I expected this trip to impose a lasting change on me, but now I feel that this trip to Nicaragua has changed me in ways I never could have imagined. Experiencing the poverty first hand during the home stay and having my perception of the United States change dramatically have been very transformational experiences.

Something that I really liked during this trip, which did not really happen when I studied abroad in Argentina, was that we got to interact with kids a lot in Nicaragua. I feel that this truly humanizes the experience and helps motivate one to want to make a difference in a country like Nicaragua. From the kids I met during the home stay, to the school in the Nueva Vida community and the kids in the school on the coffee farm, it was hopeful to see so many happy kids. A lot of times these experiences came as surprises as many of us did not realize that we would be meeting kids on a given day. It was a lot of fun getting to know the kids during the home stay, and I hope that I can one day possibly be reunited with them. I particularly liked meeting the kids on the coffee farm, because they prepared something to sing for us and then asked us to sing for them. We were not expecting this and so we all felt scrambled for a moment but then we decided to sing Carmen Ohio for the kids. This was honestly one of my favorite moments from the trip because I have found that a lot of times on study abroad trips, it is easy to separate the experience from your college experience in the moment. This is because what you’re doing during study abroad is so different even when there is a class element to it. Also because a lot of the time you are meeting the people on your trip for the first time and so you do not always have it in mind that you all go to the same college. However, singing Carmen for the kids made me feel like I was back at Ohio State and really helped connect the two experiences for me because I felt that this was a unique Ohio State experience in that moment.

Interacting with all this kids and seeing kids in more extreme scenarios such as in hospitals made me realize that many of the kids in Nicaragua have to deal with things in their country that adults in the United States may never have to experience. It is scary to think about how different that reality is. We had a few talks the last couple of days on what we would take with us when we got back to the United States. I feel that a big thing for me is to constantly keep in mind what I saw and the actual state of the world. It is easy to get lost in your own country’s reality and feel that it is the only reality. The truth, however, is that much of the world lives in the conditions that Nicaraguans do or in even worse conditions. I do not understand how a country like the United States which has so much “power” and so many resources can allow these things to go on and even allow them in its own country. I realize that solutions to these problems are not easy, but what I have really learned on this trip is that the culture in the United States is to want more and more and at many times at the expense of other peoples’ rights; especially people who do not live in the United States. So I understand that solutions will take time and a lot of effort, but it has to begin with the realization that greed will not take us to a good place and that we honestly do not need everything that we actually just want. This experience will leave an impact on me for the rest of my life and it makes me so grateful that I decided to study abroad a second time and that I chose this program. I hope that I can one day return to Nicaragua and that when I do, I return to a Nicaragua that has had more of its needs met.

On Friday we visited a place in Granada called Café de las Sonrisas; or the cafe of smiles. While there we met an extremely innovative and compassionate man from Spain who started the project Café Sonrisa. He moved to Nicaragua from Spain eleven years ago and I had a feeling that he was from Spain because he was the first person in Nicaragua that I heard use the vosotros form in his Spanish. Café Sonrisa has helped blind and deaf individuals through job creation. The types of jobs that become available to them are restaurant related and methods of hammock making.

I was amazed by the man who created this project because when first entering the café I imaged that he was just going to teach us about how his project has helped people and how they make the hammocks. However, he began by saying that he was cook when he was in Spain. He then talked to us about economies and how we as consumers have a huge responsibility to helping countries around the world maintain their economies. This included how buying shirts and other goods made in other countries promoted slave labor and sweat shops. He talked about other economic dynamics between the United States and Nicaragua and how most of the Nicaraguans who become doctors, lawyers and professors move to the United States to obtain these jobs. The problem then is that these fields are not capable of progress within Nicaragua. He also tied this into immigration and how people have to understand that people in countries like Nicaragua have no choice but to try and immigrate so that they can find jobs and make money for their families. It already amazed me how much he knew about what was happening in the world and it was very humbling of him to keep going back to the fact that he was just a cook.

Just when I thought he couldn’t become anymore multi-faceted, he began talking about the things he created. He showed us tools he created to help with things related to the project and how they were essentially just made out of commonly used items, such as how they made hammocks out of plastic bags and used these plastic bags as a form of currency for people. I now began to view him in an engineering light, and I realized just how innovative he was. He talked about many of the problems he encountered in Nicaragua on his road to helping people, and how he would enter a problem-solving state of mind for days an end to figure out a solution. What truly humbled me about all of this is that I was amazed at how smart and how motivated this man was, but a part of me wondered why he was not doing something more esteemed such as engineering. What I realized was that he could be whoever he wanted to be or do whatever he wanted to do, but he chose to come to Nicaragua instead of living grandly and focus on helping people. I find that people too often are interested in their own wants and let other people’s rights suffer so that they can have more. However, what I realized while listening to this man talk, is that he was very similar to many of the people that I have met and listened to while in Nicaragua. These people have been strong, motivated and innovative but have seen the struggles of this country and realize that there are more important things than building up yourself and your material desires. They are also not doing it for any form of fame or image, they are simply doing it to make a difference. The thing that really got to me while he was talking was when he told us “Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something and don’t let yourself believe that you can’t do something because we started from nothing and we have made all of this possible.” I’m paraphrasing a bit but he was stating this from the fact that they had little to no resources and were able to create so many things. I now feel that he believes this as well because he has seen amazing things happen in Nicaragua as far as efforts for helping the people in the country. This is not something that I will forget especially after he showed us what he was capable of doing. With enough will, and enough motivation for the right cause, anything is possible.

Hola! My name is Chris Matteo and I am about to be a third year. I am pursuing a double major in math and psychology and a minor in Spanish. I had an interest in this trip because I am interested in potentially doing social work and since I am doing a Spanish minor I felt that a social work program in a Spanish speaking country would be a good way to intertwine two of my fields of interest. I also studied abroad in Argentina for about three weeks last May and had an amazing experience that made me want to study abroad again.

The idea of participating in a home stay was beginning to make me nervous as we arrived in Leon and got to the University there to meet the families. However, as with most things, my nervousness turned out to be a precursor for something great. My host father, Jorge, was very friendly and funny from the beginning. We went back to his home on his motorcycle which was the perfect way for my nervousness to transition into excitement. I was participating in this home stay experience with a social worker named Dylan, who is originally from the United States but after college lived in Argentina for a year and a half and then had been living in Nicaragua for three months. This was very helpful because although I am fairly confident in my Spanish abilities, it was a significant challenge to understand everything that Jorge and his family would say and so having Dylan there was a very helpful crutch linguistically and culturally. Jorge lived with his sister, her five kids, and his mother. They also had chickens, birds, a rooster and a dog. I was very humbled when I first saw his home. The bathroom was by itself outside, most of the house seemed constructed from metal you may find in a scrapyard, and there was no air conditioning. Considering that it was actually hotter inside the house than outside, they were essentially living outside; and Leon is one of the hottest places in Nicaragua. None of this seemed to phase the family though. The kids were full of vitality and I remember Jorge talking to me while looking out from his second floor and telling me that Nicaragua is so beautiful because everything is natural in the country. His house was natural, and he and everyone else in the house found natural ways to be happy.

I will admit that enduring the heat for those few days was certainly a struggle. However, being around the family greatly helped distract me from the heat. Everyday Dylan and I would play soccer, baseball or some form of catch with the kids. The food that my host family offered to me was incredible. I was amazed by Jorge’s sister, who was a single mother of five kids of varying ages. She was able to take care of all of them and find the time to give Dylan and I what we needed as well all while having a smile on her face. I was very happy to have the opportunity to practice my Spanish, however at times I wished that there were no language barrier. Sometimes I would just sit and try to understand everything being said which proved to be a mentally draining experience; especially in the morning. All in all, I feel that the exhaustion from heat and language were both things that helped me grow.

My biggest takeaways from the home stay are:

1. Never look down on someone because they have less than you. I feel that this is something people get caught up in in American society too often as our individualistic and competitive society is a breeding ground for our egos to thrive.
2. Community is one of the most important things we can have. People in this community depending on one another for things like food and were happy to help one another.
3. You can’t always choose your situation but you can choose how to react to your situation. My host family did not live is as developed of a house as people in the United States, nor did they have the same resources or opportunities. However, they were arguably happier than most people I have met in the United States who are very well off.