This essay was written by students from the La Lumiere School service group, who
visited Nicaragua in March 2014. This was the 8th consecutive group that La Lumiere
sent to volunteer in Nicaragua.
Before we came to Nicaragua, we had heard the stories of the previous visitors from our
school, La Lumiere. We all had images in our heads of what this trip would mean: to the
children of Nicaragua, to the greater Fabretto Community, even to ourselves.
Cusmapa seemed empty without the common aspects of American life that we were so used to;
street lights were non-existent, the roads were not paved, and instead of cars on the
streets, we saw dogs and donkeys. But no one was uncomfortable in this new environment.
We were excited by the prospect of the journey ahead and we found these differences to
be some of our favorite aspects of Cusmapa.
We began work early the next day at the Oratorio de Maria Fabretto constructing a wall
to enclose the campus. The wall was more work than any of us predicted. Our patience was
tested as we chopped barbed wire fences with machetes and pulled stumps from the ground
with only a shovel and our bare hands… but our job was not entirely work without play.
The children managed to find us every day between their classes and asked for piggy back
rides and offered to help us in our labors. These children were as determined as we were
to remove the stumps from the ground. Suddenly the trenches grew a bit deeper and there
were a few less stumps to dig out as their happiness motivated us towards our goal.
We had set out to Nicaragua with the clear goal of building a wall and helping the
people of Cusmapa. The further out of our comfort zones we were pushed, the more we
discovered how little the differences between our worlds mattered. We loved Cusmapa:
every dirt road, stray dog, and smiling child. We built a wall in Cusmapa, but the
experiences we had built each of us up in return.
Our Volunteers
Fabretto volunteers come from
all over the world, joined by one cause: supporting children in Nicaragua.