Dispatch #1
The first day in Nicaragua was a blur of emotions. I still haven?t recovered from the extremes we encountered that first day. We saw a library, a major national landmark, and met a group of librarians, all before dinner- a preview of what our days would be like. We got on an air-conditioned private bus straight from the airport (the type of travel that, even in the US, seems luxurious to me). We drove our tour bus straight to the countryside outside of the capital city, Managua, to a small, rural town called Tipitapa. The extreme poverty we encountered there was a slap in the face and after twenty short minutes, back on the bus we went. After another short drive, we arrived at a national park, holding one of the country?s many active volcanoes. The extremes we encountered in those few short hours left me reeling. They also seem to mirror the extreme differences between the U.S. and Nicaragua; the extremes found within Nicaragua itself.
The Managua airport is located on the outskirts of the city and so driving from the airport to the countryside takes you through a series of industrial complexes, much like are found on the outskirts of Boston. Many of the industrial complexes we drove through after leaving the airport were garment manufacturers. Some in the U.S. may envision this industry as ?sweatshops,? although these manufacturers tend to employ adult males, not the child labor we so often hear about in Southeast Asia. Our tour guide in Nicaragua (and the founder of the San Juan del Sur Biblioteca), Jane, explains that we shouldn?t judge, that these jobs provide a means of existence for many families. I wonder what the working conditions are behind the barbed wire fences.
The fourteen GSLIS students, student leader, and Jane do a quick round of introductions in the van as we drive. Our professor will arrive later and meet us in San Juan del Sur, our home base of sorts while in Nicaragua. A few of us knew each other casually before this trip but for the most part we are complete strangers flung into this incredible and strange situation together. Jane points out landmarks and explains some geographic aspects of Nicaragua as we head toward Tipitapa. Jane is from New England originally but has lived in San Juan del Sur for about ten years.
We pull off the main road and enter Tipitapa (which does have, arguably, the best town name ever- it?s pronounced just as you think it is). The architecture resembles what you may see anywhere in developing nations- one-story buildings made from large, concrete blocks, some houses or groups of houses located behind high walls, with either barbed wire or broken glass bottles stuck into the top of the wall for security. The roads are dirt, with ditches on either side (formed from runoff), full of bits and pieces of trash. People sitting on their front porches watch our pristine bus drive by with interest, and sometimes wave.
We pull up at a seemingly arbitrary place on the side of the road. No one except Jane has any idea what to expect. We have been told we will be seeing the end of a story hour and then get a quick tour of the library there. The library is run by a group of volunteers, who set up a lending program with a box of a thousand books donated by Jane.
We pile out of the bus and walk into a walled compound. There are about forty children (ranging from probably ages four to ten or eleven) singing and dancing while a man in the center of their circle plays the guitar and leads them in song. There are also a couple of older women and a group of teenage girls. Everyone speaks Spanish; no one speaks English. The songs are in Spanish. We make our way around the circle and attempt to participate in our own ways- smiling at children and each other, imitating the animal sounds the kids and adults are making, dancing. It is bizarre and surreal; exciting and overwhelming. I look over my shoulder at one point and see our bus, as clean as ever, with our luggage piled high on top, our driver just outside the door, speaking with the few adults that have gathered because of the commotion. I have tears in my eyes and I don?t understand why they are there and I try to fight them back.
The singing dies down and we are ushered next door, to where the library is located. There is one large building- the home of one of the librarians- and then a shed/lean-to type attachment on one side. This lean-to, with concrete block walls and a corrugated tin roof, probably about ten feet long by three feet wide, is the library. There are four roughly made shelves that hold books, a desk, a filing cabinet. There is no order we librarians from the States are used to; there are no spine labels. Children?s books and adult books are separated and many are in English; there are a variety of board games and educational posters. The fifteen of us pile into the little room and look around. None of us know quite what to say to each other or to the librarians explaining the collection. It is unlike anything we have experienced; it is awesome that the collection is there, being so heavily used.
The librarian explains that the vast majority of the collection is in circulation so they don?t need much room for storage (can you imagine if libraries in Boston were like that? How many people would have books?!). Each child is allowed to take home four books each week. The main librarian, Karen, has been trained by the librarians at San Juan del Sur. She, along with a group of young women volunteers (who are all members of a local softball team), run the library. They (along with the group of children who have followed us from before) thank us for coming to see their library and I wonder what we?ve done to deserve any thanks. I am grateful to the student in our group who can express our gratitude in Spanish. As we are leaving to get back on the bus, a small girl, probably about eight or so, tugs on my hand and then hugs me.
Dispatch #2
I am finding it so difficult to write these blog entries. I loved my time in Nicaragua so much and am so thankful for both the experiences I had and the friendships I formed during our week there. There is difficulty in expressing both how happy I was to be there and how difficult it was to see some of the things we saw. On one hand, there was the volcano erupting in our backyard (!) and in the other, there is the woman pressing her hospital bills to our van window. I haven?t come to terms with the experience yet and I expect it will be many months, even years, before I am really able to understand what I learned and write about it coherently. My only hope is that the confusion in these blog entries gives an insight into what it was like to travel and that it does not cast a negative view. I had an awesome time. I don?t think confusion is a bad thing- I think it is one of the most powerful things we can learn from.
On the second day, we take a ferry to the volcanic island of Ometepe, located in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. We arrive at our hotel, previously described as ?rustic,? which is actually paradise on earth. Literally. The hotel is a series of casitas, each small two-story house has a private room, bathroom, and porch on each story. Our house overlooks the lake (which is one of the largest lakes in Central America; large enough that we cannot see land on the other side and that it has waves) and we settle in our porch, unable to believe our luck. As if on cue for our arrival, the large volcano on the island, Concepci?n, begins to erupt, ash pouring out of the top exactly perpendicular to our view. We are completely out of harm?s way (which is lucky, as the lake holds the legendary only freshwater sharks in the world) but anyone hiking may not be so lucky, nor the communities at the base of the ash cloud.
As we take a mid-afternoon walk through a nature preserve on the other side of the island and eat another delicious meal in the hotel restaurant, a feeling of frustration sets in. I felt a lot of frustration on the trip, for a variety of reasons. Much of the frustration stemmed from my own feelings of helplessness, my inability to solve the problems I saw in front of me, my feelings of guilt for being as fortunate as I am. Why do I get to be here, when others in the U.S. could never afford to do this sort of thing? Why am I being treated as a tourist, when I came here to learn? Maybe (and I realize this is an impossible thing in a week) to help, in some small way? Basically- what am I doing here?
I am privileged and have done a fair amount of traveling. I have been to four continents and lived abroad for a year when I was 21. I have been to both developed and developing countries. And this paralyzing feeling- of culture shock, I am always only able to realize in retrospect- has only happened to me in Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, and Ghana, where I lived for three months. I feel a sense of discomfort in coming to a developing country or nation in conflict and?observing. Why is that? Doing the exact same activities- looking out over a beautiful body of water, taking a stroll through the woods- would make me so happy in the U.S. or Western Europe. In Nicaragua, I feel awkward. Useless. Exploitive.
As I explored these feelings a bit more when I got home, I tried to understand them. On Ometepe, most people make their living through agriculture. We spoke to some locals when we went to a library on the island and they, along with guidebooks and Jane and others at the hotel, reiterated that while agriculture is king, tourism is beginning to affect island life. As more and more people discover how lovely the island is, more people come, often bringing their inflated foreign currency with them. So more locals become involved in the tourist industry. And the culture shifts in both perceptible and imperceptible ways.
Are we, as tourists, doing irreversible harm? Should we not go? I don?t think so- the economy on Ometepe is starting to depend on groups like ours going there. And I do think that international travel is one of the best ways for different cultures to begin to understand each other (especially in a country like Nicaragua, which has such a checkered past with the U.S.). But what happens if the tourists stop coming? There is no industry, no jobs, to absorb the loss. Would the island bounce back? I?m sure, just as tourist areas would in the U.S. (although the tourist industry in the U.S. is coming as much from our own citizens- and thus our own economy- as from others, but that?s another issue for another day). But I worry that the consequences would be more extreme in Nicaragua.? And so I feel frustrated.
But it?s hard to complain too much. I can?t when I?ve got waves crashing in my ears, bright pink flowers draping over my porch, wonderful people surrounding me- and I?m getting class credit. And we?ve got more libraries to visit.
Dispatch #3
Our group spent one full day at a library conference at a hotel in Granada. Twenty-five librarians from Nicaragua showed up, representing fifteen different organizations. Such is the state of librarianship in the country- there are government operated public libraries (143, to be exact) but there many more libraries than that operating in a public library capacity. Most of these non-profit, independent library projects are funded by organizations in the U.S. (as the San Juan del Sur Biblioteca is) or Europe. There is an amount of collaboration between these librarians (as with conferences or workshops like we attended) but there is also a fair amount of disconnect between the different groups. There is no time or money to thoroughly assess what types of initiatives are working or not working and why, so most libraries do their own thing and learn through trial and error.
We were asked to present on a variety of topics that Jane thought would be useful. It felt good to have a job, a purpose for the day, but it also felt weird to be presenting to these library professionals (they may not have a library degree but this is what they do) about what may be useful in Nicaragua- when I clearly knew only a teeny bit about the country. I also felt like it would be useful for them to speak to each other about what they were doing (and secretly I was interested in hearing this) but this is not what they had signed up for on that day. And so we all spoke- covering social network tools, craft projects for children, storytelling techniques, illustrating how to use an overhead projector. It was exhilarating for some students and overwhelming for others. I felt both things.
Ah, but the overhead projectors. Jane has recently received a donation of hundreds of overhead projects that were going to be thrown out in the U.S. Not only did she get the projectors but she also had several replacement bulbs, many sheets of transparency, and markers, meaning that any library receiving a projector would be able to use it for years and years to come (assuming the library has electricity available, which is not always true).
This flow of information, money, and technology from the global north (i.e. the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan) to the global south (Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia) is nothing new. It is a familiar discussion in development literature. This workshop and the projectors seemed to be a perfect metaphor for it- as well as the good intentions behind so much of the flow. Another example of this occurred to me as we were cataloging books for a library that was going to open a week or so after our group left Nicaragua. As I stamped each book to be sent, I noticed that I recognized so many of the books. Every book had come from the U.S. They were all in Spanish but most of them were Spanish translations of the books I would find in any children?s room in Boston. In Latin America- an area of the world rich with publishing companies- I wondered why nothing was coming from Brazil, Argentina. How would this seemingly random supply of books affect the community they were placed in? Is it a type of unintentional imperialism? Study abroad as a modern concept began when young English aristocrats were sent to the British colonies in the 19th century on a ?grand tour? of the ?exotic? nations. It is a history we must be aware of as study abroad students. In a country with not nearly enough books to go around, the library we were helping to set up is a goldmine and can be nothing but positive when compared with nothing. But the issues above are still things we should be considering, as volunteers.
Much like the tenets of ecotourism, the hope is that as volunteers we are leaving things as we found them. Bettering, rather than destroying, the country and areas we visit. And helping set up a library is probably a purely positive thing. But that doesn?t mean we shouldn?t consider the things above and do our best to counteract- even just through critical discussion- potential impacts. That said, Jane is doing incredible work. She is not a librarian- she saw a need in her community for access to books when she noticed that people came to her hotel asking to borrow the books guests had left behind. It grew from there- a truly grassroots effort. It is trite and it has already been said but she is an inspiration. And there are many like her in Nicaragua, including the librarians who work with her in San Juan del Sur, who gave up so much of their time to help us understand a small piece of their country.
I finished an autobiography of a Sandinista (Nicaraguan revolutionaries who overthrew the military dictatorship in the early 1980s) woman and famous Nicaragua poet shortly after returning to Boston. There is really nothing better than reading about a place you have traveled to just after returning home- it always helps me to process things. Anyway, I finished the book on the T and the last couple of pages were so perfect, so expertly summed up so many of my feelings from the trip, that I wanted nothing more than to turn to the strangers next to me and read them portions aloud. This blog entry is my way to do that- you are my strangers on the T. And so here she is, Giaconda Belli, writing in The Country Under My Skin:
?There is nothing quixotic or romantic in wanting to change the world. It is possible. It is the age old vocation of all humanity. I can’t think of a better life than one dedicated to passion, to dreams, to the stubbornness that defies chaos and disillusionment. Our world, filled with possibilities, is and will be the result of the efforts offered up by us, its inhabitants. Just as life was a consequence of trial and error, the social organization that brings us the full realization of our potential as a species will issue from the ebb and flow of struggles we jointly undertake across the globe.?
Dispatch #4
My favorite part of the trip was going on the bookmobile.
The San Juan del Sur Biblioteca is located in downtown San Juan del Sur. The biblioteca also has a biblioteca movil component- a traveling library that serves 30 or so rural communities in the hilly areas surrounding the city. El movil is more than a moving library- it is really whatever it needs to be on a given day. On our movil day, it was two pick-up trucks packed full of boxes containing books (we were traveling to a school they regularly visit. Students can keep two books and then exchange them when the movil visits again), school uniforms, and craft supplies. Oh, yeah, and about thirteen Simmons students riding Nica-style (i.e. sitting in the back of a pick-up).
We drove up and down hills on dirt roads for about twenty minutes before we reached the town scheduled for a visit. We unpacked ourselves from the trucks to be greeted by two classrooms full of students. This school has two classrooms, containing students of all ages. We were going to run some programming with the students for an hour or so while the librarians distributed school uniforms and set up the library for the kids to browse. Myself and two other students were assigned to a group of five younger students, between the ages of five and eight or so.
The theme of our week was The Very Hungry Caterpillar (La Oruga Muy Hambrienta en Espa?ol) by Eric Carle. That is this year?s book for ?Read for the Record,? an Americorps JumpStart program that attempts to get as many classrooms as possible, across the globe, to read the same book in the same year. We had many donated books and had been taught, by the San Juan del Sur librarians, several caterpillar and butterfly related crafts to go along with it. I thought this was a great idea- not only because it?s a great book but also because Nicaragua is known for their butterflies.
I read the book aloud to our group, in my crippled Spanish. The kids at least pretended to understand and laughed in the appropriate places. There is one line in Spanish that was my favorite: ?se com?o y com?o?? which means ?he ate and ate.? There?s just something really nice about it in Spanish. After the book, we made caterpillars (from clothespins, pom-poms, and googly eyes- ?ojos locos?) and butterflies (from coffee filters and pipe cleaners). One of the boys in our group, little Carlos (there were two named Carlos) decorated his butterfly wings with a picture of a butterfly. So cool.
While we were working on that project, the librarians were distributing school uniforms. Each child needs a pair of shoes, navy pants, and white button up shirt for school. These items would be inexpensive to us in Boston but can mean the difference between a child receiving education and not in rural Nicaragua. The librarians receive donations and then must fit each child to a uniform. It is time consuming and several families were there, going through the process.
After the uniforms were handed out, the librarians set up four huge Tupperware containers of books, divided into fiction and non-fiction categories. Students went up individually to pick books and sign them out with a librarian. Several volunteers (those with stronger Spanish skills) stayed behind and chatted with the children about books while the rest of us engaged in a soccer game on the road next to the schoolhouse. We had to move the game a couple of times for a group of cows, which only made the game more interesting. Despite our height advantage, the Simmons students lost.
We were at the school for a couple of hours but it seemed like just moments as we climbed back into the trucks to head back. I was inside of a truck on the way back and looking out into the hills I realized for the first time why this time of year was referred to as ?winter.? The temperature isn?t any cooler than the rest of the year but it is the end of the dry season. There is no green; none of the trees have any leaves. It, in many ways, resembles a late winter day in Boston, after the snow has melted.
On the way back to town, the librarians surprised us by pulling off the road onto a very narrow, dirt path. After ten minutes driving into the middle of nowhere, we reached the end of the earth. Huge cliffs surrounded us on either side, split by a small river emptying into the ocean. We walked down the river for about 300 yards and there was the most pristine, isolated beach I have ever seen. The area was totally protected, incredibly beautiful, and the water a perfect temperature. Something about the surroundings, combined with awesome morning working at the school, caused us all to rush into the ocean, with all of our clothes on, with little to no discussion. It was the only thing we could do. It was one of those moments- a natural high. I?ll never forget it.