The first words from Managua...
Wow...it´s been quite the week! Just a little over a week ago I spent my first day in this beautiful country that I now call home and it´s been quite the journey already.
I arrived late Friday night, a bit late, because of the hurricane complications. After deplaneing, going through customs, and picking up my bag, I was quickly scooped up by Guillermo, the Nicaragua husband of our Academic Director, Aynn (Aynn, by the way, is this real cool American who first came down here in 1985 to help with humanitarian efforts during the contra war of the 80s which ravaged this country). We threw my bags in the back of the pickup truck after a warm welcome, and were off to Casa San Juan, a hostel-like place in quite a nice part of Managua. I was overwhelmed by the discussion in the truck - I think it hit me then that I´d be living a life in Spanish for the next several months. I felt real good about the conversation though - we talked on all different topics ranging from our lives to nicaraguan history and current politics. After arriving at the hostel I quickly met a few people in my group and was off to bed.
The group is comprised of 21 students from all over the US. There´s such a diverse body of interests and each person brings something incredibly unique to the program. It´s also been wonderful to realize how small the entire liberal arts community is. I´ve met many in my group that know many people at Dickinson - and others who know people that I know at their universities.
The weekend consisted of Orientation, a cool drop- off experience in Leon where we were dropped off in pairs throughout the city with no map and only the instruction to meet at a specific spot 5 hours later, and more Orientation. On Tuesday evening we all were introduced to our home-stay families and were off to the places we´d called home for the next few months.
My family consists of Christian, a mother of 27 years, her 2 year old and absolutely adorable (the way Lisa says it...) daughter, Nadia, and Nadia´s great-grandmother, Dona Angela, of 76 years. We live in a house totally different than the realities I have ever spent a significant amount of time in. The house is located in Barrio Maximo Jarez, a neighborhood of a couple of thousand residents, all in the lower-middle income bracket. We all live within the same barrio because it is one of the last, if not the last, barrio of that economic standing that does not contain excessive amounts of drugs or crime.
When you enter my house you first have to go through a locked cage-like gate that all of the houses have for protection. After going through that gate you then unlock the front door of the house to enter. Once inside you are first greeted with a large and fairly empty room, containing only a table and a few chairs. After going through that roofed room you arrive at the center of the house which contains a kitchen, which consists solely of a camping stove, and then the patio which is an open space that contains the pila, the place where we wash the dishes, our hands, brush our teeth, prepare food, and wash the clothes. The whole center of the house is opened to the sky so it often gets flooded, but, the best part of it is that you can see the stars while cooking, relaxing or daydreaming - all in the comfort of the home. Off of the kitchen area is my room which is a nice size and contains my bed, 2 small tables, and a short rod to hang a few clothes. It has a roof over-top and a window that opens out to the center patio. The rest of the house consists of their two rooms, and a bathroom which is semi-outside. There´s a cockroach living in the shower for sure, and many others in various areas. There´s also a few mice living around the place, and a chicken (though, I think that he is for a dinner in the near-future).
Living there for the past few days has been an incredibly amazing learning experience in so many ways. The only way to communicate is through a language still so uncomfortable and quite foreign to me. However, one learns incredibly fast how to speak when it is necessary for the basics - such as where to spit when brushing your teeth, when there´s no obvious spot (like a sink). I´m living in a world where I no longer have the comfort of just asking a question. Absolutely everything is thought through - from the morning greeting to the last words at night. Even though it´s been just a few days and sometimes we are all overcome by doubts, but I realize that I am improving. I´m throwing myself into it head -first. I know I often sound ridiculous and talk about things way above what I think I can, but I am pushing through it all hard. I want to learn so bad and it is often so frustrating to want to understand with all your heart, and just not to be able to. Every night at dinner Christian sits by me and we talk about all different things which I think is really improving my Spanish. Just last night we talked for over and hour on the population problem in our world, the problems of the increasing population, the problems with the decreasing population in many European states, and our thoughts on the importance of family.
Everyday we all travel by foot about 1.5 miles to the UCA, or the University of Central America, where we have Spanish class. Every morning we arrive at 8:30 and work on grammar, oral, and written Spanish. We are divided into different groups by level so we have real nice small and intimate classes. After class, three days a week, we have a 30 minute period in which we hang out with UCA students and speak to them about life as a university student in Nicaragua. We then have a couple hour break and meet at another university, just a 10 minute walk from the barrio, to attend our Seminar on Nicaraguan History, Transformation and Civil Society. It´s quite interesting, but at this point I can understand little of it, which again creates quite a bit of frustration when you are sitting in the classroom for 2+ hours. After seminar it´s off to the SIT office to hang out for a bit, and then to our homes for dinner, conversation, study, and sleep.
Since so many people always want to know about the food - here it is! I came to Nicaragua with the intent to stay vegetarian... but not vegan. I came with the thought that I don´t want to eat meat and didn´t need to, but also with the thought that I want to be polite and work from within the culture. So far, however, it´s been woooonderful. My host mom knows that I am usually vegan, and decided to stick with that. She makes me all these delicious soy foods all the time - from straight from the bean soymilk to patties with veggies. She also serves me lots of delicious fruit. A lot of my stuff is still very oily (they use oil in EVERYTHING here)... but lots of other students are jealous about my mom´s cooking. Others in our program often eat super-greasy foods 3x a day... and I only have to experience it 1x a day (while others have greasy eggs and meat and rice and beans for breakfast... I get to enjoy a big bowl of fruit with a glass of soymilk!)
I´ve been thinking a good amount about my upcoming ISP, or Independent Study Project, that takes up the whole month of November. The idea of the ISP is we get a month where we can research whatever we´d like, conducting interviews, researching, and traveling around, and then prepare a 30+ page paper and 20 minute presentation in Spanish. Right now it is crazy to think about conducting interviews and creating such an in-depth paper in Spanish ... but, at the same time, I am so excited. I have decided that I´d like mine to focus on the organic movement in Nicaragua. I do not yet have a focus question, but it´s definitely taken me a while to even come up with the topic - I feel like almost everything would be interesting! I´d like to do an in-depth study of an organic cooperative and not only look at what life is like on the surface and why farmers choose to farm the way they do, but also the economics behind it, and how the organic movement can expand. I want my project to have a purpose. To not only convey information to those interested, but to create ideas for change, and to then create change.
This week we have classes for the full week, next weekend free (I´m hoping to get to some beautiful outdoorsy parks) and then on Monday it´s off to the campo (countryside). We are going to be spending a week there, in the Northern Mountains of Matagalpa, working side-by-side with farmers and learning about agriculture and the difference between life in the campo and life in the city. It should be an amazing experience, but Im hoping my Spanish improves quite a bit this week so that I can gain so much more from it.
Until then, keep posting up comments, questions, etc. I´m going to try and write every week or two and definitely would love to answer questions about life here and hear about life there. Hope you are all doing well - and enjoying yourselves in all sections of the globe... from Panama to France...from Sackville to Ecuador... from Toronto to Carlisle...from all over the US to all over the world....
love and peace,
meg
I arrived late Friday night, a bit late, because of the hurricane complications. After deplaneing, going through customs, and picking up my bag, I was quickly scooped up by Guillermo, the Nicaragua husband of our Academic Director, Aynn (Aynn, by the way, is this real cool American who first came down here in 1985 to help with humanitarian efforts during the contra war of the 80s which ravaged this country). We threw my bags in the back of the pickup truck after a warm welcome, and were off to Casa San Juan, a hostel-like place in quite a nice part of Managua. I was overwhelmed by the discussion in the truck - I think it hit me then that I´d be living a life in Spanish for the next several months. I felt real good about the conversation though - we talked on all different topics ranging from our lives to nicaraguan history and current politics. After arriving at the hostel I quickly met a few people in my group and was off to bed.
The group is comprised of 21 students from all over the US. There´s such a diverse body of interests and each person brings something incredibly unique to the program. It´s also been wonderful to realize how small the entire liberal arts community is. I´ve met many in my group that know many people at Dickinson - and others who know people that I know at their universities.
The weekend consisted of Orientation, a cool drop- off experience in Leon where we were dropped off in pairs throughout the city with no map and only the instruction to meet at a specific spot 5 hours later, and more Orientation. On Tuesday evening we all were introduced to our home-stay families and were off to the places we´d called home for the next few months.
My family consists of Christian, a mother of 27 years, her 2 year old and absolutely adorable (the way Lisa says it...) daughter, Nadia, and Nadia´s great-grandmother, Dona Angela, of 76 years. We live in a house totally different than the realities I have ever spent a significant amount of time in. The house is located in Barrio Maximo Jarez, a neighborhood of a couple of thousand residents, all in the lower-middle income bracket. We all live within the same barrio because it is one of the last, if not the last, barrio of that economic standing that does not contain excessive amounts of drugs or crime.
When you enter my house you first have to go through a locked cage-like gate that all of the houses have for protection. After going through that gate you then unlock the front door of the house to enter. Once inside you are first greeted with a large and fairly empty room, containing only a table and a few chairs. After going through that roofed room you arrive at the center of the house which contains a kitchen, which consists solely of a camping stove, and then the patio which is an open space that contains the pila, the place where we wash the dishes, our hands, brush our teeth, prepare food, and wash the clothes. The whole center of the house is opened to the sky so it often gets flooded, but, the best part of it is that you can see the stars while cooking, relaxing or daydreaming - all in the comfort of the home. Off of the kitchen area is my room which is a nice size and contains my bed, 2 small tables, and a short rod to hang a few clothes. It has a roof over-top and a window that opens out to the center patio. The rest of the house consists of their two rooms, and a bathroom which is semi-outside. There´s a cockroach living in the shower for sure, and many others in various areas. There´s also a few mice living around the place, and a chicken (though, I think that he is for a dinner in the near-future).
Living there for the past few days has been an incredibly amazing learning experience in so many ways. The only way to communicate is through a language still so uncomfortable and quite foreign to me. However, one learns incredibly fast how to speak when it is necessary for the basics - such as where to spit when brushing your teeth, when there´s no obvious spot (like a sink). I´m living in a world where I no longer have the comfort of just asking a question. Absolutely everything is thought through - from the morning greeting to the last words at night. Even though it´s been just a few days and sometimes we are all overcome by doubts, but I realize that I am improving. I´m throwing myself into it head -first. I know I often sound ridiculous and talk about things way above what I think I can, but I am pushing through it all hard. I want to learn so bad and it is often so frustrating to want to understand with all your heart, and just not to be able to. Every night at dinner Christian sits by me and we talk about all different things which I think is really improving my Spanish. Just last night we talked for over and hour on the population problem in our world, the problems of the increasing population, the problems with the decreasing population in many European states, and our thoughts on the importance of family.
Everyday we all travel by foot about 1.5 miles to the UCA, or the University of Central America, where we have Spanish class. Every morning we arrive at 8:30 and work on grammar, oral, and written Spanish. We are divided into different groups by level so we have real nice small and intimate classes. After class, three days a week, we have a 30 minute period in which we hang out with UCA students and speak to them about life as a university student in Nicaragua. We then have a couple hour break and meet at another university, just a 10 minute walk from the barrio, to attend our Seminar on Nicaraguan History, Transformation and Civil Society. It´s quite interesting, but at this point I can understand little of it, which again creates quite a bit of frustration when you are sitting in the classroom for 2+ hours. After seminar it´s off to the SIT office to hang out for a bit, and then to our homes for dinner, conversation, study, and sleep.
Since so many people always want to know about the food - here it is! I came to Nicaragua with the intent to stay vegetarian... but not vegan. I came with the thought that I don´t want to eat meat and didn´t need to, but also with the thought that I want to be polite and work from within the culture. So far, however, it´s been woooonderful. My host mom knows that I am usually vegan, and decided to stick with that. She makes me all these delicious soy foods all the time - from straight from the bean soymilk to patties with veggies. She also serves me lots of delicious fruit. A lot of my stuff is still very oily (they use oil in EVERYTHING here)... but lots of other students are jealous about my mom´s cooking. Others in our program often eat super-greasy foods 3x a day... and I only have to experience it 1x a day (while others have greasy eggs and meat and rice and beans for breakfast... I get to enjoy a big bowl of fruit with a glass of soymilk!)
I´ve been thinking a good amount about my upcoming ISP, or Independent Study Project, that takes up the whole month of November. The idea of the ISP is we get a month where we can research whatever we´d like, conducting interviews, researching, and traveling around, and then prepare a 30+ page paper and 20 minute presentation in Spanish. Right now it is crazy to think about conducting interviews and creating such an in-depth paper in Spanish ... but, at the same time, I am so excited. I have decided that I´d like mine to focus on the organic movement in Nicaragua. I do not yet have a focus question, but it´s definitely taken me a while to even come up with the topic - I feel like almost everything would be interesting! I´d like to do an in-depth study of an organic cooperative and not only look at what life is like on the surface and why farmers choose to farm the way they do, but also the economics behind it, and how the organic movement can expand. I want my project to have a purpose. To not only convey information to those interested, but to create ideas for change, and to then create change.
This week we have classes for the full week, next weekend free (I´m hoping to get to some beautiful outdoorsy parks) and then on Monday it´s off to the campo (countryside). We are going to be spending a week there, in the Northern Mountains of Matagalpa, working side-by-side with farmers and learning about agriculture and the difference between life in the campo and life in the city. It should be an amazing experience, but Im hoping my Spanish improves quite a bit this week so that I can gain so much more from it.
Until then, keep posting up comments, questions, etc. I´m going to try and write every week or two and definitely would love to answer questions about life here and hear about life there. Hope you are all doing well - and enjoying yourselves in all sections of the globe... from Panama to France...from Sackville to Ecuador... from Toronto to Carlisle...from all over the US to all over the world....
love and peace,
meg