Final Blog--Home

Well I have almost been home for one week. I have yet to make it to IL to see my family but I plan on heading there in the next few days.  Getting to be here in PA on Saturday for Andy (my boyfriends) graduation meant a lot to him and I both. I was nice to spend a few days in the country side with him and his family as well. I am really looking forward to next week getting home to my family and spending some quality with them.

I can already tell that my trip has changed me forever. I cannot simply look and things as I did before or live my life the way that I did before. I feel like I have a whole new lens to look at my own life issues as well as large world issues; a more informed critical one. I am excited as to what these next few weeks and months are going to bring my way. I will be moving to Washington DC within the next month or so and hopefully finding an internship or even a job. I cannot believe that I am now finished with college. I could not have dreamt a better way to spend my last semester of college. 

Saying Good-Bye

Sitting here I can’t even mentally fathom that in just a few short hours I am going to be back in the United States. Back into my own context and to the people and things that used to be comfortable to me. I am so nervous. I am nervous that I have changed so much that it will be hard for me to relate to what used to be mine.  I’m nervous that the people I love won’t understand the things I’ve seen and why I feel the way I do and that I won’t be able to relay it to them even if they do what to hear it all. I’m nervous to be alone (even if it is only for the few hours of my travels home), I have been with 15 people all the time for the last four months. I am scared that I am about to graduate college, I have this new knowledge (but still don’t even understand or know so much) and I now have to apply it to a real job. How do I do everything that I have seen, heard and experienced justice; can I?

 I am sitting at the airport in Nicaragua waiting to board my flight back to the states. I can’t believe it’s over. The last four months were possibly the fastest four months of my life. They were intense and wonderful. I made friends that I will forever cherish. As I am sitting her reflecting over the whole semester and all of the incredible people we spoke with and things that I learned; apathy is no longer an option. I have to take the things and I have seen and heard and make changes. I know that as one little person I will never change the world, but what I can do is make changes in my daily life and live a life that reflects and respects the type of life that I want to live. The massacre testimonies we heard, maquila factory workers the war torn communities, they all entrust their stories in our hands with the promise that their story go untold.  I have learned more in these four months here in Central America than I have learned in my entire four years of college. While there are certainly beautiful pictures of the places we have been, that is not what this semester was about. 

                I remember after my first trip to Central America I thought, wow there is so much that I could do to volunteer there and be of help to the people there. I was wrong. The greatest help that I can be is becoming an advocate for better U.S. foreign policy particularly towards LA but the rest of the world. The power that simply being a United States Citizen holds is huge. I know that alone I would not make an impact but I know there are many organizations and people out there already organized and working towards a greater world with greater equality. I cannot wait to get started finding my place in the crazy world, where and how I can serve a purpose. 

Solidarity

Solidarity: what does it mean to actually be in solidarity with a people? Solidarity is something that is talked a lot about but what is it really? Being here in Nicaragua we have heard a lot about the solidarity groups of the 80’s: Witness for Peace (WFP) and CUSCLIN (Community of U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua) among many others. We always here words like empathy, togetherness and reciprocity. But what does it being in solidarity with a people really look like?

Because of all of these questions for the final project of our classes a group of us decided to do a presentation and investigate. We were able to interview a few different people; the FSLN official international relations director (he coordinated solidarity groups coming to Nicaragua), Lillian Hall who worked for the Ministry of Agrarian Reform and WFP, and Aynn Setrite a Witness for Peace Volunteer.  It was very interesting to hear them talk about their experiences of the 80’s and what it meant to them to be in solidarity with the Nicaraguan people.  In Aynn’s time with WFP volunteer she drove an ambulance in the war zone of Jinotega.  Lillian and Aynn both felt like for them being in solidarity meant accompanying the people of the war zone. Staying with the people when things got bad; navigating the roadways infested with land mines and when their villages were getting invaded.  But it also meant being here in Nicaragua a U.S. citizen who was opposed to the Contra War that Regan was feverishly funding.

 I think this is really important because it think “solidarity” is now often seen as short term “mission/ service” trips; which I think are semi-helpful but are by no means addressing the real problems. We talked with another WFP volunteer of the 80’s who has lived here since and now works in popular education and sustainable farm development projects in rural communities, she gave the example of a project that was carried out. In a small rural Nicaraguan village an organization came in and “donated” the money and workers to put in latrines for the community,  and here they are years down the road and the only time the latrines get used is when foreigners come. These types of projects are often seen as solidarity work though.  Cleary the latrines would increase the level of sanitation and I’m assuming decrease certain illness, the project was not sustainable. If the community doesn’t want to use or know why they should be using the latrines; they aren’t going to use them (This get into the whole top-down implementation of things—but I won’t get into that now).  Through doing these interviews though and really looking at what solidarity really looks like; I think it is a very rare thing these days.  As one of our interviewees said, “I think solidarity brings you to somewhere new ”. I think this is so true, to truly be in solidarity with a people is not just popping your face in helping out a bit. Real solidarity means accompanying a people through the good and the bad. It’s a sharing experience from both ends: it’s a solid[arity] change.

Friends

I chose this program knowing that it was going to be an intensive program. Not many people choose to tour developing countries for their study abroad program.  This program has been intense in the sense of many different ways, but intense in a challenge of living with (sometimes) and spending a lot of time with 15 people. At first I felt very overwhelmed by feeling of constantly being with people; but I have grown to love and appreciate everyone. We have spent an intense 16 weeks together; at times I would have given anything to just be in a room alone. I think this experience has pushed me (and I think others would agree) to challenge how I would normally act and push my comfort zones—I think everyone needs that every now and again and I am a better person because of it. Being in this space so intensively with my classmates has also challenged me academically; forcing me to be the best student that I can be. It has been great to challenge each other and learn from seeing others perspectives.  But most of all I am taking away new friendships that I feel will be everlasting. I hope that I will have the support system of this shared experience and continue to challenge each other in our lives to put into action the things that we have seen and learned. 

Nicaraguan Family

We moved in with our families in Batahola Norte the week before we left for spring break and lived with them for 5 weeks after we got back. I feel very lucky to have had the wonderful host families that I have had throughout this entire program, but my family in Batahola Norte are particularly wonderful. We lived with Marta, Leo Sr., their youngest son, his wife, and their three children (ages 10, 8, 6). We live in a humble little four room house with a corrugated tin roof and plywood to divide the bedroom walls. Marta is a stay at home grandma, she stays at home during the days talking care of her daughters little girl Margarita (1 and a half years old) and taking care of the house. Margarita was one of the highlights of my host family. I always looked forward to see here in the morning before we leave for school and in the evenings when we got home. Marta is the other highlight. She is so sweet, constantly worrying about us and taking care of us. She makes us fresh juice every day and cooks us wonderful homemade Nicaraguan food. Gallo-pinto (rice and bean fried together) is the staple of the diet here and we eat it with every meal. I have come to love Marta’s gallo-pinto in particular.

                Today was a sad day; we all moved back into the center where we study for the last few remaining days. Saying good bye to the families was really difficult. Not only hard to say goodbye to my own family but to the community. Over the course of the last 5 weeks we have spent a lot of time and gotten to know many of the other host families in the community. As Marta told us, “My door is always open and you will always have a Nicaraguan family here”.  I feel very grateful to have shared this experience with them and I will forever have a place in my heart for them. 

Weekend Excursions in Nica

I can’t help but be happy when I think of where I am in my life and physically in the world. Being here in Central America—Nicaragua I have had the opportunity see many things that I otherwise (being from a small town in Midwestern Illinois) might not have got to experience. I appreciate this semester I have had in Central America not only for the knowledge it has brought me, but for the traveling that I have been able to do in my free time.  We have seven weeks in total here in Nicaragua; with all of our weekends free. Including spring break, I have traveled every weekend to the different hot spots of Nicaragua. For Spring break I traveled to one of the two old capital cities in Nicaragua: Leon. We spent a few days there, hiked Cerro Negro and Volcano Boarded down it. Then we traveled to the Las Piñatas, a community on the Pacific Coast. There we spent the remainder of spring break on the coast; where I took surfing lessons. I also took a weekend trip to the famous San Juan Del Sur; a beautiful town on also on the Pacific Coast. We have visited the Masaya Volcano just outside of Managua, and it erupted (or had a volcanic burp) the next day.  As a group we took a day trip to the other historical capital of Grenada. My favorite trip was to the canyon in the little town of Somoto. We hired a tour guide who led us on a hike down into the canyon where we did a combination of hiking and swimming town this beautiful canyon.  

Rural Home stay -- Coffee Cooperative

As Central American style would have it our expected 2 hour journey to Estelí on Tuesday morning ended up taking about 5 hours.  Ex-military personal set up a tronke  blocking the road leaving Managua—so we had to turn around, head back to Managua, and  leave town heading the other way. As I have learned you never know what you are going to find when traveling here; it is always an adventure of some sort. We only spent one night in the town of Estelí (which is one of Nicaragua’s largest tobacco producing towns) and headed the next day on the second half of our journey further up into the mountains of Nicaragua.

 Our last home stay was in a community called Santule. This community, as many other Nicaraguan and Central American families, has a long history of coffee production.  In this sleepy little town of only about 200 people, there are about 12 small coffee cooperatives. Each cooperative’s members have coffee trees on their land to harvest and sell the beans; mostly organically produced. When it is time to harvest each cooperative member pools their crops together to sell to the buyers who buy the “green beans” as they call them. The beans are then roasted, packaged, and exported around the world.  

During these three days we spent up there we had the opportunity to stay with the farmers and their families. As we have been here for three months now, done a fair bit of traveling and stayed with a variety of different families; I have seen varying levels of poverty. However, the poverty in Santule, struck me. My family and all of the families had kitchens that consisted of dirt floors, a wood burning stove and maybe a dining room table. None of the families had running water; all of the water they used had to be carried in buckets from hand crank wells—there were two in the community. There was mostly no electricity. A few families, through international aid, have managed to buy solar panels to have a little bit of power to use in the nights. I say that I was struck by the poverty because going into the homestay I was very excited to see how an organic, fair trade coffee cooperatives worked and how they have improved the lives of the families.

 The farmers of the fair trade organic coffee get certified as an organic farmer (which costs the farmer around 4,000 US dollars) and this insures the farmer a certain minimum price for their crop even if the international market for coffee drops. I don’t understand how it can be labeled “fair trade” when the farmer, who is doing the majority of the work, might make around 6,000 US dollars a year. Yet to buy a bag of whole bean coffee from Starbucks for example costs $11.95.  While if the farmers had access to money to buy the machinery needed to take the coffee from harvest, to roast, to packaging and exporting; they could reap the real benefits of their work. The main pillars of fair trade are to; pay a fair wage in the local context, provide equal opportunities for all people, particularly the most disadvantaged and to provide financial and technical assistance to workers whenever possible. This is not to discredit fair trade, because I think that fair trade and cooperative work has done wonders for many different communities, but is fair trade really fair trade?