Gender Perspectives

A thought that didn't quite make the cut into the newsletter. :)

“Bienvenidos y bienvenidas a todos y todas. Gracias por estar con nosotros y nosotras hoy.” Welcome everyone. Thank you for being with us today. You might notice that this seems a long way to say a short greeting. A few people in Nicaragua do it anyway in an effort to use gender-inclusive language. The responses range from puzzlement to frustration, similar to responses to “politically correct language” in North America. In our process of language learning, we have a heightened awareness of the way culture is transmitted through language. For example, if there are cultural tendencies excluding or exploiting women, sometimes that appears in linguistic structures. In Spanish (and many languages), the masculine form swallows up the feminine. As “missionaries” who are part of God’s mission of salvation from all kinds of unhealthy structures (including those of exclusion and discrimination), how can we use language in the new, radical, inclusive ways of God’s Kingdom without encumbering our communication and imposing our cultural values on others? This is one of our many questions on our journey of understanding gender here and joining in the struggle of women.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Spring Newsletter available (updated)

We've posted our spring newsletter for you to read. Several of you had some trouble with the original links, but we think the problem is now resolved. Click the 'Spring 2007' link under the 'Newsletter' heading. You will be directed to another website (mediafire.com) where you will be given the option to download our newsletter. Click 'download' and you should be good to go.