Our very own Aidan Wood traveled to Nicaragua this summer to volunteer at a school at Little Corn Island. He shares his experience...
"Our group got to Jiquilillo late Friday night/early Saturday morning. We didn't start work until Monday which gave us all time to get to know each other before we got busy working in different places throughout the week. On Monday morning I helped to concrete in some of the hand built pieces of the park just down the street from Monty's. The power went out and we ran out of cement so we had to call it a day, got a lot done that first day though. Hung out and are lunch during the hotter part of the day. That afternoon I got on the work truck and headed to "machete land" to start work clearing land for government funded houses for families.
I live in Virginia and there is an extensive forest that starts in my back yard, as a kid I spent a lot of time in the woods with my friends and we would build forts and clear land with machetes (I still have to clear the back yard every now and then when vines and trees make their way over the fence). So when I heard Daniella and Matt say that the locals were going to show us up I knew that i was going to be a tough one to show up, so humble. We picked up a group of locals on our way to the worksite, mostly women but there was a guy wearing a straw hat that climbed into the work truck with us. Someone who had been at machete land in the morning said "oh he's really good..." Once off the truck we collected out machetes and got to work. My partners name was Mayte, a funny girl who was born in Mexico and still spoke Spanish fluently. I chopped and hacked and she cleared. We put the hurt on some thorn bushes, they never saw it coming... I could see the local with the straw hat doing his own thing.
A few hours went by and Mayte and I had cleared our way through fair amount of trees and under brush. The local had been going more or less parallel to us. Then I was working on a decent sized bush and he came over and helped out, we alternated swings. Mine more just muscling through the tree, his incredibly accurate. We put in the same amount of work on the bush and then pulled it away to a pile. We then worked together for the rest of the day. His name was Eduardo, he was 23 and we made small talk through charades and broken Spanish. At the end of the day I was standing with him and we were trying to talk I told him "Me gusta tu" and pointed at his hat because I really don't know any Spanish. He took it off his head pointed to the logo "Flor de Cana" and said "ron de Nicaragua". The rum of Nicaragua. He had me out it on my head and said "para tu", "para mi?? No no" he insisted. "Yo tango goro para tu". So I brought him my JMU hat that I had worn pretty much everyday the past 9 months at school and gave it to him.
The rest of the week I spent most days at the machete land, and those days I spent more and more time with Eduardo and the locals in the forest. I didn't know a whole lot of Spanish coming into the trip but there were times where I didn't hear English for hours at the machete land and had to figure out what Eduardo and the locals were saying. It was an incredible experience and I hope to be able to go back at some point and see Eduardo again."
"Our group got to Jiquilillo late Friday night/early Saturday morning. We didn't start work until Monday which gave us all time to get to know each other before we got busy working in different places throughout the week. On Monday morning I helped to concrete in some of the hand built pieces of the park just down the street from Monty's. The power went out and we ran out of cement so we had to call it a day, got a lot done that first day though. Hung out and are lunch during the hotter part of the day. That afternoon I got on the work truck and headed to "machete land" to start work clearing land for government funded houses for families.
I live in Virginia and there is an extensive forest that starts in my back yard, as a kid I spent a lot of time in the woods with my friends and we would build forts and clear land with machetes (I still have to clear the back yard every now and then when vines and trees make their way over the fence). So when I heard Daniella and Matt say that the locals were going to show us up I knew that i was going to be a tough one to show up, so humble. We picked up a group of locals on our way to the worksite, mostly women but there was a guy wearing a straw hat that climbed into the work truck with us. Someone who had been at machete land in the morning said "oh he's really good..." Once off the truck we collected out machetes and got to work. My partners name was Mayte, a funny girl who was born in Mexico and still spoke Spanish fluently. I chopped and hacked and she cleared. We put the hurt on some thorn bushes, they never saw it coming... I could see the local with the straw hat doing his own thing.
A few hours went by and Mayte and I had cleared our way through fair amount of trees and under brush. The local had been going more or less parallel to us. Then I was working on a decent sized bush and he came over and helped out, we alternated swings. Mine more just muscling through the tree, his incredibly accurate. We put in the same amount of work on the bush and then pulled it away to a pile. We then worked together for the rest of the day. His name was Eduardo, he was 23 and we made small talk through charades and broken Spanish. At the end of the day I was standing with him and we were trying to talk I told him "Me gusta tu" and pointed at his hat because I really don't know any Spanish. He took it off his head pointed to the logo "Flor de Cana" and said "ron de Nicaragua". The rum of Nicaragua. He had me out it on my head and said "para tu", "para mi?? No no" he insisted. "Yo tango goro para tu". So I brought him my JMU hat that I had worn pretty much everyday the past 9 months at school and gave it to him.
The rest of the week I spent most days at the machete land, and those days I spent more and more time with Eduardo and the locals in the forest. I didn't know a whole lot of Spanish coming into the trip but there were times where I didn't hear English for hours at the machete land and had to figure out what Eduardo and the locals were saying. It was an incredible experience and I hope to be able to go back at some point and see Eduardo again."