Dear Friends and Family,
As most of you know, recently I traveled to Nicaragua on an Alternative Spring Break Service Trip with Quinnipiac University’s Albert Schweitzer Institute. 30 students were chosen out of over 200 applicants to spend 10 days in the city of Leon helping to improve the quality of life. As soon as we entered Nicaragua on March 6th 2009, we were completely surrounded by poverty. Little did we know that after our 10 days were up, we would be completely changed as individuals. No one can ever prepare themselves enough for the things we witnessed with our own eyes. Words can do no justice, for the way we felt and for what we saw. I kept thinking if I closed my eyes it would all go away, but there was no escaping it. 80% of people are living below $2 a day, and 1.9 million Nicaraguans ages 15 and older are illiterate. Although I didn’t speak Spanish, and no
one I met spoke English, through laughter and smiles, we all spoke the same language. Through all the sadness and poverty I witnessed, there was one thing I discovered, and that was the language of love. The children had smiles on their faces, but if you looked deep enough into their eyes you could see the true struggle each and every child was facing. 
Our service 
The school we worked at had a classroom that was made out of aluminum walls with no windows. Since the temperature in Nicaragua is so hot, the classroom essentially turns into an oven as the kids learn inside of it. When it rains, water floods the classroom, the floor turns into mud, and when it’s windy dirt blows right through. We built the foundation of a new classroom, using concrete blocks so that the children could have a reliable classroom to learn in. We also repainted worn down classrooms, and dug ditches so that rain does not flood the homes of teachers. Since we didn’t have the necessary tools needed to build, simple tasks took way longer to complete. I personally helped make the foundation for the school out of rebar. I found it hard to believe that most children used only 1 sheet of paper for an entire week of school, because they couldn’t afford more. Some children didn’t have shoes, and others couldn’t afford lunch. While working at the school I was randomly hugged, high fived, and had my hand held by random little children I’d never met before.All the children were so loving, and thankful. When a little boy was asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” he replied “a gringo (slang for white person) so I can help people like they’ve helped us here.” .
My Host Family
We spent our time living with a host family that myself and another student, Tiffany, were assigned to. The Mendez-Torrez family consisted of a mother, father, a son (Walter 23), 2 daughters (Sayda 21 & Valeska 14), a cat, and a bird. We could not have been luckier with the family we were given to spend an entire week with. Although it wasn’t our mothers job to pick up after us, when we came back from work everyday, we found our room completely spotless. She would hand wash our filthy clothes every day for us, and even change our sheets! Every night we would eat dinner with the entire family, and our sisters boyfriend would say grace. I couldn’t understand much, but I knew they were thanking God for everything that they had. For Meg and myself, this was hard to believe. These people barely had anything yet they were so thankful. The experience I received through this trip is something words cannot describe. I learned the true meaning of life, and what it meant to be stripped of everything, to not have electronics, cars, or a steady supply of water. I learned what it meant to be happy, thankful, and most of all loved. Where we were born is the only difference between the Nicaraguan people and us. We realized growing up in America, great things and great opportunities surround us, and we're never truly appreciative of everything we have in our lives. We found ourselves asking why us, why are we so lucky to be born in America, why are they the ones that have nothing? It was hard to not be upset, angry, confused, and just frustrated with all of the emotions and questions running through our heads. Why was an old lady living in an house made of cardboard? Why am I living in a house that won't fall down every time it rains? Our mother explained that it's no ones fault to be born where they are, we are born without knowing what kind of environment we'll live in. They know they don't have much, but they are proud of every single thing they own. They're not embarrassed to let us into their homes, because there's no hiding who they are. There are no layers covering who they are as people. As for us, we need to be stripped of so many layers before reaching the actual human heart. We have layers upon layers covering who we truly are as people. We were sent the message that we all are human beings and we all deserve to do great no matter where we live. She was so thankful that we were there helping, but to us we weren't doing enough. We wanted to give everything we could. We left our old sneakers behind for teachers at the school we worked at, brought presents for our families, and even snuck our own sandwiches to the kids at school because we couldn’t stand eating in front of kids who couldn’t afford lunch. Tiffany and I left some money for our family hidden in the room we stayed in, because we knew they wouldn't take it if we handed it to them.
We need your help!!!!
Our sister Sayda, is trying to learn English, and our family is currently saving up the money to send her to a local school called Alianza Americana. Alianza is a great program that guarantees that a student will learn English within 3 months. We work closely with Alianza when we go down, and we raise money to offer scholarships to local students in need. Tiffany and I thought it would be a great idea, to help our family raise money to send BOTH sisters to Alianza together to learn English. Our family only owns one bicycle, so we’d like it if the sisters could travel together. Current tuition for Alianza is $180 per student, for a year, seems cheap, but for them it's very expensive. We are sending this email to ask for help. Any amount donated would be greatly appreciated, but we know in these diffic
ult economic times it's hard to spare some cash, so don't feel obligated to do so. Remember a typical family lives on $2 a day or less, so any amount will help!
If you'd like to learn more about our trip and the projects we've done in the past a video documentary from 2008 is on Operation Dreamseed's Website right on the main page. http://www.operationdreamseed.org/This video explains everything we've done and how we feel about Nicaragua. ODS is a non-profit organization that helps collect school supplies for us to bring down to Nicaragua with us.
To Donate
please click the donate button in the top left side of your screen. If you have a paypal account, great...if not you can still donate with your debit/credit card (that option is on the lower left hand section AFTER you click donate). Thank you so much.
Please feel free to forward this to anyone you feel might be interested in helping our efforts or if you’d just like to share our story!
Thank you so much for reading a part of our story.It really means so much to all of us on the Nicaragua Delegation, especially Tiffany and myself.
Never lose hope of a better world and continue spreading peace
One Love,
Meghan Cousins and Tiffany Onorato
