My Newly Moored Ship

I am sitting in the open-air living room of what will be my home for the next 13 months, on a couch that is less than five feet from rain falling on the stones of the front porch.  The Managua airport, only slightly over two hours from Miami International, did not feel much more foreign than our South Floridian departure city, but the feeling of strolling in my own back yard did not last.  The Manna micro-bus picked us up, driven by two delightful '08-'09 Program Directors, or "PDs" in Manna jargon, and I volunteered for the front passenger seat.  Soon we were zipping along the main road that runs across the Nicaraguan capital's northern edge.  The humid air ripped through my already oily hair as our route traced miles of dimly lit street bordered by cement buildings painted with signs, slogans, and graffiti, men leaning confidently on exterior walls as children ran occasionally visible between the shadows cast by their dark playgrounds.

The miles thinned the buildings and further dimmed the light on the street as we distanced ourselves from Managua proper, and twenty, maybe thirty minutes brought us to our neighborhood and the Manna house, our new home.  Even though it is my first time in this house, I feel as though the friends that, on spring or summer service trips, have spent time in this very room welcome and warm me to a place I know has meant so much to them.  It was, after all, their stories that so captured my heart and drew me here.