Right to Healthcare

Well, this was sure to happen sooner or later. Yes- I spent Wednesday night (6/29) in the hospital with a stomach virus and extreme dehydration. Unfortunately, the onset of my symptoms began in the afternoon during the first Knots for Nicaragua class with children in the library. However, instead of my illness being a completely horrible and debilitating experience it really showed me how great a support system I have here in Batahola. Amanda and Greta were incredible and were constantly by my side. (Amanda even stayed the night in the hospital- she slept on the floor in the hallway!) Juan and Mariluz, a couple I barely know, took me to the hospital and continued to check on how I was doing. Doña Rita and my Nicaraguan family nursed me back to health after I was back home. The Administrative team from the Center sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and I received an overwhelming amount of well wishes from my students and friends I have at the center. So even though my family is not here with me, though I miss them more every day, I felt more than taken care of.

Even though I was still recuperating, I managed to make it to the first ever Cierre Cultural yesterday, a celebration of 27 years of the CCBN and its mission to promote human rights, dignity, and equality to transform society into the Kingdom of God through a showcase of all of the amazing talent the Center has produced from its classes over the last semester. In my opinion, the Cierre was the best way for me to comprehensively experience all of the diverse offerings of the CCBN in my short time here. There were handicrafts, photography exhibits, paintings, beautiful folkloric dances, Latin rhythms, musical acts, singing, and theatre. The pride of each person who took part in the event was evident through the smiles stretched across every face; a pride equally reflected in the faces of the audience full of families and friends of the performers. I have to say the most striking performance for me was a skit by the children’s theatre group entitled “¿Quiénes somos? ¿Dónde estamos?” (Who are we? Where are we?) The children portrayed the hard life of children in the streets, selling whatever they can to get by and sniffing glue to make their hunger pains go away. The topic may seem extremely adult for a child to perform on stage, however here in Nicaragua it simply is the reality. The skit ended with a child carrying a large black trash bag out onto the stage and passing balloons out to the 15 other children who formed a line at the front of the stage. Each child then said a different human right that they were entitled to and popped their balloon- it was extremely powerful and reminded me of story hour last week. The fact that these children can recognize the rights they hold and the human rights to which all should be entitled is really something incredible to witness. And on this July 4th, even though there will be no fireworks here in Managua, I again find myself thankful for the rights and freedoms that I’ve been granted by being a citizen of the United States.

Next week the center is on vacation and I’m not quite sure what I have in store for me; possibly a trip to Matagalpa with Amanda to visit her friend Sara who is doing a project about water use and conservation in Nicaragua. Trip or no trip, I have a lot of project planning underway and a lot of water drinking to do. My experience in the hospital- Salud Integral, a very nice private hospital that was very similar to hospitals in the US- has also made me curious about the conditions of Nicaraguan public hospitals and the average's Nicaraguan's ability to receive good health care. We'll see if that leads anywhere...

Lots of love,
Hollis