My first trip abroad

On January 2003 I traveled to Belgium, a country totally different from my reality. Nicaragua is situated at the heart of America and it has been a country since 1821. Before that, it was Spanish territory. Its history has been marked by wars, foreign interventions, dictators and a revolution. Nowadays, Nicaragua is a country with a democratic, political system and 5,142,098 of inhabitants. The United Nations (UN) estimated that almost 2.3 million of the people in Nicaragua are poor; the majority of them are women and children. These people live with one dollar a day and don’t have access to healthcare or education. This situation is worse in rural regions.

The trip to Belgium changed my view on the first world and deepened my commitment to fight for a better world and a better country to live in. This was part of an exchange program between USOS (a Belgian organization) and the Central American University (UCA) where I was studying Business Administration. The university's authorities selected almost 30 students from different majors and university programs like the social volunteering group (I was part of the latter). On February 2002, we started the selection process and it lasted almost 8 months until October. It was a good experience, because I could get together with Nicaraguan people from different majors, ages, gender, social status, regions, religion and political ideas. So since the beginning the experience was amazing. We did different activities in order to get to know each other and select the best candidates for the exposure trip. In October I was selected to be part of the journey together with 7 others (6 girls and 1 guy). I was really surprised and excited, because it was my first trip abroad and it wouldn't be just for pleasure, it would be more than that.

Before the trip I was very prejudiced about Europe and I believed in a lot of stereotypes about the European people (most of them instigated by the media). Europeans were cold and serious people and they didn’t think high of the role of the family in their lives. I also though that poverty didn’t exist in Europe (at least not in the same way as in Latin-America) and they had an economic system based on equality. These stereotypes and prejudice had disappeared after the trip.

I stayed almost 1 month in Belgium and it was a unique experience because I bonded with my Nicaraguan partners, with Belgian people and with people from countries like Rwanda, Holland and Latin America. I lived with two different families, I was really lucky because some of my friends didn’t live with families, just with students. These families shared a lot with me: the Belgian culture, their life experience, their points of view about many topics and they treated me as part of their families. During the exposure I could see the poverty in the first world, the social problems like the migration from Morocco, Turkey, Africa and South America (Bolivia, Peru), so I realized that poverty is not an exclusive problem of the third world’s countries.

As I said before, the prejudice and stereotypes that I had about Europe and European people had disappeared after the trip and now I have a different opinion about it, even though Belgium is not Europe at all. Now I think that our cultures are just different in many topics, for example the European sense of humor is sarcastic and ironic and our sense of humor is more obvious and direct. We also have differences in the way to express love and kindness, Nicaraguan people are extrovert to express their kindness and love (even the bad feelings) and European people are more introvert and reserved. But these differences don’t mean that one culture is better than another, this difference enriches our relationships and teaches us how to be tolerant.

After the trip I think that different cultures or lifestyles around the world are not good or bad, they are just different and we have to respect and learn from everyone because it is the key to live in peace. The trip also deepened my commitment (that I got while I was a volunteer) to fight for have a better world, I know that I can’t eliminate or solve the world’s problems, but with my knowledge and disposition I can change many things in my neighborhood, my city, my country and other places.

Tania Ninoska Paz Mena