One of the first places I got to travel to this summer was the isolated community of Los Chaguites. This is the place we "drove to" in the army truck but ended up hiking several hours due to roads and distances being vastly different than reported. Read about it here.
Our goal on this trip was to take the appropriate eye glasses to the people whose vision we screened on our last trip. We also wanted to check on their access to food and water, which has been a serious issue off and on. Porfirio Molino, one of the leaders in the church here, and a honcho around the mission went so he could listen to the needs in the community, and show caring concern.
It was a great trip. We successfully distributed the glasses we brought, talked to families who need additional follow up with doctors in town, shook lots of hands and there were lots of smiles all around. Nothing went wrong at all.
Everything went exactly as planned--but it was hard.
Los Chaguites is a hard place. Hard to get to. Hard to help. Hard to leave knowing I can't make a dent in the difficult life situation of the people here.
There is a lot of good news: one of their wells is operational again, they've blocked off the road and planted a field of beans, they've worked together to repair the road and people are able to get in to Jinotega to sell in the markets and get medical attention.
It's a beautiful place. It's a great adventurous drive, exciting and exotic. The people are warm and pleasant, generous, funny, and friendly.
But it's also mud and tin huts, the smells of unwashed bodies, animal waste, and burning trash. And a certain look behind the eyes that I have no words for.
I kept thinking all day about perspective. This is definitely the most difficult road I have ridden on. In the US it would never be labeled a road. It's barely a trail in some places. The football sized rocks that the community members hauled to fill in the washed out spots would be considered barriers in the states, not a road bed. But compared with walking the road--driving it is a breeze. Perspective.
The town is in deep poverty. I saw open-sided sleeping shelters made of wire and scraps of wood and plastic that didn't seem fit for goats to use. Yet, as we talked to these people, they expressed concern for their neighboring village who they described as poor. Perspective.
I have no pithy lesson to summarize my thoughts on the day. It's a place that brings sharply into focus how big the issue of poverty is--how we all need healing and help that is bigger than any this world has to offer. How beautiful and simple and ugly and hard life on this earth is.
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