Menu
Nicaragua
serve beyond cincinnati -
service trip to nicaragua
Don't ask yourself what the world needs. ask yourself what makes you come alive & go do that. because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Over Spring Break this year, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Chinandega, Nicaragua on a service trip. The week-long trip, organized through Serve Beyond Cincinnati and Amigos for Christ, had a focus on sustainability and clean water for the local communities. We dug three-foot deep trenches and laid down pipes which would transport clean water to communities that did not have easy access to water. While on the trip, I formed relationships and memories which will never be forgotten, and gained a better understanding of the culture and lifestyle of a third-world Hispanic country.
My interest for the trip began back in December 2012 when I learned about a student organization on UC’s campus named Serve Beyond Cincinnati. SBC sends UC students on domestic and international mission trips during winter and spring breaks in an effort to promote service learning and engage students into different cultures. The student group offers trips to local communities, such as Appalachia, Kentucky and New Orleans, Louisiana, as well as many international destinations, such as Chinandega, Nicaragua, and Lima, Peru. This year was their first time sending a group of students to Nicaragua. Seven other students and I signed up for the trip and could not wait to begin exploring the authentic culture and people of a country which had been ravished with poverty but also enriched by unique tradition.
Why did I decide to go on this trip? I thought it would be a great opportunity to continue my lifelong mission of being a “man for and with others.” I believe that I have been given many gifts so that I could use them to help other people. My primary focus on this trip was to help the Nicaraguans, but I also decided to pursue it to get a better understanding and exposure to a different culture outside of Cincinnati. I wanted to learn what a typical day is like in the life of a Nicaraguan and what their values, culture, and lifestyles consist of. However, I learned so much more than what I was expecting—about culture, relationships, faith, history, lifestyles, beliefs, values—and I am extremely grateful that I had this amazing experience.
Before the trip, I researched Nicaraguan poverty significantly, learning many alarming facts and unsettling information that seemed hard to understand. But seeing the poverty first-hand in Nicaragua took me to an entirely new place. Words can only describe poverty so far. After our arrival at the airport, we had a three-hour bus ride to our facility in which we were able to see a large portion of Nicaragua before we even started our work. Small huts made of tin, wood, or sometimes cement, and often no larger than one room, lined the streets we drove past. The houses had tree branches supporting the walls and roofs, and all water had to be obtained from nearby wells. There were no irrigation systems to provide clean, running water to the homes, and the bathrooms consisted of outdoor latrines that accumulated waste. There was often no electricity, which immediately eliminated the uses of refrigerators, lights, computers, television, or air conditioning. Garbage and trash also lined the streets at times, making some neighborhoods look uninhabitable. This was a big culture shock at first, for we as Americans often take everything we have for granted, not realizing how the reality for others can be so different.
The country itself of Nicaragua was astoundingly different than the United States. The temperature was consistently 90-100 degrees and sunny every day, but dropped down to about 70 degrees at night. It had not rained there since the middle of October. The country has a dry season that lasts from October through April and a wet, rainy season lasting from May through September. The streets were chaotic—crazy drivers and people honking in the city. Nicaraguans lined the streets, trying to sell small bags of water, riding bikes to school, carrying buckets of water, or bartering with their neighbors for goods. On our ride back from the airport, two young boys ran into the street and started cleaning our van’s windshield, even as our driver waved and honked at them to leave. There were countless cows, horses, chickens, and dogs on the loose outside, animals of which every Nicaraguan relies on to make a living. The landscape in Nicaragua was amazing. Tropical trees were everywhere we looked and beautiful volcanoes and mountains painted every background.
We spent the majority of the service trip working in a community named Miguel Cristiano, a small community located out in the mountains. To enter the community, we needed to cross a river. This river was dried up for us, but when it starts to rain during the summer, the river fills up with water and isolates the community from the rest of the country for several months. After forty years of trying to get funding and resources to build a bridge across the river, the Nicaraguans were finally able to attain that this year and have started construction of a foot-bridge. In the US Department of State’s article I read before the trip, it described the flawed government of Nicaragua and their disability to support their citizens. The fact that it took forty years for this community to get enough funding and support to build a simple foot-bridge speaks to the faultiness of the Nicaraguan system as a whole. Miguel Cristiano also does not have easy access to clean water; the one well in the community is located at the end of the village and is a mile and a half away from some people. Therefore, our mission over the week was to help in the construction of an irrigation system that would cleanse and carry water to homes through a spicket. Using pickaxes and shovels, we dug three-foot deep trenches in the hard ground and laid down 360 feet of pipe throughout the week. The work was certainly hard and laborious, especially because it was nearly one hundred degrees outside under the open sun. Despite the difficult nature of the work, however, we were happy to be there working alongside the Nicaraguans.
Amigos for Christ has a philosophy which states that they will only help communities who have strong work ethics and are able to support themselves without Amigos looking over their shoulder all the time. The strong work ethic of Miguel Cristiano was clearly made evident when members from the community helped dig the trenches with us. These men and women had a genuine desire to help us work because they wanted to have some stake in the irrigation system and their community’s future sustainability. Also, when the water system is finished, the families will pay five dollars per month to receive about one hundred gallons of water each day. Amigos for Christ does a great job, as per this example, of instilling self-reliance and sustainability within the communities they work with. These kinds of community involvement are also seen in the other focus areas of Amigos for Christ, such as their education, animal development, and medical programs.
As cliché as it may sound, the best part of the trip was getting to know the local Nicaraguans through listening to their stories, laughing with each other, playing games, attending masses together, and simply talking to one another. Every day of the trip, I was able to sit down and talk with multiple people I had never met before, many of them only being able to speak Spanish. It was so special to learn about their culture and beliefs because, despite the fact that they live in much worse conditions than we do, we all have characteristics in common that make us human. I talked to an 18-year old Nicaraguan boy named Rudy throughout the course of the week and learned about his story of how he came to where he is today. He works hard all day long in order to get food for himself and his family. However, he also has an avid interest in the sport of soccer and enjoyed talking about dating and girls, too. I met a Nicaraguan man who worked with Amigos named Abram. Abram used to wake up every morning at 5:00 AM to go get food and water for his family. He would walk two hours away to get the resources needed, and then walk two hours back home to see his family. He struggled significantly growing up, trying to raise his family, until he found the support of Amigos for Christ, who offered him a full-time, better job and was able to provide him with transportation, food, and more friends. I met an older woman at an old folk’s home named Angelina. She grew up in the neighboring town of Corinto, had six children, but was in the hospital for ten years before they moved her to the old folk’s home. She talked about her love for God and how grateful she is to be engulfed in such a powerful community of believers. These stories and dozens of others are what made the trip a truly unforgettable experience. Men and women, boys and girls, adults and children, chefs and maids, firefighters and taxi drivers, Americans and Nicaraguans, all came together to celebrate the fact that we were with each other, and that in itself was a great feeling.
The neatest experience of the week occurred after a long day’s work on the fourth day of the trip. We stopped working early to celebrate mass together. Father Kevin, a priest who joined us from Georgia Tech, said the mass. We all kind of filed into the mass randomly while the Nicaraguans were singing to the music, but soon after, the community leader came into the church and started waving for all of us (Americans) to exit the church. Confused, we exited the church and waited a couple houses away for something to happen. Soon after, Fr. Kevin came out in his purple priest attire, looking like a king, and began to lead us into the church. The community leader had brought us back outside because he wanted Fr. Kevin to lead us in. Before we entered the church though, the Nicaraguans had a fireworks show for us! They sent dozens of firecrackers into the air in celebration that we were there with them. Men, women, children, and grandparents all welcomed us with handshakes, hugs, and smiles as we proceeded into their church. It was a sweet moment for all of us to be a part of. After singing and cheering, the mass began with the Nicaraguans sitting around with us. You could see how grateful they felt that we were helping them build a water system this week.
Father Kevin then gave a homily focusing on the symbolism of water. He talked about how we were working together to bring water to the community this week, just as Jesus uses water in his teachings to symbolize new hope, faith, and salvation. It was a really neat comparison.
After we left the church, storm clouds hovered over the community, the temperature dropped significantly, and despite the Amigos team’s comments that it would not rain, it started raining in Miguel Cristiano for the first time since October! This phenomenon was almost unheard of, and the Nicaraguans all had their buckets out, everyone outside smiling because it was raining. This rain came right after we had celebrated mass together and focused our thoughts on the use of water in our lives. It was an incredible moment on the trip and something that I feel can only be truly appreciated in person. That afternoon confirmed to me that I was in the right place in my life, fortunate and blessed by everything I have been given and everyone I have met.
One of the biggest amazements for me on the trip was realizing how happy every Nicaraguan was to be exactly where they were in their life. We could see the happiness in their smiles and eyes as we talked to them and laughed with each other. Nicaraguans hugged us when they greeted us and gave us kisses until we had to leave. They opened up their homes to us and let us play with their infants and children. They gave us their food and their clothes at times, both items that we certainly would never need. In fact, they were so happy because we were together with them, sharing our love. Going into the trip, I felt more like I was going to Nicaragua to help other people, but I have found that I have received just as much love and support from them, if not more.
Why is it that those who have the least find it the easiest to be joyful? Everyone in Nicaragua had such a strong sense of community, purpose, and gratitude. I noticed that in the communities in which we visited—the old folk’s home, the marketplace, Mino de Agua, Amigos for Christ, and Miguel Cristiano—there was happiness everywhere. Everybody felt valued and everybody genuinely belonged. A sense of care and connection with each other made us all feel comfortable around any Nicaraguan. There were families, extended families, grandparents, parents, and children, each belonging in their own place and happy with the strong love and community they shared. The sense of family was a lot stronger than it is in the United States, where many families are isolated, distant, or detached from each other. Their love for each other and their love for their faith hold them strongly together and instill happiness and joy in them each and every day. This was one of the neatest aspects of this service trip.
If I learned anything from being in Nicaragua, it is that I cannot stop here; I am ready to keep exploring different countries and cultures, eager to have similar experiences to this one and to trying out new trips as well. I would like to return to Chinandega someday to see all of the friends down there again and work in the same environment. One week was not enough time to fully immerse myself into their lives. Despite all of the great experiences I had with the people and seeing the beautiful countryside, working in Nicaragua is only the beginning of my lifelong mission of being a “man for and with others”. I will continue doing service around the world and at home, through various mission trips, local fundraisers, volunteer opportunities, and school projects.
As Rachel Remen so eloquently writes in Helping, Fixing, or Serving?, helping and fixing can be done at a distance, but service cannot. Service occurs when you are physically connected and touching someone else, enabling you to see that other person as equal and whole. Learning about service was the most important part, in my opinion, of going on this mission trip and leading other people. If you can learn how to understand the needs and feelings of others, you can serve them best. It can only be done through touch and presence though. This trip to Nicaragua was a perfect opportunity to be of service to others and I cannot wait to continue my lifelong mission of being a “man for and with others”.
My interest for the trip began back in December 2012 when I learned about a student organization on UC’s campus named Serve Beyond Cincinnati. SBC sends UC students on domestic and international mission trips during winter and spring breaks in an effort to promote service learning and engage students into different cultures. The student group offers trips to local communities, such as Appalachia, Kentucky and New Orleans, Louisiana, as well as many international destinations, such as Chinandega, Nicaragua, and Lima, Peru. This year was their first time sending a group of students to Nicaragua. Seven other students and I signed up for the trip and could not wait to begin exploring the authentic culture and people of a country which had been ravished with poverty but also enriched by unique tradition.
Why did I decide to go on this trip? I thought it would be a great opportunity to continue my lifelong mission of being a “man for and with others.” I believe that I have been given many gifts so that I could use them to help other people. My primary focus on this trip was to help the Nicaraguans, but I also decided to pursue it to get a better understanding and exposure to a different culture outside of Cincinnati. I wanted to learn what a typical day is like in the life of a Nicaraguan and what their values, culture, and lifestyles consist of. However, I learned so much more than what I was expecting—about culture, relationships, faith, history, lifestyles, beliefs, values—and I am extremely grateful that I had this amazing experience.
Before the trip, I researched Nicaraguan poverty significantly, learning many alarming facts and unsettling information that seemed hard to understand. But seeing the poverty first-hand in Nicaragua took me to an entirely new place. Words can only describe poverty so far. After our arrival at the airport, we had a three-hour bus ride to our facility in which we were able to see a large portion of Nicaragua before we even started our work. Small huts made of tin, wood, or sometimes cement, and often no larger than one room, lined the streets we drove past. The houses had tree branches supporting the walls and roofs, and all water had to be obtained from nearby wells. There were no irrigation systems to provide clean, running water to the homes, and the bathrooms consisted of outdoor latrines that accumulated waste. There was often no electricity, which immediately eliminated the uses of refrigerators, lights, computers, television, or air conditioning. Garbage and trash also lined the streets at times, making some neighborhoods look uninhabitable. This was a big culture shock at first, for we as Americans often take everything we have for granted, not realizing how the reality for others can be so different.
The country itself of Nicaragua was astoundingly different than the United States. The temperature was consistently 90-100 degrees and sunny every day, but dropped down to about 70 degrees at night. It had not rained there since the middle of October. The country has a dry season that lasts from October through April and a wet, rainy season lasting from May through September. The streets were chaotic—crazy drivers and people honking in the city. Nicaraguans lined the streets, trying to sell small bags of water, riding bikes to school, carrying buckets of water, or bartering with their neighbors for goods. On our ride back from the airport, two young boys ran into the street and started cleaning our van’s windshield, even as our driver waved and honked at them to leave. There were countless cows, horses, chickens, and dogs on the loose outside, animals of which every Nicaraguan relies on to make a living. The landscape in Nicaragua was amazing. Tropical trees were everywhere we looked and beautiful volcanoes and mountains painted every background.
We spent the majority of the service trip working in a community named Miguel Cristiano, a small community located out in the mountains. To enter the community, we needed to cross a river. This river was dried up for us, but when it starts to rain during the summer, the river fills up with water and isolates the community from the rest of the country for several months. After forty years of trying to get funding and resources to build a bridge across the river, the Nicaraguans were finally able to attain that this year and have started construction of a foot-bridge. In the US Department of State’s article I read before the trip, it described the flawed government of Nicaragua and their disability to support their citizens. The fact that it took forty years for this community to get enough funding and support to build a simple foot-bridge speaks to the faultiness of the Nicaraguan system as a whole. Miguel Cristiano also does not have easy access to clean water; the one well in the community is located at the end of the village and is a mile and a half away from some people. Therefore, our mission over the week was to help in the construction of an irrigation system that would cleanse and carry water to homes through a spicket. Using pickaxes and shovels, we dug three-foot deep trenches in the hard ground and laid down 360 feet of pipe throughout the week. The work was certainly hard and laborious, especially because it was nearly one hundred degrees outside under the open sun. Despite the difficult nature of the work, however, we were happy to be there working alongside the Nicaraguans.
Amigos for Christ has a philosophy which states that they will only help communities who have strong work ethics and are able to support themselves without Amigos looking over their shoulder all the time. The strong work ethic of Miguel Cristiano was clearly made evident when members from the community helped dig the trenches with us. These men and women had a genuine desire to help us work because they wanted to have some stake in the irrigation system and their community’s future sustainability. Also, when the water system is finished, the families will pay five dollars per month to receive about one hundred gallons of water each day. Amigos for Christ does a great job, as per this example, of instilling self-reliance and sustainability within the communities they work with. These kinds of community involvement are also seen in the other focus areas of Amigos for Christ, such as their education, animal development, and medical programs.
As cliché as it may sound, the best part of the trip was getting to know the local Nicaraguans through listening to their stories, laughing with each other, playing games, attending masses together, and simply talking to one another. Every day of the trip, I was able to sit down and talk with multiple people I had never met before, many of them only being able to speak Spanish. It was so special to learn about their culture and beliefs because, despite the fact that they live in much worse conditions than we do, we all have characteristics in common that make us human. I talked to an 18-year old Nicaraguan boy named Rudy throughout the course of the week and learned about his story of how he came to where he is today. He works hard all day long in order to get food for himself and his family. However, he also has an avid interest in the sport of soccer and enjoyed talking about dating and girls, too. I met a Nicaraguan man who worked with Amigos named Abram. Abram used to wake up every morning at 5:00 AM to go get food and water for his family. He would walk two hours away to get the resources needed, and then walk two hours back home to see his family. He struggled significantly growing up, trying to raise his family, until he found the support of Amigos for Christ, who offered him a full-time, better job and was able to provide him with transportation, food, and more friends. I met an older woman at an old folk’s home named Angelina. She grew up in the neighboring town of Corinto, had six children, but was in the hospital for ten years before they moved her to the old folk’s home. She talked about her love for God and how grateful she is to be engulfed in such a powerful community of believers. These stories and dozens of others are what made the trip a truly unforgettable experience. Men and women, boys and girls, adults and children, chefs and maids, firefighters and taxi drivers, Americans and Nicaraguans, all came together to celebrate the fact that we were with each other, and that in itself was a great feeling.
The neatest experience of the week occurred after a long day’s work on the fourth day of the trip. We stopped working early to celebrate mass together. Father Kevin, a priest who joined us from Georgia Tech, said the mass. We all kind of filed into the mass randomly while the Nicaraguans were singing to the music, but soon after, the community leader came into the church and started waving for all of us (Americans) to exit the church. Confused, we exited the church and waited a couple houses away for something to happen. Soon after, Fr. Kevin came out in his purple priest attire, looking like a king, and began to lead us into the church. The community leader had brought us back outside because he wanted Fr. Kevin to lead us in. Before we entered the church though, the Nicaraguans had a fireworks show for us! They sent dozens of firecrackers into the air in celebration that we were there with them. Men, women, children, and grandparents all welcomed us with handshakes, hugs, and smiles as we proceeded into their church. It was a sweet moment for all of us to be a part of. After singing and cheering, the mass began with the Nicaraguans sitting around with us. You could see how grateful they felt that we were helping them build a water system this week.
Father Kevin then gave a homily focusing on the symbolism of water. He talked about how we were working together to bring water to the community this week, just as Jesus uses water in his teachings to symbolize new hope, faith, and salvation. It was a really neat comparison.
After we left the church, storm clouds hovered over the community, the temperature dropped significantly, and despite the Amigos team’s comments that it would not rain, it started raining in Miguel Cristiano for the first time since October! This phenomenon was almost unheard of, and the Nicaraguans all had their buckets out, everyone outside smiling because it was raining. This rain came right after we had celebrated mass together and focused our thoughts on the use of water in our lives. It was an incredible moment on the trip and something that I feel can only be truly appreciated in person. That afternoon confirmed to me that I was in the right place in my life, fortunate and blessed by everything I have been given and everyone I have met.
One of the biggest amazements for me on the trip was realizing how happy every Nicaraguan was to be exactly where they were in their life. We could see the happiness in their smiles and eyes as we talked to them and laughed with each other. Nicaraguans hugged us when they greeted us and gave us kisses until we had to leave. They opened up their homes to us and let us play with their infants and children. They gave us their food and their clothes at times, both items that we certainly would never need. In fact, they were so happy because we were together with them, sharing our love. Going into the trip, I felt more like I was going to Nicaragua to help other people, but I have found that I have received just as much love and support from them, if not more.
Why is it that those who have the least find it the easiest to be joyful? Everyone in Nicaragua had such a strong sense of community, purpose, and gratitude. I noticed that in the communities in which we visited—the old folk’s home, the marketplace, Mino de Agua, Amigos for Christ, and Miguel Cristiano—there was happiness everywhere. Everybody felt valued and everybody genuinely belonged. A sense of care and connection with each other made us all feel comfortable around any Nicaraguan. There were families, extended families, grandparents, parents, and children, each belonging in their own place and happy with the strong love and community they shared. The sense of family was a lot stronger than it is in the United States, where many families are isolated, distant, or detached from each other. Their love for each other and their love for their faith hold them strongly together and instill happiness and joy in them each and every day. This was one of the neatest aspects of this service trip.
If I learned anything from being in Nicaragua, it is that I cannot stop here; I am ready to keep exploring different countries and cultures, eager to have similar experiences to this one and to trying out new trips as well. I would like to return to Chinandega someday to see all of the friends down there again and work in the same environment. One week was not enough time to fully immerse myself into their lives. Despite all of the great experiences I had with the people and seeing the beautiful countryside, working in Nicaragua is only the beginning of my lifelong mission of being a “man for and with others”. I will continue doing service around the world and at home, through various mission trips, local fundraisers, volunteer opportunities, and school projects.
As Rachel Remen so eloquently writes in Helping, Fixing, or Serving?, helping and fixing can be done at a distance, but service cannot. Service occurs when you are physically connected and touching someone else, enabling you to see that other person as equal and whole. Learning about service was the most important part, in my opinion, of going on this mission trip and leading other people. If you can learn how to understand the needs and feelings of others, you can serve them best. It can only be done through touch and presence though. This trip to Nicaragua was a perfect opportunity to be of service to others and I cannot wait to continue my lifelong mission of being a “man for and with others”.