Que Llueva!

As I said in my last blog, the “norm” here in Belen, is to have potable water everyday during rainy season (and every other day during dry season). This “rainy season” however has been, without question, much more dry than rainy. After the first few rains in May, it has hardly rained at all. In a part of the world that relies on a six month rainy season for crops and for general survival, this is a huge problem.

My school gardens have officially dried out because since it's not raining, we've been without potable water as well. Sometimes it comes every other day, sometimes every third. This is not too big of a problem for my personal life, because I have enough buckets and gallon containers to fill when there is water. But for bigger families, it sure makes life more complicated than it should be. The other day, since the wells are starting to dry up, the water in the pipes was coming out dirty....but they seemed to have fixed that somehow. As for gardens and farms, the situation is grave. A close look at the cement-like cracked ground and anyone would guess that we were in the middle of dry season. In those conditions, watering every third day just doesn't cut it.

Being here in a country where people depend directly on the land and their own sweat and labor, you immediately see the effects of a drought. It's a topic of conversation among any two people that happen to be talking. “Can you believe it still hasn't rained?” “I hope God wants it to rain soon.” “We're in the middle of the desert out here.” “We're all going to starve to death.” The heat is unbearable, the sun is just as strong as ever. We can't even seem to get any cloud cover.

What I've found to be interesting though, is that everyone here seems to be sure that we ourselves are to blame. “Well if we keep cutting down all the forests, it's never going to rain!” “All of those farmers sucking water out of the river with their irrigation machines are completely changing the ecosystems that once existed there.” All of these assumptions, while not being told to them by scientists and meteorologists are just obvious enough for them to point out. Never before in the history of our planet, has a species caused so many physical changes to it's own habitat, so it makes sense to the people here, that booming populations, which lead to vast deforestation and re-sculpting of the land itself will change the way things have always been. (The facts about greenhouse gases, while much more harmful to the environment than any of the small scale damage people do here, are lost on countrymen where less than a tenth of the town's population own vehicles, and smokestack factories don't exist.) Meanwhile back in the US, there are millions of people who although they have the facts at their fingertips, refuse to believe that this has indeed been the hottest year on record, and that WE are in fact to blame.

Perhaps it's because the lifestyle here is less pampered and cushy, and more raw and real, that there have been so many concrete plans of action put into place to combat the destruction we're causing. Here, no rain means no water, so it's necessary to take immediate action to fix the situation. The Nicaraguan government has implemented environmental conservation practices into each year of the school curriculum. With each of my classes here, we have planted trees (close to 300 in this year alone), continually make organic compost, have made tons of recycled materials projects, held community trash pick-ups, and made murals to suggest ways to protect the endangered species that live in the forests around our towns. These kids are growing up knowing that every decision they make can either harm or help their environment. And that's just with the schools. In the Mayor's offices around the country, reforestation projects are part of the annual budget. Here in Belen, the environmental sector of the Mayor's office has a project with 2,000 trees that they will be transplanting down by the river to make up for all the trees that are cut down for furniture making in the country.

While there is still much improvement to be made here in terms of trash management, at least they are trying. While I do remember recycling programs in schools back home, I don't ever remember planting a single tree. Sure on Earth Day each year, someone in the school, usually an administrator, planted a tree for good measure; but should we really expect that one little tree to balance out all the environmental harm done by the faculty and students there each year?

Sure there aren't signs and reminders everywhere to “Go Green” here like back home, but really everyone here lives much more “green-ly” than anyone back in the States. Here, everyone hangs their clothes out to dry, people naturally practice the famous Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and REPAIR – something that rarely happens in the US where the trend is always to buy the newest version when your old *insert any gadget, appliance, vehicle etc* stops working how it's supposed to). Shoes are shined and re-sown here, clothes are mended, electronics are repaired, broke-down cars and buses are refurbished (and sometimes completely pimped out). People make bird cages out of fan cages, animal feeders from old tires and plastic bottles, baby seats for bikes from scrap wood. Coffee cans are then used as sugar containers and a bottle of cooking oil gets refilled endlessly at the corner store. While poor waste management leaves all the garbage that doesn't get re-used to be found either on the streets, or burning in someone's backyard, there is MUCH less waste here, and I think that's going to be one of the harder things to get used to again when I go back home.

Here's to being more conscious and making the sometimes less convenient choices to bring your own coffee to work, or to walk around the block to the store instead of driving. Let's take advantage of summer sun and winds to air dry our clothes, and for the love of God, let's stop buying bottled water! In a country where clean water flows from every sink in every household, there is absolutely no excuse for that!