| Dispatch from Managua |
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| Written by Pesha Black | |||||
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Rosh Hashanah, in the Chapel I spent the most spiritual Rosh Hashana of my life sitting alone in a Jesuit chapel on a university campus in Managua. I had been worried about the High Holidays when I set off on a semester abroad in Nicaragua this fall. They would be my first spent away from my childhood synagogue, and I would be spending them in a country with an almost non-existent Jewish community. From what I had heard, Managua’s few Jewish families travel to a shul in Costa Rica for the High Holidays every year. Just to double check, I began my holiday preparations by sending a quick email to Chabad—if anyone would know about some hidden Central American Jewish community, wouldn’t it be them? When I received their reply a few days later—“Dear Pesha, Please contact Chabad in Africa”—I knew it was time to think about how to create a meaningful holiday for myself. When I’m home, Rosh Hashana happens to me. Whether I’ve prepared or not, it comes every year with all the routines and traditions that put me into the mental and spiritual space of the holiday. That would not be the case this year: in Managua, first of Tishrei would start with the calls of tortilla vendors just like every day, and end with the loudspeaker of the local Evangelical church sharing its evening service with the entire neighborhood. If I wanted a Rosh Hashana, I would have to do it myself. As the day neared, the question of where I would go to pray loomed larger. In New England, an appropriate place would have been easy to find—if I weren’t going to be in a shul, there are any number of quiet parks, out-of-the-way rivers, or community centers that I could use. In the still relatively unfamiliar, generally chaotic city of Managua, the parks (full of basketball players and broken glass) didn’t have the right atmosphere, the “rivers” were cement or mud causeways running through neighborhoods that look like they might fall into the muddy water with a strong rain, and the casas comunales of the Sandinista neighborhood organizations already had a full schedule of dance team practices and organizing meetings. Using a space already dedicated to religious practice was the only option I could think of; spending my day in the chapel of my university’s campus seemed most comfortable. The chapel at the Universidad Centroamericana is small and simple: a large wooden cross, windows that open to the palm trees and lawn outside, stained glass that projects blocks of color onto the floor. I did all the things I would normally do to celebrate a holiday—sang, prayed, danced a little. The chapel doesn’t get heavy foot traffic on an ordinary Tuesday, so I didn’t attract much attention. What made the day special for me was the intentionality of my experience: without that kavana, Rosh Hashana wouldn’t have come to me in Managua. A few days before Rosh Hashana, I heard my shofar—blasts from a conch shell in a performance of traditional Garifuna dance from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. I got what I needed this year, even though it came from the places I might have least expected.
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