My Summers with Amigos

La Paz, Honduras: hours of Uno-playing, unpaved roads, and giant toads. Matagalpa, Nicaragua: succulent mangos, infinite beans, and sketchy latrines.

I’ve spent the past two summers facilitating community development projects in rural Honduras and Nicaragua as a volunteer with the nonprofit organization Amigos de las Americas. My chance for vacations blissfully, but mindlessly, immersed in the world of Facebook and multi-day marathons of America’s Next Top Model gave way to planning and teaching environment and health education classes and working as a general contractor on construction projects. In these summers I gained a new respect for myself and began to see my life goals and objectives in a different light.

In Honduras, the kids enjoyed my partner and I’s version of “plaque vs. toothbrush” tag and “nutritious meals” bingo. After multiple town meetings concerning our community-based-initiative, we decided to build walls around a pavilion so that there could be classes during windy or rainy weather. In Nicaragua I used art projects to illustrate the water cycle, and we played “red light-green light” to teach composting. As part of the community-based initiative, I helped build a library and school kitchen. 

My experiences with the community were rewarding, but daily life presented its own challenges. No one from the towns I lived in spoke English, and it turns out that the vocabulary I had memorized in class on windsurfing and centaurs didn’t really help when my patient host mother was trying to explain to me the latest developments on the hit soap opera or “telenovela”.

Despite incredible training and support, before I adapted to and embraced my experiences, I went through a period I like to call “shock and awe.” My attempts to appear as a world-changing, polished, self-sufficient, health and community development facilitator felt like merely a façade. My stomach often became angry with unfortunate suddenness; my constant attempts at translation left my once strong brain a pile of mush, and my usually unflappable demeanor had turned into a roaring sea of excitement, sadness, joy and self-doubt. Yet, something beautiful occurs when we are pushed over the brink of a mindset that once dictated what was possible. My usual confidence, and even cockiness, was whisked away and replaced by a new found vulnerability.

Many would say that experiences such as mine help a person grow and mature, but I disagree. I began to see that I was far younger than I had believed just a few short weeks before. After having gone over my tipping point, my perception of the world reverted back to that of a child’s -- going to bed before eight and seeing the wonder and novelty in the world around me. My underlying but rigid judgments on the culture and lifestyles around me began to crumble. My curiosity was rampant, and I was compelled to ask over and over “but why?” even after the previous “whys" had been answered. I listened less to the exact words people spoke and more to the richness of the tones and feelings behind the words. I found exquisite happiness in playing hours of jump rope and tic-tac-toe. My new best friends were a clan of barefoot seven-year-olds who didn’t make elaborate schedules and certainly didn’t see the connection between self-worth and grade point averages. They judged me not by my credentials or even my Spanish abilities, but by how genuinely I laughed and listened to their ideas.

By the end of each summer I had become a part of a new family, new town, and new community far larger than that which can be defined through geographical or cultural boundaries. Being part of an achievement-focused American lifestyle, I often find that I’m right back where I started, future driven and disciplined. While these are admirable traits, I now seek out chances to reconnect with the spontaneity, openness, and pace of life I discovered during those unforgettable summers.

by Emma Weizenbaum (Amigos Alumnus 2008, 2009)
November 2009