Volunteer On The Road: Nicaraguan Memories. Part IV
What Volunteering abroad teaches you
Coming back to Dublin was hard. Very hard. During my stay in Manzano Uno I learnt about getting to know myself. About understanding what values I want in life and about asking myself what type of person I want to become.
I learnt about friendship, love and clashed feelings.
I learnt to dust off sensations, and to come back to the origins to win back the North.
I learnt to open my horizons and to open my mind. To meet people that I wouldn’t meet normally and to learn lessons from them that will walk next to me my whole life.
But specially, I learnt to take risks and to throw myself into the unknown, only to realise that was one of the best decision I ever took.
I remember sitting on the plane while we were going down from the skies to touch the earth. Little by little the magic was vanishing while reality was taking form again and the wheels collided abruptly with the wet tarmac. At this point I was not sure how I was going to be able to fit the things I learnt in Nicaragua in with my everyday life back in Dublin.
From that moment on Alejandro, Marco, Alain and myself were like four foreigners that shared an unbelievable experience that only we know about. Even if I try to describe it through these lines.
To the eyes of the world we are still four workmates. But if you look a bit further, you will appreciate that invisible bond that ties us and that I hope will never die.
The world deserves to live what we lived.
When you read this, I want you to think about the same things I thought about back in the days.
That reading this makes you pack your suitcase and go to discover other countries.
That the Fear won’t stop you
That you will start saying “yes” more than “no” and that you will take the risk
Because who doesn’t take the risk cannot win, even if later it could hurt. Because feeling and living intensively is what makes us grow up, learn and become better people.
It is, at the end of the day, what makes us become the best version of ourselves.
Click here to read Part I
Click here to read Part II
Click here to read Part III
- About the Photography in this series -
I remember the first day in the fields of Manzano Uno it was only 5 of us digging holes in the land while the locals stared at us like if we were fair attractions. They seemed specially amused by me, since I was the only woman out there. Let’s not forget Nicaragua still a strong conservative society and I was doing the” job of a men”.
However, the next day two men took a shovel each and started digging next to us without saying a word, and like that the days were passing by and each morning we had new people joining.
The last day we were around 50 people between men, women and even children. The most rewarding thing was not about building the water system, but about bonding with the community.
Marco was, by far, the most popular of us within the community. Probably because I never saw him having a long break under the shadow. He was digging and digging without a breath while joking with the locals.
Nicaragua was a great inspiration for all of us. While I decided to start writing about our experience even while being there, Marco got contagious from that inspiration and came up with the idea of a series of local’s portraits in their everyday duties.
I think because of the bonds he was able to create with them, they were more than happy to be models for the first time in their lives. And Marco, with that unique photographer’s eye he has, was able to capture not only their routines but also their souls.
