A Turn In Nicaragua

GRANADA, Nicaragua -- The "colonial heart" of Nicaragua is a colorful, lively town filled with travelers from all over the world, funky restaurants, book swaps, and dozens of volunteer opportunities. I selected one with Casas de Esperanza, a small organization dedicated to helping the residents of La Prusia, a barrio outside the Granada city limits, to construct durable dwellings with running water, light, and working indoor bathrooms.

I arrived on January 3, expecting to begin work on the project immediately. From the website and emails with the organization's coordinator, I gathered that most work was focused on construction, and on-site education ranging from carpentry to languages. The demand for volunteers seemed high, and I was excited. Plus, the organization has a communal volunteer house where you can stay for free as long as you are working on the project.

On the Friday that I met up with other volunteers to learn the route from Granada to the volunteer house and project site, it was hot and sunny. I walked uphill for an hour and a half with all my stuff. The volunteers I met that day had all arrived individually from Spain, but seemed to be a close knit group, and I looked forward to getting to know them better and practicing my Spanish.

However, things didn't quite go as planned. Although La Prusia is a poor community, the need for housing is not as urgent as I had thought. Many families are building homes in the project site, but also have quite comfortable dwellings along the one road that connects the La Prusia community. Although the houses that the families made on their own are mostly made of wood and have "improvised" toilets, all are equipped with electricity and running water. When you see the homes form the outside, they look like dilapidated shacks that belong in the forest. But inside, there are couches and La-Z-Boy chairs, TV and stereos, comfy beds with many blankets and mosquito nets (which are very necessary here). Homes here don't need to be air tight or climate controlled -- they need to be airy and waterproof. Many of these families have been living in these homes in La Prusia for generations, and the leaks are things of the past. People are comfortable.

Most people are building second or third homes at the project site because the materials and property are offered for a $1000 no-interest loan by the organization. True, the project houses are sturdier and built to last. But they are farther from Granada than many of the La Prusia houses, and they don't have the well-known comfort of the hand-me-down houses on the lane.

Anyway, working at the project site is a trial in patience. Often, there is no work to be done because no one from La Prusia is working on their house. Volunteers don't build houses, they just help. Also, there is only one ladder at the project, two levels, two shovels, and a shortage of basically every other material as well. The result: only a couple of people can work at a time.

One thing that the organization has done really well is construct a school on the project site. I am teaching two English classes there. One is for kids and meets three times weekly. I teach adults every day for an hour in the afternoon. But there are no desks in my classroom, just one table that seats about 5 or 6 students. We don't have books for the students other than very basic English-Spanish dictionaries. There is certainly no copy machine or other way to provide handouts. It's really hard to teach, but I have supposedly been successful. Judit, the coordinator, tells me everyday that the people on the lane keep talking about how much they enjoy my classes. Teaching fun classes is one thing, but I really want to teach in a manner that helps my students retain the information over a long period of time, and I'm not quite sure I am doing that. But I am doing what I can, and I guess it helps a bit.

Today, I left the communal volunteer house. After 11 days there, I had enough. At first, living there was okay. I shared a room with one other person, and the two other communal bedrooms were occupied by one person each. Another volunteer slept out in the living room with his dog. We had two bathrooms, and we took turns cooking for each other. Dinner was usually around 7:30pm. But then Judit arrived from the States, and her presence dramatically changed the dynamic in the house. She is originally from Spain, and tilted the cultural balance in the house severely to the European side. Dinner suddenly got pushed back to 9, 10:00 at night. I like to wake up at 6:00 to start work at the project before it's too hot, so eating late definitely wasn't going to work for me.

Then, Judit and another volunteer started bickering. Then more volunteers arrived. Soon, the house was a crazy place. The walls don't go all the way to the ceiling, so the noisy combination of snoring, midnight visits to the bathroom, early morning chit chat, roosters crowing, dogs barking, and general night time sounds made it impossible to sleep. Plus, the kitchen was always dirty or crowded. All I need to do in the house is sleep and eat, and I couldn't do either. So, Jess, another volunteer from the States, and I moved down to a hostel in Granada today.

Now we have a 45 minute walk in the mornings to the site, and 45 minutes more in the afternoon, but that's okay with me. I hate to be a whiner or a quitter, but feeling like the impact I am making here is minimal and feeling uncomfortable in the volunteer house has pushed me to give in a little and change my plans. Instead of staying here for a month or five weeks, I'll probably only do one more week after this one, for a total of three.

This is really the first disappointment I have ever faced traveling, so I don't have much to complain about. Not everything can go as planned. And truly, there are some great things about my experience here. Granada is cool. I like the other volunteers. The kids love me, and teaching them is fun (although exhausting!) My adult students are usually so enthusiastic, they leave class and immediately begin practicing whatever they just learned, even when it means calling the volunteers crazy. (We practiced using the verb "to be" with various adjectives.) I am working on some houses, and the efforts I make aren't in vain.

This isn't what I expected but it's not bad.

The other reason I am thinking about leaving early is that, for the first time in all my travels, I feel homesick. I am getting older, and I appreciate my family now more than ever. I am not going to ignore the fact that I miss them, I am going to go to them. I miss Mexico, I miss Erick, and I miss the wide open friendliness that greeted me at every turn until my arrival here. I've been spoiled by too many good people and too much good love. How could I possibly complain about that?