by Mateo, Tufts 1+4 Participant
As of today, I have officially lived in León, Nicaragua for a whopping two weeks! Granted, that’s not all that much time in the scheme of things, but I’m already beginning to notice so much about the culture that exists here. From the food and the language, to basic things such as how people greet each other, it’s truly the myriad of rich cultural differences that add up to make life here so unique. However, with that being said there are also a lot of differences that aren’t necessarily all that great, or rather are just—different. For me, the most difficult transition has been accepting the way that time functions here in Latin America.
As an individual, I am the type of person that has to have every aspect of my day organized. I wear a wristwatch, have two agendas (because let’s face it, one is not enough), and you can bet I have a five-year plan. However, here in Nicaragua, if you ask someone what they’re going to be doing later in the day, chances are they won’t even know the answer to that. Everything here is done in the moment.
At first this was very hard for me, especially when I’d go into stores and expect workers to come rushing to help me as if they’d been anticipating my arrival for several days. However, I was sorely disappointed and found out that things here run more on an “eventually” schedule. This attitude spills over into all aspects of life, and coming from the land of ‘everything on-the-go,’ I even had trouble learning how to sit and enjoy my own breakfast.
Interestingly enough, somewhere amidst this paradigm shift, I think I had my first ever existential crisis during my Bridge-Year. I was reading in the living room late at night with my host brother nearby, and stopped for half an hour thinking about what it meant to ‘be’. Before then, it never occurred to me how important it was to be mindful of what I was experiencing right in the moment.
Just before going to bed, I wrote this in my journal:
“I want to BE, to be present, to exist in the here and now. I want to take in each and every breath as it is, and to feel the swelling in my lungs as my chest expands and fills with life!”
If being in Nicaragua has taught me anything thus far, it’s that life is happening right now. It isn’t just some aspiration or goal that you hope to achieve far off into the future. When I leave this place I hope I can remember how to exist in the present, but as for now I’m not too worried, because in this moment I am here.