Hot, Flat, and Crowded.

So this family came in from Boston for a month. And there were everything hippy short of marijuana and dreads but really cool people. They were on the leading edge of getting Green and getting off the oil dependency. He gave me this book I began to read called Hot,Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Freidman.

The lines out of this book are frightening. It speaks of how the stunning population growth is meeting the energy crisis. The answer we have had is to just use more oil and burn more coal which has slowly made the quality of water and air worse and worse. He claims at the rate things are happening, if we do not take drastic steps in the next 5 years we could enter a point of irresistibility of the living conditions of the world.

I know it sounds out landish and somewhat drastic but the cold numbers are very daughtning. Check it out. I am sure i will post some more about this book later....

only pictures....

A different World

So in the shadow of the country that seems to ring around the world, Nicaragua had their own election for mayor and other municipliaties. Honestly, I think it was just for mayor of Managua but so some reason the whole country voted... Nor real sure.

But there is a huge problem with corruption here. Somehow ancient cheating principles still fly here. The current gov't in charge FSLN reportedly worked the voting precincts in areas that were more heavily PLC, the rival party. There were several reports of the FSLN precinct workers opening the polls late and closing them early not giving PLC voters enough time to vote. Other corrupt stories include some precincts reporting 100% votes for FSLN and 0 votes for PLC.

You would think in the year 2008, with all the technology people would know that you can't steal 100% of the votes and get a way with it. They write this stuff down and its as simple as looking at the records. Anyway we are 4 days after the elections and at night the differing parties get in rock fights in the road and anywhere from 1-4 people have died from the fights and there is still not a real clear winner.

on the rocks

so i was supposed to go fishing this weekend for the second weekend in a row but it didn't work out again so me and julio and lester went a beach... We hung out and watched some little kids fish instead of getting to go out on a boat ourselves. Over to left there were a bunch of rocks that were sticking way out of the ocean. I wanted to get a picture of the waves hitting the rocks and spraying up so I walked over there and Julio followed as my bodyguard.

When I got over there I left my bookbag with Julio and climbed on top of the rocks with just my camera. On the ocean side the water was about 10' down below the rocks and waves were hitting it and I got a few good photos. As I was waiting for one more photo, a wave came that broke over the rocks and knocked me down but luckily i didn't fall off the rocks.

As I was standing back up I saw another wave, bigger that was coming. It was more like 3 or 4 feet over the rocks. I just laid down in defeat trying to hold on to the rocks to no avail. It knocked me off the rocks and i fell down on the backside about 10 feet. I landed somewhat on my feet but got several cuts and bruises including some horrible bruises on the bottom of my feet.

Needless to say I lost my camera and any awesome photos that I got from the photo shoot. This blogs picutres have been suspended until further notice.

The local Dump.

Nicaragua, specifically Mangua is known for their dumps. La Chureca is the local city dump that sits on lake front property of a beautiful lake. But due to poor care the floor of the lake is over half way covered in plastic bags. But this dump is home for anywhere from 1500-2000 people. You can google it and see pictures of people who spend their days fighting for first rights to pick through other people's trash for anything possibly salvageable including their food. It is very sad.

I don't take my trash to that dump but to one much closer and much smaller but the problems are the same. There are four boys that all but live there. Every time I drive up they are running to my truck barefoot and shirtless ready to pick through my trash. I always bring them whatever food I can get my hands on and unload my own trash to give them a break. I also try and spend a couple of minutes to just talk to them, to be someone who cares enough to know their name.

This last time, I made two runs on the way home the first time I was expressing to Julio how i wanted to share the Bible with them and help them on their walk of life. On my second trip i found a ratty old book in the dumb that was the new testament. I asked the boys if they knew what this was and then looked at me like i was crazy, it was a book duh. Then I realized these kids can't read, and they barely know how to write their own name. They are 9-13 years old and don't go to school and have no one that really forces them to do anything. I am trying to get these kids enrolled in school and teach them that without learning these things they will live at the dump the rest of their lives.

I made a deal with these kids. I would buy them a new pair of clothes, bookbag, shoes, and notebooks if they would go to school. I go to the dump every week and they would have to show me their homework to prove that they went to school. Pray that this will work for these kids and the Lord will show them somehow that they need to learn these things to survive in this world.