UNC Students Discover You
Don't Have To Share A Language To Share A
Moment
By Stephanie Burchett
QUEBRADA HONDA, NICARAGUA - Traveling up the
Pan-American Highway in a 15-passenger van,
friends Avery Morehead, Katie LaBonde and
Blake Shattuck recognized a familiar Michael
Jackson song, “We Are the World,” as it came
over the radio in an unfamiliar place.
From the back, Shattuck yelled, “Turn it
up.”
I asked our Nicaraguan, Spanish-speaking
driver to turn the song up with the
pantomime movement of a twisting dial, an
upward thumb and a smile. In a country with
few English speakers, the group of
University of Northern Colorado students —
who didn't speak much Spanish — had to find
other ways of making connections.
The English lyrics played as we passed
children working in the streets and homes
made of scrap metal, cardboard and other
found objects. Our destination was this
village of more than 200 people about six
hours north of the Nicaraguan capital of
Managua.
American popular music is one way our group
built relationships. Hits from the '80s
seemed to be the most recognizable on the
airwaves of this nation that holds a
distinction as the second-poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere behind Haiti.
Nicaragua seems to be cursed with
adversities of wars and natural disasters,
but our group was welcomed by the country's
finest treasure, the people.
The group of UNC students I was with are
members of Bear Catholic, a ministry focused
on supporting spiritual development and
offering students opportunities to discover
the Catholic tradition, receive sacraments
and serve others during their higher
education experience. Our group spent eight
days of our spring break volunteering with
the Fabretto Children's Foundation, which
offers after-school programs to Nicaraguan
children. While volunteering, we had the
chance to paint a Fabretto center.
During my first trip to Nicaragua in 2007, I
developed a lasting relationship with the
Fabretto Children's Foundation. UNC Bear
Catholic adviser Rick Hoines-Brumback and I
thought it would be a great opportunity for
students to serve and visit a Third World
country, so we put together the trip with
the help of St. Peter Roman Catholic Church
in Greeley.
The morning Shattuck started working, he
noticed a group of boys who were watching
him paint diligently. He gave them a Nerf
football. Many other children kept asking
him in Spanish for a ball, except for one
boy, Rubin.
“Rubin made a ball out of rocks, dirt and
some of kind of paper. He would have a
different ball every day,” Shattuck said.
As the UNC students and the Nicaraguan
families got to know each other, they
discovered they had similar curiosities for
each other. Families wanted to know what the
students were studying and why they came to
Nicaragua, and the students were interested
in learning about the families' daily lives.
Morehead, a UNC senior studying elementary
education and English as a second language,
served as a translator during family visits
in the community. Morehead explains, “It was
empowering to be the link between the two
groups.”
Experiences were shared without words, too.
One afternoon, we visited the rural primary
school in Buena Vista, a nearby community of
fewer than 100. In the hot afternoon sun, we
made our way to the sports field.
The walk to the field was through brush and
a rocky path. LaBonde shared a moment with a
young girl who would not let go of her hand
from the time we started walking from the
school until the time we walked back.
“We couldn't pronounce each other's names,”
said LaBonde, a freshman. “We hardly, if at
all, spoke the same language, but together
we laughed and played.”
LaBonde said she would never forget the
experience.
“It was beautiful that I'd just made a
friend whose name I don't know, who's
language I didn't speak, but I loved her all
the same, and she loved me back,” LaBonde
said. |
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