Effects from the chemical pesticides led to the death of her children who were born with birth defects, daily agonizing "burning" sensations throughout her body and robbed her of the ability to continue working. I wish I could share her eyes and facial expression as she conveyed an amount of suffering and pain that went past any language barrier. This pain and suffering alone moved us to embrace and cry for this frail lady as we could only try to sympathise with her continued suffering. Recalling this encounter still leaves me with the gut-wrenching feeling of sorrow.
Almost worse and truly infuriating was that this suffering was not because of nature, not because of happenstance but because a fruit company deliberately continued to use a chemical pesticide for decades that had been banned in "first-world" countries due to horrible known health effects including sterility, birth defects, cancer, chronic pain and a range of other long-term effects. Those affected included the people spraying the chemicals those that handled the processing of bananas, such as Maria, and even those who drank from contaminated water sources. In addition, hundreds of victims live in what could generously be called a "tent-city" to continue their protest for those that still suffer, decades afterwards without even compensation, without medical care and recognition of their existence from those responsible. In the interest of money, even after winning a case in Nicaragua awarding six hundred million for the victims were ignored by the U.S. and the culprits have been free to live their lives in luxury and without any consequence.
This experience alone would have been enough for driving me to want to strive to work to be a part of positive change. Unfortunately, I encountered endless other cases of injustice, suffering and disregard.
My two month internship in San Ramón was originally intended to be a learning experience about primary healthcare in a "third-world" country, but it also became a lesson on how multi-dimensional foreign aid can be.
One of the governmental and foreign aid emphases in Nicaragua at the time was lowering of infant mortality. As a part of this effort, NGOs, Nicaraguan government and many foreign aid organizations helped fund the construction of dormitories near health centers. This was a great idea since one of the major problems in Nicaragua was lack of transportation options for getting to a medical provider once the mother goes into labor (For some, it would take up to six hours of walking through mountain paths). However, these dormitories did not provide food nor allow family members to stay overnight. This diminished the usage of these dormitories since the cost of a family member taking a bus to bring food and return home often equated up to three day's wages. The expecting mothers were expected to stay in the dorms for 4 weeks from 38 weeks into their pregnancies until their expected date. Additionally, the cost of bringing food often, since food will spoil quickly without access to refrigeration, left many families to make the hard decision between what is recommended by a medical provider and what is financially feasible.
A nurse working for the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps invited me to tour one of the larger dormitories in a nearby city where she had been working for almost two years. There I discovered that the paint on the building was fresh and placards advertised the successful completion of foreign aid projects. The Japanese nurse explained, with frustration, that these projects occurred despite asking repeatedly to her consulate that the money should be spent on food over building maintenance. This proved true, there were only 6 expecting mothers and 3 wings that were dust-covered were being used as storage of unused beds and mattresses. She informed with frustration that this was the result of governments wanting to be able to advertise their aid achievements to the world rather than actually helping the intended people.
Experiences such as this one have made me realize the importance of thoroughly familiarizing oneself with a community and working alongside them in order to have the best possible impact. Charitable donations are very important in creating positive change, if they are in the hands of organizations that empower individuals to thoroughly inspect the problem onsite. Experiences such as these have continued to drive me to follow opportunites such as this upcoming trip with Sheil and Fabretto to work alongside an organization that is truly empowering to create positive impact in a responsible manner.
Thank you for reading this far! It is a wonderful opportunity to work with an organization such as the Fabretto Children's Foundation and Sheil Catholic Center that have been committed to working the community of Cusmapa for years. I can't wait to help serve this community and ready better able to help the community, both global and local.
Again, I greatly appreciate your patience already and any further form of support will be humbling to say the least. Please consider helping me with advice, ideas, thoughts and/or financial support for myself, Fabretto and scholarships for others on these trips. Above all, I hope my story has resonated with your personal life experiences and gives you more reason to continue your support to make the world a better place through service by action, prayer or donation.
Thank you!
P.S. If anybody would like to get a glimpse of what Nicaragua has meant to me here are some of my photos from my previous trip/internship:
1) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4133110201536.2146311.1096950168&type=1&l=ea4b3ec8a9
2) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4133360847802.2146314.1096950168&type=1&l=6d89105b5d
3) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4131001348816.2146254.1096950168&type=1&l=33bab63456