It's a big world

This weekend was wonderful

Gretchen and I made it all the way to the beautiful beach town of San Juan del Sur. San Juan del Sur is popular tourist spot in Nicaragua. Most university students travel there during la Semana Santa (holy week and vacation week as well). However I figured why wait? My goal is to see as much of this country as possible. Two other exchange students from Austria live in the town with a host family of their own. Since I hadn't seen much of them (San Juan is over two hours away from Managua), I figured the weekend would be a great time to get to know each other.

This was when I realized that the world is much bigger than Nicaragua and the United States. This may seem obvious but when you study in a country, sometimes your focus stays on the country you are exploring and your homeland. For weeks I have had to explain my origin (Soy de los Estados Unidos) and in turn I would ask whoever I was meeting "Eres nicarguense? Donde vives?" In my mind Nicaragua and the US were the two countries that existed.

This of course is not true and everything was illuminated during my stay in San Juan.

During my weekend I had ample time to converse with people from Germany, Austria and Canada. Can you imagine transitioning into a country where you do not know the main language? But also imagine this, there is a secondary language that is spoken in the country but you don't know that language well either. That is the reality for Stephan and Gunter, students from Austria.

Like a host of other countries in the world, the US has a tremendous influence in Nicaragua (that alone could be a whole post of its own) Part of that influence of course is the presence of English. Although the majority of people only speak Spanish, if someone does know a bit of another language, it's always English.

Having the opportunity to speak with Stephan and Gunther opened a new perspective for me. As we ate traditional Austrian food with the entire family in San Juan del Sur (including six little children, the grandmother of the family, and her daughters as well) I realized that if they could thrive and learn the culture here than I certainly could as well.

Language of course is extremely powerful. It's the means by which we as human beings express ourselves to one another. But there are so many ways in which we can communicate with each other even if language is obscure. When I watched the kids adoringly embrace Stephan as he handed out plates of food for dinner I knew that communication has much more depth then we care to think about. He spoke German to them asking them to sit down to eat, they replied in Spanish, saying thanks and asking more more food. Here they are speaking two different languages and yet the bond between them is undeniable.

It's a big world

part of studying abroad is gaining insight into the culture in which you are immersed
the other part of studying abroad is realizing the world is so much bigger than you care to imagine
and that even with the presence of all the cultures that exist, there is always that ability, if you so desire, to find common ground