In Siuna, Nicaragua, a Catholic lay minister wakes his parishioners regularly with 4 a.m. mass celebrations. Another church transforms on some nights to host karaoke sessions. The culture of the town, which in some areas lacks plumbing, electricity and paved roads, shocked Kathryn Fay '09 upon her first visit in 2006.
In December, Fay returned to Siuna, accompanied by Dartmouth students and faculty members, including medical professionals and students of Dartmouth Medical School, as a public health officer for the Tucker Foundation's Cross Cultural Education and Service Program.
In its seventh year, CCESP aims to encourage interaction between Dartmouth volunteers and Siuna residents. The Dartmouth group divided into a community development team, which built a kitchen for Siuna's school and church, and a community health team, which volunteered at a medical clinic.
While the students worked hard, Federico Sequeda '09, a member of the community development team, said he felt his team was not able to contribute much physical assistance to the community but offered emotional support.
"To call it a service trip is misleading," he said. "We were not helpful at all."
Most of the Dartmouth students on the community development team had little experience building or farming, but with help from Siuna's residents, Nicaraguan university students and a nonprofit organization, the team constructed a kitchen and a set of cookstoves and encouraged the residents to work to diversify their crops.
The community development team members lived with a Siuna family. Christopher Knape '08, chief of the community development team, said he enjoyed the opportunity to talk informally for hours with the host family.
For the community health team, which was stationed in a different region of Siuna, communicating with patients was a greater priority than distributing medicine, Fay said.
According to Fay, many of the cases the team treated were chronic illnesses or conditions which would require lifestyle changes to remedy. Because the previous year's CCESP team learned that the benefits of short term visits from medical brigades were unsustainable, this year's community health team prepared public health workshops, to address, among other issues, malaria prevention for adults and tooth brushing habits for children. Some Nicaraguan healthcare professionals and other concerned citizens walked for five hours to attend the workshops.
Fay said that one of the best ways she was able to care for patients was to listen to them.
"A very large aspect of this program is showing that people from far away care," she said.
The program also proved rewarding for the volunteers.
"A very large aspect of the program is how I will be permanently changed," Fay said.
Travelling to Siuna helped both teams understand the relationship between Nicaragua and the United States.
Student director Benjamin Jastrzembski '08 said one of the major surprises for Dartmouth students was that Siuna's residents were welcoming of the volunteers, despite a widely held belief in the town that the U.S. government has negatively influenced Nicaraguan politics. Jastrzembski said that, because many of Siuna's citizens believe the Nicaraguan government does not reflect their own opinions, they understand that Dartmouth students and the U.S. government may not share the same views.
The Tucker Foundation organizes the annual trip in conjunction with the non-profit organization Bridges to Community and students from the University of the Autonomous Region of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua.
