Notes from faraway places

A5

By Alison Shurvell

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Every year, Falls Brook Centre has the good fortune of welcoming a group of enthusiastic young adults to Knowlesville to participate in the International Youth Internship Program, a program funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

These interns are currently embarking on the international phase of their internships.

"My world has once again been swiveled in a way that only stepping into another world can do," writes Mark Fleming, who has been in Sabana Grande, Nicaragua, for a total of two weeks now.

From my desk, overlooking a colourful –albeit wet – autumn scene in Knowlesville, I am suddenly transported to another vivid scene, this one very different.

I can almost smell the smoke from wood-burning stoves, the fresh fruit on the brink of rotting, the livestock roaming the cobblestone streets. And I can feel the thrill that all seven participants in the Falls Brook internship program must have felt upon arriving in these unknown communities that they'll be calling ‘home' for the coming six months.

The challenges of integrating into a new community, not to mention a new professional environment and lifestyle, can at times seem insurmountable.

Between language barriers, lack of communication with the outside world, adapting to new foods, and the sticky hot climates, moving to a new country is never a perfectly smooth transition.

However, as Katie Peterson, who recently began her work placement in Habana, Cuba, says, the learning and the relationships you build with the people around you make the trouble worthwhile.

"We are staying with a wonderful woman named Marlina and her son Rafael, very close to the Malecon in Vedado," Peterson writes. "She is very good to us, but it is very strange to be waited on hand and foot, staying in the best rooms in her house! She is a profesora of Bioethics at Universidad de la Habana, and she works very hard to make ends meet, as do many Cubans.

"Marlina is an excellent cook ... Everything she makes is very tasty, but full of meat, salt and oil. I sure wouldn't mind a few more vegetables, but the availability of greens here is even less than usual because the hurricane wiped a lot of them out. I'm told it takes about a month for the fragile greens to start producing again, once replanted.

"And we are already eating more vegetable than most Cubanos can afford, so I am trying to be content with and grateful for avocadoes (me gusta mucho!), and a little cucumber or cabbage or onion now and again.

"El Instituto (de Investigaciones Forestarias- the Institute of Forestry Research) is a really neat place. I love the people that work here – they are exceedingly friendly, welcoming and generous – and they treat us like fellow workers, instead of like wealthy tourists, which is really, really nice.

"And a fantastic woman named Lourdes, who has worked here for over 30 years, has taken me under her wing. Together, we are expanding the huerto (garden) outside the comedor (cafeteria) and she is a great help with my Spanish!

"I have also been creating a map of the Instituto grounds. Two maps, actually – one showing the property as it is now, and another that is a vision depicting how we'd like to improve the grounds, to enhance the Institute's capacity as a demonstration site for NTFPs and appropriate technology."

Meanwhile, Mark is finding his own niche at Grupo Fenix, a long-time partner of Falls Brook Centre, which is working to provide solar electricity to Nicaraguan communities.

"Things here work-wise are quite interesting," he writes. "El Centro Solar is functioning in the sense that there is a building, and people working there, but it has a long way to go before being close to achieving its goals.

"I'm finding that I'm just waiting right now to sort out where I will fit in. So far I've helped pour a concrete floor in a pumphouse, designed (and today am starting construction on) some benches for the weekly meeting of the Mujeres solar (Solar Women's group), and helped with the construction of an order of one hundred solar panels.

"Nothing terribly huge or glamorous, but right now it's a challenge just to figure out what's what in day-to-day conversation. There is quite a lot happening here at the moment."

To learn more about the experiences of Falls Brook Centre's international interns, or our international projects in general, watch for the new dispatches page on our Web site: www.fallsbrookcentre.ca.