8/28/15 The Importance of Santa Matilda Nicaragua

The time has come for us to actually give a proposal for our Passion Projects. We have done so much to help us give an idea of what we want to do. Most people have come up with their ideas and they sound so cool! Next week we are going to present our proposal in a Shark Tank style presentation in front of the class.....which makes me so nervous. I am still working out the kinks to my project so I'm not going to say what it is yet, but I do want to share why this topic is so important to me.

Like I said, I've been to Nicaragua twice now and the people there have captured my heart. But leading up to my first trip, I was so nervous. There was a language barrier, I mean I was in French, not Spanish so I had no clue how to keep a conversation with someone who couldn't speak English. Basically right up until we got on the plane, I had so many doubts about what was going to happen this next week. But the first day we rolled into the village of Santa Matilda on the cattle truck, I looked out to the church and saw all of the kids there, holding posters and little gifts that they had made. We stepped out and the kids who were standing so still waiting for us, immediately ran for the different members of our team. A little girl named Gloria ran up, jumped into my arms hugged me and made sure that I didn't put her down for the next couple minutes. That day I knew that there was something that I needed to learn from these people. 

We went on house visits the next day which were so tough. Each of the stories were so different and people were going through so many things like one lady who had cancer while taking care of her grandchildren. Their stories were so different but they all had something in common, they weren't complaining, they invited us in and just had a conversation with us, they never begged us for anything, in fact they were worried with how we were doing, making sure that we had enough water and food. They never wanted us to feel bad for them, and they gave all they had which was much more than any dollar amount that someone could give me. 

After all of that I'll shorten it down of why Nicaragua is so important to me, the people of Santa Matilda(the village that I worked in) give so much to other people. Coming back, it was like reverse culture shock, where most people wouldn't give you everything they had to you, and I'm not saying that everyone is like that here or like that in Nicaragua. But if you look at the material things that they have compared to the material things that we have, we would beat them out no problem, but the amount of love and care that they pour out to complete strangers compared to us, they would beat us out so much more than you would think. 

Next time I promise I will have my Passion Project worked out. Thank y'all for reading my post this week.