Back to it!

My apologies for being out of contact for so long!

While I was recovering from dengue fever I wasn't feeling much up to writing, and I guess I got out the habit.

So its been great to be back at work and doing what I'm meant to be doing.

When I went back to the work for the first couple of days, after being away for two weeks, I felt some tension from the kids.  I think some of them felt that I had left and gone back to the UK.  I can understand this.  I guess a lot of them are used to people coming and going in their lives.  Now most of them are aware I was sick and that I am going to be around for a while, I think I have managed to acheive their trust again.

There are however lots of tough moments.  Last week, while playing footbal, one of the little kids in the residential center got into a fight with one of the older ones owing to a penalty dispute.  The older kid, with violence ingrained in his system began kicking the little one on the ground until I managed to intervene.  It is tough, these kids come from backgrounds of such violence that violence is how they deal with every problem and confrontation.  The same day I had to deal with a kid who had gone into the gardens to find rocks to throw at some of the other kids who were winding him up.  Dealing with that level of violence and agression is never easy, and can be tough to stay calm with the kids when you yourself are scared as to what they might be capable of.

Bearing in mind many of these kids used to walk around market places or other areas with knives and other weapons in order to steal and rob people to pay for their drug addiction, the violence that remains in their systems is a sad but clear reminder of their pasts. 

There have been good things as well.  I went with a group of Casa Alianza street kids to an annual national sports event in Managua, where the kids took the third place in the football competition.  It is great to see when kids who used to live on the street, be addicted to drugs or are the vicitms of abuse, are able to stand up with the rest of the country, play sports with them and receive medals for their efforts.

So its been great to be back.  Living in Managua remains a very rough place to be, but that all's part of the experience.  The work is intense but great and also very challenging.  My current project involves working to establish a programme of non-violent conflict resolution for street kids, drawing on the principles of peace education.  From what I have seen so far, it is almost certainly a necessity.

I will try and get the updates back to my former more regular efforts.

All the very best, and thank you to those who read my blog,

Simon