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from montreal to nicaragua and back

September 2008 - This past summer Jenyfer Maisonneuve, a student at Montreal’s McGill University, graciously voluntered to spend her three-month vacation at Dianova Nicaragua’s Las Marias center working with the children attending the organization’s primary and secondary schools there.

Jenyfer tells us the story of what she considers, by her own account, to have been the “most enriching experience” of her student life. But, in addition to being the story of Jenifer’s experience with Dianova, it is also, in a real sense, a story that expresses, charmingly and elegantly, the real essence of Dianova itself at its very core!

As a student at McGill, Jenyfer’s studies focus on the geopolitics of developing countries and other critical global issues. Volunteering at Las Marias enabled Jenyfer to experience first-hand a private, charitable program in the socialized economy of a developing country which affords street children and children from low-income rural families free primary and secondary educations, while also providing them with the security of three meals every day and other necessities of life. – Ed.

los niÑos de la paz - from montreal to nicaragua and back

The departure

It’s now been exactly one month, eight days, seven hours and thirty-two minutes since I came back from Nicaragua, filled with wonder. It seems to be impossible to get back to normal life. I left behind a part of myself, incredible memories, friends and so many projects.

I’m not a journalist; nor I am a writer; however, I will try to tell you about this experience of mine during those three months I spent in the country of “gallo pinto” (a sort of half-fried rice mixed with red beans), Nicaragua. I will try to share what I lived in the Las Marias education center and what I was able to achieve with a hint of imagination, good-will and a desire to give.

After a busy weekend in Montreal, occupied with so-called “pre departure training activities”, preparation of luggage and planning my stay, I finally get on the plane, destination Nicaragua. After two and a half hours of flight, we land in Miami. No time to visit except for the airport, running through the corridors to catch my second plane to Managua.

I get off the plane, grab my luggage and step out the airport. A puff of wet, hot air sweeps me over! I light up a ciggy and relax, waiting for the pick up truck to come get me. I look around, observe everything while being observed. I’am a “Chela”, a white girl, just arrived from North with crammed-full luggage and clean look. My pick-up finally arrives, immediate departure, destination adventure!

May - Playing Counselor

When I finally arrive at Dianova’s “Las Marias” education center, I barely know what is awaiting me. Before arriving, I didn’t want to imagine things and then be disappointed. I find an almost empty center, a few children; the reason is that public transportation is on strike! During my first week there, I discovered how life there was, nothing else, but things started to move on, and everything turned into a rapidly moving whirlwind of images, until the end.

Jennifer Guido, the center’s psychologist welcomed me so warmly and kindly that I became some kind of an “assistant psychologist”. She showed me the way, guided me and trusted me. I was assisting her most often in preparing prevention activities that she would organize, and she also helped me to implement my own project and also to integrate myself.

At the very beginning, I was a little afraid of getting bored, not being able to adjust to the country’s culture, not enjoying my situation… but all things considered I was in my element!

As soon as I got there I rapidly integrated with the center’s work plan. I started playing the counselor the best I could, checking the girls’ rooms here, the showers there! After meals, the children are responsible for the so-called “pequena”: washing dishes (pica), putting the kitchen and dining room in order (comedor), arranging and cleaning up the girls’ floor (planta alta), the center’s hallway (planta baja), etc. Actually the children are responsible for arranging their own surroundings three times a day and to make the place as clean as possible. I had to supervise the “planta baja” and the girls’ dormitory. It was very nice…

June - I have the blues

The time was passing by so rapidly! During the month of June, it began to be a little bit difficult. I was barely enjoying my stay. I have to say that I didn’t explore Dianova’s own functioning - that of the center’s administration - and I was working as full time “counselor”! I was tired of the change of diet, changing the way I had always lived. I didn’t have the same comforts I have back home. In the beginning, everything was so special, so new, adrenaline, discovery… But as time wore on, the better I was assimilating this new environment, this new culture.

To prepare for a stay abroad such as this one, one must arrive with plenty of ideas, with the will to change a little, with the will to help others as much as possible. However, after one month in Nicaragua, I realized how poor the country was, how critical are the needs here. It was worse than what I initially expected. I sometimes felt totally useless. I was telling myself that they didn’t really need me anyway because I was only going to stay three months.

Then, the time it would take to implement things was sometimes frustrating, e.g. my project of a clay-carving workshop. Nothing would be done in a snap! I had to discover all over again the meaning of the word “patience” like I had never done before.

At the beginning, everything is OK - children respect you. But as time passes, children get to know you and they learn how to manipulate you, to play with your nerves. Sometimes they can also be disrespectful.

I was talking to them, and I was trying to make myself understand as much as I could. The lives of these children can be very hard, marked by unforgettable, often bad, memories; however I like to think that my presence helped them to see what’s good in life again. I had more positive relationships with some of them of course, often with the most rebellious among them. I made myself the promise that I would talk to one of the students every day, to share with him about my life, where I’m coming from, and also to learn about him.
 
There was nothing easy about working at the center. It was hard. Everything had to be prepared, organized, communicated… and we also had to look after the children. I found the task arduous, but what an experience it was! I experienced at the center the most interesting, emotional, and educational three-month stay in my whole life. I really admire the counselors, the psychologist and the coordinators who work at the center, because they all perform their tasks with all their hearts and with goodwill.

I think that those moments when I felt frustrated or bored, when I had the blues, when I was scared, are part of this experience, and this is the reason why I also want to share them with you. Anyway, it is not a bed of roses to wind up in another culture; it is often an amazing cultural shock. However, between you and me, what’s most surprising is when returning to the fold!

July - At the heart of the matter

July was the beginning of a series of unexpected and unprepared-for events. Several different activities were organized at the center and during two weeks I worked at Dianova’s office in Managua. I was kind of sad to leave the center’s children but happy to discover another facet of the work here. I dove into work. I translated their web site in English, wrote letters to ask for donations, edited a homemade promotional video, wrote an article about the sports club and the athletic contest – in the Spanish language ladies and gentlemen! A real first for me! Finally I found out what the work of an NGO was. I had a passion for it! Esther Del Rio, Alberto León, and Didier Lacroix, Dianova’s directors, supported me and trusted me. I took some risks and told them what I was thinking: they listened to me, they gave me more responsibilities and some good advice and we worked well together until the end.

At mid-July, I finally was able to implement my “Ninos de la Paz” (Children of Peace) project. It was a tremendous success! I could, nearly all by myself, catch the children’s attention for one full week with an activity which consisted of carving figurines with raw clay. This workshop helped them to work using their own imaginations, in an educational framework that would complete the center’s prevention program. There is nothing more fulfilling than seeing these children have fun, laughing, singing and learning how to express their feelings, to see these children, some suffering from a stormy past, now sharing their joy. When I started to explain the project and what they had to do, some of them were doubtful about this activity, especially when I told them that they would have to carve nude women out of clay, and that thanks to this activity we would work on conflict resolution while considering in their own beings their masculine and feminine sides. I had suddenly become some kind of and E.T.; in this country it is forbidden to evoke the boys’ feminine side, the country is so “manly”, that it was nearly like an insult to them. However, once I provided them with an explanation, the children began to be so focused on their work that those who had been most reluctant finally did their best - and eventually had the best results.

It was my project. For the first time I was a real leader, of my own idea (although inspired). I led the activity from the beginning to the end, in another language than my mother tongue, with children. It was really important to me.

Departure, but I will come back

It is now time to leave. It is heartbreaking. I have the feeling of having so many things to accomplish. During my last week, I saw that the ideas I gave, the comments I made, were being implemented in the center. I saw the three months I spent unfold rapidly, with all those who helped me and guided me. I received as a gift some letters by the students, more than two hundred!! The children whom I was most close to told me how much they would miss me, how helpful I had been to them. What did I do? Almost nothing, apart from being there. During the farewell evening, the center’s children had prepared a dancing and singing show around a large fire. They sang a song, they read a little text. Yerling told me how sad he was to see me leaving, how much I had helped him to overcome his grief, to consider life another way, and that he would have his doors always open for me. I would have given anything to stay a little longer with them.

Working with children is the most gratifying job ever - being able to feel that, with a little love and a little patience, we are finally able to give them a lot. Dianova welcomed me, and, thanks to this experience, I discovered facets of myself that were unknown. I learned, I thought and I grew.

There’s nothing much needed to do what I did. I think that this experience is available to anyone. One of the students there used to tell me that all that’s needed to achieve one’s objectives is some goodwill; that’s it. It was a professional stay but also a personal stay.

Dianova is more than a simple NGO, more than a community, more than a center; it is a big family!

Jenyfer Maisonneuve
September 11, 2008, Montréal, Canada