Last weekend Beth and I visited Lydell, one of our MCC colleagues who works in a rural region on Nicaragua. By 'rural,' we mean a) no running water, and b) no electricity. In fact, we learned that the situation in these rural communities is quite severe. The closest source of water is 2 km (little more than a mile) from the town where we stayed. Everyone and their livestock shares the water, so it's not clean. And from October until May, the land is bone-dry and virtually nothing grows.
70 years ago, the land was a forest and quite fertile. But then lumber interests showed up and cut all the trees down. Deforestation is a huge problem here in Nicaragua, and not just in this one region.
MCC's projects in this area include irrigation (close to the few water sources) and silos for grain storage, as most people have no dry, clean place to keep their beans, corn, and rice.
In the midst of the simple surroundings, we had a wonderful time in this region. We ate dinner with a local Mennonite pastor and his family (he was in Pasadena last March for Mennonite World Conference meetings - if we had only known!), attended several church services, and enjoyed the fantastic display of stars at night. We also took a nice hike that led through a herd of cows (two photos are from this hike; the third is Lydell giving a dish-washing lesson to some of his neighbor-boys, also a lesson in breaking gender stereotypes!).
--Alan
1 comment:
Alan.. looks like you are having a great time.. we think of you and Beth often in the office
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