Hey all,
After being in Nicaragua for over a week now, I have had time to begin to get to know the country. We have only begun to explore the many things that this country has to offer, and only scraped the surface on the some of the problems and delimas faced by its people. We have enjoyed the immense hospitality of people who were stretched already to the limits of providing for their family, and yet they gave us portions of food larger than any home cooked meal we could have ever had back home. We saw people with no formal education pooling together resources, settling disputes, and organizing communities with passion and success like I have rarely seen. It is humbling to me to see the sort of advantages I posses, yet looking back what have I yet done to compare to what these people with no resources, it makes me think about how much more I could be doing. I can’t help it but to be embarrassed by the sole fact that I am from the United States, a place that has helped cause some of the strife here, that goes on living, consuming without regard to the conditions that the people who are making the goods are working in, without regard to how much what I have could affect the lives of so many people in other countries. Whatever happens once I go home will require a lot of thought. To process so much in such a small amount of time I feel is not possible. In talking with people at home, sharing experiences with people, eventually I will figure out what I want to do, what I want my part to be in helping Nicaragua, but it won't happen right away. More thoughts from me and others are sure to follow, and thank you to our dedicated readers, your support is amazing.
Jonathan Waltz