Hello everyone wherever you are in this enormous world of some 6.9 billion people, of which some 40% live in India and China. Everyday I have to wonder what it would be like to live in Bangladesh, which is a country with roughly the same area as Nicaragua, but with an extra 155 million people. Woah, I'm getting carried away with randomness, but I love sharing these facts just because they are so amazing and help me keep my world in check. Anyways, on to my life since the last time I made a blog post about two weeks ago. Almost all of my time since then has been centered on writing a grant to the Foundation for Sustainable Development to start a bakery café in the community. This has involved a million steps, which could fill an entire blog post if I describe them in detail, so I won't, I'll just give a little overview.
In these past two weeks I have interviewed about 30 people on their thoughts about starting a bakery café in the community, met with the board of directors of the Indigenous Community of Las Salinas to request permission to use a vacant house in the community for the bakery café, helped the group of women elect an administrative committee for the management of the bakery café, begun to clean the vacant house to prepare it for remodeling, begun a draft of the grant, talked to members of the government's small business administration to discuss giving workshops on pastry-making and business management to the women that are going to be working in the bakery café, and started a budget for the business. However, I still have to create a business plan, finish the budget, finish writing the grant, remodel the house where the bakery café will be, and supervise the classes on pastry-making and business management. So basically I got a lot in store for me before I'm done with my internship. Also, I'm working on another project of building iron trash cans in the community simply because there aren't any in the community. Hopefully after we build them, the kids who come to the library can help with their beautification by painting them and whatnot.
I haven't left the community in a number of weeks due to the fact that my camera is being fixed and I won't go anywhere I haven't already been to without a camera as well as the fact that I have had a ton of work to do. Anyways, while I've been working I've been doing a lot of thinking about my role in the world of international development. While I was doing the interviews with community members about their thoughts on the demand that exists in the community for a bakery café, I got the chance to get to know all of them and learn about their lives. I ended up falling into conversations that went on for hours and hours with some of the people I interviewed about life in the states and here in Nicaragua and the millions of differences between the two.
In one of my interviews, I talked to a woman who asked me about my family and what my childhood was like. Although I was unsure of how she would respond I decided to be honest and say that I come from a family with a reasonable amount of wealth, but that I have always felt guilty for it. Due to this feeling, I have been given compassion for the developing world and the drive to support it in any way I can as well as help it grow in the future. I'm really not trying to brag about myself, but this woman told me that she had never heard any Americans say that and that it motivated her so much as well as changed her opinions about the US as a whole.
Having that conversation sparked something in my head. So much of development work is based only on projects, projects, projects. All of the work I have done in the developing world has just talked about how you can support the community with different projects and that the sustainability comes when the community members continue these projects on their own. Yes obviously that is sustainable, but I feel like there is something missing with this idea of sustainability. That thing is relationships. There is nothing more sustainable than changing the mindset of people through the creation of profound relationships or just breaking the boundaries that prevent people from different cultures from getting to know each other. The women who I talked to told me that I changed her opinion of Americans forever and that she was motivated to have better relationships with the other Americans who have settled nearby the community. Could there be anything more sustainable than that motivation? And on top of that, what about just improving the relationship between people across cultures, that is so sustainable in itself. So many of the programs that allow people to study and/or volunteer abroad don't give people the chance to create these relationships. They're so structured that you are always required to be doing something and never get the chance to go out and meet new people that aren't necessarily involved in what you're doing. I mean how can you make these types of relationships on any study abroad program when you're always hanging out with other Americans? As I said in my first blog post, no offense to anyone is on a study abroad program, I have this same criticism for the Foundation for Sustainable Development as well. The Foundation for Sustainable Development wanted me to have made a thorough work plan with numerous projects to complete during my internship after only the first week. How can you start sustainable projects if you don't know anyone yet? Is a week enough time to meet new people, build relationships with them, and construct sustainability? I don't think so.
Although I was partially able to this building of relationships through the bakery café project I am working on, I really used this opportunity to not simply interview people, but really to get to know them and hear their opinions as a way of helping myself grow too. I really wish I had done this in the first week instead of simply spending all of my time trying to figure out what types of projects I could do in the community. This is my advice for anyone who is on any program abroad whether it be studying, volunteering, or simply traveling. Go out of your normal routine to take the opportunity to get to know some people you haven't met before. Who knows, you may be able to change their mindset and lead them to do something amazing in their own life even if you never see them again. That is definitely something special.
Miss you all,
Zack
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