The bulk of today was spent in a sector of Chacraseca called La Bolsa. We gathered at a family’s home with women from the community, went through a round of introductions (using our excellent translators), and then spent a couple of hours cooking together. Nicaraguan women taught us how to cook their special dishes, supervising us as we made their family favorites — and we taught them how to make a few of our favorites, supervising them in the same way.

When the feast was ready, we ate. And ate. And ate some more. Fried plantains, rice, beef, tomato & cucumber salad, and tortillas came together with green bean casserole, biscuits & gravy, and crunchy cole slaw with ramen noodles. It was the meeting of cultures, spread across one long table, and it was beautiful.

As we ate together, Elba (director of women’s projects at Just Hope) facilitated a conversation in which we all shared stories of the women who have inspired us. Those stories were funny, heartbreaking, relatable, foreign…and sacred. In the telling and hearing of those stories, we became a part of one another’s lives. All were able to give, all were able to receive, all had dignity and respect.

Tonight, as I lay in bed I replay those conversations and faces in my mind’s eye and I’m struck by the difference between charity and social justice. By allowing these women to give of themselves rather than passively receive things from us, we honored their full humanity. Each woman is my sister, and she is worthy of that respect. I will remember their faces and their stories for a long time to come.