29 Mar 2010
8:52 PM
My room, Mama Eva's place, Managua
I had a bit of a spiritual crisis today. It's the first night of Pesach (Passover), and for the first time that I can remember, I didn't go to a seder, the ritual meal that celebrates the Israelites' escape from Egypt. I thought this might happen when I signed up for a program in a country with a smaller Jewish population than Wasilla, Alaska, but still, it hit me a lot harder than I thought it would. When I called in to my family's seder at home in Durham (they put me on speakerphone and had a photo of me at the table) and sang Dayenu with them and removed 10 drops of purified water from my Nalgene to commemorate the 10 plagues that the Egyptians suffered, I started to cry. And I'm not usually a crier.
If you know me well, or at least read my Jew post from earlier, you know I'm not the most observant Jew in the world. But I care a whole lot about the Jewish communities I'm a part of, and I really love the rituals and traditions. And Passover is my favorite holiday. I love the symbolism, I love the story, I love the questions, I love the food. So yesterday, I attempted to get in contact with the few Jews that are rumored to exist here (there's no synagogue or rabbi, but apparently there is some kind of organized community) to see if anyone had space for me at their seder. Sadly. the phone number I found in an old article written about these rare Semetic specimens in El Nuevo Diario (a Nicaraguan newspaper) didn't work. I found an email address in an even older article written about the Managuan Jews in a Jewish Federation newsletter archive, but the man who responded to me was currently in the States and didn't know a place I could go for a seder.
So instead, I had my brief phone-seder session with my family from the sweaty phone room in the SIT Study Center, and then came home to my Catholic family, where my mom had just finished baking some sweet breads that looked absolutely incredible and absolutely chametz. If only she had made them a few hours earlier... I was cheered up by my cute "nephew" Róger who came by with his sister and two cousins for dinner. We played another rousing game of La Rata Egipcia (Egyptian Ratscrew).
But the situation is what it is. I'm studying in a country where my presence alone has probably increased the Jewish population by at least 5%. So I'm gonna celebrate Passover as best I can without starving myself or wallowing in self-pity. I'll avoid food that looks particularly bread-like and maybe cook some matzo ball soup when the package my moms just sent me gets here. Short of hopping on the next flight to Miami, I'm not sure what else I can do. But damn. I've never missed Jews so much.
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