(From CNN.com) -- Ordinary Americans aren't the only ones being punished by tough economic times. Charities say they need help, too.

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Charitable groups that help the poor -- food banks, thrift stores, shelters -- say the slumping economy is eroding their ability to help the nation's needy. They report declining donations and a surge in people seeking help.

Bill Bolling, the founder of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, says he's experienced several recessions but never seen so many working people visit food banks. Bolling's charity donates food to 800 nonprofit groups in Georgia.

"This is new for us," Bolling said. "People are giving up buying groceries so that they can pay rent and put gas in the car."

National charities like Goodwill Industries International Inc. and The Salvation Army give the same grim assessment -- donations are down, needs are up.

At least 1.3 million more people have enrolled in the federal Food Stamp Program compared to last year, says Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest, one of the nation's largest hunger-relief groups. It donates food to at least 200 food banks.

"People who have been in food banking for years say it's the worst they've ever seen," Fraser said.

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People often assume food bank customers are homeless. But several food bank officials across the country say that many of their customers are working-class people and their numbers are increasing.

They are people like Lynette Copeland, who works full-time as a clerk at a rehabilitation center in Atlanta, Georgia. She's buying a Habitat for Humanity house and drives a car. But she says she doesn't make enough money to pay her bills.

Copeland says she depends on the Atlanta food bank to feed the four grandchildren she raises alone. She says the high costs of food, fuel and daycare force her to eat meat sparingly and shop at Goodwill.

"Although everything is going up, your pay rate doesn't go up," she said.

Lately, Copeland says she has noticed a change in the makeup of the customers visiting her food bank. Instead of the homeless and destitute, people come from all walks of life: the elderly, men in security guard uniforms and mothers with children.

Many are first-timers. Some are too ashamed to ask for food in front of others; so they walk to the side of the food bank where fewer people are gathered to receive food, she says. Watch food bank leaders talk about their needs »

"I'm never ashamed to ask for help," Copeland says. "I don't care how people look at me."

Charities blame their struggles on a brutal convergence of factors: rising food and fuel prices, the foreclosure crisis, and a decline in federal donations to food pantries.

Donna Rogers, a spokeswoman for the United Food Bank in Mesa, Arizona, says her group is trying to do more to accommodate the surge in customers. Her bank distributes food to soup kitchens and shelters in Arizona.

They are trying to give more, though, with less. Donations of canned goods are down 35 percent from last year; dairy and frozen meat donations are down by 26 percent, Rogers says.

The decrease in donations is coming at the same time food prices are increasing, she says. The price of macaroni and cheese, for example, increased by 44 percent from last year's price.

"It's been the worst case of food inflation of 20 years," Rogers says.

The amount of surplus food they receive from the federal government is also decreasing.

The federal government donated $242 million in surplus food to food banks, soup kitchens and emergency shelters in 2003. Last year, it donated $58 million in surplus food to the same places, says Jean Daniel, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agricultural.

The federal government's food donations didn't decline because it decided to provide less, she says. It declined because the American agricultural industry is experiencing strong sales and record exports.

The federal government buys surplus food from farmers to donate to charities. Those farmers, though, have less surplus food to sell because the agricultural market is so strong.

A farm bill pending in Congress would increase aid to food banks, but it hasn't passed yet, says Fraser, with America's Second Harvest.

"If the farm bill is passed, it'll give millions of dollars in aid to food banks," Fraser says.

Even if the farm bill is passed, just getting food to needy people may become a problem. High fuel prices are bleeding charities, several say.

The executive director of one food bank in Orlando, Florida says one of his drivers paid $880 to fill up a tractor- trailer hauling donated food.

It would have cost about $660 to fill up the tank last year, says Dave Krepcho, executive director of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.

"This is getting really crazy," Krepcho says. "If those trucks don't move, the food doesn't flow."

People are even turning to charity in unexpected places, says one Salvation Army spokeswoman.

Spokeswoman Melissa Temme, said a Salvation Army shelter in one of the most affluent counties in Kansas recently reported it was filled to capacity with a waiting list.

The 13-year-old center has never been full before, she said.

Salvation centers across the country are reporting similar stories, she says.

"Some areas had more people coming to them and other areas had the same number of people but the extent of their need increased," Temme says.

Copeland, the Atlanta food bank customer, says she can't envision a day when she won't have to depend on charity for survival. Her bills are too much and her pay too little.

And, she says, her faith helps her through these tough times.

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"If you don't have a strong spiritual foundation, you cannot survive what's going on today," she says.

"I get through with a lot of prayer.".. -->startclickprintexclude-->

Maybe if I cleaned more often, it would lose some of its revitalizing charm. I just sorted through my desk drawer full of receipts (I'm trying to be a good steward of the donations that have been coming my way!), put up a few more family pictures on my bulletin board, and re-folded all the clothes on the shelves in my closet. True to habit, I petered out and left one dark shelf of my closet exceedingly messy, cluttered with various and sundry stomach-calming products, insect repellent, and water purifiers that I have ceased to use. I don't know what it is about me, but I have a tendency to complete 99.5% of a cleaning project with over-achieving (anal, even) enthusiasm and exuberance, only to stare at the remaining 0.5% and think, "Ah. Now that's a project for another day."

Maybe it's the pack-rat in me. I can't stand the idea of throwing things away—less out of nostalgia and more out of a paralyzing feeling that at any moment the world's land-fills will reach capacity, explode, and drown us in nuclear slime and disposable diapers. (Probably not so far from the truth.) So I hold onto that last dark shelf of the closet—tossing things there that I'll never use—so as to avoid having to admit, head heavy with shame, that I bought unnecessary and wasteful items.

I'm getting better though. I'm learning to buy less CRAP, and trying to buy more eco-friendly items from conscientious producers and distributors. It's really hard, though. Globalism and free-trade erases all of the supply chains and increases shipping distances to the point that one never really knows where the things they buy actually come from. Take something as mundane as the computer mouse I'm using right now. Sure, it says "Made in the USA." But where did all of the materials come from? What kind of a carbon impact did the fabrication of the materials have? Who put together the optical technology inside? Who assembled the actual mouse, and where? Was everyone paid fairly? How energy-efficient was the truck/boat/airplane/all-of-the-above that got it to the store where I bought it? And what happens to it when I'm done with it or it stops working?

You can drive yourself crazy with such questions...and I'm probably just scratching the surface. You can ask similar questions about just about everything that we use. Not to mention all of the food that is grown in impoverished parts of the world and exported to the United States and other parts of the more-developed world, leaving the populations that grew the stuff eating just rice and beans to survive. But we all need to eat. And I didn't decide to have my local grocery store sell bananas. And if I didn't have this computer mouse, I couldn't be writing this highly-worth-while blog entry to all of you right now. So what do you do about it all, as a person who wants to make responsible consumer choices?

I might be crazy, but I think the government should help make it easier to be a conscientious consumer. Companies should be required to provide some kind of an 'Eco-Score' and a 'Socially-Conscious-Score' for the commodities we buy every day. We should not only know exactly where commodities come from, but how much impact their production had on the environment and workers and impoverished countries' economies along the way.

Sound unrealistic? Maybe. But maybe not. It's all about willingness. Do you think food companies were excited about sticking detailed nutrition labels on their products? But they do it because the government requires it of them. And wouldn't that create a job or two? Or maybe a few thousand? All those nutrition scientists out there were probably jumping for joy when the government mandated nutrition labels. I mean, someone has to do all that evaluating.

It certainly wouldn't be easy to get that kind of legislation passed. Just about every corporation out there would be fighting it. The truth is, they don't want you to know that they're shipping jobs overseas to sweatshops and economies where people are willing to work for unfair wages in unhealthy conditions because it is the only option they have (aka Nicaragua, China, India...the list is never-ending). They don't want you to know how the US economy is sucking the life-blood out of entire nations world-wide. And it isn't your fault. Because no one tells you. Except maybe when trying to buy Fair-Trade coffee, the average Josephine can't choose the more socially-conscious product because the information simply isn't available. And sadly, even Fair-Trade-certified coffee has its drawbacks. I've met small-scale coffee exporters down here who buy their coffee from independent farmers at above-fair-trade prices, but they're suffering on the international market because they can't get their crop certified by the Fair-Trade organization, because they are too small-scale to get the certifiers' attentions.

This is not at all what I sat down to write about tonight. Sorry, you probably weren't expecting this rant. I wasn't. I get passionate about it though, because I see how it's affecting the Nicaraguan economy...and you don't even have to leave your own neighborhood to see how it's affecting the environment via climate change. All this certainly isn't on the top of the political agenda at the moment...but it should be. If you feel so inclined, jump on the phone with your congressperson, write a letter to your senator, or stop by your local presidential political rally, and let your leaders know that socially- and environmentally-conscious consumerism is important to you, and that the government should be championing the cause.

GETTING OFF THE SOAPBOX NOW.

You just witnessed one helluva tangent, folks. I really sat down to write about the fact that I just cleaned my room, which I was planning on working into a salient metaphor about spending the weekend getting my life organized and rejuvenating my drive to be here. But that Damn-The-Man political rant of mine really tuckered me out. Just pretend that the metaphor was super-elegant and unexpected and witty.

-God, Kendal, you're such a good writer!

~Oh geez. You're too kind.

-No really, that transition was amazing.

~Thanks, but I borrowed it from someone else.

-Now you're just being humble. Stop. That was just too good.

Are you really still reading this crap? Oh boy. I'm so sorry.

Wow. Rain. Just now. First time in several months. The rainy season must be on its way. You wouldn't believe the way rain echoes on a corrugated tin roof. Even the lightest rain crescendos into the most humbling roar. I love going to sleep with the rain pounding into my ears and the sound of the rusty barrel downstairs in the neighbor's backyard filling up with water from the roof's gutters.

What DID I sit down to write about tonight? Cleaning. Right. No. Rejuvenation. What a lovely word, 'rejuvenation.' The Latin roots really mean a return to youth. Maybe I'm too young to talk about returning to youth without the majority of my readers rolling their eyes. But I can talk about the amazing weekend I just had.

-Wow Kendal, another amazing transition! How do you think of those?

I just finished a moderately successful week working with the kids, (we just did some amateur-art therapy...e.g. "Draw me the most important person in your life, and then tell me why you drew that person"), but I was completely exhausted from all the emotional energy I'd been investing in the kids all week. My bedroom was a mess—papers piled everywhere and books all over my bed—and I've learned over the past few years of living away from home that one can usually deduce my state of mind based solely upon the relative tidiness of my bedroom. I really needed to get out of Matagalpa and my 'home, class with street kids, gym, studying Spanish in bed, bar, then home' routine.

And it just so happened that some of Bobby's friends from Managua were coming up for the weekend and looking to do some adventuring. (Do y'all know Bobby? Peace Corps volunteer? I'm not sure if I've talked about Bobby before. Good guy. Also from DC but we never met until Nicaragua. I see him just about every day. We're thinkin' about finding a place and moving in together, because we're going to be here about the same amount of time and aren't totally comfortable where we're living now.)

....

~Nice to meet you, Bobby!

- Right back atcha!

So anyway, Bobby's friends from Managua. Karima and Amy. Both teach the Paris Hiltons of Nicaragua at the American School in Managua. Very cool ladies, Karima and Amy. We have great conversations about our undying affection for Barak Obama, teaching, and the effects of Nicaraguan food on one's digestive system. So Karima and Amy bring along Consuela, the unbelievably affectionate and amazingly not-annoying Chiwawa that they're currently dog-sitting, we grab Stephanie who is also in dire need of some rejuvenation, and we head out of town to Selva Negra—the German-owned Hotel/Restaurant/Nature Preserve/Coffee Plantation thirty minutes outside of Matagalpa.

It is such a bizarre place. As you head almost directly uphill on the highway towards Jinotega, the temperature drops violently and the vegetation gets thicker and greener. After a few mountain curves that offer stunning look-out-points over pastoral valleys, you make a right turn at the rusty US-Army-issued tank leftover from the (you can't miss it—it has a big rainbow spray-painted on the back). Small Bavarian-style cottages line the rocky dirt road that leads through shade-grown coffee fields, until you're stopped by a guard standing in front of a giant candy-cane-striped road block. You try not to stare at the revolver poking out of the waistband of his pants, but you just can't help but imagine what it would be like if the poor guy sat down the wrong way and the thing blew a breezeway through his butt cheeks. He makes you pay $1.25 per person just to get in, which you're annoyed about until he hands everyone in the car a laminated card which one can trade in at the restaurant for a slice of Pastel Selva Negra (Black Forest Cake) and a cup of the farm's coffee. It feels a little fascist though, (no cultural reference to Germans or their history intended), to be forced to buy coffee and cake in order to enter the nature reserve. But whatever, it's only $1.25.

You pull into the parking lot, and you can't help but shake the feeling that whoever designed the place was trying to give you that Disney-like fairy-land feeling. Giant cement toadstools with peeling red and white paint spring up in between trees in a disarmingly natural way. The chicken coops and horse corrals almost make you think it's a real farm and not a tourist trap, until you walk into the restaurant/lodge and are greeted by postcards and a Midwestern-style buffet line. Home Sweet Home.

(You later find out that the 'slice' of chocolate cake is actually a paper-thin deli-sliced-slice of chocolate cake, tantalizing unsatisfying and clearly a ploy to get you to buy a big expensive slice, and you're especially peeved when you are denied real cream for your coffee because it "isn't included on the voucher" and are brought powdered creamer instead, even though the table next to you clearly is using cream! At this point, you want your $1.25 back. Damn German Fascists!)

Walking out onto the back patio where all the eating tables are set up, the ugliest geese you've ever seen (what can they possibly use that giant orange tumor-thing on their face for?) greet you from the sprawling, multi-acre pond, which looks almost natural butting up to the base of the forest until you notice the turquoise cement retaining wall over on the western edge of the water.

But the trees. GOD the trees. The trees are why you go. Rising from the edge of that stupid pond is the peak of the mountain you've just been climbing in the car to get there. These are the greenest, densest, most MAJESTIC trees I've ever seen in my life. Technically speaking, Selva Negra is a cloudforest (which I think is another name for a rainforest...but kinda different...I think determined by the amount of annual rainfall). But it isn't like the Amazon or anything you'd imagine a rain/cloudforest to be. In a lot of places on the hiking trails, the trees look pretty average...

I just took a break to make some tea and eat a mango. It's getting ridiculous how many mangoes I eat in any given day. Maybe that's the cause of my digestive trouble... Anyway, while I was chompin' on the tart pit, juice dripping down my chin and forearms, I heard the creepiest skittering sound—like fingernails drumming on a desktop—which nearly caused me to drop my mango and mess myself, (only because I'm home alone, you see). I turned around slowly, and was relieved to find that it was only a three-inch-long cockroach scampering over a glass plate in the dish drying rack. Funny, you know you've been living in Central America for quite a while when you're relieved to find that the things that go 'bump' in the night are only giant insects.

...but then you turn around a bend and nearly clobber your head on the sprawling root system of a giant Chilamate tree. Now, I've never been to the redwood forests in California, but I've seen pictures of trees so big that they dig tunnels through the trunks so that cars can pass through. I'm sure those trees are impressive in their own right, but they can't be anything in comparison to a giant Chilamate. Sure, the redwoods might be taller. But Chilamates are mystical. They look like they have one solid, inner trunk, easily the size of a Hummer at its base, but the trunk is smothered by these individual, vine-like growths that twist and wrap and detach and jump from the trunk, with roots the size of normal tree-trunks dropping from the lowest branches, meters away from the main trunk, burrowing into the ground and creating archways, caves and tunnels. All the way up the monumental trunk, Chilamates are adorned with ferns, Spanish moss, and other symbiotic epiphytes, (I'm making my high school biology teacher so proud right now). Stretching to inestimable heights, the Chilamate's mystique is completed by the proud reach of her copious canopy-ous upper branches. Like an old medicine woman, the sagacious, wrinkled Chilamate grins down at all of the pathetically adorable trees hundreds of feet below her branches, and tells them not to take themselves so seriously.

We had been slow getting started, and so we arrived in Selva Negra last night, totally gringo-ed out, with our over-stuffed backpacks and cooler full of wine, cheese, and of course, MANGOES, and were disappointed to see the setting sun signaling that any hiking would have to wait until the following day. Not to be defeated, we found ourselves a vacant Bavarian gazebo on the east side of that awful pond, set Consuela the Chiwawa loose to chase away the monster-geese, and sipped our wine and nibbled our cheese well into the night.

These are good people. Bobby, Stephanie, Amy, Karima, and Consuela the Chiwawa. We alternated between ostentatiously 'profound' conversation and side-splitting silliness. We danced to the bad DJ at the wedding reception a few Bavarian gazebos away, laughed at our risky and ultimately bad decision to try the cheap Rosé wine from the supermarket in Matagalpa, and swapped traveler's stories. At one point, whilst stroking Consuela (perched on my lap), and taking a particularly deep schlug of that Robotussin-tasting Rosé, I just started to laugh. Between the five of us, we had visited every continent (save Antarctica, but I'm sure someone's working on that), at least thirty different countries, and had lived in at least 8 of them, that I can remember coming up in conversation. Collectively, we'd hiked Kilimanjaro, gone on safari in Zambia, eaten raw horse meat in Japan and a living octopus in China, bathed in the Ganges, climbed to Machu Picchu, kissed the Wailing Wall, seen England's Crown Jewels, climbed the Alps, seen Victoria Falls, and stood on the field and thrown out the game ball for Europe's American Football 'Super Bowl', ALL BEFORE REACHING THE AGE OF 25! (Except for Karima...she's ancient at 33.) And that's just what came up last night.

I just started to laugh, because we are five of the luckiest people (and certainly the luckiest dog) alive. How unlike the majority of the world's population we live! How unlike most people in even our parents' generation we live. And I don't think any of us take it for granted. After laughing to myself, I pointed out to everyone that if we weren't careful, we would be getting alarmingly close to the spoiled, Paris Hilton lifestyle of Amy's and Karima's students that we all pretended to despise. I mean, I was practically there, petting my Chiwawa and sipping my wine in a gazebo at the edge of a rain/cloudforest.

Why write about all of this? So that everyone back home can know what I life of luxury I lead? Not at all. It's just that in that particular moment of laughter, I re-realized quite acutely that although there are some very real challenges and frustrations involved in what I'm doing right now, and although it's complete CRAP being so far away from my family and friends, and although I still can't seem to get rid of this bloody parasite, I'm so blessed to be where I am right now. So few people in the world have the opportunities and resources to even leave their own cities, let alone their own continents.

And it's not just about reminding yourself from time to time how blessed you really are. You have to follow through to the next step—the active appreciation and dedication to taking full advantage of all that you've been given. In every "Woe-is-me!" moment, which we all have from time to time, even for legitimate reasons, I'm learning to slap myself across the face and get myself together a little bit sooner. I have so very little to whine about—even when I'm trying to stop the street kids from sniffing glue and pinching the tushes of the lady customers in the café, whilst running back and forth to the bathroom in a fit of 'parasite fireworks'. Even in moments like those, I try to remember Chilamates and lap dogs and yes, even cheap Rosé.

Night falls over our Bavarian Gazebo. The DJ is replaced by a Nicaraguan version of a Big Band. Interesting. We retire to the little cabin we've rented. More wine. "Oh my GOD there's a water heater here! GLORIOUS! It's SO HOT! I'm burning my skin off and I LOVE IT!" It's a bona fide slumber party. All five crowded onto one bed, recreating hairstyles of the '80s and swapping around the books we're reading. "Who brought these Lifesavers? I think they're a knock-off brand." And of course, more wine. Exhaustion. We retire to our five separate beds throughout the cabin.

Early morning. What the hell is that noise? Thunder? It's not raining. A train? No trains in the rainforest. Is it? Could it be? Wait, I think it might be...HOWLER MONKEYS!!!

We got our sorry Rosé-drinkin' butts out of bed, strapped on some hiking boots, and headed off into the forest to find the source of that ridiculous grumbling. Consuela was our guide—running ahead about 30 meters up the trail, and then turning back to wait for the slow humans—with all the the poise and alertness of a true hunting dog.

It took us a few hours to reach the summit. We tried really hard to keep our mouths shut in order to have a better chance at seeing the wildlife...but our crunching boots and heavy breathing scared away just about everything but small geckos and mosquitoes long before we had the chance to see them. And there was certainly no sign of the howler monkeys.

It was on the way down, after having seen the shiny white cathedral in Matagalpa from the highest look-out point, that the grumbling started again. We walked "Indian-style" (I'm sure it isn't politically correct to use that term anymore...) trying to make our way through the forest as silently as possible. We could here them, but the monkeys were smart enough to avoid the hiking trails, so we just couldn't see them.

We were almost at the base of the trail when, in a rare fit of alpha-male assertiveness that I can only rationalize by my child-like fascination with the idea of seeing monkeys in the wild, I motioned for the others to wait while I ventured off trail, into the heart of the dark, dense jungle undergrowth. (Okay, that's a little dramatic...it wasn't that dense, and it was the middle of the day, so it wasn't even dark. But I felt brave, so DEAL.)

About 50 meters later, I came to a small clearing in the canopy—just enough for me to look up into the branches of a relatively short Chilamate, and spot a troop of six big, black monkeys, leisurely gnawing away on something tasty. In my excitement, the shouted-whisper I used to summon the others without startling the monkeys proved ridiculously ineffective, as the whole family of primates looked down at me and just about grinned, as if to say, "Nice try, bucko. We heard you coming a mile away, and we're just too cool to care."

It turns out that all the tip-toeing and whispering probably wasn't necessary, because as the group of humans with their guard-Chiwawa stood underneath and tried to snap photos and contain our "Oh my GOD look at the BABY!" sentiments, the monkeys just continued about their business, fully aware of the protection the height of the Chilamate's branches provided them. It was VERY cool, and while I'm not really a big boaster, I do have to say here in private that I felt like a bona fide cowboy for having found the monkeys. That's enough of that.

After one last helping of sauerkraut that wasn't actually sauer, we packed up the station wagon and headed back down to the normalcy of our lives in Matagalpa. It was the perfect weekend to break me out of my routine, to help me appreciate the glorious opportunity I've been given in being here, and to help me clear my head and start fresh in the coming week.

Maybe we don't all have a rain/cloudforest a few kilometers outside of town to which we can retreat. But we all have to create spaces in our lives for that kind of reflection, appreciation, and gratitude. Wherever you live, there is a park, a bike trail, a fishing pond—somewhere to go (even in the most urban of environments) where you can remind yourself that despite all of the challenges life sends our way, the world is a beautiful place, and we're all so lucky to have a share in it. As the weather gets warmer up there in the US, I encourage you to do something to break out of your routine and appreciate the beauty in your own backyard. Bring along a group of friends, a dog, and a cheap bottle of Rosé, and you'll have it made.

I wrote this not-so-little ditty about two weeks ago on my way back to Nicaragua after a brief visit to the United States. It has taken me a while to post it because, let’s face it, there are some angsty feelings brewing in the following paragraphs. If anything offends you, try to take it with a grain of salt and know that I’m just trying to sort through this strange, uncharted territory of setbacks and successes and solitude. Thanks again for reading—some of the emails y’all have been sending me really have helped me through some tough times. Keep ’em coming! (Snail mail is even more fun...though excitingly unreliable. My mom sent me a card on January 1^st that just arrived on March 27^th. My absurdly short address is: Kendal Sparks, Apartado 8, Matagalpa, Nicaragua.)

Oh, and P.S., I was just teasing at the end of my last long post—y’all don’t have too much time on your hands just because you read all the way to the bottom of these long-winded entries. I think I got at least five emails that started, "Okay, so maybe I have too much time on my hands, but..." It flatters me to no end that people other than my parents keep checking in on me. I feel very loved.

Settling in for the voyage...

Though the plane’s toes still touch New York’s turf, upon stepping off the jet way and passing through that heavy swung door (I wish someone would actuallyPULL TO ENGAGE that moon-bounce of a slide, just once!), I’ve dropped off the space-time continuum into location-less, plastic air. The uniformity and mobility of these flying machines robs all locality and electricity from its passengers. Accents blend together, the impatiently gruff charm of Manhattan fades, and we all become citizens of Airville for the next few hours.

Lift off.

I find myself once again in the open space between homes. The stiffness of Airville creates more tension in my chest than usual. I’ve grown accustomed to the journeying—the leaving behind of loved ones and comfort zones and sushi. But it pushes on me more this time.

As my fellow citizens of Airville plug into those useless two-pronged $1 headsets and chew re-formed chicken patties and sip their 3 oz. plastic cups of Coke with more ice than soda, I put down my Che Guevara biography that I’ve been reading and attempt to articulate the undying BLAH stewing inside:

Woe and pity be upon this restless vagabond soul, so troubled by the burdens of homelessness and adventure, world-weary and wise beyond his unfair age of twenty-two...his heart heavy with all that he has seen and the burdens of the poor and suffering world around him. Pity his wayfaring spirit—unable to decide which adventure lying before him offers the juiciest material to impress the folks back home...which will fashion the most glorious jewel in his heavenly crown, drawing comparisons to Mother Theresa and admiring pats on the back from parents and peers and patrons.

Today’s Theme: Don’t take me seriously.

No, my life doesn’t suck. And Lord knows I don’t take it for granted. But you’re catching me at one of those ugly and all-important transition points, having just re-visited the world I’ve left behind and heading back to the world I’m coming to know. Forced to explain on too many occasions, ’Just what are you doing down there in, oh what was it, Guatemala?’ I’ve been doing a lot of that healthy but annoying self-examination crap, wondering, ’Am I being useful? Am I learning? Just when am I coming home? What am I gonna do when I get back?’ And it’s all tempered by the slow-burning ardor of friends and family missed and recently revisited—the rushed two-hour conversations crammed into a week-long visit, lending a slightly panicked tone to my time back in the States: "HAVE FUN AND BE HAPPY, DAMMIT! He’s only here for a few days and you’re RUINING IT!"

It was a good visit. REALLY good. Every day filled with friends, food, family, a wedding, a bachelor party, theatre, music, and sleeping in. The wedding was the central event of the trip—the reason for the visit. Two dear friends from high school got married on March 16^th, and asked me to be a bridesman. (Yes, you read that correctly, and NO, I didn’t wear a dress.) They are the first of my peers to take that particular plunge, and thus I had more than a few "Oh CRAP, does this make us grown-ups?" moments. (I perpetually answered that question with a resounding "NO!" but the whole ordeal threw my never-been-in-a-relationship-longer-than-three-weeks dating record under excruciating self-review.) But I digress.

The highlight of the trip was the wedding. Being that these were old friends from high school, it also provided the first opportunity for a high school reunion of sorts. (Has it really been five years?) Since I went out-of-state for college and many of the people with whom I grew up did the same, I had lost touch with several of those whom I had promised never to forget. And of course, I hadn’t. But we all know the effects of time and space between all but the closest of friends. Missed calls, missed connections, and missed opportunities; all lead to a growing comfort with the distance between us, i.e. less missing altogether. And so, even after a short five years, I found myself saying, "Wow, haven’t thought of that person in years! It’s just so nice to see them!"

And it was NICE. (I hate that word. I’m embarrassed for using it.) These were (are) people that have shared a really important part of my life—some all the way back to elementary school. They’ve known me through years of self-doubt, identity crises, and awkward haircuts. We have, at different stages of our lives, alternated through varying degrees of closeness as friends, but nonetheless, they remain breathing artifacts of my early childhood and adolescence. I had anticipated our reunion with a degree of anxiety: Perhaps I feared that the grinding tumult of adolescence that I was experiencing the last time we were all together would flood back upon me in a sea of pretenses, unspoken crushes, and too much cheap cologne.

But that wasn’t the case, thank God. Everyone seemed so much more secure in themselves. An air of ease and confidence flowed between peers as we asked about each other’s lives with genuine interest and concern. Any apprehension I had once felt melted away, realizing that each of us had grown up a bit. Maybe we weren’t willing to dub ourselves full-fledged ’Grown-Ups’ quite yet, but something had changed the conversation. Nothing tangible, really, but different, and GOOD. I relished every interaction, hopping between tables and dancing with anyone and everyone who’d let me. I realized how much more sure of myself I have become—I know so much more clearly now what my priorities are, who I am, what I believe in, and where I’d like to be in life. And as icing on the cake, these old friends with whom I share so many threads of common history, THEY seemed to exude a similar confidence. We all seemed to respect and appreciate each other, and the individuals we each continue to become.

Touch down.

A quick layover in Houston. Ahhhh. Breathing real air again. I park myself in a seafood restaurant, eager to savor my last opportunity to enjoy fresh fish without doubting its origin, and therefore not checking the menu. I plug in my laptop so that I can continue writing on the next flight. I open the menu. Cheapest entrée is $16. Not that I’m broke, but I am NOT used to prices like that. I guess you’d call me cheap. Embarrassed behind my menu, munching on the free crackers with my computer out, I feel like it’s too late to bail. I order a cup of soup and a side salad ($14 with tip), make a few final calls back to my parents and siblings, and head to my gate. En route, a dear friend from Michigan with whom I have been trying to get in touch finally calls me back. Just as I answer, the battery indicator on my phone starts flashing. Rushing to find an outlet to plug in my phone and not lose the call, I literally run head-first into two friends from Finland who have been working in my city in Nicaragua for the past five months. I didn’t know that they were leaving Nicaragua for good, nor that they would be flying through Houston at the same time that I would be. Friend on the phone, Finnish friends boarding a plane, dying batteries, and my own plane about to board: THIS is the frenetic pace of life I don’t really miss when I’m in Nicaragua.

Lift off.

Airville. Homelessness. That’s a little dramatic. ’In-Between-Homes-lessness.’ Hmmm. Better. Kinda.

I’m so grateful for the experience with my friends from high school. It came at a time when I needed to find my roots again. When I landed in New York last week on my way home to DC, I decided not to try and see all of my many classmates and friends that live in the city. I was only going to be there for a few hours, really, and I would feel bad calling one friend and not all the rest. What I’m trying to say is, I’m just too popular to make a brief cameo appearance in Manhattan without ruffling a few feathers. [Please refer to Today’s Theme for clarification.]

Instead I bought a single ticket for SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, a Sondheim musical about the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. If I really wanted to make my visit to Manhattan a covert op, I should have known better than to show up at a theatre anywhere in town. Without leaving my seat in the last row of the balcony, I encountered FIVE PEOPLE that I had either gone to school with, or worked with in the theatre at some point. FIVE. I mean, COME ON.

It was a strange feeling. None of the aforementioned five had any idea that I was living in Nicaragua. Most greeted me with some obtuse question about how things were going with the ’theatre thing’ in New York. Granted, I don’t keep up with every detail of every one of my friends’ lives. But I recall a few intense conversations with at least two of these five before I left, about the fact that I was moving to Nicaragua! Is that what the ’theatre thing’ does to people? Require them to be so focused on their own lives and careers that major details of their ’friends’ lives just fall by the wayside? Maybe I’m being unfair—I certainly didn’t know what was happening in each of their lives.

But there was something unsettling about the conversations that followed—I asking questions about what was happening in their lives, and they not really knowing how to react to my strange and unusual experience down here. Unable to shake the lens of theatre through which she sees nearly everything in her own life, one friend had trouble seeing how Nicaragua related to my theatre ’career.’ Another just gave the standard, "Wow, you’re so heroic" response. The latter always leaves me stumped for a reply, because I certainly don’t feel heroic, and it’s just a way people have of making sure the conversation doesn’t get any deeper. It’s right up there with "Oh I could never do that." It is always said so flippantly—most people never consider what the day-to-day reality might be like down here, or whether or not they actually could do what I’m doing. Not to mention the fact that people don’t know how un-heroic and relatively glamorous my cozy life is down here, compared to how most Nicaraguans live.

While sometimes people really do believe those statements, ("Wow, you’re so heroic!" and "Oh I could never do that!") they can often mask underlying feelings. Possible translations include:

1. I really should be doing more for other people.

2. Please don’t judge me for not doing more for other people.

3. What you’re doing just doesn’t fit into my world view (i.e. comfort zone).

4. Please don’t sermonize me or tell me something that would make me feel guilty or want to change my lifestyle.

Among the reasons why such statements make me extremely uncomfortable:

1. I spend most of my days in a very yuppie café, sipping coffee, reading, and waiting on the street kids to show up. Thus, I don’t feel very heroic.

2. Re: Number 1, Yes, you too COULD do that.

3. Maybe I’m exaggerating about my life being so cushy. Intestinal parasites could hardly be described as ’cushy’. Squishy maybe, but certainly not ’cushy’. But maybe my real frustration is that a lot of people think one must go to a third world country to do something good for someone else, when there are so many needs to be fulfilled in our own backyards. And it isn’t so hard to be that kind of a hero. The real HEROIC people out there are the teachers and social workers and clergy and volunteers and yes, even a few politicians who go out of their way to find the under-served and show them love. They are the heroes, so much more than I, the lucky son-of-a-gun who got a grant to go spend a couple of years finding himself and learning about the world.

I realize that I might sound kinda angry-ish. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect everyone to ’get’ the experience I’m having down here. That would take half the fun out of it. Let’s face it...we all enjoying feeling from time to time like the only person in the world who has ever experienced anything quite so unique and special. Maybe I’m just reacting to the realization that these experiences, so paramount in my own life, just aren’t that important to many people back home. Or, at the very least, they just can’t place my experience within a context to which they can relate. But shouldn’t people take notice? Shouldn’t people care? Maybe in my subconscious I expect a ticker-tape parade every time I touch US soil. Don’t these people know what a big deal I am?

[Please re-read the last four paragraphs, making sure to note the utter inability to satisfy the author. Does he want people to be impressed and call him a hero or not? Does he think that he’s a hero or not? Sounds to me like a case of wanting his cake and smearing it all over his blog, too.]

Okay, okay. People continue to live their own lives back home, with all of their own dramas, struggles, doubts, and successes, whilst I daily grapple with the meaning behind my existence down here: "Is what I’m doing worthwhile? What am I learning and what am I giving every day?" Is my experience any more valid or worthwhile than that of my friends back home? Certainly not. Do other people grapple with similar questions in even seemingly mundane jobs? Probably. Am I slowly driving myself insane ruminating over such existential questions and trying to articulate them for unspecified readers out there in the cyber-ether? The voices in my head think so...

I wonder, if I feel this way, imagine the betrayal and frustration our troops must feel when they come back from the battlegrounds of Afghanistan and Iraq. They, having put their lives on the line for an unjustified war waged on false pretenses, only to return to a broken VA system and a country so blind and immune to the horror and sacrifices they have made and seen. How misunderstood they must feel—my whining seems so childish by comparison. I guess I should shut up now.

The point of all this rambling...and yes, I acknowledge that I am rambling...is that not all of my friends were so befuddled by my life. Take Amelia, for example. One of my best friends since freshman year of high school. She’s doing her grad work at Columbia, studying and practicing social work in some of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. She gets me. I get her. We may be in entirely different environments, but we’re both learning a lot of the same life lessons. She knows how to ask me the right questions, sympathize with my frustrations...and hopefully I can do the same for her.

The list continues: Dana teaches middle school in DC public schools at a special behavior disorder school. Kate uses music and drama to work with multiple disability students in an under-served part of Tuscon. Aaron is applying for the Peace Corps, and wants to go teach in Southeast Asia. Nathan is doing something really confusing with the Federal Reserve but it has to do with helping poor people rise out of poverty. Jenny is also going to grad school for social work, and is currently working in a home for patients dealing with schizophrenia.

THESE people get me. This was the ’getting back to my roots’ that I was talking about, right after we took off from Houston and right before I got all whiny. Leaving behind all of the false fanfare of "You’re such a hero," these people were interested in my life, and I in theirs. We’re all trying to step outside of our own experiences and view the world through the eyes of those around us. Isn’t that the point of it all? And how glorious (and obvious?) that the people who ’get’ me are those who have known me the longest and shared so much of my life up until this point!

And I’m not saying that my theatre friends are unable to see the world outside of their own experiences. The very nature of the art form requires one to step into someone else’s shoes. But in a few cases, there seems to be something about those first months or even years right out of the gate, wherein a young actor becomes so focused on the seeming impossibility of landing the ’big break’, that he or she struggles to do much more than talk about his or her own world—successes, failures, jealousies, and all.

But no, no...it isn’t indicative of the art form at all. It isn’t necessary. Some of the most invested and giving people I know are theatre people. To steal verbiage from Barak Obama, I could no more denounce the members of theatre world than I could denounce my passion for the art form. I’m simply acknowledging the fact that one can easily become self-absorbed when forced to fight tooth-and-nail for survival in the business—or any business, for that matter. I’m praying that somehow, when I return to the theatre world that is so much a part of who I am, I will be able to retain what I’m learning: The broader vantage point from which I am now forced to see the world.

Touch Down.

Managua. Airport advertisements in English. Still in between worlds. Not home yet. Who sweats this much? CRAP, I’m disgusting. Palm trees. Breeze. Beauty. Suitcase heavy with too many books about street children. ’What am I doing? I’m so under-qualified to be working with these kids!’ The indistinctness of Airville melts away. Thank GOD. Characters emerge. Why is that young North American lady traveling alone with three small children? Who is that eight-year-old kid waiting for, with his cinnamon nose pressed against the streaked waiting room glass? Oh, the Managua Taxi Mafia, ripping off all the unsuspecting gringos. Poor things, these one-week warriors; students on spring break, missionaries, here to make a difference. They don’t know yet that the biggest difference they’ll make is in their own lives. I hope they’re ready. Learning hurts. But it’s good. REALLY good.

As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.

I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, "The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall." It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned "chickens coming home to roost." He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.

He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:

"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

"We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

"We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

"We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

"We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

"We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

"We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

"Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."

He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.

"What is the state of your family?" he asked.

And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.

His sermon thesis:

1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.

2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)

"We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society," he said.

Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.

"Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation."

3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.

By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said "God damn America." I’m not sure which sermon that came from.

This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.

The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth.

I am also listening to the other sermons delivered by Rev. Wright that have been the subject of controversy.

And let me be clear: Where I believe he was wrong and not justified in what he said based upon the facts, I will say so. But where the facts support his argument, that will also be said.

So stay tuned.

WARNING: This is a long bugger. Settle in with a good cup of coffee for this one, folks...I've got a lot to share!

My life is a twister in slow motion. A chest-deep run against the ancient, eddying currents of the Mississippi. An endless turning of the kaleidescope that folds the rapt anticipation of the next lustrous image into the muddy disappointment that the previous is forever lost.

Wow that opening paragraph is obnoxious. I try way too hard to sound poetic. Here's what I'm getting at: Though I'm living in a world that moves so much slower than that which I'm used to, things are changing quickly all around me...and I'm still figuring out how to just go with the flow.

If you scan down a few entries to the one from January 24^th, you'll see that about one month ago I gave an update as to what exactly I'm doing. Here, on February 27^th, I have to report that just about everything has changed. Let's start with what I was doing...

Things didn't work out so well with the theatre group at the university. The group leader felt that in order to present a play about sexual abuse, the actors needed to lose their sexual inhibitions and become more comfortable with their bodies. In his mind, that involved unannounced "exercises" in which he asked students to touch his and each others' huevos on various occasions. (Huevos = eggs. You do the math.) The group leader also happened to be a rather intimidating and unapproachable ex-gang member with a violent past, so it was quite a tap-dance figuring out how to leave the group without putting myself in a dangerous position, and then informing the powers-that-be that rehearsals for the play about abuse involved a bit too much method-acting.

Right about that time, I was sitting around on a Sunday afternoon with friends in Artesanos (a very relaxed coffee shop/bar that I use as an office most days), when I suddenly remembered that I needed to change my hours for Spanish class for the coming week. I ducked over to the Spanish school (conveniently located next door to Artesanos), and gave one of the teachers my new hours. There was a lesson in progress when I entered, and the teacher (Freddy) introduced me to the new student from the United States named Sol. Before leaving, I invited Sol to join us in Artesanos after his lesson so I could hear about what he was doing in Nicaragua.

Out of this chance meeting, I met Sol (short for Solomon, but which conveniently means "Sun" in Spanish), his sister Emily (nicknamed Luna, or 'Moon,' because of her brother's name), and their friend Kerry (nicknamed Estrella, or 'Star', just to keep the ridiculousness going). The three of them had come down a few days before from various parts of the US to help build a library/community center in one of the rural communities just outside of Matagalpa, where I live. They were building the one-room library in the style of old-English buildings---with a natural stone foundation and 'cob' walls. (Cob is a mix of clay, sand, straw, and water...which when mixed with your bare feet to the right consistency looks like cow manure but hardens like cement and lasts for centuries.)

Being recently out of a job and enchanted by their personalities and bizarre nicknames (my nickname being La Chispa, 'The Spark', I fit right in), I asked if I could join in the cob-slingin' fun. I really didn't know what I was getting into, but having had some experience in construction and learning that half the battle is just being willing to try, I showed up the following Tuesday at 7:30am to start moving boulders into place for the stone foundation.

Ever since, I've tried to show up at the building site for at least a few hours every day. We've had all kinds of volunteers come and go from all parts of the world: A couple from France who built their own house out of straw bails, a Nicaraguan/Swedish couple that just wanted to lend a hand, several neighborhood children who just like getting their feet muddy and throwing cob around, and several more. Sol and Luna have since gone back to the States, but have been replaced by Mary, the Artist/Interior Designer/Doula/Alzheimer's Caregiver who lived in Japan for two years and somehow manages to stay vegan down here. Kerry (Estrella) is the master-builder in charge of the cob-construction, aided by Don Fausto and his team of Nicaraguan builders, who can quickly make even the most complicated of hand tools with nothing more than a few tree saplings and a machete. Dominique, whom we like to call "Foxy Momma-D," is in charge of the whole project. She's a grandmother from France who taught French in the UK for 35 years and now lives back and forth between Nicaragua, France, and the UK. She's also teaching me to speak French...because learning Spanish just isn't enough. I know...always the over-achiever.

Meanwhile, on that same day that I first met Sol, Luna, and Estrella in Artesanos, I learned that one of the bartenders, my buddy Emanuel, had a hidden talent. Emily (Luna) told Emanuel that she works with youth groups back in the States, teaching them how to reuse trash to make art. Emanuel's eyes lit up, and he ran off to the kitchen, returning with a knife and a few plastic shopping bags. We all watched with confused curiosity as Emanuel chopped and folded and twisted and stretched the bags, running the plastic in between his pinched thumb and pointer finger. A veritable Rumpelstiltskin, within minutes Emanuel had created three lengths of braided cord out of what had once carried food and read "Thank You, Come Again." And to top it all off, with the flash and flare of a professional, Emanuel transformed said cords into a very stylish braided bracelet.

He told me later that he learned and refined this skill while doing time in the Big House a couple of years ago for "being naughty," (i.e. selling that white powder so popular amongst the rich and famous). That was a couple of years ago though, and now at the ripe old age of twenty, he's got his feet back on the ground and using his skills to help the street kids. I'm all for it. (He told me I could post this about him...don't worry, I asked!)

I have to back-track here, to get all this bracelet-talk to 'tie-in.' (Ouch...bad pun alert.) If you scan back down to the entry titled 'Miran' that I posted right before the Christmas Holidays, you'll read about a street kid I had lunch with back in December. (Turns out I was hearing wrong back in December...his name is really Milan.)

'Street Kid' is a strange term...'Child of the Street' would be a direct translation of what they're called here...It is a fairly generic name that encompasses any number of situations. The two common denominators that run through the street kid population are that they are in fact kids (mostly younger than 14), and that they generally beg money to make a living. Many of them live on the streets, sleeping in dark corners covered by cardboard boxes...but some have homes of some kind. Some may be orphans, but a great majority are simply neglected, abused, or forced to beg by their parents. I've heard a great number of stories; parents that tell the kids not to come home until they've collected at least 100 cordobas (about $5, but usually collected one cordoba at a time); parents that give their kids cough-syrup to make them look droopy-eyed and sick and then ask people to donate money towards medicine; kids that have run away from abusive or mentally-ill parents; kids with parents in jail; or kids that come from families with so many children that it is just impossible to keep track of them all.

Don't get me wrong—obviously this type of situation isn't the rule for children here, but it isn't too unusual either. There are organizations that work with these kids, even well-equipped orphanages where they can live. But nothing is really that simple. Living on the street, the kids (almost all boys) form small 'family' units for protection and support. They are never told what to do, what to eat, to bathe, or to go to school. There are no rules. And they make a lot of money. I've seen them on several occasions walk into a store with pockets full of coins and walk out counting out 20 and 50 cordoba bills (not much by North American standards, but certainly more than they would make doing a days worth of hard physical labor in a 'real' job).

Despite the apparent romance of their Lost Boys existence, there is no denying that the lack of adult attention for these children, some as young as 7 or 8, has very serious mental, physical, and emotional consequences. Violence is a regular part of their social structure, modeled by older street kids that have grown up into full-fledged gang members. They are filthy—walking around without shoes, cracking open their chapped feet on any number of rough surfaces, and picking lice out of their unwashed hair. They eat junk food all day long, being cheaper and more readily available than anything of nutritional value. They get around the city by hopping onto the back bumpers of moving pick-up trucks—a very dangerous sport that currently has my buddy Milan sporting a playing-card-sized scab on his right shoulder and a chunk of his hair matted together with dried blood. They don't usually go to school (though a few do—often those sent out to beg by their parents when not in class), which means that once they have outgrown the 'cute' factor that helps them get money now, they will have no skills to turn to and will therefore most likely end up in one of the violent gangs in town. And perhaps worst of all, many of them are addicted to huffing glue vapors—I can't tell you how disturbing it is to look into an 8-year-old's eyes and know that he's high.

My first few months in Nicaragua, I was so overwhelmed by the street kids and the shock of seeing them so dirty and neglected. I learned really quickly to look the other way, stick out a firm palm, and say "No!" as they tugged at my shirt sleeve begging for a coin. I thought that hardness was the only way to deal with it—having been told that giving money only perpetuates the cycle of begging that landed the kids in the street in the first place. But everyone knows that it isn't that simple. How can you look a hungry kid in the face and tell him you won't give him the one cordoba he's asking for, which equals all of about five cents in the US? Or how do you reconcile the fact that if he doesn't meet the 'quota' given him by his parents, he either can't come home or might get smacked around for it?

But after a while of giving the self-preservationist "No," one starts to look for a better way. Stephanie (my roommate whom everyone in Matagalpa thinks is my wife) came up with the idea first. She always has a purse of some kind, and so she decided to start carrying around crackers in her bag to give out in place of money. That way, you know that the kid is at least getting the direct benefit of the gift. It may not help him reach his 'quota' for the day, but at least his dad doesn't take the money away and buy booze with it. And at least the kid doesn't buy candy or glue with it. It isn't necessarily The Answer, but it is a beginning, right?

Copycat that I am, I went to the grocery store and stocked up on individually wrapped crackers, peanuts, and raisins. Feeling oh-so-confident in our newfound 'Better Way,' I strapped on my own little man-purse, stuffed only with these semi-healthy treats, and went out on a walk, basically with the sole purpose of finding some street kids and giving stuff away. It's amazing how simple you can trick yourself into thinking life is, when you stumble across a new good idea like this one. I thought to myself, "Just go out and find the street kids, always be ready with food, and you'll never feel guilty looking them in the face again!" Oh how naïve I continue to prove myself to be...

At first I felt like that goody-goody neighbor who always hands out toothbrushes on Halloween ("I know you asked me for money but what you REALLY want are raisins!"), but then I figured out that it was all about the approach. The exchange became:

"Give me a coin!"

"I don't have a coin with me right now...but are you hungry?"

Vigorous head nodding.

"Do you like raisins?"

More vigorous head nodding, this time augmented by big grinning eyes.

"Have some raisins..."

My sentence trails off as kid grabs box of raisins and dashes off.

Not exactly saving the world, but it made me feel better than just giving out money.

In such a small town, I started seeing the same faces again and again, and I became quite annoyed that these children, to whom I had given snacks on so many occasions, still came up and tugged on my arm and asked for a coin, without so much as a 'Hi' or a 'Please.' Why should these kids be exempt from the pleasantries of normal social interaction, just because life has dealt them a crappy hand? Part of my indignation came from the fact that I now felt comfortable with these kids, having a response ready for that oh-so-icky demand, "Give me a coin!"

One day, not so long ago, I turned on one of the kids and said, "You come to Artesanos all the time and ask me for coins, and I always give you food...can't you at least ask me how my day was first? My name is Kendal, and I would appreciate it if you would talk to me like a gentleman, call me by name, and stop asking me for coins. You know I'm not going to give you a coin, so how about saying, 'Hi Kendal, friend, how was you day? Do you happen to have some food to share with your friend?'"

Now, it sounds so serious when I put it into writing...but I promise I said it in my funny Spanish voice, and let the kid know it was okay to laugh. He repeated my words in a mock-serious, Spanish-with-an-almost-haughty-British-accent voice, giggling at himself and the silliness of it all. Apart from my lunch with Milan back in December, it was one of the first times I had had a real conversation with one of the street kids, and as he scurried away with his peanuts in hand, I realized that the differences between us might not be quite as vast as I had thought.

I continued having conversations like that one with street kids for the next couple of weeks—though I must admit that sometimes the extra effort just didn't seem worth it, in moments of short patience and tiredness. But on the whole, I started gaining the confidence of several street kids, as my army of "Kendal, friend, how was your day?"-kids grew. I had to laugh one day when I was approached by a new kid I didn't know, and one of the ones I did know shouted my name from across the street and intercepted the would-be-beggar, saying with near indignation, "This is Kendal, and he's my friend. You aren't allowed to ask him for money, but you can talk like a gentleman and ask him how his day was. Then he may be able to share some food with you." I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing as this nine-year-old wagged his finger in the face of the slightly older but much taller new kid.

Our conversations began stretching beyond the formulaic, "Kendal, friend, how was you day?", and into more substantive topics. They began waving to me from the back bumpers of the pick-up trucks, as I prayed that they had a good grip with the other hand. They started to run over just to say 'Hi,' without even asking to share some food. When they gathered outside Artesanos to beg from the busy weekend crowd, they would ask the waiters to come and find me, and we'd sit on the curb together for a few minutes, chatting about the happenings on the street that day...our conversations interrupted for a few moments every time a customer entered or exited the bar, as the kids would pop up from the curb and chase after the clientèle to pull on their sleeves and ask for money—them not being exempt from such begging as I was.

Around this time, I started to see that the situation was a little more complex than I would have liked to have thought. The kids always found reasons to beat up on each other, as kids do, but it always had a tone of heightened violence and was often accompanied by some form of theft or another. Not always having a full bag with equal numbers of each food item, I would give peanuts to one kid and raisins to another, only to see one punch the other and steal his raisins. I remember one incident in particular, in which an older kid I did not know stole the peanuts out of the hands of my buddy Donald, who I do know very well. Believing all things in this world ought to be just, I got a little upset with this kid. My Spanish floundering under my indignation, and I tried to reprimand the kid and make him give the peanuts back.

"I gave the peanuts to Donald! You give those back right now!"

"He gave them to me."

"Do you think I'm stupid just because my Spanish isn't that good? I saw you take them."

"I'm hungry, and I wanted them."

"If you don't give them back right now, you're never getting anything from me again."

Immediate regret for speaking in absolutes, and then desperate attempt to memorize his face to make sure I could follow through on my threat.

"Why? I'm hungry just like he is."

"Why? Because I don't share my food with thieves."

Immediate regret for the condescension implicit in this statement, and brief, glaring flashes of a certain religious figure (in)famous for sharing his food with thieves.

"DON'T CALL ME A THIEF! I AM NOT A THIEF!"

Immediate regret for implying that this thief was a thief, knowing that kids told that they are naughty often BECOME naughtier because that is what is expected of them.

I walked away from the situation in a flustered huff, tossing a meaningless but well-intentioned apologetic look in Donald's direction. A few blocks later, I turned around and noticed that Donald and the un-Thief were following me in that oh-so-suspicious, ducking-behind-cars-when-I-turned-around kind of way. I quickened my step, knowing that I was headed home and didn't really want them to know where I lived. As I walked faster and faster, knowing that this only encouraged them, I tried to talk sense to myself... "They're just kids...no older than eleven...what are they going to do to me?" But the faster I walked and realized that they were still following me, I was overwhelmed by that nightmare-type panic, you know, when you can't move fast enough from that amorphous evil that is chasing you in slow-motion. I reached my door about a half block ahead of them, and fumbling with the key, I opened the door, slipped in, and turned around just in time to see them sprinting in my direction. I leaned against the door and finally took a breath, laughing at myself for being so dramatic, but unable to shake the feeling that I didn't really know what I was doing mixing with these kids, nor what they were really capable of.

But this incident was the exception to the rule. On the whole, the kids always seemed at ease around me, and I with them. Far more troublesome were the reactions I seemed to get from the other adults around. Especially when sitting with the kids outside of Artesanos, I was constantly greeted with shaking heads that either said, "Stupid Gringo, you are so being taken advantage of right now," or, "What the heck are you doing with these kids? Taking advantage of them? Creep!" or, "Gringos...always trying to fix our problems when they've got a whole crap-load of their own to solve!"

Okay, in fairness, I might have been deducing an awful lot from these people's glances...but part of what I was interpreting comes from extended conversations I have had with Nicaraguans and Gringos alike. It is an unfortunate fact that one cannot be seen frequently hanging around a bunch of small children without being a little bit suspicious.

This was all happening while the theatre group was falling apart, and therefore while I was having one of my 'what-the-heck-am-I-doing-here' moments, and so it became clear to me that my real passion was to work with these kids in some way. I started asking the kids themselves, which of the organizations in town that works with kids is most respected by the kids, and which are they most likely to go to for help. They all mentioned Las Hormigitas (The Little Ants), a group that does before and after-school programs with various populations of children of all ages. I just happened to know two young German volunteers who worked for Las Hormigitas, and so I asked them to introduce me to their boss.

Essentially, I learned that Las Hormigitas would be happy to give me a legitimization of sorts—i.e. I could say I worked for them—but that they really didn't have the time or staff to really oversee what I wanted to do with the kids. It is a strange situation, I know, but one that suited me just fine. I tend to work well independently, and having the name of a well-respected organization behind me allowed me to say to all the people sending me funny looks, "I work for Las Hormigitas." Bingo.

The only question that remained was, 'What will I actually do with these kids?'

That was the question I was asking myself that Sunday, so many pages ago, when I met Sol, Luna, and Estrella in Artesanos. (I TOLD YOU I WOULD TIE THIS ALL TOGETHER! HAHA!) My meeting with Las Hormigitas was the following Monday, and I was scratching my brain to figure out what exactly I would do. A theatre group? Maybe. Poetry classes? Maybe I should start with reading classes.

And then Emanuel starts spinning and weaving hand-made bracelets out of trash, and the light bulbs go off...

"Emanuel, what if we invited some of the street kids into Artesanos one day during lunch when it is closed, and you could teach them how to make bracelets out of trash they find on the street. They could sell them instead of begging, which would teach them work ethic and improve their self-esteem. AND they wouldn't have to buy any materials!"

"Of course! And we can as Luna to come teach some of the stuff she knows from her work back in the States. She's only here for another week and a half, so we have to hurry."

Okay, so it wasn't quite that Leave it to Beaver, but I'm just trying to demonstrate that this was once again a moment, in my mind, that solved everything. Trash + Emanuel = Bracelets, Self-esteem, The End of Street Trash and therefore The End of Global Warming, and The End of Poverty and Hunger, for these kids anyway. Oh the naivety.

A week of dreaming and haphazard planning later, we had our first workshop planned for Tuesday at 10am, and just about every street kid I knew was invited. Luna and I, being Gringos and kinda anal about planning and timeliness, showed up at around nine. She set to work right away making flowers out of drinking straws she found on the street, and I practiced making bracelets using the Klutz kit my sister gave me for Christmas. I set out all the materials, including a game or two my mom had given me for Christmas, just in case I needed an emergency back-up plan to keep their attention.

Ten o'clock came and went. Luna and I shrugged our shoulders and kept getting ready. Emanuel, being Nicaraguan and therefore much more realistic about the kids not showing up right at ten, showed up at eleven. He spent a few minutes showing Luna and I exactly how to do it, using a few of the bags I had been collecting all week and stuffing in my backpack. Then he sat back, relaxed, lit a cigarette, and waited, while Luna and I continued to scurry in our own special Gringo way.

Just when I was about to pack up and call it a day, three kids walked in. They weren't sure of themselves, glancing back and forth at one another in a way that indicated that they might have argued about whether or not they were coming—they aren't usually allowed inside Artesanos—but in our excitement we swept them off their feet and set them down at our already-cluttered craft table.

And then we realized that the store was about to close, and we couldn't stay.

Crap.

So we packed up everything and had an argument amongst ourselves.

"They came, we have to follow through and do the workshop, no matter what."

"But they're late, and the bar is closing for lunch."

"Let's go to the park."

"Let's tell them to come back tomorrow and be on time."

"We have to give them a reason to come back!"

We went on like this for a while, and finally we agreed to go to the park.

It was the happiest of accidents.

A few moments after finding a bench in the shade of the purple and pink park pavilion, Emanuel began to explain how to fold and cut the paper bags. We had barely given the first instruction, Luna, Emanuel and I each working in pairs with one of the kids, when a small audience began to form. This, we were not expecting. The kids, not being accustomed to anything but negative attention, started grinning, joking and carrying themselves like celebrities for their public. Tourists stopped and took pictures. The kids puffed out their chests. Bags became thread. Thread became cord. Three cords became one bracelet. The crowd came and went—some only stopping for a few moments, but others for significant stretches of time.

At the end of an hour, we had ourselves a bracelet. A real, tangible product of our efforts. I can't say it was nearly as professional-looking as the one Emanuel made in Artesanos the week before, but it sure was something.

In one of those 'this-is-too-good-to-be-true' moments, the eldest of the three, Chico, who is certainly the leader of the rest, leaned over to me and said in a quiet voice, "I didn't think I was going to be able to do this. But it was actually fun! And people think it is cool! Maybe we actually can make some money doing this! What time are we meeting tomorrow?"

Tomorrow? We didn't think about tomorrow!

The kids wanted to meet at 8am, because the later morning is better for begging, they told us. Luna had to work the next day on the library, and Emanuel would work until 2am that night at Artesanos, so 8am didn't look like a great possibility. I told Emanuel to get there as close to eight as he possibly could, because the kids probably wouldn't show up on time, anyway.

Oh how wrong I was.

Around 7:30am I left my house and headed to the ATM so that I could buy the kids some breakfast. They were waiting on the corner outside my house. "Is it eight yet?" "Where have you been?" "We've been looking for you!"

Me on the inside: "Oh my GOSH they actually showed up! This is amazing! I can't believe it! What a success! It's like we cured cancer or something! This is Huge! Oh my GOSH Emanuel is never going to make it on time! Oh CRAP what am I going to do to keep their attention until he gets there? Oh this is TERRIBLE! They are going to be so bored and they'll never come back! Terrible terrible TERRIBLE!

I pick up the cash and then we head over two blocks to Artesanos, but before entering we have a moment of rule-making on the curb outside.

"Gentlemen, we are guests here in Artesanos, so there are going to be certain rules for our behavior here. One, you cannot beg from any of the clients. Two, you cannot pester the nice lady behind the counter. Her word is law. If you annoy her, we all get kicked out. Therefore, you ought to tell her she looks pretty every time we walk in. Three, you must wash your hands before eating. Four, no touching the plants. Are we agreed?" Sheepish grins all around. "Agreed?" Sheepish nods all around, handshakes exchanged.

I should have added rule five: "Kendal gets to make rules later for things he did not anticipate."

For the first hour or so of waiting on Emanuel, things went pretty well. We practiced making thread like the day before, and kind of halfway got there. No one lost any blood handling the scissors, and no one threw any punches. Small victories, I'd say.

But then we started getting restless. 9:30 rolled around, and still no Emanuel. Any parent knows that hungry, bored children can only lead to disaster. So I ordered breakfast, and hoped that Emanuel would show up before we finished eating. Ten o'clock, we're eating at the big table together, calmly, like gentleman (except that that they eat with their hands...we'll tackle that later). At 10:15, and still no Emanuel, the kids ask me if they can go—they were losing precious begging time. I tell the kids to come back in forty-five minutes, that hopefully by then Emanuel will have arrived.

As I clean the table, and each kid goes back to the kitchen and thanks the cook for the food, Natali (the nice, pretty lady behind the counter) tells me that she was shocked how well behaved they were, and that they were welcome in Artesanos anytime. Small victories, right?

Emanuel never did show that day, but the kids never came back, either, so it wasn't a complete disaster.

Fortunately, the relatively lackluster Workshop 2 didn't deter the kids from coming back time and time again. We meet several times a week now, usually with the same three or four kids, with varying degrees of success. Emanuel always tries to come, but sometimes finds it really hard to get out of bed after a long night of working in the bar. I completely understand. The workshops are always full of surprises. They shocked me last week when they asked me to teach them to read—another of those 'is-this-really-happening?' moments—and so I began one-on-one reading tutoring with them last Friday. I don't actually know how to teach a kid to read, so if anyone knows where to find a good literacy curriculum in Spanish, let me know. For now, we're okay...it took us an hour to learn the letters 'A', 'B', and 'C' on Friday...so I think I've got it covered for a while.

As wonderful as this all sounds, there have been two incidents this past week that have complicated things a bit. Last week, Chico, the leader of my little group, ran into the office two doors down from Artesanos and pulled a flash memory drive out of the back of a computer and ran off with it. There's no doubt that he did it—the office secretary was working on the computer when it happened and knows him—and so I had to confront him about it. I just walked up to him in the park, and without me even saying a word, he jumped into this elaborate "I know what you're going to say but it wasn't me it was someone who looks like me"-type-confessions that betray a child's guilty conscience faster than you can blink.

I gave him a few options: He could come with me to the office and prove his 'innocence' by having the secretary identify that it wasn't him who stole the flash drive; He could bring the flash drive back to the office if he hadn't sold it; Or if he had sold it, he could work out an arrangement with the office owner to pay it back in some way. I promised him that no one wanted to involve the police, that they just wanted the memory drive back. I explained the significance of all the data stored on the drive that was worthless to him and whoever might buy it off of him. And I told him that if he couldn't do any of those three things, I would have to assume he was guilty, and that he would have to take a break from the regular group meetings.

My heart broke as he shook his head and walked off...knowing that I couldn't be responsible for him in a public setting like Artesanos with him having stolen and lied to me about it. But I also felt guilty, knowing that his mother is mentally ill, his father is in jail, and that probably everyone else in the world has given up on him. I won't give up on him, but I also feel like there has to be some consequence for his actions. I wouldn't be opposed to any advice you might want to send me.

The other incident happened just yesterday, and prompted me to write this monster of a blog. I was working with Milan and Donald, two of the regulars in our group, playing an on-line version of the game Memory, where they had to match short phrases with pictures that illustrated the action of the phrase. ('The batter bats the ball.') We were playing away, minding our own business, when four kids I didn't know showed up in the door.

"We're here for the workshop," said the oldest. Really? Who invited them? I sure didn't!

"Welcome! How did you find out about us?" I said in my outside voice.

The oldest gestured with his lips towards Milan. (The puckered lip gesture is a very Nicaraguan thing. You pucker up like you're about to give a kiss and then tilt your head in whatever direction you're pointing.)

"Well then, let's put the computer away and make some bracelets!"

They filed in, pulled plastic chairs out from the wall, and sat quietly at the table. Too quietly. Aside from the "We're here for the workshop" comment, they uttered hardly a word between them. Donald leaned in and whispered to me, "The oldest one is the guy who stole my peanuts the other day and chased you home."

CRAP.

Inside voice: 'No big deal. Just take the opportunity to work with them...every kid deserves a chance. Don't worry, there are lots of people here...nothing is gonna happen.'

Right in this moment, Emanuel shows up, sleepy-eyed and an hour late, but there. That's good enough for me. In this moment, he really is the angel that the giant pair of tattooed wings on his back suggests. We make thread for a few minutes, but the kids just stare with this blank expression for a few minutes. I pull Emanuel aside and ask him if he knows these kids, if he thinks anything strange is going on. He doesn't have any idea.

I turn back, and see the whole table of kids huddled around a bottle of glue.

CRAP.

Natali, the nice lady behind the counter, comes over with me to confront the kids.

"What's going on with the glue?"

"What glue?"

"The glue I see and smell and that's making your eyes red."

"There's no glue."

Milan drops his pants and lifts up his shirt and shouts, "It wasn't me Kendal! Look, I don't have any glue!"

"Just pull up your pants, hand over the glue and we can keep going."

"There's no glue."

CRAP.

In this moment, the cook leans out of the kitchen with six plates of beans, rice, cheese, and eggs balanced on her arms. I send the boys to the bathroom to wash their hands, and there is some suspicious shuffling of something resembling a bottle under clothing, tucking and un-tucking, awkward glances over shoulders.

As they sit down and tuck into breakfast with their hands, I ask them if I look stupid...If they think they can just lie to my face like that. I feel stupid because I don't know what to do. The oldest one murmurs something under his breath and they all laugh.

CRAP.

I tell them that if they would like to come tomorrow, they may, but they may not bring glue with them. More comments under the breath and more laughing.

CRAP.

The older un-Thief reaches across the table and takes the chunk of cheese off of Donald's plate. Donald says nothing.

"Why did you take that?"

"He gave it to me."

"I'm sitting right here, and no, he didn't give it to you."

"He doesn't like cheese."

"Donald, do you like cheese?"

Un-Thief glares threateningly at Donald. Donald shrinks back and shakes his head.

This pattern happens twice more, with food from the plates of two other boys.

"But he gave it to me."

"Really, do I look stupid?"

Immediately regretting this particular rhetorical question...followed my murmured joke and laugh from all six.

"You must stop taking food from the other plates, or you will not be welcome back here ever again!"

Again, regretting the use of the absolute here.

"I didn't take anything."

CRAP CRAP CRAP! This kid drives me bonkers!

Finally, they all leave, and I just collapse. I'm so torn...I want to give every kid a chance—especially those that have been forgotten by everyone else. It's this hero complex I have. But at the same time, if they are going to come and get high and make fun of me and eat the food that I buy for them out of my own pocket, something is wrong with the situation. Not to mention the fact that the other three or four kids that have been coming for a while really seem to get something out of our group time, and these new kids are just sucking that attention away.

So that's where I stand right now, in the most current, up-to-the-minute coverage available. The library project is coming along—we're expecting to finish in about two weeks. With all the energy I'm pouring into the kids' group, I've only been making it up to the library for an hour or two every day. I usually get there at 2 or 3pm, just in time to distract everyone with mud-ball fights, bad Spanish jokes, and other juvenile antics that I've been told help provide a second wind to the workers who have been there all day. One can only hope.

If you've made it this far, you're either my parents (who have to read...there are quizzes), or you've got too much time on your hands. But I do appreciate it. I'll try to keep you updated as things progress with the kids. I didn't think it would be easy, but I guess I didn't know it would be this hard, either. I'm always appreciative of advice. Take care, and thanks again for reading.

A wise friend told me to look up this speech that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made exactly one year before his assassination. If you replace the word 'Vietnam' with 'Iraq' throughout, it is chilling how appropriate Dr. King's words are for today's listener.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence

delivered 4 April 1967 at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

*Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it's always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellowed [sic] Americans, *who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.

Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision.* There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954** [sic]; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

And finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence *in 1954* -- in 1945 *rather* -- after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China -- for whom the Vietnamese have no great love -- but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States' influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.

Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. *Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets." The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.

Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies.* What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call "VC" or "communists"? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the North" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.

Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than *eight hundred, or rather,* eight thousand miles away from its shores.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:

Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism (unquote).

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

*I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:

Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.

Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.

Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.

Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government.

Five: *Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.

Part of our ongoing...part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary. Meanwhile... meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.

*As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors.* These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

*This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations.* These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. *We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.*

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message -- of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong

Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace.

If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I really ought to do better than one post a month...but I'm doing the best I can. This won't be a long one, as I only have about 2 hours before my very first choir concert with the Matagalpa Women's Collective, which I'm very excited about.

But in those two hours, I have to find some black pants---I didn't bring any with me from home---and I really don't know how challenging that is going to be. Wish me luck.

Things are going extraordinarily well at the moment. I'm working on several projects, giving me a schedule that rivals that of my North American life...something I was trying to get away from. I guess we Gringos just don't know how to slow down. I'd really like to describe the projects in detail in a later blog, but the headline-version is as follows:

-Library construction project
-Street Kids and Artisan Workshops
-Street Kids Reading Classes
-Learning Guitar
-Learning Spanish (I'm gettin' pretty good!)

I'm happy, healthy, and really loving my life down here. I promise more detailed updates...not sure when, but at this exact moments the black pants are kinda a priority.

Wish me luck on the concert tonight! I've been practicing my lyrics all day. It's really hard to learn all those Spanish lyrics!

Thanks for checkin' in...
Kendal

I Believe...



(If the video doesn't load, go HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fZHou18Cdk)