Don´t know what to think about this one
This week I have been at a capacitation for the guides of the eco-tourism project that is part of CECOCAFEN. We have been in a new community, La Reyna (the queen), practicing their guiding abilities, learning about coffee, about trail building, about bird identification, and each other. It has been a wonderful time, though complicated for other reasons...
I am staying in the house of Isabel, a 37 year old, 4 foot 10 woman with a bright smile. She and her family moved to the house they now inhabit, three rooms made from cinder blocks and surrounded by wooden shacks with mud walls, after Hurricane Mitch washed away their house an hour´s walk further up the mountain. The roofs are made of black garbage bags; Isabel, her mother, and four children sleep in the big house, while two of her sisters, one brother, and their families, have their own respective 10 by 10 foot huts outside. It is clear that it is difficult for her to talk to me, that my being there pushes her comfort zone as much as my own. Though we are able to laugh, to talk about what it means to meet new people, and she is able to help me as I try feebly and painstakingly to pat my oddly-shaped masa into something resembling the beautiful round and delicious tortillas that her fingers spin out in a matter of seconds. The environment here feels different than in Mayra´s house, and reminds me that even amongst people living with less, there are very varied degrees. At Mayra´s, people have missing teeth, but they all have metal caps. Here, there are only missing teeth. This morning, Byron asked if there was toilet paper to go to the outhouse; there was none. When we returned from our morning, there was a roll on the table by out cots. The luxury of being a guest...
However, none of that is what struck me hardest. Talking to her the first night, I peered into where Isabel and her family sleep, and saw what appeared to be a small girl lying limply on the wooden bedframe. I was struck my how skinny her legs were. I said hello and asked her old she was, she heard me, turned her head, and looked away. Isabel then informed me that this tiny person, lying there, was my own age, 23, but had been crippled completely when she contracted polio at 3 months old. Since that time, she has been cared for by her family, where she spends her days looking out the window of the concrete house, making small noises and not moving.
I didn´t know what to say, and largely feel like I still don´t. I am angry, shocked, saddened, worried about my inability to deal with this experience. Why didn´t I talk to her somemore? Ask Isabel more about her, ask about polio vaccinations now in Nicaragua? I don´t know how to feel, how to react, how to possibly begin to understand this kind of tragedy. And I feel like I am trying to shut it out due to not really knowing how to understand, but don´t know how to move on. I will continue to think about it, to talk about it, to examine this experience that I am not used to seeing, not used to anything more than hearing about on the news or in theoretical analyses of poverty, disease, and development. I don´t know if what I need now is to push further, think deeper, or give myself some more time to reflect... a little distance, to try to garner a little more understanding. understanding after all, is what I am trying to get here.
I am staying in the house of Isabel, a 37 year old, 4 foot 10 woman with a bright smile. She and her family moved to the house they now inhabit, three rooms made from cinder blocks and surrounded by wooden shacks with mud walls, after Hurricane Mitch washed away their house an hour´s walk further up the mountain. The roofs are made of black garbage bags; Isabel, her mother, and four children sleep in the big house, while two of her sisters, one brother, and their families, have their own respective 10 by 10 foot huts outside. It is clear that it is difficult for her to talk to me, that my being there pushes her comfort zone as much as my own. Though we are able to laugh, to talk about what it means to meet new people, and she is able to help me as I try feebly and painstakingly to pat my oddly-shaped masa into something resembling the beautiful round and delicious tortillas that her fingers spin out in a matter of seconds. The environment here feels different than in Mayra´s house, and reminds me that even amongst people living with less, there are very varied degrees. At Mayra´s, people have missing teeth, but they all have metal caps. Here, there are only missing teeth. This morning, Byron asked if there was toilet paper to go to the outhouse; there was none. When we returned from our morning, there was a roll on the table by out cots. The luxury of being a guest...
However, none of that is what struck me hardest. Talking to her the first night, I peered into where Isabel and her family sleep, and saw what appeared to be a small girl lying limply on the wooden bedframe. I was struck my how skinny her legs were. I said hello and asked her old she was, she heard me, turned her head, and looked away. Isabel then informed me that this tiny person, lying there, was my own age, 23, but had been crippled completely when she contracted polio at 3 months old. Since that time, she has been cared for by her family, where she spends her days looking out the window of the concrete house, making small noises and not moving.
I didn´t know what to say, and largely feel like I still don´t. I am angry, shocked, saddened, worried about my inability to deal with this experience. Why didn´t I talk to her somemore? Ask Isabel more about her, ask about polio vaccinations now in Nicaragua? I don´t know how to feel, how to react, how to possibly begin to understand this kind of tragedy. And I feel like I am trying to shut it out due to not really knowing how to understand, but don´t know how to move on. I will continue to think about it, to talk about it, to examine this experience that I am not used to seeing, not used to anything more than hearing about on the news or in theoretical analyses of poverty, disease, and development. I don´t know if what I need now is to push further, think deeper, or give myself some more time to reflect... a little distance, to try to garner a little more understanding. understanding after all, is what I am trying to get here.
posted by Hilary King at
10:32 PM
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