weekly women´s gathering

It is Tuesday afternoon and I am heading southwest on one of Managua’s crowded public buses. Riding past hundreds of houses, the noises fill my ears; Loud vehicles, people laughing, shouting, kids playing, cars honking, birds singing, dogs barking. There are walking vendors selling tortillas, fruit, and cashews, singing various tunes that let people know what they are selling. Even if there were a hundred tortilla venders, each one would have their own distinct melody. Others walk along the sidewalks, shouting out their products for sale or exhibiting them on cardboard displays. Remote controls, rat poison, cell phone cables, plastic bags of cold water, windshield wipers from China, knockoff Rolex watches and Armani sunglasses, hair clips, handkerchiefs and homemade candies are all part of helping families get by and earn enough for their daily bread.

Anticipating my stop several minutes early, I swim through the dozens of people to the back door of the yellow school bus. I quickly learned not to be timid when pushing towards the back after a few times of not making it off in time. Walking an extra mile to get where I needed in the tropical heat was a lesson learned rapidly. When the bus is slowing down, but not nearly close to a full stop, the rusty door slams open and I begin stepping down towards the street. A slight hesitation often involves getting hit by the door or nearly falling down when the driver pulls away with one foot on the bus and the other in the air. I take a deep breath and start walking. There is a large Wal-Mart owned grocery store in front of the bus stop. Several stoplights help guide the city traffic in and out each day. I pass a large elementary school where the only visible part is a white brick wall that surrounds the building. A few blocks further, just before one of the roads turns into a curvy highway, I take a right and go down a hill onto a rocky dirt road. Not too many cars make their way in there. Barbed wire attached to wooden poles in the ground make up the fence in front of my destination.

At the top of a small hill sits the house of one of the families of the church. Without an official Lutheran church building in that neighborhood, they have offered their humble home as a space of worship. Pastor Katia goes out there every Sunday afternoon to give the sermon and service. My task there has been to lead the ‘gender’ ministry meetings on Tuesday afternoons. Gender is the adult program and makes up one of four ministries in which the work of the church is carried out (the others being children, pre-teens, and youth). Beginning as the women’s ministry, it was changed to gender to allow a space for adult men. They are few and far between in a largely women and youth dominated church, but they are more than welcome to participate, and some communities have male adults as very active members.

For the past few months, I have been leading a Bible study at their request. At our first meeting, I asked the 8-10 women present how they would like to spend their time, given that we would be meeting weekly. Many of the women had expressed interest in studying the Bible because they had heard many stories, but did not understand what it all meant. Complicated words, an old language structure not commonly used in Latin America, and a different context and era made the texts challenging. So we go through various Biblical stories each week, looking at them with a gender lens. What was society like at the time? What were the customs and traditions of the people? What were the roles of women and men? What was life like for Maria, given that she was likely a very young teenager when she gave birth to Jesus? How can we relate all of these stories to our daily lives? What can we learn from them? Each week we break down a different text and learn just a little bit more about the lives of the ordinary people who became part of a not so ordinary story.

I arrive a bit early and greet the family members who are present, and some of the women that have started to gather for our meeting. Many of these women are the same people that sell fruits and vegetables and tortillas to make a living. Most of them are single mothers with large families. Most of them began having their kids before their fifteenth birthdays. Some of their adult kids are working and contributing to the family, and some not, but everyone still lives at home and needs to eat. Their younger children, or in many cases grandkids left in their care, are most likely in school, hoping to make it past primary school. There are of course very bright students who have overcome numerous obstacles and are studying in universities. Some have moved out of the area to work, but those that stay are very at-risk. The area is filled with delinquency, violence, and gang activity. With over half of the country’s population under- or un-employed, a lack of jobs perpetuates the poverty in which these families live. Drugs and alcohol become easily available to children at a very young age, and the challenges and problems that come up on a daily basis are countless.

Tuesday afternoons are a time where the women of this community gather together in friendship, solidarity, and the love of God. This particular day, we have decided to take a break from our usual studies and have a more spiritual moment. We burn incense and have relaxing music playing in the background. We close our eyes and try to take a moment for ourselves, to reflect upon our lives and look out into the future. In communities like these, where difficulties and worries abound, we take a moment to offer our prayers in silence. One particular woman tells me that if we were to begin talking about our problems with each other, we could go on for days. That is why we turn to a higher power, write them down, and burn them in a large kettle. We pass out slips of paper and pencils for each one of us to write down our concerns and requests. One woman asks me to do her the favor of writing them down. She never learned to read or write. I dictate her words for her as she writes with her mind. The hand that writes belongs to a different body, but thoughts are still the same. One by one, we put our prayers in the kettle and try to enjoy the blessings in life, rather than concentrate on the difficulties. They are joyful, comforted, and know that they have friends in their neighborhood as well as above with whom they can confide. We close our day in prayer and the women get ready to head back to their daily lives.

A couple of the kids from the neighborhood accompany me down the hill where the house sits, past the barbed wire poles and up the dirt road that leads back to the curvy highway, We walk past the quiet, empty school building, now that it is getting dark. We turn left and see the stoplights. Many of the vendors have gone home, and some are still around, trying to look for last minute shoppers. The noises have faded to the background as we stand in front of the Wal-Mart grocery store waiting for my bus. The oldest of the kids, a very bright 12 year old, tells me about his schooling and asks me if corruption exists in the US like it does in Nicaragua. He tells me about the job he just got helping clean vegetables at a local market. About how he divides the dollar he makes each afternoon after class between his mother, his school fees, his brother and his cousin and how he usually has enough to buy himself a piece of candy or two. We talk about the excitement of Christmas and even set off small firecrackers, as many people do during the month of December. My bus pulls in and I jump on almost as fast as I had gotten off a few hours earlier. Passing by all the people, the noises, the homes, the stores, the dogs, the students and workers finished for the day, and I am on my way home. Everyone goes back to their busy lives, but we´ve taken a moment to refresh ourselves. We have enough energy to finish the day and get ready for the next. We feel just a little bit lighter. A little bit more relaxed. A little more at peace.