The tooth fairy, the language, and other musings . . .

Making friends in the neighborhood



This is one of the suburbs of Esteli. – about a 10 min walk from our house



Does the Tooth Fairy know we are in Nicaragua????
(by Jordan Barram)

I sure hope so...

Will she be Nicaraguan or will she have to travel all the way from the U.S.

Does Nicaragua have a Tooth Fairy?

So last night I lost a tooth. It had been wiggling for quite awhile. So when it came out mommy put it in a safe place and we are going to wait till tomorrow to put it under my pillow. But these are the questions I have been wondering about since the tooth came out.

I made an envelope out of paper and wrote a note for the tooth fairy. It said, “Dear tooth fairy, I know this is in Nicaragua but I don’t know what would be eseyest to bring, cordobas or amarican money so you can bring whatever you whant.”

In the morning, really early, I looked under my pillow and found my tooth was gone and in its place was 50 cordobas. It was wrapped in sparkly gold ribbon. I looked for a note from the Tooth Fairy, she had written on my envelope, “te encontré”. I asked Dad what it said and he told me she had written, “I found you” in Spanish. So I guess there is a Nicaraguan Tooth Fairy. Dad said, “she has a bigger budget than he thought.”

I don’t know what I want to spend my money on yet, so I think I will just keep saving it.

So that’s my story about loosing a tooth in Nicaragua. Now my sister Devyn really wants to loose one too.
Adios,
Mikayla (pronounced, Mee-Kai-ay-la) A.K.A. Jordan



Wow!!! How time flies!!! I cannot believe it is November already. The fact that it seems to have gone by so fast must be an indication that we have more or less adjusted to life here. Everything does not require quite so much effort. We know where to find the things we need (food, towels, pens, etc.), have made the switch in our minds to the currency, are more accustomed to seeing herds of cattle and/or horses in the road, are in the habit of putting our toilet paper in the garbage can, and we’re prepared when the lights go out and the water ceases to flow. We have developed a better capacity to sleep through all the noise, are used to walking everywhere, and are more adept at avoiding the huge potholes in the sidewalk. Even communicating is done with more ease. Indeed, life has taken on some semblance of “normality,” despite the fact that things are still very different from the States.

The girls continue to do well! Their language abilities have skyrocketed. (Oh, to have a young mind all over again!) They are both speaking Spanish in short sentences -- to us and with their Spanish-speaking friends. It has been fascinating to observe their language development over time. At first, they were in what is often referred to as “the silent period,” when all they did was listen and watch, stay attuned to the context, and try to figure out what people were saying to them. It took about 2 months and then they started regurgitating, little by little, what they had been hearing. With Devyn, it would only come out when she was in some form of imaginary play. She would be in her room with a couple toys pretending to have them communicate with each other in Spanish. Michael and I would just look at each other with wide eyes at the breadth of her vocabulary as we eavesdropped on her pretend conversation.

The girls have also made friends with the neighbor girl across the street. This enables them to practice speaking more, as it is much easier to do so one-on-one than in a big group at school. It also helps that Elayne (Elaine), the neighbor friend, is very patient and even corrects them and tells them how to say things more correctly. She has even corrected Michael’s pronunciation on occasion, much to his chagrin. ;-)

Watching and listening to the girls’ language process has also been encouraging to me in my own attempts at mastering the language (I use the term “mastery” here very loosely). We seem to stumble on many of the same areas, and we find the same aspects of trying to make ourselves understood frustrating. Struggling along side my kids in this area has allowed me to empathize, commiserate, and bond with them in ways I may not have been able to otherwise, had I already had a really good ability to converse before coming here. I am much more able to come alongside them in this learning process and it has really enhanced our relationship in unexpected ways. For example, Jordan (Mikayla) is much better at hearing and understanding what people are saying to her than I am. (She is listening to Spanish all day at school for at least 7 hours, and thus has had tons of practice.) I, on the other hand, am better at conversing. (I have had much more schooling in the grammar.) Thus, one of the things we enjoy is shopping for groceries together. When someone rattles off something at me a mile a minute, I can look at Jordan and say, “Did you catch that? What did she say?” Jordan feeds me the info, and I can return with the appropriate response. We make a good team, and it does wonders for her ego that her mother truly NEEDS her. However, the day is not long away when she’ll no longer need ME.

When I am not concentrating on conjugating a verb or getting a pronoun in the correct location of a sentence, I muse about our experiences here. The following are just some examples of my musings on different topics.

POVERTY:

Hands down, the hardest aspect about living here is the everyday reality of extreme poverty. Everywhere we go, and in everything we do, we are constantly faced with the reality that MANY, MANY people are living “without” -- without shoes, without food, without adequate shelter, without safety. Healthcare, education, and sanitation are luxuries, not rights. It all leaves me feeling a great deal of cognitive dissonance about my faith, my country, the ways I spend money, my occupational choices, how I spend my time, how I raise my kids, etc. It’s like having someone hold up a mirror that reflects how things REALLY are, instead of the way I would LIKE them to be. The reasons behind the poverty are still even harder to face. U.S. governmental actions, choices, and policies perpetuate and inflict injustices on people who have little power to change their situation and demand better. I have to deal with the reality that my ability to live with so much excess directly affects those who have very little. It’s really much more comfortable for me to buy my cheap underwear and produce without thinking about THE PERSON who sewed the underwear or grew the veggies -- and who gets paid less for the entire day than I pay for a single latte in the States. (Things are cheaper here, but they are not THAT much cheaper. Let’s just say that $2.00 per day or less doesn’t even come close to a living wage. So many people are just barely scraping by, and their situations are exacerbated severely because there is so little work here.) It is much more difficult to face the “reality” and NOT acquiesce to the larger system than to ignore the injustices of my consumptive habits. In this case, the truth doesn’t set me free; on the contrary, it makes me more conflicted.

NOT being busy:

For us, being on “sabbatical” is truly an indulgent experience. The opportunity to “drop out” of one’s life (with all of its expectations, pressures, commitments, and activities) for a time period is really quite a luxury. We are very grateful. Our lives have been streamlined to just a few things. Michael has his reading and writing, the girls and I have our schooling, and I am volunteering, but beyond that we are free of commitments. There are no piano lessons, soccer practices, or dance classes to run off to. There are no extracurricular school or church functions. We don’t even have any social engagements. At first, this translated into some boredom, but it has enabled some deeper familial relationships.
Now, let me say that all of the aforementioned activities are good and enriching in their own right. Indeed, we enjoy extracurricular, church, and social activities. But in the absence of these things, we have come to realize that we were really not taking the time to talk, listen and get to know each other as individuals and as a family. For the past few years, I have been a “stay-at-home mom.” I spend tons of time with my kids (sometimes, depending on the situation, more than I would like). ;-) If you had asked me before we left on this sabbatical, whether I knew my children, I would have said, “Yes, of course.” But that was because I did not know there was so much more I could know. Instead of driving them off to one activity or another (something undoubtedly good and enriching for them), I was not creating enough space to get to KNOW them, to hear how their days were going, and to learn how they were feeling about their experiences. (Of course, I would ask them on the way to piano practice, “How was school?” But after having nagged them 100 times to get their shoes on, to remember to bring their books, and to get in the car already [!], they were hardly in the mood for talking.) Here, we have made some friends, but really we only have each other. And the result (once we got past the initial adjustment) has been a very enriching relational experience. I feel like I am getting to know WHO my kids are, not merely what they do. I am seeing characteristics and strengths I have never noticed before. I am realizing we have paid a price for having so many activity-oriented options to choose from. I am not sure the price is worth the overall cost in terms of not having the time, space, or emotional energy to be present to my kids. The best consequence of having time and space to KNOW my kids, is that I am really enjoying them. When I am not feeling overworked and underappreciated because I am running them around or lugging them with me to some activity we think we “SHOULD” go to, I really ENJOY hanging out with them. They really are fun, interesting individuals!

It’s not just the kids we are getting to know better. Michael and I, too, are realizing how much we have tended to turn outside our relationship for support, conversation, and connection. We too, are getting to know each other again, and we’re learning anew why we chose each other as partners in life in the first place.

That’s just a smidgen of the things going on in our lives here. It is fun to share these experiences with you, and I miss being able to converse freely about our lives (without having to think about how to conjugate my tenses). Thank you to all who have responded with notes of encouragement and support. They are appreciated more than you know. Hasta tiempo proximo! (Until next time!)

Vaya pues,

-Kelli