Spring Break

It's Spring Break season here in the Manna house! During March, we have groups from different universities come visit for a week and help us out with programs, see what we do, and get to travel a little bit of Nicaragua. Last week was our first week of Spring Break groups, and we had two at the same time! Maggie and Davis led a group from Vanderbilt who stayed at the Manna house and focused on our Math and Literacy program, and Sam and I were in charge of a group from UNC, who stayed at some nearby dorms and focused on our nutrition and health programs.

It's hard to know what to expect when you're in charge of a group of 11 college students who come on a service trip during their spring break. For some of our group, it was their first trip out of the country. After the week, however, I can say with certainty that this group of college students far exceeded my expectations and I was very sad to see them go yesterday.

We spent most of the week just helping out with the programs and classes that Manna has. On Monday, the group sat in on Sam and my beginner's English class. It was their first full day in the country, many of them spoke no Spanish, and yet they eagerly jumped in to talk with our students and participate in a very competitive game of Jeopardy. Their eagerness to engage with the students and to help out was amazing and added a huge amount of energy to our class. Their positive energy continued throughout the whole week, in everything they did - helping with Milk Day in La Chureca, coming up with exercise routines to help teach women's exercise, working with students in English classes, preparing food for a nutrition demo, doing some manual labor at one of the community centers we work at, and more.

More than any of their work, however, what impressed me most about this group was their questions. Development work is hard, particularly for me as an engineer, because there are a lot of questions and very few clear answers. Are the programs we are running effective? Do they meet the needs of the community we are trying to serve? What needs are most pressing that we can address? Is the community open to our work and do they want what we're offering? Who am I to come in and assume I know what this community needs? After just a few days of seeing our communities and our programs, the group was able to ask and discuss these questions. When we had a wrap-up discussion during our overnight trip to a nature reserve called Tisey, every single student impressed me with their insights and understanding of the work we do and development work in general.

Although it was rather draining to lead a week-long spring break group, it was also one of my favorite experiences I have had this year. It was refreshing to see our programs through new eyes and to get an outside perspective on what we do. It was energizing to soak up some of the positive attitude and energy which the UNC group had, and it was a ton of fun to just sit around and chat with the group. When Sam and I dropped them off at the airport yesterday, I literally almost cried saying bye to them - we miss them already!

This week, a group of girls from UGA are here and are working with some nearby preschools! We'll host our last group next week, a group from Worcester State University. It'll be a busy month, but definitely an enjoyable one as well!