Student Reflections on the 2017 Nicaragua Trip

During the March break, Sarah Cox, Bridget Murphy, Kara Santoro, Jed Dowler, Cam Napier, Will Dowler, Alex Lytle, Bella Papov, and Isabella Jimenez went to Nicaragua with Mrs. Omana and Ms. Getz to volunteer their time to the Fabretto organization. The mission statement of the Fabretto foundation states that it “envisions a prosperous Nicaragua where all children and adolescents have meaningful opportunities to grow and learn, in communities that offer access to quality education, so that they may reach their full potential.”

The Fabretto organization has been working for over 60 years with the people of Nicaragua. Today, the organization serves over 20,000 children and youths through work in seven Fabretto Education Centers and more than 440 local public schools where it hopes to provide hope and a better future to the children and youths in need.

The nine students who traveled to Nicaragua worked three days in the town of Esteli, preparing a field for cultivation by digging up rocks and leveling the soil. They also dug trenches, built rebar columns and mixed and poured cement for the construction of a cement portal. Then they spent three days in Cusmapa digging out and preparing spaces for a community garden and preparing cement for garden walls. In between, they got to know, and play with, the local children.

 

What was your favorite part of the trip?

• Jed: My favorite part was playing soccer and baseball with the little kids. I brought a baseball bat and a ball with me and I’m happy to say that I started a baseball team in Cusmapa, even if only for a day. The kids love the game. I showed them how to hit, pitch, and field the ball; they were naturals. They picked up the game right away and they loved it. They took turns wearing my hat and sunglasses and laughing. They would shout, “Soy gringo! Soy gringo!” as they ran around the little patch of grass that I established as our field. It was an awesome feeling to share in their joy  and observe their camaraderie and how well they bonded. They were only about seven years old and they were so cute.

• Bridget: When we were working at the Fabretto center in Esteli, I made up a game with the kids. I would yell a body part in Spanish, and then they had to put the ball to that body part. Another of my favorite experiences were the sunsets in Cusmapa. At the sunset lookout point, I found a little nook within the rocks. I sat there and reflected on the trip.
• Bella P: During the last few days of the trip we were working in Cusmapa where our group split between a few workstations. One of my favorite parts was shifting dirt that they would later use to make cement. It seemed like such a simple task, but it was extremely satisfying to separate the finer particles from the rocks – even if it was a little time consuming. Although before thetrip, I would have thought this process very tedious, everyone working together made all of the difference. There was such a good vibe and energy while we sifted the sand and learned new Spanish vocab.
• Kara: We were traveling from Granada to Estelí and we stopped to see an active volcano.   We weren’t allowed to stay up there very long because there was a lot of sulfur in the air, which apparently isn’t good to breathe in.  On the drive up to the crater, we saw tons of ash and volcanic rocks scattered all over the ground, and there were some huge boulders from the volcano. There wasn’t a lot of lava, but what we could see bubbling up to the surface we could see was very cool. It glowed if you looked at it through polarized sunglasses. We could feel the heat from where we were standing.
• Alex: In the volunteer house in Cusmapa, there was an adorable small field mouse and Jed Dowler was absolutely terrified. He ran into his room and cowered in fear on top of his bunk bed trying to escape the field mouse. Ultimately the field mouse won.

 

What was your least favorite part of the trip?

• Bridget: THE CLIFF JUMP! We took a hike into a canyon along a river. Then we climbed the canyon walls and jumped off into the water. The cliff we jumped off of was probably about 30 feet high, and you spent a good 3-4 min in the air just free falling before you hit the water. It was my least favorite part because although I finally enjoyed actually jumping, I was really scared to do it. But I’m glad I did it in the end!
• Will: When I accidentally deleted three days worth of footage on my camera!

 

What made you want to participate in this year’s trip?

• Bridget: I wanted to improve my Spanish and I also love children!
• Kara: I wanted to learn about their education system and see how they live.
• Sara: This was my second time going to Nicaragua and I do not regret the decision at all. I wanted to take this second opportunity and be a leader to the group and show them what the trip is all about and what serving really means.
• Bella J: I love to travel and I love doing service work. When I was a freshman at Canterbury, all the upperclassmen that went on the trip told me that I should consider participating on this trip as soon as I was eligible. So there was no hesitation when I applied for this years trip!
• Jed: For the experience.

 

What was the best thing you ate?

• Bella J: All the food we ate was amazing, but the best was when Nora cooked for all of us at the volunteer house in Cusmapa. Nora lives in Cusmapa and is good  friends with Mrs. Omaña. She runs a small coffee farm in her backyard and grinds, roasts, and sells coffee with her husband.
• Kara: I never had hummus until I went on this trip, and it was delicious. I also tried pineapple jelly and it was the best thing my taste buds have ever encountered.

  

• Bella P: There was this soda called Fanta Roja and it was the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. A lot of people loved it. But honestly, it tastes like cough syrup and maraschino cherry juice. Fun fact: Fanta Roja is illegal in the U.S. because it is made with red dye 40. But, the best food would definitely be Nora’s tacos in Cusmapa.
• Alex: After about a week of nothing but plantains, we stumbled upon a pizza parlor. I got an Americanized, calorie-filled meat lovers pizza and it had absolutely no plantains on it. It was just glorious!

 

Did you feel like you made a difference?

• Bridget: The first day of working was a little rough. I didn’t feel useful because I was doing construction stuff and I didn’t really understand what to do, so I felt more like a burden than any help. But once we started playing with the kids, I felt like I was making a difference and my being there mattered. And, eventually I realized that the work I was doing was going to help change their lives.
• Kara: I was also with Bridget at the construction sight the first day and also didn’t feel like I was helping, but rather prolonging the process. But when we came back the second day and they had finished what we had started, I realized that we did make a difference. We helped in the little way we could, saved those guys some time, and it was really cool to see what we did.
• Will: ‘No matter how small, a difference is a difference.’ Ms. Getz told us that, but put that in as a quote from me instead. 
• Jed: ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog’ – Mark Twain. I feel like I made the biggest difference on our last night. We all had gone to watch the sunset on top of this hill. On our way up, this group of kids came up to talk to us. It was really cold on the top of the hill and the kids looked really cold and sad. We then gave the children our sweatshirts so they could keep warm, and I gave mine to this little boy who looked about five, but Mrs. O told us later that he was probably 8.  He was so small and malnourished. When I gave my sweatshirt to him, he started crying. It was a very emotional experience for me. I felt like that was just the most important thing I did during that trip and my entire life.

Who is someone that you met during the trip that you will never forget?

• Jed: Our Fabretto guide, Marcus, with whom I am now friends with on Facebook, and I became pretty good friends. One night in Esteli, Marcus, Cam, and I decided to go get pizza. It was around 10 p.m. and when we got there it was closed. So we found a Nicaraguan version of a Buffalo wild wings instead.  We  had to walk back, which defeated the purpose of going out for food in the first place. We were hungry again by the time we walked all the way back to the hotel.  But throughout the adventure, Marcus had our backs.
• Will: When we ventured off into the Nicaragua wilderness to swim in a gorge. We met a guy named Ray who we thought was Danish but turned out to be from New Zealand. He was just out of college and was traveling the world by himself. It was very inspiring to see someone his age just going out into the world. But it was also sad that he was by himself.
• Bridget: In La Cruz, I met this cute little girl and taught her what chalk was. She then took the chalk and drew a picture of me. The Fabretto center in LaCruz  serves the families who live off the municipal garbage dump.  They pick through the garbage looking for anything to salvage or sell. The kids in LaCruz search for plastics and other recyclables to sell. At the end of every day we worked there, the kids would ask us for our water bottles. It made me so sad to realize that this was her life. And this is why the Fabretto center is so important to that community. The kids are being educated instead of working in the dump. It’s a condition of them participating in the Fabretto program. No working in the dump.  
• Kara: I met a ten year old boy named Luis and he practically broke both my ankles playing soccer. After that we started talking and he told me something in Spanish, but I couldn’t understand what he said. He knew that I didn’t understand him so he slowed down and tried to put it in as simple words as he could so that I could understand him. I thought that was really cool.

 

What was the hardest part about the trip?

• Bella P: Dealing with shifting from a  U.S. mindset to a new Nicaraguan reality. The first few days were hard because it was such a different culture, pace, and environment.. A few days into the trip I got frustrated because we were working on a project, but the men who were working alongside us as foremen treated me and the other female volunteers like we couldn’t do anything right. But in the end we proved them wrong!
• Sara: The last night in Cusmapa as we were watching the sunset. As we started walking back to the volunteer house, I looked back at the sunset and realized that this might be the last time I ever see the sunset in Cusmapa. I really hope that isn’t the case, but it was hard to say goodbye.

  

• Bella J: When we were walking back to the volunteer house from the sunset, Marcus told us that the oldest girl in the group of kids that approached us was probably the mother of the youngest boy in the group. She didn’t look any older than 13 and it was hard to think that little girl was already a mother. I have a 13 year-old sister and I had a hard time imagining my little sister with a child. They are so young and definitely deserve a better life.
• Alex: My love-hate relationship with plantains. I ate so many during the beginning of the trip that by the end I totally despised them. They put plantains with everything!
• Jed: It is a tie between trying to speak Spanish and holding back my tears when I gave the little boy my sweatshirt. Also, witnessing so much poverty, all the malnourished animals wandering through the trash filled streets, and the fact that children live in and survive off of a garbage dump  –  I don’t think I’ll ever forget those images.

 

Did you learn anything new about yourself?

• Bella J: I discovered what I want to do in the future. Having gone to Colombia last summer to study the socioeconomic changes that were occurring there now that it is in a post-war state, and now after going to Nicaragua, it has inspired me to want to pursue Latin American Studies in college.
• Kara:  Going to Nicaragua and using the Spanish I have acquired in  my Spanish classes made me realize how much I really love the language. I got to step out of my comfort zone and that was really cool.

  

• Bella P:  I learned a lot about myself, especially after the trip, when I was able to sit down and reflect on everything I had done in those ten days. I learned that I definitely want to become more actively engaged in service projects and continue doing trips like these. It was hard seeing the very difficult and desperate conditions the people of Nicaragua live in, and comparing that to my life. I want to travel more and expose myself as much as possible to the world.
• Alex: I loved how understanding and kind the people of Nicaragua were to me for not being able to speak Spanish well. For someone like myself who has taken Spanish for three years, it was a little bit intimidating to get by with the little Spanish I knew, but everyone was very accepting and understanding.
• Jed: This trip has inspired me to want to do more with what I have been given. I know now that I need to use what I’ve been given to benefit others. I’m a pretty lucky guy.
• Will: I learned how important it is to know a second language.

Would you recommend other Canterbury students to go on this trip?

• Kara: 100% YES! Would recommend! It was amazing! If anyone is questioning whether or not to go, just go. I truly cannot describe the experience, you have to live it. I was just that good.
• Bella J: Canterbury offers you so many things and this is something you should definitely do. You will regret never going on this trip before you graduate. It was just truly life changing. I highly recommend this trip.
• Will: I would only recommend this trip to people who would take full advantage of it. Some people don’t realize what an opportunity this is and they might see this as a “vacation” more than anything else. If you are that person I would discourage you. Also, don’t go with your friends, and if you are brave enough, go with your hermano (that means brother for you gringos). 

  

• Alex: I would recommend this trip to anyone who enjoys food. I have greatly enjoyed food for all seventeen years of my life and if you go to Nicaragua, you will see food you don’t recognize, but I say, eat it anyway. Most of the food was pretty solid!
• Sara: Absolutely go to Nicaragua! You really need to have an open mind going into this trip. You will discover so much about yourself, but be prepared to be out of your comfort zone! And take risks. “Don’t anticipate, just participate”, as Mrs. O always says.
• Jed: It was the best trip of my life. You learn so much about your classmates and about yourself that you might not know already. You discover emotions you didn’t even know were there. Movies and pictures don’t give it justice. You just have to experience it.
• Bridget: A few days before the trip, I was really nervous because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to handle the work, the culture, or the language. But it was the best trip I have ever been on. It was nice to get away, disconnect,  and do something meaningful for others.

 

Check out Mrs. Omana’s article on the history of the relationship between the Fabretto Organization and Canterbury!