Unimaginable Differences
By Emma Lena
I am still in awe of the cultural differences I encountered in Nicaragua. I was only there a week and even though it felt like longer, it still wasn't enough time to see everything. You cannot imagine the poverty. I felt guilty even thinking about complaining about the no-flush toilet. The optimism these people have will make you think it's not a third world country. Everywhere we went, people smiled, greeted us, and invited us to sit with them.
My sister, Kate, is a Peace Corps volunteer in a small city, Corinto, on the coast. Although volunteers have been going to Nicaragua for 30 years, the Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary just a few weeks ago. In Nicaragua alone, there are about 240 volunteers, working in health, business, environment, agriculture, and teaching English as a foreign language.
My sister works at a youth clinic next to the hospital. It's small, but the work they do is amazing. All the youth and women that come to the clinic really trust her and she's already become a Nicaraguan. She also works at a soup kitchen, which runs solely on donations which aren’t always reliable. Compared to places like Father Bill’s in Quincy and the Pine Street Inn in Boston, it is small and a lot more crowded, but it’s still open and doing well.
Kate is lucky compared to other volunteers when it comes to living conditions. She has four stone walls, a real roof, and a window. This is not common in Nicaragua. Even the areas frequented by tourists are full of begging children and starving animals. Something I never got used to was how inexpensive everything was to us. We bought large glasses of wine for $2 and our Christmas dinner, which included steak and drinks, cost $80 for 8 of us. For Kate, wine is a luxury, and when we brought her to a laundry mat, she was overwhelmed with happiness.
Although I wouldn’t want to live there, I didn’t want to leave. Old women were walking around with these beautifully colorful and intricate aprons, carrying baskets of fruit and bags of milk on their heads. They walked through the streets at 8 in the morning, screaming, "Leche!" It was 80-90 degrees every day and I drank soda from a bag. Everywhere we went, people stared and smiled. A little girl asked to take a picture with my aunt and sister because they were white. We were like freak shows at a carnival. One thing we had to get used to was the noise. During December, people are shooting off fireworks and other extremely loud noisemakers constantly during the day. There was not a moment of quiet all week, except maybe when we were sleeping...maybe.
Being in the Peace Corps and living in this way is something so foreign to most Americans. While there I got a small taste of what it is like, and although I believe I adapted well, being there for 2 1/2 years is something I cannot imagine. I admit I loved the bucket showers, but I did not love the cold water. If you do not filter the water there, you could get a parasite. Here in the United States, even the poorest people have hot water and electricity.
Despite all of this, Nicaraguans have free health care, free education, and they were the friendliest people I have ever met. The whole country is beautiful and I cannot wait to go back in January 2013 to visit her again.
