We have come to the end of our first week here in El Bramadero and are beginning to get a taste of life here. We’ve experienced everything from living with our host families, surviving night-time trips to the latrines and being woken up at the crack of dawn by pigs and chickens.
For our first blog, we thought we’d share with you our top five resounding perceptions from our first week.
#1 We are essentially living in a jungle paradise…
Iniciamos el primer día con un juego para conocer la comunidad de El Bramadero, nos dividimos en cuatro grupos. Los grupos estaban compuestos por: dos nicas y dos británicos. Fue un poco complicado cumplir con los objetivos del juego por la dificultad de comunicarnos, pero con la ayuda de diccionarios y haciéndonos señas logramos entendernos. De los cuatro grupos solo dos llegaron a la meta, pero lo bueno fue que tuvimos la oportunidad de compartir con los chicos. Para ser el primer día estuvo muy bien.
On arrival at Heathrow Airport, two rhetorical questions were uttered by all UK volunteers almost instantly: “What are we doing?” and “Why am I actually doing this?” (Expletives removed here). As we edged closer to Nicaragua on our 18-hour journey, these questions were repeated several times (the bumpy flight was not at all helpful).
During our time in Managua we stayed in a modest building; dormitories of ten with a couple of bathrooms and toilet paper to be deposited in the open bin next to the loo (not ideal in the heat). However, the downfalls of the Nicaraguan drainage system are fully compensated by the environment which contains it. Flowing off the main building, a covered patio runs the length of the building with one side adorned entirely by hammocks. Stretching out in them in the early morning, the sun just peaking out through the trees, was the closest thing to paradise I had yet to experience.
The sun is fatiguing and the dry earth makes you want to drink an iced glass of water. I am arriving in a community that fills me with so many memories and melancholy. I am returning to La Sabanita, one year after volunteering with Progressio ICS, in a team made up of Nicaraguan and British volunteers. Doing a tour through the school, observing so much success and how the students have benefited from our placement, leaves no room for doubt that we delivered what was expected of us.
A year after my ICS placement with Progressio Nicaragua, I decided to return to the community of La Sabanita. It was very gratifying to meet again the people with whom I worked with, whom as usual received me with joy and enthusiasm. It was noticeable the friendliness and the smiles of the women who had received the veggie patches, and who recognised me when they saw me coming.
When our group first arrived in Parcila and discussed what skills we had that we wanted to teach each other in a weekly learning session, everyone was quite apprehensive and many of us claimed to have no special skills. Now it is week eight and we are squeezing in two sessions a week because there are so many cool things that people have discovered that they can do and want to share.
Empezamos una semana muy entusiasmaste con nuevas energías y nuevas metas por lograr muy rápido y en corto tiempo. Ha sido un tiempo muy lluvioso con muchas descargas eléctricas los voluntarios británicos se han sentido un poco muy sorprendidos por el mucho lodo en la comunidad. Ha sido un reto para ellos ya que están acostumbrados a su país, donde no hay lodo porque todo esta pavimentado.
Known as the beautiful land of lakes and volcanos, one could be forgiven for thinking that Nicaragua might be free from water related problems. But having visited the heavily polluted Lake Managua at the start of our cycle, supposedly full of ‘three eyed mutated fish’, it is clear that this is not the case. In spite of a vast quantity of water, very little is safe for consumption or even accessible, leaving roughly 900 thousand Nicaraguans without drinkable water.
Quiero hablar un poco sobre mi experiencia con Progressio. Realmente me ha gustado mucho el haber sido parte de Progressio ICS porque he aprendido muchas cosas que antes no sabía. Desde el primer día que tuvimos nuestro primer viaje a Estelí para conocernos como grupo tanto nosotros de la comunidad del Bramadero, conocimos a los voluntarios de la comunidad de Parcila.
