Getting to Know La Chureca

Written by Summer Volunteer Becky Maroon

After living in Nicaragua for one month, I feel that I have grown a lot in terms of the way in which I perceive the world around me. I was fully aware at the beginning of my journey that I would be encountering ways of life and standards of living that were completely foreign to me and everything that I know. However, those things that have changed me, my thoughts, my perceptions – they are not things that I would have been able to pinpoint upon arriving in Nicaragua. I have found that my greatest struggles here have also been my greatest source of learning.

Manna Project holds true to its mission of communities serving communities. On one of my first days touring a community outside of La Chureca, I was truly taken aback by the poverty of the people in the community. A few days later I was able to meet the mothers and children of the Child Sponsorship Program in La Chureca on Milk Day. The people that I met in the clinic of La Chureca came with a whole new wave of poverty. I was certain that this must obviously be the most severe level of poverty that I would be exposed to while in Nicaragua. Then came the house visits to the mothers of the Child Sponsorship Program to ensure that the kids were doing well and receiving the vitamins and food that the program provides. I do not think that I am mistaken when I say that this is when I abandoned all of my expectations of poverty and the communities with which we are working.

Poverty, in its many shapes and sizes, has been full of surprises this past month. In addition to accepting the living conditions of the communities that we serve, I learned that I am not here to fix anything. It has been a constant struggle for me to accept the fact that I cannot change the way these people are living their lives or provide a simple solution. I am here to serve and help in any way that I can. I am here to build relationships. I am here to look at these people, not as the poverty-stricken and destitute, but as the people that I have come to know and respect as my friends in the communities I came here to serve.