When I
first started teaching here in Nicaragua I got a good idea—I would visit the
small communities where many of my students live. The instituto is in a pueblo, my home town,
the county seat of a large
municipality. But there are 22 other
communities in the municipality and all can send students to the only high
school in my town. I wanted to see how the kids lived, but up till recently
only managed to visit two communities.
Two weeks ago I visited the third, less than a kilometer away, and a
week later I walked to the fourth. I
must say these two visits were two of the best things I’ve done in Nicaragua.
The little community of
Salamasi is home to about three hundred people, about 25 of whom are my
students. The tiny town has one paved street dead-ending on a rutted dirt road
which winds around and up the surrounding hills. There are a couple of wells in the community,
there being no running water. I’d guess that nearly every house had a pig in
the yard, some of them shockingly large (pigs, not houses). The houses are the most basic sort, made of
adobe bricks, each with some sort of fencing, usually barbed wire, and a
latrine.
It’s hard to describe how
gratifying it was to hear the greetings from my students as I walked by their
houses. They were so surprised and happy to see me in their town, although some
asked what I was doing there as though I must have a dark motive. I explained
that I wanted to take a walk to get to know their communities. One boy who met
me in the street –a 1st year student—told me in English he had 2 houses, one of
his mother and one of his grandmother.
He walked with me up a dirt road and said goodbye at his grandmother’s
house and I continued on up and down the impossible roads. At another house I saw one of my more
challenging students out playing in a
yard with 5 other kids. They were
spinning tops. He did such a double take
when he saw me, but smiled, I felt, excited that I came. We’ll have a connection
back in the classroom.
A week later I walked to a
further town, maybe four kilometers from my town. As I walked down the highway I kept asking
people if the town was ahead and they kept saying yes. But I almost missed it, there being nothing
on the highway itself to indicate a town.
I stopped at a house to ask again and was told I’d found it. Almost immediately a student who lived up the
hill spied me and came running down. She
introduced me to the people I’d been talking to and at once their attitude
toward me changed from polite but suspicious to warm and pleased when they
found out I was a teacher who had walked a distance to see their town. I asked my student to give me a tour and she
brought me to her house to get permission.
I was introduced around and given the one plastic chair in sight and
peppered with questions, but pleased questions.
Like was it easier to live in the United States and did I like Nicaragua
more. Smiles all around. I felt an
honored guest.
My student got permission to
take me on the tour, so we crossed the highway and accessed the rest of the
town on what I can describe as goat paths (although there no goats) up into the
hills. She explained that water had to be hauled from the well by the women who
carried large buckets on their heads, maybe 7 or 8 trips a day to take care of
the all the family needs. From time to time the trail widened into a cluster of
3 or 4 houses, the folks gathered to sit outside in groups at the end of the
day. We stopped at the house of another
student. The girl looked shocked and
then pleased to see us. The three of us
continued up the path to the house of the third student. Her mom, most gracious, invited us in and
found a place to sit for all. She and I
talked a little about the importance of education (her subject) and then she
handed me from her basket a red and a green pepper to smell. My recollection of
that moment, the dark windowless house made of adobe bricks, the color of the
peppers in the dim light from the door and her daughter, my student, sitting
inside the house still in her school uniform, the white shirt and socks glowing
in the semi-darkness—that recollection I return to again and again. We had to move on. The señora put 4 peppers into a plastic bag for me as a gift.
It was getting dark and the students were going to show me where to get a bus
back to my town, the highway not being safe, not because of bad people, they
said, but because of fast vehicles and dogs roaming at night. We scrambled back
down to the highway, passing the house of another student who was not at home
and meeting up with a student who gave me the now familiar confused double-take
followed by big grin. On the way I was also invited to two quinceanos parties
(parties celebrating the 15th birthdays of my 2 guides.) I said, sure I’d come. I hope they meant it.
Three kids waited with me
until my bus came and waved goodbye in the twilight.
Today I went to the mayor’s
office where Juan Pablo was glad to oblige with a request of a map of the
municipality. I left with 4 of them.
(Juan Pablo loves the computer he has in the mayor’s office and he loved being
able to produce not just one map as requested but 4 maps each offering a little
different information.) I took them to
school and asked some students to circle those of the 22 communities that send
kids to the instituto. Because some of
the comunidades are a significant distance from town, I was sure that there
wouldn’t be students from them, but not so.
Nearly every one of the comunidades sends students to study. One community, so far from any dirt or paved
road that the two students who attend ride a burro over the mountains, may be
too much for me to visit because of safety issues (getting lost), but the
others are do-able. If my kids can come
to me, I can get to them. This will be
an adventure. I figure at an average of 3 per month, I will have visited them
all in 6 months. I’ll keep you posted. Attached. I hope, is a picture from inside a house.
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