La Carpio

Today was our first service project! We went to La Carpio, a Nicaraguan refugee neighborhood to work with the Humanitarian Foundation. Before we left, many of our host families warned us that La Carpio is very poor and dangerous. They told us to dress conservatively and not bring any valuables. When we arrived, it was apparent that it was a poorer area than where we were staying in San Joaquin just by looking at the buildings. First we played with the kids at the Humanitarian Foundation daycare. They were so sweet! They fed us at their play kitchen, made us tea, and "read" books to us.
Then Gail, the coordinator called us all together to tell us a little about La Carpio and what the Humanitarian Foundation does. She brought Frederico, a 16 year old La Carpio resident to share with us. He told us that he fled Nicaragua with his dad and two siblings when he was very young because it wasn't safe there. He attended school for a little while in La Carpio, but dropped out right after finishing second grade. Gail explained that she had gotten Frederico to share his story with us in exchange for food to take home to his family. She had also given him a pair of shoes which he held tightly while speaking to us. He told us that he works at the trash dump jumping on the back of trucks to salvage things and jumping back off as the trucks as they pull away. He told us he can make up to $6 in a day, which is just enough to feed one person for that day.
Gail asked him to describe his life to us and after staring at the shoes clenched tightly in his lap for a moment, his response was simply "difficult." His story was eye-opening. He had so little, but was content with the things he had and was willing to do anything to support his family. After hearing just one of the many many stories of people in La Carpio, we were ready to get to work and do something to help.

The service project we were given was to help organize the library and set up for an after-school event. After walking a few blocks down to the library, we set up some tents, brought books and games out onto the sidewalk and waited for the kids

to get out of school. On their way to and from school, kids stopped by to play games, read with us, do puzzles, and color. It was cool to interact with the kids, but the language barrier got in the way a little bit. There were phrases I wanted to say to them, but I just didn't know how to translate them, so we used a lot of gestures and non-verbal communication.
After all the kids went home, we packed up our makeshift sidewalk after school care, organized the library a little bit, then went back to the Humanitarian Foundation to learn a little bit about the craft projects women do there and enjoy a delicious lunch they prepared for us. It felt weird to accept food from women who had so little, but they were kind enough to prepare it for us, so we were grateful.

I really enjoyed our time at La Carpio and think I could have spent a whole week there volunteering and soaking up the culture. What was incredibly interesting to me is that what we experienced was nothing like the harsh warnings that we had been given by Costa Ricans. It was a poor area, but I never felt unsafe there. All the people we met were friendly, and after all they are just people. It was interesting to see how different their perceptions of poverty were from the reality of it. I'm starting to realize even though I am in a different country with a different culture, deep down we all really are the same.