Conociendo Nicaragua

“HELLOOOOO” the older woman sang at us with a smug smile. Doña Ayde was a small old lady, always dressed in black, with a shuffling gait. Sofie and I first encountered her early in the school year, on our morning walk to the bus stop. Day after day we would pass Doña Ayde and greet her with a smile and a polite ‘buenos días’ as she smirked at us. Over time she began greeting us in Spanish. Eventually we learned her name, and the mocking “helloooo” turned into warm smiles and stopping to gently squeeze our hands and chat. There were times when one of us was sick or traveling and Ayde would ask where our missing friend was -being sure to say a few prayers for her right there in the street before we parted ways. We weren’t just travelers passing through, and our simple routine established that. We learned a sliver of Ayde’s story, and she picked up a little of ours. Each day we shared a moment, and even though our paths crossed only briefly, we formed a close bond.

This time last year, my day-to-day life looked quite different. As a volunteer teacher at Escuela Secundaria Technica Emprendedora in Diriomo, Nicaragua, I worked alongside local faculty and two other CSBSJU alumni. Each day as a volunteer teacher was unique. Responsibilities ranged from weeding plots with the agriculture students to sharing the thrilling utility of gerunds with 9th graders. We learned to dance and participated in countless celebrations. The jury is still out on whether the gerunds lesson really stuck, but I’m sure the kids will agree that learning is a vulnerable process where both educators and pupils grow. Our students taught us about local holidays, myths and legends, traditional foods, Nicaragüense slang, and which soccer teams to cheer for. Our lessons addressed native speaking habits as well as US sociocultural norms; needless to say, some discussions were easier than others. As foreigners and teachers, we recognized the weight that our words carried. The stories we told, the material we taught, and the ways we behaved, shaped our students’ perceptions of the larger world. Every day we witnessed how culture and language were living, breathing, constantly changing mediums, and we hoped to share that with the kids.

I originally chose the Opportunity International Nicaragua program because I wanted to “meet” a community. Often, our younger students would use the word “meet” in contexts that a native speaker generally wouldn’t, but here, I would argue that “meet” conveys the sentiment better than the word “know.” Meeting is intimate, while knowing can be achieved through books or movies from thousands of miles away. After graduation, I hoped to work abroad because I wanted to form a relationship with a place and the community. I wanted to “meet” the culture in a personal and genuine way through consistent and honest work. That connection has been my most treasured takeaway.

When we first arrived, we kept mental lists of all the amazing, goofy, and wild culture shocks that we experienced. “Things You Didn’t Know You Could Transport Via Motorcycle” was an ever-growing catalog. By the end of our time there, those initial culture shocks grew to be familiar, so when the new volunteers arrived and pointed out the same quirks we did when we first came, it was like seeing the city again with fresh eyes. Leaving meant not only saying goodbye to the students and school- but also to our local friends, host families, bus buddies, favorite views, daily routines, hidden restaurants, go-to market vendors, and of course Doña Ayde. That was a hard goodbye. I feel blessed to have found another home so far from where I grew up.

It’s hard to condense a year’s worth of living into a neat paragraph. In short, it was a plunge. A healthy shock in learning to adapt, which is an invaluable skill no matter what your life goals are. At school, we had our work cut out for us between classroom management in our second language and 12v12 recess volleyball on a dusty court under the midday sun. Outside of school, we learned to join the flow of life. I still miss the warm invitations to family gatherings and the live chickens transported on public buses. Now, a year out, it can feel distant. I’m currently living in Denver, Colorado and work in an immunology research laboratory. I still regularly call with old students looking to keep up on their English and I use my Spanish often when I’m out and about in Aurora. I’m still unpacking some of the lessons I experienced last year, because the truth is that Nicaragua isn’t a closed chapter in my book. It’s a piece of me and a constant reminder of how small our world really is.

-Isabelle Schmelzer