We arrived here in Nicaragua two weeks ago, although to me it feels much longer. We’ve gone on hikes, learned to identify plants, swam and kayaked on one of Nicaragua’s lakes, and even made friendship bracelets out of an old hammock tassel. We’ve become close enough that it would be natural to say a tearful goodbye and promise to keep in touch for a few months until life gets in the way. But this is not camp, and we are still here in Central America–Avery, Katie, Ryan, Sarah, Devin, our professor, Neal, and me, Jill.
Bit by bit Nicaragua is seeping into us, like the sunscreen we diligently slop onto our delicate northeastern skin, and it is gently making its way into our minds and hearts. Yes, we’ve seen so many new sights, heard a whole new language of sounds, smelt and tasted fruits we didn’t even know existed. As we say of camp, the days are long but the weeks are flying by. Lucky for us, we have a few more weeks to absorb all of the messages our surroundings are offering.
We’ve filled up these past two weeks with so much more than fun outings and getting-to-know-you games. We’ve learned the history of dictatorship, natural disaster, and civil war in Nicaragua, as well as our country’s shameful role. We’ve seen and felt how these tragic events have hurt the people of Nicaragua, whether through thirty-year-old shrapnel wounds or through weakened school systems, roadways, and water infrastructure. We’ve also watched in appreciation as so many Nicaraguans keep on truckin’–or bussing, or biking, or riding a horse or oxen or a mototaxi, or even keep on walking in order to do what they want to do. Our group went on a tour of La Forteleza in Masaya, a huge concrete fortress on a hill where the Somoza regime tortured political prisoners during the civil war only thirty-five years ago. Now La Forteleza is a Boy Scout camp and a popular Masaya exercise spot (with lots of locals running or biking up and down the steep road to the top). Why waste a perfectly good fortress, right? One Nicaraguan ability I most admire is their ability to get the most out of what they have.
Our days are simple: wake up; eat a breakfast of rice, beans, plantains, and salty cheese (with delicious coffee); walk to class; learn upwards of a million new Spanish verbs; enjoy a quick juice break (with slightly earthy coffee); chat for two hours in Spanish conversation class; eat a lunch of rice, beans, and veggies; spend the afternoon sightseeing (generally visiting some of the service projects run by our language school, La Mariposa, or hiking some volcanoes–you know, the usual); return to our homestays for a dinner of rice, beans, salty cheese, and some fried fresh eggs from the chickens out back; then homework and chats with our homestay families until bed. However, this simple routine free of electronic distractions allows us to breath in our surroundings, to notice strange new details in a strange new country. As we live with our Nicaraguan homestay families, we marvel at how differently they live from us in the USA, and begin to think critically about whether the American lifestyle is the ‘right’ one, whether there is one right way to live.
I think my homestay family is decidedly middle class, yet their typical Nicaraguan lifestyle is starkly different than my own suburban upbringing. The house is one story, made of concrete with a bare metal roof that is not entirely attached to the house. The inner walls stop about 2 – 3 feet from the roof as well, so the wind blows through the house at night (probably a treat during the hottest parts of the year), and the kitchen window has no glass at all. Veronica cooks Avery’s and my meals over the elevated wood fire in the kitchen, and we buy our water by the barrel from a wagon since the municipal water pump cannot send the water this far uphill. Our beds are hard wood with a three-inch mattress, but we have electricity and even television. I’m sure there are some worldly goods for which our host family wishes, but they live just as happily as many suburban families in the US without so many knicknacks or furniture or flush toilets. We have just as much fun teaching each other local slang and swear words after dinner as we would bingeing on Netflix
Love and miss you, Mom and Dad. Nicaragua is tuani and we’re doing ok – Jill