vida-de-carlotta-blog - Tumblr blog

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Wherever you are, be all there.

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#KCMO (at Town Of Kansas Bridge)

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We have a dream to open up a fair-trade, nonprofit coffee shop, so this morning was dedicated to celebrating my co-barista's birthday #loveyoulatte @swellinor (at Ginger Sue's)

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"It is dramatic the strength of liberty and freedom you have to decide the type of life you want to live." -Ernesto Cardenal.

After a semester dedicated to Social Justice and Peace Studies in Central America, I had the pleasure of meeting Father Cardenal in Nicaragua. After feeling his words run through my veins, I made the vow to let this powerful responsibility cultivate itself in joy-in pure happiness. A Giving Trip with TOMS-an organization I feel so passionately about-would give me the opportunity to pursue this vow and fuel a life dedicated to service. 

Please vote for my flag in support of my passionate pursuit. 

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Happy Founder's Day Billy Jewell. Gee whiz, you don't look a day over 20. (at William Jewell College)

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Hey, I've been here and @kslater_thehata is going there! Indulging in a cultured cup of joe #ohtheplacesyoullgo 🌍✌

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I missed ya KC #tilesontilesontiles

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Wouldn't have wanted to grow up anywhere but here... #EstesPark

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The Christmas spirit can't grow weary when there are so many reasons to be cheery #ilovechristmasmarkets (at Dresden, Germany)

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Train traveling #Warsaw #Berlin

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First Stop: Chicago. #iloveairports (at Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD))

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Here's to a Christmas that will be spent a little different than all the rest. Final destination: #Poland (at Denver International Airport (DEN))

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My hope is that the youth will take to the streets again to make history.

Father Cardenal

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Quiero recordar siempre.

  Friday night Nicaragua celebrated La Purisima—the country’s largest national holiday. We participated in the festivities with some of our host families and went from door to door singing to shrines of the Virgin Mary in exchange for door prizes like stalks of sugarcane, bracelets and Virgin Mary decorated Tupperware. Classic. It was a hybrid of Halloween and Christmas Caroling. After four months of living in Central America we still managed to look like the crazy misplaced gringos on our last night abroad. I guess some things will never change… After climbing into my top bunk, the reality that this whole studying abroad thing was rapidly coming to an end hit me like a freight train. My mind raced as I contemplated the magnitude of going home to the states in just a few hours. Fireworks filled the city with sound in celebration for La Purisima but I like to think that Managua was celebrating our big accomplishments too. My thirteen fellow abroaders and I spent four months living and learning in community together; we broke down language barriers, challenged constructs of thought and critically examined the realities of globalization, conflict and politics. We traversed through markets in the pouring rain, squished onto public transportation, packed and repacked backpacks on backpacks on backpacks. We tried our patience with one another, swapped life stories and found solidarity in laughter. We danced, surfed, climbed and bought one too many cones of ice cream. The forte of this study abroad program is the people that you meet along the way—professors, host families, speakers, our study abroad facilitators and my group included.  When you spend sixteen weeks abroad with phenomenal people, farewell embraces weren’t a task that left the eyes dry.

            Throughout the semester we had various meetings and attended presentations delivered by individuals in each country ranging from political activists and business professionals to military leaders. We had the opportunity to sit down with Fr. Fernando Cardenal for our final meeting of the semester. Prior to meeting with him our professor described him as the Nelson Mandela of Nicaragua—he is a legend. He was the Director of the National Literacy Campaign in Nicaragua in 1980 that motivated 60,000 young people to live in solidarity with the poor for five months in order to teach people how to read and write. The campaign brought the illiteracy rate down from 50% to 12.9%. He shared stories about his personal commitment to a life of service dedicated to the struggle for social justice. He captivated the room when he spoke and concluded his presentation by embracing each one of us. He applauded our decision to come to Central America and expose ourselves to a reality far different from our own. He addressed us as representatives of our country’s people, not our country’s foreign policy. To a room full of social justice students well fed in experience, he expressed that “It is dramatic the strength of liberty and freedom you have to decide the type of life you want to live”. I vow to let this powerful responsibility cultivate itself in joy—in pure happiness.

Cardenal challenged us to think about the future: “There is an experience that could happen to you in more or less 15 or 20 years from now. An adolescent son or daughter might come up to you and ask, “dad, mom, where were you in January of 2015?” “Where were you in May of 2017?” How sad it would be for you that if on that day you would have to say to your son or daughter, “I was not there!” And how sad that you would then hear from that son, that daughter, “what a shame dad, mom, it makes me sad to hear you.  Were you not aware of anything, when on those dates there were thousands of young people struggling to build a more just, more human, more beautiful world?” In contrast, how marvelous it would be if that day you can tell them, “I was there with all those young people working for a better world.” And how beautiful and nice for you it would be to then hear your son or daughter say to you, “Wow, I feel very proud of you! How I admire you!” This marvelous moment that could occur in a few years you need to be preparing for now.”

            After a semester abroad dedicated to the study of social justice I feel confident saying that inaction is no longer an option. I need not concern myself with the fear of dying with empty hands. Cardenal assured us that “You have time to be filling your hands with very beautiful, important works, to the benefit of your families, your communities, your country, and also why not consider the entire world. Remember that joy is found in service”. Inaction is no longer an option.

The word recordar in Spanish is used to convey the English verb to remember in English. However, the translation in the word’s Latin roots directly means to pass back through the heart. I hope that I can relive the authenticity of this experience with each memory I possess and story I share about my semester spent in Central America. It wasn’t easy and often times the heart longed for the comfort of home. Shoutout to the wonderful people who still read this—I hope you enjoyed reading these lengthy posts as much as I enjoyed writing them. This semester, no hand written letter, prayer, Facebook message, tweet or email went unnoticed. Somehow you managed to shower me with love and support from thousands of miles away and instilled enough confidence in me to embrace this experience with open arms—I owe ya big time. In my first blog post about this big adventure I wrote, “I pray that this experience will ground me, challenge me and inspire me”. Mission accomplished.  If my biggest regret of the semester was forgetting to pack my handy-dandy headlamp, I think I did alright for myself.

I am excited to sit crisscross applesauce in an oversized loveseat at a coffee shop, to put Skype to good use and to sprawl out on the comfort of a carpeted floor sharing stories about my time abroad with friends and family. Nervous to convey the gravity of an entire semester in conversation, I find confidence in a phrase that our professors shared with us on the first day of class in Nicaragua—“We are what we know and when what we know changes, we change”.

Paz y amor a todos. 

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La Purisima. 

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