To the point...

It took me a while to write this last blog because the question (What have I taken from this experience) is really broad and if the answer did not satisfy me then I would be faced with the fact that I did not learn anything of value through this experience. However, this is what I came up with and I really like it:
This trip has cut some ties from this capitalist mentality I was almost subconsciously banded to: now I feel like I am one step closer to being free from the materialism and superficiality which overpowered my "picture perfect" Canadian lifestyle. I realize now that it is entirely possible to be happy with almost nothing. I have started to believe that is in fact much easier to achieve a sense of contentment when we do not carry the giant consumerism on our backs. I learned that from now on I will remind myself that I do not need that shirt, pair of pants, shoes, camera etc. I do not need it because I have everything necessary to live a VERY comfortable life and I will no longer follow the cattle of blind impulsive shoppers. That to me is a great realization.
There are many other little lessons that came to me along the way, but I think what I have pointed out in this blog is life changing for me, that is why I point out only this.

I AM NOT A TOURIST, I AM "LA PROFE"

I want to believe that I am not a tourist, I think that in Nueva Guinea I am defiantly viewed as mysterious outsider. This is a very small town and I know that many people know talk about me and want to know more about the reason why I am here. When I walk around town, people always stare and on several occasions, people who I don’t even know call my name. This tells me that many locals are aware of my presence; it is obvious to them that I am not from around here, but I also think that they do not see me as a tourist.

About a month ago, a group of Americans came to visit Nueva Guinea, and I think they did follow the “tourist” agenda. They behaved exactly how Larissa described it; they wore sandals, shorts, flower shirts and silly hats. They also spoke broken Spanish and they were always taking pictures of people and places; I even think that the obscene amount of pictures being taken made some of the locals uncomfortable. The Americans would also comment on how slow the service was at restaurants and how the food was not very good.
One day the High School prepared a celebration in their honour; during that event, the organizers made the Americans dance and play games in front of everyone else. Some of them were good sports about it and they went along with the games, but one of the older men said later on, “I would like to make a fool out of myself on my own time, thank you very much”. This guy especially, always seemed uncomfortable and not pleased with the locals.
I do not act that way, and as much as I felt like an Alien in the beginning, I always made an effort to blend in. I always knew that I had come here to do a job and to share a similar lifestyle with the locals. Obviously I am not viewed like a local nor I feel like one, but it has been made clear to me (especially by my colleagues) that my visit is a chance for everyone to learn. The students tell me that they will miss me a lot because they like how patient I am with them and they feel that they have learned a lot from my classes; on the other hand, my colleagues have told me from the beginning that they are very thankful to have interns (like myself) coming to URACCAN, the teachers I work with see my visit as a beneficial opportunity to learn. I make a note of all of this because tourist are not viewed in that way, in my opinion, the locals who live in touristic places are just interested in profiting economically from the tourists, and that is defiantly not the case with me or the other York interns who have visited Nueva Guinea.

Although I know that I am visitor and people treat me as such, I know that I am also accepted and included as a part of the community. I have been invited to many events and I have participated as a member of the community and not as an irrelevant tourist. For example, right now I am helping one of my students who will be participating in the Miss URACCAN pageant which will take place on Saturday. I have written a speech for her and I am helping her make one of her dresses, that makes me part of the festivities and therefore part of the community.
I am not shy to talk to new people and people are not shy to talk to me anymore, there is no awkwardness and there is a general sense of mutual comfort ability and respect. I may not be one of the locals but I think there is a distinct difference between a tourist and the foreigners who come to Nueva Guinea to work. Maybe in the beginning I was viewed as a tourist but for most of my stay I think the people around me see as a “the teacher who comes from Canada,” and they treat me accordingly.

It is true that this internship might be too short to really experience any place abroad. I feel that it took a while for me to get used to this new environment. I had to learn from and about the people, I had to figure out how to act and how to approach different people and situations. Today, I feel like I have got the hold of it pretty well, I do not feel out of place anymore and I am really happy to be here. However, now that I have accomplished this attachment, the time is speeding towards the finish line. It is obvious that when you start having fun, time just flies by, and for this reason I am sad. I am trying to take advantage of every day I spend in Nueva Guinea because the clock is ticking and I know that many painful goodbyes are coming my way. My colleagues, students and new friends have become dear to me in the last months and even though I have gone through numerous “farewells” in the past, it never gets easier.

NO WATCH, NOOOOO PROBLEM!

I have taken my watch off and it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Back home, my watch is one of the most important things I own, it is necessary for my everyday life. However, I never even thought about how important this watch really was for my Toronto lifestyle until now. Back home, I always feel like there is something to and there is always somewhere to be; consequently, I am always rushing and running around.
Not in Nueva Guinea; here everything feels so sluggish. Not keeping close attention to the time doesn’t seem to make a difference. People just go with the motions very slowly and many times we have to ask each other,” What day is it today again?”
At work there are no set routines, although there is a general plan of our daily tasks. At first that used to drive crazy; I am used to working jobs in which there are specific things to do and that makes the time go by fast. For example, when I work at a day care or at a school, there are set activities that take up a determined amount of time and that are scheduled to be implemented at a specific time of day; in that way, I am always prepared for my job responsibilities. I enjoy planning my tasks but also knowing that there is a certain need for improvisation. In my job here I find myself improvising more often than not. So many times people change the plans and I am faced with situations in which I have to think fast and make the best of an unexpected event. For example, when I do a class, I have students walking in very late. At first I was bothered by this because I would have an activity planned and it would be constantly disrupted by new comers being lost and asking others for directions. I quickly learned that punctuality is not a priority here, so I now plan my lessons accordingly. I explained to the students that I will implement a 15 minute period of “preparation” in which we will wait for everyone to arrive and when that time is over I will proceed to begin the set activities and I will not stop the lesson for any person that comes in late.
I will be teaching two new courses during the month of August and right now I am developing their corresponding syllabuses. I have included a punctuality section in which I explain that it is important to be on time because it allows everyone to take advantage of the class time. However, I also include the 10 minute “preparation period” in order to accommodate those who are not able to arrive to class on time. I also specify that if there are any students who come in later than that 10 minute period they must catch up with other students after class and not during class. I think that this is the best way to deal with the situation, the students should understand that punctuality is important to me, but it is also important for me to understand that I cannot change the fact that the mentality here does not value punctuality as much as me. I hope that once I start my new classes this new strategy will succeed and we will take advantage of the class time.

CAMA CAMA CAMA CAMELLEON!

In terms of language, I think I have had to change some of the things I say. The Nicaraguan dialect is different from my own (Colombian) and at first I had to make an effort to understand what it was that people meant to say. Now I am used to the terminology and the different idioms and sometimes I even say those things myself. I also think that I have been adopting the Nicaraguan accent a little bit and I even enjoy that, it’s kind of fun! I also think that by making an effort in talking like the locals, I have gotten closer to them, we can relate better and I feel people getting comfortable when talking to me.
I also talk to a lot of older ladies (or maybe not necessarily older but are more mature than me because they are married and have children etc.) and I have learned to talk about that things that interests them and sometimes to say things they would say (and that I do not necessarily believe are true).
I also find myself making a big effort to not comment on religious issues; many people here are part of a church (usually braches of Christian churches) and they are very attached to their ideals. I question these ideals very often and I feel very strongly about certain topics. Some locals, especially men, seem to enjoy lecturing about their religious beliefs and tent to be very patriarchal in the way they speak. In this way many times I find myself painfully biting my tongue to not shout out “ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?” I want to be polite and I feel that if I were to vocalize my real beliefs and ideals I would probably offend someone, so I have been very conscious of this fact which has left me a bit frustrated at times. As a feminist I feel hurt by the open patriarchal ideals of most of the people here but in order to blend in, I keep my thought to myself. All I can do is to learn from it and thank whatever higher power there is for blessing me with a life in which I am valued as a person and not just as a woman whose purpose is to be a man´s, and I quote, friend and companion.


ONE OF THEM...ONE OF US!

In Canada I usually keep myself busy, if I’m not in class or studying, I’m working, if I have free time I am out doing something. I love the busy city life and for that reason I was extremely bored when I first got here, especially on weekends when I was not working. I began to look for ways to keep busy (like volunteering at other schools). Now I find that I don’t get as bored, I am fine with just sitting around and talking even when we are supposed to be working (which used to drive me NUTS at first. All I kept thinking was, we have stuff to do people!).

Today I saw the computer technician scrubbing a computer’s plastic casing where the cleaners clean the mops. Weirdly enough I didn’t find it weird until a while after when I thought back on it. Am I getting used to this place? I think I might be, I think that now I feel like I am part of Nueva Guinea. I am passed the whole initial alien experience in which I was constantly questioning everything around me. However, I am still me, although I have adapted I am not changing who I am; I still like the same things, love the same people, have the same dreams, but when I leave I will have a whole luggage of new knowledge which will allow me to see my life differently, appreciate what I have home even more (for sure).
I am preparing myself for the good old “comparing and contrasting” game that is to come once I return to Canada. I think that will be a big part of the “coming back home culture shock”; we shall see how it turns out.

My experiences so far

ARRIVING IN NICARAGUA

I would like to start by saying that nobody here knows what MacDonald is…pretty self-explanatory in terms of the vast differences between Nicaragua and Canada. I came with the idea that Nicaragua was going to be very much like my country of origin (Colombia). As soon as I stepped foot outside of the airport I realized that, Nicaragua is much more underdeveloped than I thought. Managua is the capital of Nicaragua; one would think that the capital is the biggest city of a given country, right? However, I did not see much of a city (as we, North Americans, know it); I did not see buildings, highways or large amounts of people walking down the streets; Bogota (the capital of Colombia, where I was born and raised) DOES have building and highways and many people walking around the main areas. I have also visited Colombian cities which are not as advanced as Toronto but they are getting close. In this way, I assumed that the capital of Nicaragua would look like a Caribbean city similar to the places I had seen back in Colombia. Nevertheless, Managua looks much more like a small Colombian town: opened spaces, old cars, poor children walking the streets by themselves, a lot of stray dogs running wild and A LOT of orange mud. In this way, when I came out of the airport, I was immediately surprised; it was then when it first hit me: I was going to live in a way I had never lived before, I was in a for a rough ride.

I had to take a bus from Managua to Nueva Guinea. The bus was old and hot, which is why I was surprised when they put on a Denzel Washington movie in a big portable DVD player; the a sound system was amazing, you could hear the movie loud and clear throughout the entire bus; it was particularly funny to watch Denzel talking in a Mexican voice. This was just an example of the relationship Nicaraguans have with technology; although all the places and people look poor they are all very attached to some technology. For instance, almost every person has a cell phone, even older ladies. People text all the time, just like we do (in Canada). It has made me think that even though there are so many other factors that separate the Nicaraguan lifestyles from ours (in Toronto/Canada), we also have many things in common.

NUEVA GUINEA: MY TEMPORARY HOME

I live in a small house with a very nice family. My room is extremely small and I share a bathroom with five other people. The first night in Nueva Guinea I saw a cockroach the size of my hand crawling on my bedroom wall, which was “a lot of fun”. The food is really good, mostly rice, beans and cheese; it sounds boring but it is so much better than you would think. This house is like the mother ship of the family, there are always people coming and going and it makes it a very fun environment in which I get to meet many people. I enjoy the children, they are fun and loving and it gives me a chance to watch cartoons without being judged.

URACCAN: MY JOB

I work in the University of URACCAN (Nueva Guinea Campus). My job is to enhance and improve the quality of the English courses in this university. I will be doing this by planning and implementing classes with the students and teachers who are involved with the English department; the main purpose is for these people, who aspire to learn English, to practice their conversational skills as well as their reading and writing skills.I am also working on some educational proposals that need to be updated; I have been chosen to help with this project because I have an outside outlook on life and education as well as control of the Spanish language.

I feel very blessed to be able to work within a developing community; I enjoy seeing how everyone is very dedicated and eager to better themselves. Nothing is taken for granted here, and I like seeing that in people.

My Culture

I like to think of culture as a mix. We are all affected by our experiences, our families, our communities, our homeland etc. We spend our lives learning from the people around us and the situations that come our way; by doing this, through time and experience we mold who we are. In this way, everyone´s identity and culture is unique because we all encounter different events and people.

My culture was affected by a significant change in my life. When I was sixteen-years old I moved from Bogota, Colombia to Whitby, Canada. My lifestyle changed dramatically and I know that the person I am now would not exist had I stayed in Colombia. For one, I have adopted the English language almost as my primary language; eight years ago I barely knew how to speak it. My circle of friends has changed completely and my family gatherings are not as large as they were when I lived in Colombia; I belong to a big family, we used to get together for birthdays and holidays and it was always a big party. Now I do not have many family members who live close to me but my dad´s sisters and their immediate families live in Toronto. We always get together in special occasions and it almost feels like back home.
Living in Canada has changed the way I live in many other ways. I have even changed physically, well, we all change physically as we grow up but I think that I changed more than most people. When I went back home after five years of living in Canada, my grandmother and my best friend did not recognize me. It was interesting to realize how much moving had changed me.
But I still keep many Spanish traits. For example, some Spanish people seem to be more relaxed when it comes to being punctual and for a long time I was always late to places I had to go to. It was a challenge to acquire better management skills that would better suit the Canadian society. Now I am working on my organizations skills. I still enjoy Spanish music very much, but I like listening to the songs and bands that were famous when I was younger. The new stuff does not appeal to me as much, I guess because it does not have the melancholic feeing attached to it. But I also take pleasure in listening to music that would be more characteristic of North American societies (The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Bob Marley etc.).
In general I enjoy living in Canada and I love the fact that I have a Colombian background. I think that because I experienced a different lifestyle during my childhood and adolescence, I have a different outlook on life than most people around me. I think that I am lucky to live in Canada, I like feeling safe and to be able to have hope for the future. I know how it feels to live in a place where there is a lot of violence and pessimism, which is why I feel lucky to have a home like Canada; I would not change not for the world.