A Sojourn to León

Stephanie Owen and Amati, her 9-1/2 year old son, left in September for a 14 month stay in León, Nicaragua. Stephanie is a Spanish teacher at Hopkins High School and, like all language teachers, she wants to be sure that when her students finish her classes they will be knowledgeable about another culture in addition to having a second language under their belts. Stephanie, however, has an even more expansive idea and the staff at her school agrees. Hopkins High School has awarded Stephanie a sabbatical grant which will support her and her son during the time they will be in Nicaragua. While her son learns the language and the ways of his father’s country on the playground and in school, Stephanie’s plans include exploring the feasibility of setting up a cultural and language immersion experience tailored to Twin Cities teens. In addition, she will investigate ways in which to form a partnership between student teachers at Normandale Community College and preschool teachers in León.

Just a few days before their departure, we spoke over coffee about their anticipated adventure and what Stephanie hopes to accomplish over the next 14 months. While our coffee was still too hot to drink, Stephanie excitedly began to explain her motivation for this trip. “My reasons are well reflected by youth from this past summer’s delegation who were quoted in PML’s July newsletter. When I read the reactions of these young people to their experiences in León, I thought we just might eventually find peace on this earth. If every high school student could experience first hand what these kids have experienced, maybe we could eventually find our way to living in a more peaceful world village instead of planning to drop bombs on people who don’t even have clean water to drink.”

This thirty-two year old mother and teacher is a passionate woman, unafraid to speak her mind. Her greatest excitement seems to be about the power she believes we each have to create a better world even while we continue to enjoy our lives. For Stephanie, raising what we might call our “compassion index” is how we may be able to bring ourselves to a renewed creation. She refers to Catholic theologian Michael Fox, who believes compassion incinerates denial, warms cold structures, and scorches self-serving ways of living. She points out how the fires of compassion are reflected so clearly in Anni Simons’ description of her summer trip to León. “I am still thinking about the overwhelming experiences I had in Nicaragua. What I find so extremely fascinating is how the people that I encountered can be, simultaneously, so completely different from me in the amount of things they possess, the hardships they face every day, and what their future holds, and yet be so similar to me in their basic fears, desires, and interactions with each other.”

The school district grant will make it possible for Stephanie to spend significant time while in León making preliminary arrangements for the Cultural Immersion Program, which everyone hopes will be an annual commitment. The six-week course will include a variety of experiences to foster cultural, social, and personal awareness among the participants. Observing the experiences and hearing the stories of all classes and ages of Nicaraguans will be a crucial aspect of the course. “At an influential time in these students’ lives, they will have the opportunity to learn, reflect, and evaluate first-hand what they are encountering. León is a place that reflects realities experienced by most of our world’s populations, realities quite different from our own in the United States,” Stephanie explains. “Each student will live with a León family, attend classes, and enjoy a variety of cultural experiences in the community. This will be an up-front experience of South-North issues. This year I will have the time to find teachers and other Nicaraguans willing to share their experiences, and to check out the families in León who will each host a student in their home.” A first group of Hopkins High School students will be arriving in June 2003 for the six-week immersion course.

Amati will attend Mi Mundo, a bilingual school in León. Stephanie is confident he will do fine there. “For one thing,” she explains, “he’s used to hearing Spanish from a Costa Rican student who lived with us for a year. Amati also traveled with me when I led the PML youth delegation to León in 2001. There was an eight-year-old boy in our host family. He and Amati played a lot with friends in the Fundeci neighborhood, so he is excited about returning to this adventure.” She adds, “Amati is half-Nicaraguan. I want him to know his father’s language and to know the incredible amount of freedom people can experience who have suffered, endured hardships, and struggled with life. They don’t have much ‘stuff:’ they have their guitars and their loved ones. They have a different sense of security and peace that we don’t always experience here in the U.S. where ‘stuff’ is super-abundant but a sense of community is not always available.”

Apparently Amati will learn wanderlust at his mother’s side, just as Stephanie and her two brothers, at about the same age, learned it from their Mom and Dad. The family’s first international trip happened in grade school in the form of a European excursion via railroad. Compassion was fostered in her home as well. On Sundays, even on the coldest winter days, the family brought a friend with cerebral palsy to church with them. “Every Sunday I witnessed my Dad and brothers lifting her into the van from the nursing home and then up the steps into the church,” Stephanie relates. “When I was young, I was embarrassed by her knotted fingers and her halting speech, but I also felt a deep loyalty to her as my friend. My parents worked hard to provide for us experiences where compassion could be nurtured.” Stephanie does not think her experiences have been so hugely unique. “The Despedida we hosted for friends and family before we left was a delightful community event,” she says. “It seems as if people are looking for opportunities to create change. I see powerful acts by many people, like members of PML, who want to spend time to inspire a world war on poverty, to cure injustice, and clean up the water. These days I see the ideals of our flag being blinded by the rocket’s red glare. A lot of our people want our flag to be seen as representing individuals extending a hand, caring, listening. I find it very encouraging that the people of León seem to consider folks from Minnesota to be like this.”