Staff Blog

I have learned that moments of struggle don’t always sound like struggle

Katie, an Intercordia Mentor in Nicaragua, reflects on her summer.

Three months is not enough for me to get to know a place. I have been in Nicaragua for about three months now, and most of my time as been spent in Esteli. I feel uncomfortable writing about this city that feels like home, and that I call ‘going home’ when I’ve been visiting another place but whose seasons I don’t know, whose history I have yet to grasp and whose streets can still confuse me.
As I have been here, I have remained attached to Canada in different ways – with the work I am doing, the classes I am taking and my connections with Intercordia. I haven’t been volunteering along with the students and so my somewhat integration into the city has been in different ways, and I will always be grateful to my host family for how they have welcomed me.

I have been trying to write about the experience of mentoring, because I think it is these moments which will stay with me years from now when I think back on my time in Nicaragua. Definitely of early morning coffees, and of heavy rainfalls, my host sister and deliciously fresh fruit, but the moments when I was able to be present for this sort of transformative experience for the five students who I am here with, are moments which I will remain grateful for.

I have learned so much through this experience of mentoring and being able to be present for people in their moments of struggle and uncertainty.  I have learned that moments of struggle don’t always sound like struggle, and it is often looking back when we are able to identify them this way. The students I have been working with here have done a beautiful job of living in the moments of their days and working through difficulty and I am so proud of their learning and count myself lucky to have met them.

Being here as a mentor and being present for these struggles has taught me about listening, hearing and patience. I have also learned so much more about the Intercordia program, which I feel is in many ways better than most volunteer abroad programs. I have seen that the insistence on reflection and remaining in moments of struggle can be very powerful for students when they honor these parts of the program. I will return to Canada even more committed to the potential of this program for transformative learning of Canadian students, and with the desire to work with this program and make it even better for students in the future. I will leave Nicaragua with a heavy heart. I will miss my host sister every morning when I have coffee, I will miss afternoon thunder showers followed by sunshine, I will miss speaking and learning Spanish each day, and I will miss the students who I have shared these three months with.