Different Eyes

When I ride the streets of Nicaragua’s capital city, Managua, I see block after block of poverty.

Then I visit El Limonal.

It is 200 huts in what the local people call  the “triangle of death” between a dump, a sewer system, and a cemetery. The residents of El Limonal were relocated here when, in 1998, Hurricane Mitch destroyed their villages.  Residents eke out an existence rescuing bottles, cans, and cardboard from the dump.

I assess it, walking the dirt streets with Maria Saeli of Food for the Hungry, and find a new category: extreme poverty.

Maria hugs three children selling from a food stand. 

She admires a puppy one woman is grooming.

She asks a woman hand-laundering clothes how many days' work are on the line behind her.

“Tres dias (Three days),” is the shy answer.

She says the town now has electricity and water. She stops to ask a man what plants he is watering in his new garden.

Where I see poverty, Maria sees progress.

While I despair; Maria hopes.

She also fosters hope.

Lord, give me Maria’s eyes.

For they are your eyes, too, I think.

And let my hands, like hers, be yours as well.