Dirt floors, tin bucket showers and outdoor latrines. There I stood a foreigner to a La Chimpanilla, Nicaragua, a microcosm of the truth about worldwide poverty - a village with beautiful faces, anxious smiles, and welcoming arms. Each moment assimilated in my eyes: mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, elders, children, and babies; a family and a community as one. Each and every one of them looked up to me, and I knew I couldn’t disappoint them.
Cerulean skies down to mountain peaks, banana trees to sugar cane, coffee plants and black beans; evanescent beauty swallowed me whole, as one small village became an entire new world to me. I had come to La Chimpanilla with my fellow “buildOn” members to give a future to those children - a future each and every one of them rightfully deserves regardless of gender or age. A future no amount of money can buy, education- priceless. This community was now my family, no matter the color of their skin or the language they spoke, I adapted. A family of assorted colors, accents, and origins – yet a family all the same. Together we put forth our most astounding effort to build La Chimpanilla a school. Love introduced me to an intrinsic source of passion, pleasure, and valued work. In return that love challenged my strength and perseverance; but soon it granted me the power to change lives. This school held the key that unlocked the poverty that chained them, and I had to help set them free.
However, I didn't give them nearly as much as they gave me. My host family welcomed me, a stranger, into their home. Selflessly giving me food to eat, a place to sleep, and ultimately they gave me their culture, something I could never give them in return. La Chimpanilla transformed me to have a new outlook on the world, outside the boundaries of the USA. Acculturation defined me; I was limitless – a place that had once only been a dot on the map to me became an entire macrocosm. Nicaragua gave me a second mother, and another grandmother, and three brothers who loved me unconditionally as their own. Nicaragua is a piece of me that no one can ever take away; the value of love. Love that formed its own entity, and allowed me to understand that no matter the language, communication is beyond words.
Nicaragua became a second home to me. Today, an airplane ride separates me from that home, but my heart has never left.
Cerulean skies down to mountain peaks, banana trees to sugar cane, coffee plants and black beans; evanescent beauty swallowed me whole, as one small village became an entire new world to me. I had come to La Chimpanilla with my fellow “buildOn” members to give a future to those children - a future each and every one of them rightfully deserves regardless of gender or age. A future no amount of money can buy, education- priceless. This community was now my family, no matter the color of their skin or the language they spoke, I adapted. A family of assorted colors, accents, and origins – yet a family all the same. Together we put forth our most astounding effort to build La Chimpanilla a school. Love introduced me to an intrinsic source of passion, pleasure, and valued work. In return that love challenged my strength and perseverance; but soon it granted me the power to change lives. This school held the key that unlocked the poverty that chained them, and I had to help set them free.
However, I didn't give them nearly as much as they gave me. My host family welcomed me, a stranger, into their home. Selflessly giving me food to eat, a place to sleep, and ultimately they gave me their culture, something I could never give them in return. La Chimpanilla transformed me to have a new outlook on the world, outside the boundaries of the USA. Acculturation defined me; I was limitless – a place that had once only been a dot on the map to me became an entire macrocosm. Nicaragua gave me a second mother, and another grandmother, and three brothers who loved me unconditionally as their own. Nicaragua is a piece of me that no one can ever take away; the value of love. Love that formed its own entity, and allowed me to understand that no matter the language, communication is beyond words.
Nicaragua became a second home to me. Today, an airplane ride separates me from that home, but my heart has never left.
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