The sun sets on Nicaragua

As the sun sets on our final day in Nicaragua, I cannot help to look back on the profound experiences of the past two weeks spent in El Fortín. As I said before, we were working in public health, taking height and weight measurements of the children. This was challenging on many levels (none the least of which being the unbearable heat), but incredibly rewarding as well. We walked down the cracked dusty earth roads and went to every house in both communities in El Fortín, took measurements of 10 year olds with stunted growth due to malnutrition and screaming 9 month old babies with potbellies weighing only 8 pounds. It was an eye-opener, much more so than if this work had been done in a clinic. Actually visiting these families where they live, we could see such a bigger picture- where this malnutrition comes from, how these children get parasites, and the bigger questions: how are these families surviving? And, on a governmental health level, why are these people (a mere 10 km outside of Granada) forgotten?

On our last day in El Fortìn, we went to the beach with many of the kids from the community. We had a blast swimming in the (uh, polluted) waters of Lake Nicaragua with Estefanì, Juancito, Betito and others. The kids were having a blast too, and at one point, I looked over at 6 year old Betito grinning ear to ear, swimming with his homemade floaties- two empty 2 liter soda bottles. Sitting in the gently rocking waves, sunlight dancing off the water, my face fell as I realized that this innocent happy boy would have to fight hard not to become one of the other faces of El Fortìn: the adolecent and teen boys eyes bloodshot from huffing glue and doing drugs. However unfair, the cards are stacked against him.

There is a quote by Marcel Proust that says that ¨The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.¨ This whole trip has given me new eyes when it comes to the issue of poverty. I see it whenever I look out my window to scores of shantytowns that, while the country borders or even continents may have changed, bear an unmistakable likeness of resilience and dispair. How many people have I seen living in one room, dirt floor tin shack communities built into the sides of hills outside of town, without electricity or running water? How many elderly women have I seen on the streets, abandoned by families, begging for a peso or a few of our french fries? How many young men have I passed with bloodshot eyes and a glazed over expression, clothes hanging off of their skeletal bodies? And in every single country, how many, many street children have I seen? From the Incan girls in Peru, wandering the streets of Cuzco, posing for pictures and selling their culture in order to survive. To the 10 year old Mayan girls in Guatemala, carrying their baby brothers on their backs and taking care of their other siblings all day while their parents work. To emaciated boys in Nicaragua running barefoot through the streets, peddling ceramics, gum, or simply asking for money.

For so many of these people, they were never given a chance to realize their full potential. They were born into a system, not merely political, but social, that ignores and marginalizes the vast majority of the populace, making it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to escape their circumstance. You are born into the slums, you die in the slums. If these children could easily go to school, if the young men and women could get jobs that pay living wages, if people of all ages were educated about health (sexual health, water and food born pathogens, and preventable diseases, for example), and if their governments could invest in their people, perhaps these people would have a better shot. I firmly believe that there are certain things that all human beings deserve: access to clean water, food, shelter, healthcare, a decent education, and employment opportunities. I hope for a better future. But in the meantime, I will work towards it, because hope alone doesn´t feed empty stomachs, and optimism doesn´t cure disease.