La Dalia, tu hogar lo amo. (Your home I love)

Some different experiences:
As I sit here writing this in the office of AMC I can hear a roster crow.
I see at least three pigs on my way to work.
Every time my door is open at the house for more than ten minuets the neighborhood kids come running in.
(with there dogs)
When we have electricity at night it is a lot easier to cook.
My flatulences have subsided now from eating so many beans.
Barbed wire is a multipurpose wire used in many not threatening ways. (I walked on a rope bridge made of barbed wire and I did not feel like I was in a horror movie)
Community.
I wash my clothes on a washboard on saturdays and try not to get a sunburn in the process.
The men were rubber boots and carry machetes.
The countryside is even more beautiful seen from the bed of a truck.(but thats how I lost my John Deer hat)
I think cold bucket showers have put more hair on my chest.
Our outhouse has a bees nest that I have watched grow and I don't think they sell bee killer around here.
I can buy fresh tortilla every morning for 1 Cordoba (5 cents).
When the rain falls its hard to hear anything over the sound it makes on the tin roof.
I sang in spanish and english in front of a congregation.
I walk up a hill every morning to get to work and when I turn around I can see clouds resting in the valley of the mountains out side of La Dalia.

I see God in the faces, community, and beauty of a small town.


The past week and a half has been filled with different amazing and challenging experiences as I have continued to visit the different projects of AMC and live in La Dalia.  I spent one day planting coffee with some of the partner famers of one of the Land Banks and yesterday I led sunday school with the kids of the church I went to.  I have to thank Camp Tekoa for preparing me for that.  If only we spoke spanish at Tekoa haha. We played my favorite version of tag... ELBOW TAG, which I think is a universal language to itself.  But actually my spanish is definitely making progress.

The sense of community and social development is strong in La Dalia.  An example of this is that AMC holds workshops regularly for the pastors and leaders of the community.  In this time AMC gives seminars on different techniques of social development and social problem solving.  In the process they also incorporate prominent topics including climate change, community health, HIV, etc..  This is also a time for the these leaders in the community to get together and communicate different struggles and achievements they have been part of.  It is inspiring to see some of the effects of this type of community organizing in the relationships between the different community leaders.  

Thanks so much for reading.  I miss those at home and I continue to meet wonderful people in here in Nicaragua.

Thank you for your continuing support and prayers.

Peace,
Alex