Visit to the Campo

Last week I went along with the other first year JVs to a community in the rural countryside called Arenal, about an hour outside of Managua. This was to be our first real immersion in an exclusively Spanish speaking environment and I was looking forward to the opportunity to test myself a bit. Spending so much time with other volunteers has meant lots of English speaking (with little bits of Nica Spanglish mixed in!), so having at least a few days of all Spanish was a welcoming challenge.
Besides speaking more Spanish, I was greatly looking forward to getting to know a little of the life in the campo. It didn’t disappoint. Life in Managua certainly has its differences from that of an American city, but nevertheless it’s a major urban center and therefore has many inherent characteristics of any metropolis. There are certainly advantages to being in a city (internet to stay in touch with people!), but I can’t help noticing some of the aspects that will prove to be more challenging for me; traffic, pollution, crowds, people in a rush, garbage, etc. The campo, however, is a different story altogether, and the campesinos are quick to agree. Despite the generally more extreme poverty in the campo in comparison to the city, people who live there often point out that it is a more healthy, calmer, safer, más tranquilo way of life.
The other three volunteers (Andrea, Lauren and Thomas) and I traveled to Arenal together and then went our separate ways once we arrived. Lauren summed up the upcoming challenge as we split up: “Well, adios a English ‘till Friday!”
The family I stayed with, like many in Nicaragua, included several generations of grandparents, cousins, and nieces and nephews along with more extended relatives living just up the hill. While my accommodations were comfortable enough and I had plenty to eat, this was certainly an experience in simple living. I took several bucket showers during the week, rose along with the crowing of the roosters long before sunrise, and learned to enjoy beans and rice three meals a day. In fact, the first afternoon I arrived, I was able to help the family shell some of the beans we had that night for dinner. Along with taking the pulp off coffee beans later in the week, I got a taste of what it’s like to provide for a family’s subsistence day by day. It was all to evident how a major disaster-a drought, a flood, a hurricane-could ruin a crop and leave an entire family with little more than the bananas which seemed to grow everywhere to survive on until a new crop might be ready.
The community of Arenal is divided up into five comarcas, or villages. I was staying about a 20 minute walk from the community center, and about the same distance from Thomas, Andrea and Lauren. On the third day, we had a meeting with some of the youth leaders of the community to learn about the various groups active in community organization. It quickly became clear that Arenal is an extraordinarily organized and cooperative community. Many of the young people we met with belong to several different groups such as a youth group, a group of local university students, and a traditional dance group that has gone on tour to Spain. Other groups active in the community include a women’s micro-credit bank, and agricultural co-ops for both men and women.
The people of Arenal are working to create a self-sustaining community, and I was fascinated by how they are doing it. There is little outside influence in the form of foundations or development NGOs, and the real organization comes from the community members themselves. There might not be the motivation or cooperation to pull this off in every rural community in Nicaragua, but I think the people of Arenal are on their way to providing a great example for other Nicaraguan communities facing poverty to take manners into their own hands and work together to create a better life for their futures. Next week, the youth group in Arenal is organizing a Feria Campesina-a country fair­-and we’re planning to return to visit our new friends there. I hope to maintain these relationships during my time in Nicaragua and continue to learn from the innovative approaches used in communities like Arenal.