One year ago I started this blog. And, as most of you know, I have left it vacant for quite some time. While I will spare you the boring details for my five-plus month absence, I apologize to those of you who kept up with me consistently for the first seven months of my life in Nicaragua.
This past year there was a shift in my life. It is a shift I failed to understand before I left, but now understand better than I could have anticipated. It is a shift that has led to many twists and turns, highs and lows, many smiles and even some tears. It has lead to questions and answers, to belief and doubt, to clarity and confusion, and above all faith and hopelessness.
That's right. If you've read those last two sentences, their multiple contrasts, and their ambiguity --- you'll notice two things: unpredictability, and a rampant range of emotions.
At times I think my experience is unique, but then I remember why it is anything but. Over half of our world (over three billion people), lives in poverty. That means that half of our world is surrounded by the same conditions and realities that I am surrounded by in Nicaragua. Because I live in a house with four solid walls, running water, and a roof that withstands 30mph winds, I'll go out on a limb and say that I am in a better situation than most of the three billion people. Consider my education level, my upper-middle class background, and the fact that I possess a passport, and I know I am better off than the three billion people.
At times I consider my work an adventure, but understand that for three billion people it is not. It is not a stint that they can tend to and leave as they please. It is not an option that they have chosen. This is life – filled with twists and turns, highs and lows, some smiles and some tears. It is a life that has many questions and limited answers, lots of belief followed by magnificent doubt, some clarity and some confusion, and above all faith that is countered by hopelessness.
About three weeks ago, I was interviewing a candidate for our scholarship program, when the rampant range of emotions came front and center. I asked my standard questions:
1) How did you hear about the program?
2) What motivated you to apply to the program?
3) What do you want to do?
4) Do you have any questions for me?
As the words that make up Question #2 left my lips, the candidate suddenly could not answer. She could not speak. There was a dangling silence. Followed by uncontrollable streams that ran down her face.
Question #2 seemed innocuous to me. But afterward, I thought a little harder about the question, and the profound trigger of emotions it may have caused.
What motivated you to apply to the program?
She may have been thinking…
What motivated me to apply to the program? Well, how about the fact that I have been abandoned all of my life by my mother and father. I live with an angel who has taken me in, and cared for me like nobody has before. Even with her care, I live on dirt floors, on little food, and no money.
Nobody has ever, EVER, offered me anything in my life. And now you people are here offering me a chance to study. Overwhelmed? That is one lame word to describe how I feel. Opportunity? Since I've never had one, I'm not really sure what that means. I am angry, happy, thankful, and confused. These tears don't represent happiness. They represent the culmination of excruciating defeats that have made up my life.
I feel like a fool for having cried here. I hope I don't lose this chance because of it. I hope I am not abandoned again, as I have been throughout my life.
As my "born-again" audience, I ask you not to judge me for trying to understand the meaning behind the tears of this candidate. I am not a mind-reader, nor will I ever know what she was thinking. What I am doing, however, is offering you a glimpse as to how we operate in this world, in our line of work, and with Nicaraguans in need.
Without this mindset, this attempt to understand, my work would be impossible. In some ways it is already impossible – in that I will never know the struggle that Nicaraguans, along with three billion others worldwide, have endured throughout their lives.
The only certainty I know is that I will never know.
