UN SABOR DE NICARAGUA:
A taste of Nicaragua
Volunteering for Sí a La Vida on the Island of Ometepe
October 2004 – January 2005
by
Miriam Bilander
Volunteer from Australia

The earth shook, literally, the day I arrived on Nicaragua ’s Island of Ometepe . But that was much less remarkable than the joy I experienced as I was embraced by the people of Sí a La Vida.  Where to live? Teacher Luz Mary invited me to stay with her family.  How to get about?  Project co-ordinator Jonathan Royce offered me a bicycle.  What to eat?  I tasted my first frijoles y arroz meal prepared by cook Doña Chilo. And what of the street kids with whom I was to work?  Seventeen chavalos, boys aged 10 to 14, were there to officially greet me.  Some ran up to hug me, others peered from a distance, and others still, ignored my presence entirely.  With a Spanish not accustomed to the local dialect, I smiled bravely and ummed and ahhed through the first hundred questions: “I’m from Australia ”… “yes, we have kangaroos”… “no, you can’t keep one as a pet”… ”no, I’m not married”… ”yes, I would love to see where you live”.  I was taken by the hand and led from one sparse room to another.  Each boy managed to produce some proud possession; a deck of cards, a good report written by a teacher, a pair of sunglasses.  The tour continued until Ricardo, a natural leader, decided that enough was enough.  We followed him through the dense plantain plantation, cultivated by the chavalos themselves, down to a black volcanic shoreline hugging a picturesque bay.  The boys stripped to their shorts or undies and dived in like fish.  Here, they played and fought... and played again; a wrestle would result in a race; a dance would follow a dunk, a splash would lead to a song. 

It was on this beach that a bond grew between Ivan and me.  He was a skinny boy with deep, black eyes and a swollen belly, and arrived at Si a La Vida’s doorstep not because he was living on the streets, but because his mother didn’t want him.  His behaviour was difficult to manage, so he faired badly at the weekly evaluations and often missed out on the reward - an excursion to town.  It was on one such occasion, when I stayed to supervise Ivan,  that I suggested we go for a swim.  Unenthusiastically, Ivan followed me down to the lake.  There, he wouldn’t sit near me.  I began drawing animals in the sand, and he moved a little closer.  “What’s your favourite animal?”, I asked.  ”Don’t have one”, he replied.  “Why don’t you draw an animal in the sand like me?”  “Can’t draw”, he answered.  “Of course you can draw… well, how about you help me draw a horse?”  In silence, we drew the outline of a horse and then filled in its body with sand.  Ivan marvelled at our creation.  “Now let’s swim!”, I said jumping to my feet.  “I can’t”, he whispered.  “That’s okay, I’ll be right next to you so don’t worry”.  He walked behind me hesitantly and we waded in the shallows for a while.  “Let’s go a bit deeper. Here, hold on to my shoulders”, I said.  He jumped on my back and gripped my shoulders.  As I walked through the water, his confidence grew; “spin around”, he yelled, “deeper, deeper”.  We spun and galloped for more than an hour, laughing and puffing together. 

That afternoon wasn’t followed by a fairytale transformation, but the experience did prompt small, positive changes in Ivan’s behaviour.  He followed instructions more readily, he now felt comfortable enough in the water so that he could participate in social outings to the lake, and he liked to hug and be hugged by me – he started to trust.

Soon my life developed a routine; I’d ride to the project after lunch, help some boys with their homework and nag others to do their chores.  By around two thirty, whoever had finished could spend time on our two precious computers.  I brought with me some educational programs and taught boys how to use them.  We also practiced writing letters. Some could write very little, others produced tales of living on the streets or wrote romantic prose to their girlfriends.  Once the clock struck four, it was down to the lake for a swim. 

Closer to Christmas, when classes finished, there was more time for the extracurricular activities I planned.  We played games like musical chairs, ran sack races and held dancing competitions.  We made necklaces from wooden beads and leather strands, as well as an enormous papier-mâché horse - a piñata, filled with lollies and bubble-gum.  Local tradition has blindfolded children smashing at the suspended piñata so that it will release its goodies.  And, of course, we did that too.

This was also the time for paying homage to our town’s patron saint.  The streets were filled with salsa rhythms, fairy floss, fireworks and a parade of marching girls and drumming boys.  Juan Carlos, one of our chavalos was in the procession.  Though highly intelligent, he carried a behavioural burden – one moment calm, the next unstoppably hyperactive.  As a member of the town’s school band, Juan Carlos could channel his energy into music, creating rapid, perfectly timed drumbeats.  Like a proud mother, I weaved in and out of the crowd pursuing him, trigger-happy with camera in hand.  Later, I gave him a photo of himself, marching in his shiny American coloured uniform – I’ll never forget that look of elation.

After a good day, I would contentedly sigh while walking home, marvel at the paddocks laden with glow bugs, and giggle as I avoided stepping on riddepping frogs or singing salamanders.  But I also had bad days.  Then my walk was disrupted by the town’s noisy electricity plant, and I became enraged by the Latin males who marked my passage by the local equivalent of whistling - incessant hissing.  Sweat stuck to my brow while mud covered my feet; my calves swelled from mosquito bites, and the quick setting of the tropical sun left me in uncomfortable darkness. 

My time on Ometepe was a time of giving as well as learning.  Living with a family taught me a great deal about Nicaraguan culture:  I learnt how to swear in local slang to dispel unwanted male attention, and how to gesture correctly – a shake of the right hand when something’s too pricey or a pouting of the lips to affectionately acknowledge a friend’s silliness. I learnt how to turn banana trunk bark into string and how a pig is slaughtered.  Some lessons I found unpleasant; it’s not a woman’s place to question her husband’s behaviour, domestic violence is common and tolerated, as is infidelity.  Other lessons were uplifting; people who have very little can display boundless generosity; a local priest will bravely struggle against the excesses of machismo and call for the empowerment of women; a sense of community abounds, and though with it comes a suffocating lack of privacy it also brings a secure sense of inclusion. 

From the boys I learnt different things:  That children starved of love need to be treated with affection, but not to a point which generates dependence; that coming off a drug addiction is often a life-long battle; that every day is truly a new day, and so it is wrong to hold grudges.

As I left, I felt sad to be saying goodbye to people I had grown so attached to and an island I began to love.  Mine was an unforgettable experience.  I will ever remain indebted to Sí a La Vida and the seventeen chavalos for making it a reality.