I've been writing a lot of abstract stuff lately---random thoughts I've had, and larger meditations on my purpose and meaning down here. But it has been a while since I've written about what I'm actually DOING...mostly because I've kinda been all over the place, and not really sure how to articulate what I'm doing for a while now. Here's the best summary I can give at this point:

You may or may not have known what I originally came down here to do, or with whom. The short version is that the purpose of my first several months was to learn about language and culture and people of this country, in order to make a more informed and purposeful decision about a placement and project for me to work on later. I worked with the Escuela AKF for this part of my orientation---a Nicaraguan organization that does a lot of great work helping communities plan and take ownership in their own development. They gave me so many good experiences and connections in both rural and urban communities, and really set me up to be successful for the rest of my time here. After this orientation period, I decided to move to Matagalpa, where the climate and the people tend to be refreshingly calmer than in Managua, where I feel safer, and a strong artistic culture thrives. Now that I'm situated in a community, I'm no longer working with Escuela AKF, though they have become like family to me and would always lend me a hand were I to need it, as I would to them.

Here in Matagalpa, I have a good core group of friends, Nicas and Gringos alike, and I'm starting to feel established, purposeful, and productive for the first time in a while. I'm finally finding some balance in my life---getting some worthwhile things done, but also taking time to read and drink tea and climb mountains and go running and write and learn guitar and all of those other things that nourish my spirit. If I learn nothing else from this time in my life, I really hope to bring this more balanced lifestyle with me when I go back to the states. We shall see.

As far as work goes, I've found a theatre group from the university in town that is putting up a play dealing with social issues, and we're hoping to work directly with some of the gang leaders in town. The theatre group leader is cuckoo in a good way---one of those new-age "I think I'm so talented and artistic because I do art for art's sake" types...but his intentions are really good and he has an air of confidence about him that gets the other members of the group invested, eager, and interested. So I'll allow him his ego since he seems to get things done. At the moment, I'm kinda lying low to see how I might fit into picture. He has asked me to help him write some music for the play---an adventure I've never undertaken but a challenge I'd be willing to meet. He wants the music to "connect to the modern cultural tastes of street kids and gang members of Nicaragua," so I guess that'll put me a little out of my musical theatre comfort zone, right?

The professor/sponsor in charge of the group also oversees a rural high school, and he suggested that I, along with some other members of the group, might be able to help bring an arts program to that community, which is made up mostly of descendants of the indigenous tribes that were once so abundant in this part of the world. I think that could be extremely stimulating and challenging, so that could be a serious possibility for the future.

I'm also participating in a little choir at the Woman's Collective in town. I've only been to two rehearsals so far, and the jury is still out as to whether or not I'm going to find a good fit there. There is already strong leadership in place, so I feel like I could learn a lot from watching the teachers. But I get the feeling that they are dubious of my unemployed, unaffiliated status as a volunteer who "just wants to do something." So we'll just have to wait and see, but it seems to me like I might participate and learn from them for a while, but I don't know if it will be a long-term thing.

I continue to take language classes at a great school called Matagalpa Tours, a really great place that sets up cultural tours and eco-tours and has been a great source of information and contacts for me. I've pretty much learned all the basic grammar I can already, but I really need conversation practice. I pretty much speak in Spanish all day long, which is of course the best practice, but most of my Nicaraguan friends are slow to correct me, and so it is still useful to have two hours of purposeful conversation time with a language teacher who isn't afraid to correct me or suggest better ways of saying things.

I'm doing okay with the homesickness/cultural-orientation bit...I really do feel comfortable and at home here for the most part, and I'm finding ways to talk to my family and/or see them enough so as not to get too depressed. It really helps to keep busy and to feel as if there is really a good reason for being here---which of course there is, but I have to remind myself from time to time.

And last but certainly not least, I've been blessed with several donors in the past months: Canterbury House, my church in Ann Arbor, continues to support me in more ways than one. Friends and family have also been donating generously (all without me even having to ask!). The Women's Group from the United Methodist Church, Gravois Mills IL sent me a generous contribution after their Thanksgiving fund raiser. Last but certainly not least, the InterExchange Foundation honored me and what I'm trying to do down here by selecting me as the one of the recipients of their new grant program. I am humbled and honored by all of the support I've been given so far!

So how's that for a short summary? I'm going to post some more pictures soon—we had a great mountain-climbing adventure this past Sunday, and my roommate and dear friend Stephanie from Seattle (a Fulbright Scholar) took some really gorgeous photos. I'll get them posted soon, I promise!

I've gotta run off to play practice, so until the next time, take care.

Kendal

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: The Great Need of the Hour

Atlanta, GA | January 20, 2008

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.

But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.

Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yoke of oppression.

And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:

"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.

What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Unity is the great need of the hour -- the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame -- schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.

We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.

So we have a deficit to close. We have walls -- barriers to justice and equality -- that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily -- that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.

But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes -- a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart -- that puts up walls between us.

We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays -- on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others -- all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face -- war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.

That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words -- words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.

That is the unity -- the hard-earned unity -- that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope -- the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.

The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.

And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.

And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.

And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope -- but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone

In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.

So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.

Oh the wonders of the modern day! I may be a little behind the times, but I'm fascinated by the advent of the laptop computer. I'm somewhere in the air between Manhattan and Houston, in one of those 34 ton machines that really have no business staying aloft, marveling at my newfound ability to do "work" in any time or place. I've never had a laptop before, but I finally caved in, indulging in the luxury of not hiking around Nicaragua in search of an open cybercafe whenever I want to get some writing done. It isn't anything fancy---an old, used ThinkPad that still runs good ol' Windows 2000 at a refreshingly not-so-blazing speed. I didn't want to spend much on it, in case one of those innocent looking tourists turns backpack-snatcher on me, or perhaps the all around dusty/humid climate fries the insides of the poor thing.

Some of us are reluctant to allow the tech world, with all of its bits and bytes, to bite us. We all know someone who still clicks away at a typewriter, or proudly boasts not having a cell phone. I have never really been that way, but I thought that in going to Nicaragua, I might simplify my life, leaving behind my iPod, cell phone, discman, and even my watch. "I'll tell time by the sun," I thought...having heard so often that time moves at a much slower pace in Latin America, and that people tend not to worry so much about the 'official' starting time of an event, so long as they arrive before the Quinceañera does the Electric Slide. I've found this to be halfway true, (they even have a name for it---Nica Time---or at least that's what we Gringos call it), except that there are some unspecified events that operate on normal, punctual time, putting the watch-less Gringo who tells time by the sun at a very serious disadvantage, especially after 6pm when the sun goes down. And so I "broke down" and had my mom send me my watch back in October. At about the same time, I realized how much a musician misses music when alone in the countryside at night, with only the roosters to keep him company, and so I asked that my CD case (featuring an Andy Warhol-esque image of Che Guevara wearing headphones) be included in the package with the watch. Thinking it would be easy to find a discman at a market somewhere, I rejected Mom's offer to send mine in the package. Sending a watch, CD case, Costco-sized bag of almonds, eyeglass repair kit, french horn mouthpiece, and a five-pound-bag of whey protein powder to supplement my vegetarian diet....well all that is one thing. But sending a discman through the mail? That's just excessive. I mean, c'mon.

And then I found out that of all the the imported goods to be found in Nicaragua, electronics are the most pricey. They wanted fifty bucks for a discman! And that's for the model without skip protection! And so I spent all of October, November, and December with a lot of CDs and no way to listen to them. Super lame. So when I arrived in the States on Dec 22^nd for the holidays, I began slowly but surely working my way out of the technological dark ages once more, accumulating all kinds of digital crap to make my life in a developing country more 'efficient'. Trust me, I was aware of the strange irony of going to a developing country, packing a digital camera (which I already had down there, and I concede is pretty much a must for the modern traveler), digital voice recorder (for all of those long Spanish conversations I've had where later review might reveal that I had said that I was pregnant, when I meant to say embarrassed), my old discman (I had to brush off all of the years of post-iPod dust), my new LED booklight (a very nice Christmas present from Mom), and my first-generation iPod shuffle for good measure. I put all these things in my carry-on today, along with all of the accessories for my new laptop (headset and webcam to call home, optical mouse, flash drive) and the two mp3 players that my buddy Ali in Matagalpa had sent to my house in DC, since he didn't trust the Nicaraguan mail service, or want to pay all that extra postage.

And so when my bag-o-'lectronics went through the X-ray machine in the security line at LGA this morning, you could almost see the sirens flashing in the eyes of the TSA officers. They politely escorted me to the screening area, flanked by two giant machines that looked like photocopiers on steroids. They took every item out of my bag and inspected it thoroughly---even unzipping my teeny-weeny coin purse---and ran swabs of gauzy fabric over every surface. Then, after feeding said swabs into the photocopiers-on-steroids, a series of R2-D2 beeps and clicks somehow confirmed to the officer that I was not, in fact, working for al Queda, and I was allowed to repack my own bag and be on my way. As invasive as this type of search can feel, I was actually somewhat pleased to see such attention to detail at an airport security checkpoint. So often in recent trips, I have breezed through security with the uneasy feeling that the officers are just going through the motions. Maybe it was because I was in New York, or maybe I was just paying a little more attention than usual, but it was nice to be reminded that people still care.

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I've transferred now in Houston, having eaten my last North American meal for a while (Santa Fe Chicken and Avocado Salad), and am now somewhere in the airspace between Houston and Managua. It feels strange going back to one 'home' and leaving another 'home' at the same time. It gives me the uneasy feeling that I don't belong to any one place. Well that's awfully depressing and pessimistic. Maybe the glass-half-full approach would say that I belong to many places. My friend Ben tells me that engineers have an alternate viewpoint of the proverbial glass: The glass is too big. I appreciate that kind of pragmatism. If my 'glass' is too big, I must be assigning too much value to the idea of belonging to any one place. Maybe one point of this time in my life is to create or understand my identity outside of any specific place or environment, and all of the relationships that are associated with the different places that I have lived.

The people, relationships, and environments in which we immerse ourselves help shape our feelings of identity. It isn't so much that we are different people in different situations, or at least, many of us try not to be. But when I'm with my college buddies, the roommates who so enthusiastically thrust their sports fanaticism upon me, I tend to think of myself as a sports kind of guy---even if I never keep up with the sports world when I'm not with those buddies. Or when I'm with my actor friends, and we're talkin' about the biz, I think of myself as an actor who's just taking a break for a while to try and figure out my place in the world---never mind the fact that I haven't performed for months, nor have I ever really pounded the pavement, standing in long lines to audition, as my other actor friends have to do. When I'm with my family, our natural roles and birth-order-psychologies take over: My sister, the oldest, lovingly frets about the wellbeing and happiness of those around her, more than she thinks about the personal sacrifices she makes to do so. My brother, the youngest, who refused to order from the kids' menu even as a 5-year-old, is forever frustrated by the injustice of having lesser privileges than his older siblings, and lays his claim to equal treatment with undeniable vigor. Less of a result of being the middle child, and more from the fact that I'm the only one in the family to have moved away from home for any length of time, I tend to step in with unintentional arrogance and tell people what they've been doing wrong since I've been gone. I don't mean to be that way, and I certainly don't do it with any malice---but I'm the first one to walk into the house and start flipping off light switches and (gently) lecturing the family about wasted energy. Or the one who pulls mom's bag of Starbucks coffee beans out of the cupboard and asks her why she stopped buying Fair Trade Shade Grown Organic.

What's worse is that I don't think any of us fall into these roles with our other peer groups, and these roles certainly don't define us all of the time. And so the real question is, if our relationships and environments influence our identity in different ways depending on time and place, which is our true self? And how can we ever be sure of what our 'true' self is, if we are constantly in only one situation?

Maybe a part of the answer can be revealed by the type of nomadic living I'm experiencing at the moment. Maybe by constantly placing myself in varied environments and continually building new relationships, I can observe myself in a somewhat scientific way. For me, it is in the periods of transition between environments that I am most keenly aware of the differences between those environments, and by extension, my role in these environments. Maybe the real soul-searching, growth-inducing value of this time in my life, is the freedom to find which of my many 'selves'---all the varied 'identities' I have established as a result of my many environments---is my true self. Or rather, which parts of myself congeal to form the core of my identity.

Ah the questions of the young idealist, who passes his overly-abundant free time pondering his purpose and meaning in the universe. I do not take for granted the luxuries I have been given.

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All of my 'selves' are tired...having now safely landed in Managua and finished up this blog entry in my friend's kitchen. And so while y'all continue about the normal business of the day, I'm going to take all my 'selves' to bed, and dream about hot showers and my brother's Thai cooking and my dear friends and my beautiful family and my cozy home in DC and my healthy and happy blind 16-year-old dog and karaoke and egg sandwiches and taxis that show up right when it's starting to rain and Joni Mitchell and salsa dancing and care packages full of stuff from Trader Joe's and cousins and friends delivering beautiful newborn babies and ants crawling on my computer screen and music and all of the other unnamed blessings I enjoy and......... and.........and......... and...............................

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As I said earlier, I wrote this blog entry a little over a week ago, and so I want to share one other story that has happened since. Yesterday, after taking some of the neighborhood kids on a long hike up the nearest mountain with my Nicaraguan friends, Stephanie and I were walking home along the main street in town. A bus passed us, going rather slowly, and an elderly woman wearing a sack-like dress stuck her head out of the window. I didn't really notice her, but all of a sudden I heard a chattering sound, and looked down to see a pair of dentures fall to the pavement. Before I could even realize what was happening, the back tire of the bus crushed the poor false teeth into a thousand little pieces. For a split second, it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen---teeth flying through the air for no apparent reason. But then Stephanie pointed out that the poor old woman had vomited...and the combination of bodily fluids and a crushed, realistic prosthetic was all of a sudden rather repulsive and horrifying. But by far the worst part of the experience, was seeing the bus stop a half a block later, allowing the old woman and her grandson to get off, and then seeing the obviously impoverished woman run as fast as she could back down the street, wiping spittle and embarrassment from her face with a handkerchief. We tried not to stare...but the ramifications of this unfortunate woman's stomach bug were just heartbreaking. Getting dentures is no small thing in a country where dental care is VERY sub-par and expensive, and now this woman won't have teeth until she can somehow afford a $120 replacement. My heart just broke as she bent down to pick up the biggest pieces, and her grandson asked her, "What are you going to do now, Grandma?" She didn't respond, but just gathered herself together, tried to ignore the faces that stared and amplified her humiliation, and with the resilient Nicaraguan spirit that I have seen time and time again, she took her grandson's hand and just said, "It's going to be alright."

Hi friends!

I'm back from my two-week stay near the Honduran border in a little town called Dulce Nombre de Jesus. It was a fantastic experience, and I'm eager to get some stories posted about my time there.

But first, I've finally gotten around to posting some pictures online. I posted them using Snapfish.com, which means that you'll have to create a sign-in name to see them. I hate that...so if anyone knows a better way, email me. But for those of you who don't mind signing in (it is free and they don't send a bunch of pesky emails if you do the 'opt-out of emails' thing), you can click here to see the photos.

I must run now...but will get some good posts up before heading home for Christmas!

Much love,

Kendal

(PS...Don't judge me for reading such a trendy book. It's really good...though I don't think any type A macho types out there would find it half as enjoyable as I do.)

Dear Ones,

I'm finding out quickly that my new schedule is making it darn near impossible to write on the blog nearly as frequently as I had hoped. I am so far from easy access to computers most of the time, and when I do have a computer on hand, I have to share with others. Fret not, faithful readers...I have kept a great journal from which I'll post selections as time allows...and who knows, maybe "Kendal's Blog, the Book" will hit your local bookstore in the next few years, and you can read all the details that I haven't yet had time to post here.

But I should let all of you know what I'm up to at the very least, and fill you in on all of the humorous, tragic, bug-and-outhouse-filled details as time allows. I know, that's the juicy stuff that you really want to hear, and I promise, it is forthcoming.

At this exact moment, I'm in the cybercafe near my homestay in Batahola Norte---a community in Managua about 10 minutes from the Kairos Center by Taxi. Anyone who has visited on a Kairos delegation would remember Batahola as the location of the open-air church where we bring most delegations, with the beautiful mural on the front wall. I live near that church/community center, with a dear little family in a dear little house. I share a room with two boys, Michael (17) and Miguel Angel (14)---both named after their father, Miguel (37?). Hypatia (named after the Greek mathematician) is my mama Nica, and Kristel (10) is the only daughter. She also happens to be my goddaughter (things happen fast here...more on that some other day).

After the Damascus delegation was here (OH THERE IS JUST SO MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT, I COULD BURST!), I started my "orientation period," about three weeks ago. I live with my host family in Managua here for one week, and then I visit one of the Kairos communities for the following week. Last week, I stayed in Teustepe--a small rural pueblo near Boaco--getting to know the lives and experiences of the people there. This past week was one of the "off" weeks here in Managua, and Monday, I will head off to the next Kairos community, Dulce Nombre de Jesus. (Sweet Name of Jesus. Isn't that an outrageously different name for a city? Imagine... "I live in the Sweet Name of Jesus.") I'm supposed to spend 2 weeks there, learning about that community, which will bring me to the first week in December. The idea is for me to gradually become accustomed to more and more rural communities, so that by the time I'm ready for my long-term assignment, I'll be comfortable anywhere.

That's about the broadest summary I've written in this blog yet---I must be pressed for time. (The cyber closes in 20 min, and they don't warn you before shutting off the computers. Damn communists.) That's what I'm doing, and here's how I'm feeling: Had a few rounds of upset stomach over the past few weeks. The eastern medicine doctor told me to put a damp towel on my abdomen and iron my bowels..."making sure to move in the direction the colon flows." I was doing okay without a translator until that moment...when I clearly started second guessing myself...but found out after a translator arrived that I was, in fact, understanding the doctor. I went to the pharmacy and bought some real drugs (anti-parasite stuff...tasted like oranges) and now I feel better, more or less.

It is strange and difficult being in so many different places, in so many different homes, without a job or specific job description. I'm charged with "getting to know the communities, and practicing Spanish," however, 1 or 2 weeks is both insufficient and too much time to spend as a guest in someone's home. Let me explain. I'm treated like a guest to such an extent that I feel like a burden. They serve my plate and watch me eat (wholly disconcerting), snatch my clothes from my bedroom when I'm not looking and wash them for me, and haul water from the well for me to bathe (and tell me to do so...maybe I'm not showering enough?). And since I don't really have a "job" job, we do a lot of sitting together and just chatting. Restful, yes...but after a while you start to feel like they are babysitting you---making sure there is someone there to talk to you, rearranging schedules to accommodate you, etc. That's why 1-2 weeks feels like too much time. On the flip side, 1-2 weeks is completely insufficient for really immersing yourself into a community's comfort zone. I'll never overcome the guest-host relationship in a home in that amount of time, and without a job to do during the day, I feel kinda like a lump on a log. I'm getting anxious to move towards my permanent assignment. I've requested to have a 2.5 month evaluation tomorrow, and so I'll start making those feelings known.

My Spanish is getting a lot better. I still don't understand a lot of what people say to me, but I'm able to express that which I need to say. I also turned in a draft of my thesis (FINALLY! Hallelujah, Saints be Praised!), so I'm just one step away (knock wood) from having that virtual graduation party. (Remember, when all of you raise a glass, wherever ye may be, to celebrate with me?)

I have lots of great stories to tell you (stretching all the way back to September!) but it just seems impossible to catch up without a computer on hand for weeks at a time. If you're patient with me (as I can see you have been...I keep having hundreds of hits a week, and I haven't written anything for weeks!) I will continue to write, and get the info posted as often as time allows. I miss you all, and I'm so anxious to see your faces around Christmastime, if I can!

Big big hugs,
Kendalario Chispas

PS...Happy Thanksgiving! I'm going to be out in a rural community for the big day, without fellow gringos around... Maybe I'll just have to cook the whole meal myself and explain the holiday to my host family. Where could I find pumpkin pie in Nicaragua? I'm thankful for all of you!