Jorge Dimitrov

Little did I know but my first barrio visit just so happened to be one of the most dangerous (I should say formerly most dangerous) barrios and definitely still the most notorious barrios in Managua. See picture above-maybe not these guys but...in the past there have been huge problems with drugs and gangs. So much so that one would have to call the police if someone who did not live in the barrio was going 'in' so that the police would drive through occasionally-if not the police usually left the residents to fend for themselves.
But with the help of a church and the SEPA (my project) the gangs have reached a truce and there have not been any problems in the barrio for almost 4 months. It is really a great thing that the SEPA project has been brought to this neighborhood and unusual in this barrio because all the brigadistas are young but have taken the iniative to engage the community to be responsible about maintaining their houses clean and not allowing mosquitos to grow there.
The poverty I have seen in this barrio is unlike anything I have seen before. I have only seen one house so far that has a cement floor. The rest are just dirt. The walls on many houses consist of a patchwork made from old pieces of corrogated metal. During many of my meetings there have been more people (5) than there are rubber maid chairs so someone will end up sitting on a bucket. Imagine not being able to afford to buy a rubbermaid chair! One day when I was walking with the some of the brigadistas we passed a furniture store (we were not in their barrio at the time-there is not even a real food store in the barrio) and I mentioned how I really needed a couch and how I was struggling to get by with just chairs. After saying this, I thought how ignorant and spoiled that must sound to people who can only dream of something as luxious as having a couch in their house.