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Since my UR buddies left a few weeks ago, life has
been pretty simple, without much going on. The exceptions being an In-Service
Training (yawn) and an adventure through Managua,
helping some other buddies Scott and Matty – these two from San
Francisco – search for and buy a car in Managua. That in itself is an entry in its
own, but they beat me to the punch and did a great job chronicling that
adventure on their blog: lobstapot.com. So while they took off for a
surfing safari up and down the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua, I headed back to the
Villa, after almost three weeks of being out of site, to hang out with my
neighbors and “prepare” for the upcoming school year. The problem is, that in
January, there just isn’t much going on work wise, and running and exercising
takes up only so much of the day. So needless to say, I was really looking
forward to a multi-sector project that took place this past week: the National
Youth Leadership Camp.
The Youth
Leadership Camp (YLC) is an annual Peace Corps event where youth from all over
the country meet for a three day retreat to interact and discuss different
topics of leadership. Two volunteers are chosen from each sector (Small
Business, Agriculture, Health, Environment, and English) to plan and run the
camp, and this year I had the privilege of being one of the two from Small
Business.
At home in
the states, leaving your home and family for a few days isn’t a big deal. Most
kids have their first night away from home without family at eight or nine
years old. But here it is, especially when most people don’t have the interest,
or more importantly, the means to travel for pleasure and explore other parts
of the country. I brought five students in between the ages of 15 and 17 from
the Villa, and none of them had ever in their lives spent more than a night, if
that, away from their home and families. So for me it was particularly
interesting to see the how they reacted to being away from home, and the
interactions that came with bunking with 50 other kids from different cultures
from all over the country*.
Because the
logistics of managing 50 kids can be quite difficult, we separated the kids
into groups. The kids were separated to interact with those from other areas
and backgrounds, and volunteer was put in charge of a group of 5 – 7 kids. The prospect of leading a group of kids both
excited me and made me nervous. Nervous because as a leader, I was to guide
them through each activity and lead an in-depth discussion about how they felt
and what they learned. Now lets be honest...for those of you who know me, I’m
not the most articulate person in English, and on the spot it takes me awhile
to form my opinions and ask the correct questions. Now toss Spanish into the
mix, and things become a little more difficult. So this week was as much of a
test of my own Spanish as much as my leadership skills. And it was big relief
as the days past by to see that I didn’t struggle with my “new” found language
skills, and that there was no language barrier.
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| Praktiking their Interview Skills |
The purpose
of the camp was to teach these future community leaders new skills and
knowledge to bring back to their communities. Within their small groups, the
youth attended charlas on Types of Leadership, Life Skills, Life Goals, Job
Skills, the difference between Sex and Gender, and Sexual Health, as well as
team building and team work exercises. Being the business volunteer of the
group, I was assigned the Job Skills charla. You’d be surprised how many
volunteers don’t know about job skills, and I was constantly complimented for
my business like appearance…wearing khakis and a tucked in, long sleeve button
down shirt. A better name for the charla would’ve been Job Preparation, as we
focused on how to shake hands correctly (yes, I did say shake hands), and how
to prepare for a job interview. Shaking hands is something we take for granted
back at home, that we learn from a young age. I personally have distinct
memories of my father teaching me how to properly shake hands, and aggressively
shaking the hands of my friends who didn’t. It usually involved him shaking
their whole arms, asking them if they were nervous. But here, that isn’t
commonplace, and most people offer a “dead fish” handshake. By that I mean,
most hold their hand out, but don’t grasp your hand. So you often grab their
whole hand, and have this weird grasp of their hand, thumb included. It’s
weird. So the first activity was shaking the hand of each kid, evaluating their
handshake, and splitting them into groups. From there we explained what was
wrong, and made them practice for 5 minutes. Up next was how to prepare for job
interviews, which included what to wear, how to present yourself, and how to
answer difficult questions. This normally is a pretty boring topic to be
honest, so to make it more entertaining, my partner and I did a mock interview,
where I as the applicant did absolutely everything wrong. I walked in late,
answered my cell phone, put my feet up on the desk, dressed inappropriately,
and was outrageously inappropriate with interviewer. I looked like a bum from
the streets, which was especially exaggerated by my beard of two months. So
alongside a few laughs, the kids walked away with some new knowledge.
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| Be Firm, but don't Break their Hand! |
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| Working on Teamwork Skills |
I also was able to sit on the
Sexual Health charla and was shocked to hear about the misconception most kids
had about sex and sexual health. The myths about how you can contract STD’s and
birth control were eye opening. Some kids truly thought certain birth control
put you at risk of cancer. And heck, I’d be lying to if I didn’t learn
something new as well.
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| Pledging What they Will Bring and Teah to their Communities |
Leaving the
camp a few things dawned on me. First was how cold it is up north, relatively
speaking of course. The camp was set up in the northern department of Jinotega,
up in the mountains. As I found out, I not only have grown accustom to the 90
degree heat, I have full on embraced it. Up in the mountains, it was probably
50 degrees and cloudy, and the water was ice cold; it gave me a headache to
shower. So guess what? I didn’t shower too often. The other more important
realization was seeing the potential of the generation to come. Amongst the
group charlas, I had 90% – 95% participation, compared to the 5% - 10%
participation I usually have in classes. Here were kids, strangers really, from
different backgrounds, exchanging ideas and trying to better and improve their
lives. As unfortunate as it is to say, the majority of youth in Nicaragua,
don’t really care what lies ahead, let alone prepare for it. It was really a
once in a life time experience for the kids to make friends and exchange ideas,
and surely one they’re not likely to forget. I won’t.
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| My Group |
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| My Kids from the Villa |
So what
comes next may you ask. Well school supposedly starts on Monday the 11th.
I say supposedly because most institutes still haven’t set their schedules, and
kids haven’t registered yet. So for me, what really comes next is the Fuego y
Agua Ultra marathon next Saturday. The prep for this run, which includes hiking
up and down a dormant volcano, has dominated my life the past month. My
schedule has been based around running times, especially since I decided to run
the 50km instead of the 25km run sort of last minute. Considering I’ve never
run a race more than 10k, things should be interesting, ehh? For more info,
check out fuegoyagua.com.
*Despite being the size of New York,
in terms of culture, Nicaragua
is very diverse. The East Coast is largely an indigenous population that speaks
predominantly English Creole and local languages. Due to the different climates
landscape of the West Coast and Central Region, life and culture varies as
well. And on top of that, the difference between city kids and kids from the
campo (rural areas) is very visible. Because of this cultural variety, we
devoted one session to exchanging cultures of the different regions, and
de-bunking the myths and stereotypes of each
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