Standing Room Only

If you know me really well you know that I am as far from a morning person as you can get. I spend mornings groaning, still half asleep, and wishing I could crawl back into bed instead of conversing with the world. With this same attitude I dragged myself to the bus stop at 6:30am to wait for a packed bus to the city.

Just my luck, I was not able to grab a seat on the bus today at the various stops where people got off. As I realized that my ride was about to be hot, packed, and I would not be able to nap, I tried to remain positive. Packed bus rides are simply a part of Nica culture. There is the man taking the money who is trying to squeeze between people to make his way through the bus, constantly telling people to move toward the middle of the bus no matter how many sardines are packed into that space already. There is the woman sitting in the seat that you are leaning over, as you stand silently apologizing that you are taking up any free space she had and bumping your leg against hers. There’s the man next to you who is just too close and sometimes looks over at you for way too long. Not to mention that it’s hot and stuffy with two and half hours to go on your feet. That gives you a vision, but the experience is unlike any other.

And yet I stood waiting for my feet to get tired, feeling as though I might faint because of the heat, thinking that for so many Nicaraguans this is just a reality. Cars are a luxury and rarely used for long journeys. Taxis are never used for long trips either. Buses, just normal school buses packed with people, are the most frequented form of transportation. My family members have expressed that they have even been on 10 hour rides standing the entire time. This is a reflection of how we come here to experience Nica life, but we really only get a small taste of what life is like.

I have often thought that the life we try to lead living like our Nica families as Peace Corps volunteers is in vain. There is no doubt that we learn about another culture, about ourselves, and about how much we can handle. It is a test. But eventually the test is over and we get to go home. This is the reality of an entire country as big as the state I live in. This is the second poorest country in Central America after Haiti. To say I enjoy and appreciate the rich culture and my Nica family and friends is an understatement. I can live two years eating Nica food, brushing my teeth on the patio with the chickens, and sweeping the dirt on the patio. But then I go home.

What I have learned is that you can take the girl out of Minnesota, out of U.S. culture, and out of the influence of consumerist culture. But you can’t take those influences away from me. I know that there are other opportunities out there. I know that there is another way of life. That makes this lifestyle even more difficult.

But through the ups and downs of this journey, we keep learning, changing, and missing home. Even if our experience is only a snapshot of life in Nicaragua, that snapshot will help me to understand my place in this world. My feet will be sore, I will feel uncomfortable for a while, and I will keep riding the bus when there’s standing room only.

Time to Celebrate

Happy Saint Isidro festival! Every town has their own festival (called Fiestas Patronales) of a saint at a different time of year. Based on the name, “San Isidro”, you can infer that our saint is also the name of the town. San Isidro is a farmer saint, a rural man who represents the farm lifestyle here. He is celebrated in May before the rains come so that they can pray for a prosperous rainy season and a good harvest. He passes around town to different houses and schools all week before May 15^th, being accompanied by processions and bands.

On Thursday morning we headed from my neighborhood where the procession started, following the trumpets and trombones slowly down the street. We made our way into town where people were waiting for the saint to pass and gradually melded into the processional crowd. I was greeted by students, parents, and teachers along the way, reminding me that I do know a good amount of people here, I have become part of this community.

We arrived at the church grounds where under the shade of a giant tree mass was to take place. There were pews and plastic chairs, as well as people standing in every corner. A live band was playing music before the service, creating a tranquil atmosphere of celebration. For me it was a time of reflection on how we celebrate. I continue to be amazed at what a strong sense of community this country has. In times of difficulty or in times of celebration, everyone is always there.

It just so happens that this town festival happens right around my birthday so naturally it was a weekend of celebrating. I invited more people than ever before at my birthday party, and that was just in the family! My host mom and another family member cooked all the food, we all helped make and decorate the cakes, and there was so much dancing. I was also serenaded with a guitar their version of “Happy Birthday” and various ranchera songs. I had many people tell me that even though I was far from my family, they wanted me to know that they were my Nica family. Needless to say, I felt very special on my 23^rd birthday.

There is nothing like being in the moment and feeling this community, but here are some pictures to give an idea of what these celebrations are like:

 

Procession to celebrate the patron saint

Cake decorating

Serving the food

 Being serenaded

 

Amigas

Teachers

 

Help

I have always known that being careful about language is extremely important when discussing developing nations and our involvement in other countries, but it wasn't until sitting on the other side of the table that I truly grasped the offensiveness of the ways that we describe our work abroad. We have all heard it, and I have certainly used it. "I want to help people" and "I want to make a difference in the world" and in trying to improve those phrases and be more conscientious we use phrases like "I want to help people help themselves" or "I want to empower people." I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I have used all of these phrases at one point or another. And at the end of the day, I do want to help people, to make a difference, and empower others. But who am I to do that work?

There is an NGO in my town that will receive 12 students from a university in the U.S. for a month. These are mostly engineering students who will be working on improved technologies (the focus of the organization) such as improved ovens and stoves, biodigesters, and drip irrigation. I was asked to support the project by translating, helping with host family training, and whatever else may arise during their stay. There are five volunteers that will be staying with members of my extended host family meaning that I was there also listening as if I was a host family member. As they put up the profiles of each student who will be visiting, I read the profiles from a completely different lens. Thinking as a host family member, I kept seeing those words "help people" and "empower" feeling the awful taste in my mouth. These same words that I have used on similar applications now seemed so demeaning, so evident of the developed triumphs over developing relationship.

It is not bad to want to help people nor is it a negative quality to want to use the skills of host country nationals to uplift their own people. But to the average person who lives a fairly comfortable life in Nicaragua for example, those words sting, and even more than that, they don't make sense. Why do they need all of this "help" that these people from the U.S. keep talking about? On a large scale, Nicaraguans know that they live in a poor country. They know that people in the U.S. have more resources and are familiar with projects here where they receive many different kinds of "help." I was too caught up in my own processing of these thoughts to ask if my host family members felt the same about these words. Based on conversations I have had with them since that day, I would say that in general they were too focused on who would be staying in their house to problematize those terms.

Life here could be improved. Health here could be improved. Education here could be improved. But how do we overcome this relationship of "helping those who have none?" There certainly are people in Nicaragua who don't have a home, food to put on the table, or shoes to send their kids to school in, like everywhere in the world. But that doesn't mean that that Nicaraguans have nothing. After living almost nine months in Nicaragua I have learned to see the beauty of a family reunited outside of the house instead of the fact that the wooden door is falling down. I see the kids playing in the street, covered in mud, and smile instead of questioning if the reason that they are barefoot is because they have no shoes. I see the beauty in the process of a grandmother who comes to make the enchilada mass, later to be pressed by my host sister, then to be thrown in oil by her mother instead of the poor nutrition habits.

Again, this is not to say that life is always a piece of cake nor that things like nutrition and the economic situation of many don't need to be improved. But that's the importance of language. Before throwing out the word help we need to ask, how will we help these people? Do they want and need to be helped in the way that we want to help them? What does the word help mean?

This cuts deep into my roll as a Peace Corps volunteer. I have nothing figured out, but what I can say is that I keep learning. I may have been sent to this country to "help empower" people, but I am leaving with lessons that will forever change me. If I learn how to better interact in this world from this experience, who is really being helped during this process?

It's Easy to Forget

Some days it’s very easy to forget why I’m here. What does a gringa in her twenties recently graduated from college have to contribute to a community that needs good teachers and gardening skills? How can I, with little previous knowledge and three months of training, begin to address these issues? I feel unqualified and very overwhelmed…

And then I remember (just as I said in my last blog) that relationships are everything. As I sat after class with five sixth grade girls and the teacher, I was reminded of why I was here and what my real passion in Nicaragua is. One of the little girls said to me, “being dark is ugly.” She described her twin who has lighter skin than her and how she thinks that I have such beautiful skin. I attempted to address these deeply woven issues by saying that women in the U.S. try to tan their skin to be more like her. I gently explained that I was born with whiter skin and no matter how much she took care of her skin, hiding it from the sun, she would never be as white as me. On the flip side, I could sit many hours in the sun and will never be as dark as her. We are born into this skin, it’s the only skin we have, so why not love it?

Since a young age I have had the perspective of not caring what others think. I simply walk on my path in life and try not to compare myself (at least physically) to other women because I know I will never be them. I also am very well aware that twelve is the age when all of those insecurities come out. This age is delicate and I can tell her a million pieces of advice that may never seep in. Yet this view reflects that of Nicaraguans. They take good care of their skin, protecting it from the sun if they’re out working, putting on a hat, long sleeves, and yelling at me to cover up in the burning heat. I try to remember that this is all positive, that they are at least protecting themselves from skin cancer. But then the comments sink in. A twelve year old girl tells me she is ugly because she is brown and my heart breaks.

These issues are not distinct to Nicaragua, but that doesn’t make them less important. This is my real work here. Yes, I come home from the classroom excited about something we did some days. Yes, I enjoy the topics that I teach and the relationships I have with teachers. But it’s the Ecological Brigade “meetings” where we work in the dirt and the conversations with handfuls of young girls about issues that affect them that drive me to work harder. It’s these youth groups that really uncover the need in Nicaragua. This is where the Peace Corps mission of exchange will come in. My job inherently has me building upon the skills that Nicaraguans also have, but I want to give these girls a taste of what their future could look like. I want to be that role model for them. I want to have an open conversation about, sex, boys, race, and so many taboo topics.

It’s easy to forget, but then I remember. I’m here for a reason.

Relationships are everything

In the Peace Corps success is officially measured in numbers, in the amount of plants you grow, the amount of teachers you work with, and the amount of children who take part in your environmental projects. These concrete numbers are needed to show the government that the money invested in these programs is doing something tangible, it’s capacitating teachers and community members as well as teaching Nicaraguan children. I see the obvious importance and understand that this is the system in which nearly everyone works. How many hours did you put in last week? Did your project produce adequate outcomes?

But Peace Corps is about so much more. Every day things pop into my head and I think about how much I miss cooking my own food or speaking my mind about gender issues. But then I get a hug from ten of my students. Then my teacher buys me a bag of jocotes (a small delicious fruit). Then a cousin who always likes to bug me yells in the street. Then my one year old “niece” won’t let me take a nap because she wants to play with my Frisbee and steal my earrings. Then I soak it all in and think about how many relationships I will miss when I leave Nicaragua.

You could say that it is rare to think about this now, as I am still in the beginning stages of service, yet there is already a new group of volunteers in Nicaragua and the next crew arrives in August. After looking back at these past few months in site, I am terrified to think about how fast time has flown. I was so ready for Nicaragua that I don’t even feel like 8 months has passed without seeing my friends and family. Time will fly and I want to enjoy every second of every day.

So what is interesting is that I also want to explore this beautiful country. I love the relationships I have also made with my very tight-knit environment group. In a group of 19 all of us get along very well and support each other with amazing ease. The interesting things about the many relationships I have fostered in the past 8 months is that my relationships with one group seem to affect my relationships with the other. For example, when I spend too much time traveling (or even a little bit of time traveling) people in my town call me “vaga” like a vagabond who only spends his or her time in the streets. I love to see my PC friends, but then I come home and find that people have missed me or I have missed out on something fun. But the same goes for missing PC trips with my friends. Some weeks I feel like I’m so integrated into Nica culture that I forget to pick up the phone and call my friends, realizing I haven’t heard from them in a long time. I get isolated and don’t hear the latest gossip or news because I am working so hard at enjoying my relationships in site.

So I’m learning to find an interesting balance. And as with everything in the Peace Corps, I follow my gut, I do what my intuition tells me, what at the end of the day will make me happy. Never in my life have I made so many decisions purely based on my happiness and what feels good. That is the beauty of this life. Yes, I will write my reports and do my best to stay true to those numbers. But at the end of the day, success is built within these relationships that I have created. And success for me means following my own happiness.

International Women's Day

On my college campus, International Women’s Day was highlighted, but it came and went like any other day of recognition without much hype. In Brainerd, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as International Women’s Day. Ironically, I moved to a country with grave gender inequalities and a heavy machismo culture where International Women’s Day is not only recognized, but truly celebrated.

On Friday teachers attended a meeting about International Women’s Day and the importance of women in the workforce as well as having good female role models in the classroom. On Saturday morning my day began with a text from a teacher saying “Happy International Women’s Day, it’s a very special day.” There was a march in town to celebrate and most surprisingly, nearly everyone from the general population knows that it’s International Women’s Day. That is something I cannot say of the U.S. today.

Like I have mentioned, Nicaragua has a ways to go in terms of gender equality and that does not change by simply celebrating International Women’s Day and hearing messages about women’s accomplishments and contributions to society. However, it definitely makes me question our commitment to women’s rights in the U.S. Even progressive college students surprised me in their views on women’s issues. “We are past those issues…” they would say. “Women are already being educated and have equal rights…” With all of the health reforms attempting to strip us of many rights you would think that we would put more of an emphasis on fighting toward equality instead of failing to recognize these stark inequalities.

Do I think Nicaraguans have a good appreciation for what International Women’s Day is really about? No. But at least leaders are beginning to put an emphasis on inequality in Nicaragua and focusing on these issues. At the end of the day you can compare the rates of education, the economic status, and other statistics between the countries, but we don’t have it all figured out in the U.S. Even with a larger educated population in the U.S. than in Nicaragua, I guarantee that few people could tell you when International Women’s Day is celebrated and why it is so important to celebrate it.

Happy International Women’s Day to all. Let’s all put an effort into creating a world of true gender equality instead of ignoring the issues in our own backyard.

Capturing my Weeks in Photos

Elizabeth received a gift from Minnesota...

 

And has not put down her Brown Bear Brown Bear book (in Spanish of course) since she got it. If you take it from her, she cries. She sits staring at the pictures, kissing them, and gasping in surprise with each page turn.

Finally learning how to make enchiladas with the family

There actually is a technique to pressing the tortillas.

Throwing the tortillas in oil to be fried, of course I'm scared of burning myself!

Jaime, a cousin of my host siblings wanted to help

She's two years old and calls me tia (in English meaning aunt)

My host mom's mother-in-law comes to help every time because she has many years of practice

Happy little Elizabeth...the house is so quiet, sad, and boring when she's not around screaming, laughing, and stealing random items from my room.

At school we already got to pick the radishes (though the chickens did not leave many behind when they dug them up).

These girls are from the Environmental Club that I worked with this summer.

Digging a hole for a giant compost pile at my larger school.

I have to explain numerous times that both girls and boys will be working on this project and everyone will receive a grade. It's a big goal of mine to get them to erase from their minds the idea that only the bigger boys will be doing hard labor. Some of the little girls are the best workers!

 

Otherwise things are going well and I'm still getting used to my new schedule with teachers. These projects are keeping me busy but it's been a great start to the school year so far!