Nicaragua: Llegada y orientación

Hello, everyone! I am resurrecthing this old blog to update you about my latest adventure—I am currently in Tola, Nicaragua, for a 9 week internship with the non-profit organization, the Foundation for Sustainable Development.

For those of you who don’t know where Tola is, it’s a municipality (so, kind of like a county) in the department (their equivalent of a state) of Rivas, on the west coast and southern edge of the country, between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. I live in the urban center of Tola, a small town of about 500 people, but there are a few other small communities where FSD works and where other interns live in the area, including Las Salinas de Nagualpa, Limón 1, Limón 2, and Nancimi. Below is a map of those communities:

I am living with a host family here in Tola: Araceli, a single mother in her thirties who works at a factory in the city of Rivas (about 20 minutes east of Tola by car), and her two teenage daughters, Valeria and Wilmara (I’m not actually sure if that’s how she spells it, but that’s what it sounds like). They are fantastic, and so very welcoming. I have loved getting to know them, talk to them about what it’s like living here in Tola, help Valeria with her English homework, and so on.

I have been here a week already, during which time we had orientation. Most of the orientation took place in the community of Las Salinas de Nagualpa, where Cecilia, the other intern who started at the same time as I did, will be living. I stayed with her and her host family (who were also extremely welcoming) during those days. Orientation consisted of several PowerPoint presentations regarding FSD’s approach to sustainability, Nicaraguan culture and history, personal safety and health tips, and some tools for who to go about the work we’ll be doing. We also did some survey exercises, where we developed a list of questions—the first time about Las Salinas in general, the needs that exist in the community, and what is being done to address them, the second time, more targeted to our area of focus, (so, in my case, women’s rights)—and went around the community asking people said questions. Given that speaking to strangers is not my forte, and that Spanish is my second language, this was kind of terrifying at first, but I think it ended up being a really good exercise, both because it pushed me to get outside my comfort zone and talk to people, and because the things they had to say were really interesting.

FSD partners with local community organizations that already exist in the community, and then matches the interns they accept with said organizations based on the interests and skills of the intern and the needs of the organizations. I will be working with the Casa de la Mujer in the city of Rivas. Yesterday I went in to meet my supervisor, Teresita, and learn about what they do. They have a variety of programs in support of women’s rights and women’s empowerment, including a medical clinic, a lawyer who offers legal advice to victims of abuse or violence, campaigns against gender-based violence, educational programs about women’s rights (as Teresita was telling me, some women don’t know that they have the right not to be abused, because for them that’s just the way life is), and classes on vocational skills. This morning, I went in again to observe their Saturday morning classes. The offer classes on hair styling/beauty, baking, cake decorating, sewing, psychology, law, computer skills, accounting, administration, and so on. It was really great getting to talk to the instructors and some of the students, hear about what they do, and see all the variety of programs that the Casa de la Mujer puts on.

On Monday I start working, and during this first week, I will develop the first draft of my “work plan”—that is, the project I am going to develop and the strategy for getting there. Though when I say “the project I am going to develop,” what I mean is, “the project I am going to help the organization develop and implement.” That was a very important and emphasized element of our orientation material: we, the interns and the FSD team, are not here to do things for the people of Nicaragua, we are here to support them in the process of learning how to identify their needs and their collective goals and implement them for themselves. So my tasks this week will involve learning what the organization is in need of, what the people they serve need and want, and what I can bring to the table to help them accomplish those goals.

This blog entry feels very abbreviated, as there is so much more that I have experienced in the past week. But I should have internet a bit more consistently now, so I can try to update more often. In the meantime, I hope you all are well, thanks for reading, and talk to you soon! ¡Abrazos!