Amig@s and family,
Well, I am trying to keep you all up to date, not take so much time between updates this time... So I'll get right into it...
I suppose I had to get robbed at some point in my life in Nicaragua, but I like to think, well, at least the thieves were polite...
I was walking home from work, as I am accustomed to doing, past one of the most notorious neighbourhoods in Managua, which more or less borders on the neighbourhood where I live, when I noticed three young men maybe 18 years or so. It is hard to say with certainty, being that it was dark. That was one difference from my normal walks home, usually I only walk home before 6 when it is still light out, but perhaps after so many years of living here, I was getting a bit cocky... In any case, I noticed the young men, kind of suspicious looking, who started to follow me when I passed them on the sidewalk. I wasn't too worried, being that it is a busy street, but also, I noticed a friend of theirs on a bicycle meet them and they all stopped to chat. Since they were no longer following me, I promptly forgot about them and returned to my inner world of preocupations as I walked... 2 blocks later, I was feeling regretful that I forgot them so quickly...
As I mentioned, it is a busy street, but there is a dark part, just after the supermarket, and as I approached the alleyway between the supermarket and the gas station the youth on the bicycle pulled up in front of me. I casually tried to walk around him, still not cluing in to what was happening, he moved to block me and pulled out a pistol. I was still a bit clueless, and didn't understand what he wanted, until I felt the other 3 youth grab me from behind. At that precise moment, I began to understand what was going on... A bit late, but better late than never I suppose.
They never really spoke to me, they just efficiently got on with their work. They took my daypack off, emptied my pockets (mostly) taking my wallet and keys and money. They left me with my coins and about 40 cordobas (about 4 dollars Canadian). However, when they were taking my keys, I asked them, what good those would do them, could they leave them with me. They ignored me, but when they started running into the neighbourhood, I called out to them again about my keys and they threw them back to me. Quite polite, I thought.
Losing my agenda and cell phone has been inconvenient, mostly the agenda, but it was not the end of the world. Of course, pretty much every day since (about 2 weeks ago) I remember something that was in my daypack (like my driver's license) or something that was noted down in my agenda. It wasn't all that traumatic, possibly the 4 hours I spent in the police station afterwards was more traumatic. As with most institutions here, they are fairly bureaucratic and slow. I couldn't believe that it took more than 4 hours to put in the charges.
I replaced the cell phone with a smaller more snobby model (they don't sell the big clunky one anymore) and now use a plastic shopping bag as my backpack, although a friend in Canada is going to bring me another one at the end of the month.
Work is somewhat clearer now, than in my last update. It is pretty much confirmed that I and another co-worker will extend for 2 months and that another co-worker is ending in Sept as well. As of Oct 4, I will be a free person. Well, mostly. I still have my other job, but there are just 3 people here at the moment and no one else is planned to come - being that the Canadian summer is ending and they are mostly students.
I hope to get home in October if I can free myself from all my commitments here. I also hope to find a new job, but someday when I have time I will start looking... In the meantime, I have a webpage I am working on, some translations and the parttime job with the students...
Work is finishing up, trying to clear up all the last minute details... We just did a camp with the youth group (see below) and now we just have to evaluate and write reports there... With the group in Matagalpa, we are doing a systematization, trying to compile all the lessons learned. Between the systematization, our efforts to publish some of the work we have been doing over the last 2 years and a series of computer workshops I am doing, I will still be fairly busy over the next 2.5 months, but things are fairly calm, especially now that the camp is over...
We did a 3-day camp with our youth group and invited about 30 others, in total about 30+ youth came (less than the 43 we expected) and it went fairly well. However, as is usual around here, we never had time to plan and prepare everything and several things showed that lack of preparation... For example, there was some confusion in our team as to the rules and norms and also the objectives of the camp. One member of the team, who hadn't been to hardly any of the planning meetings took the sharing and creation of rules that we had planned on the bus and turned it into a slightly heated discussion with the central topic being alcohol. Alcohol had been prohibited for the camp, although it turned out that one group of youth had brought some. This later turned into a problem.
However, we had seemed to get over that, but being there was a lack of time to plan and prepare, many activities needed to be taken on by the planning team, but had not been assigned. In the end, I assumed a lot (too much) of the responsability and felt that my team was not supporting me as much as I had hoped... By the second night, I asked for help and more or less resigned from the planning committee, letting the other 8 people take on the coordination for the last day Sunday.
Unfortunately, it turned out that alcohol perhaps influenced a problem that cropped up on Sat night that one of the male youth entered into the female quarters and touched one of the girls, who also was on the planning committee with us. The Sunday closure then turned into a huge discussion on machismo and respect... It certainly wasn't planned that way and it was certainly an unhappy moment, but in the end, it seemed to be a positive discussion from the aspect that I think the youth managed to learn a lot from the incident and discussion...
Also, overall, the camp got good reviews from all the youth I talked to on the bus on the way back, the leadership activities and working with the community in farm activities were things they really appreciated and the organisation seemed to get good marks... Everyone agreed that if it weren't for the incident that the camp would have been considered hands down a success and that even so, it was successful and everyone learned a lot...
So, I am happy with it, I have learned a lot from the experience as well, remembering a lot about how things went for us in the old YCI days... The tensions, the community relations, the problems that gave us rich learning experiences... Perhaps things didn't go as planned, but we are overall happy with it in the team...
Anyway, I'd better send this off, otherwise it will grow into a super long epic... I hope you are all well, hope to hear your news soon,
Rob