Lucecita

This week an engineering group from OSU is here at Montaña. As a future engineering student at OSU, I am appropriately geeking out. Within the group they have four teams who each have their own service project for the week: installing a filtration system to provide safe drinking water from the tap, updating our electrical system to make it more efficient, developing a goat management system, and building more terraces and planting more trees to make our land healthier and more prosperous.

During meals and downtime I have been able to pick their brains about which classes to take, which ones to avoid, which dorms are the best, and which minors are feasible with an engineering major. I have already talked with the professor about taking this class next year as a freshman and coming back to work at MdL.

With many extra mouths to feed there is much food to prepare. I have spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Mama making snacks and meals for the group. I have no memory of wanting to learn how to cook when I was younger; I was only interested in the food when it was time to eat. This week as Mama has been teaching me more and more around the kitchen I have been taking notes and writing down recipes to bring back home to the States.

My hours of chopping onions, peppers, and dipping bananas in chocolate have led to a wonderful relationship between the Mama and I. After more than two months at Montaña, she has stopped calling me Gringa. I am still not Lucy. The suffix “ita” in Spanish signifies “little”. Had she called me “Lucita”, she would be calling me “little Lucy”. Instead, I have been christened “Lucecita”, or, “little light”.

I have been working with Mama to help her and the rest of the kitchen staff practice English by using notecards to label utensils and foods around the kitchen in both English and Español. Each new word brings a new excitement in all of us, as I am also able to beef up my vocabulary. Mama is constantly rooting through the fridge to find foods whose names I do not recognize. Sometimes, I am still unsure what they are in English, but I am still happy to copy them down into my recipes. One card has already been destroyed in a bean accident, but many of the cards have carefully been placed high on the wall “so the kids can’t get to them.”

When Mama asked me how long I was staying, her question translated to “how many years will you be here?” I hesitated before responding. “Only until May,” I said. She looked at me surprised. “But why only so little?” I explained that I am only 18 and in the fall I will begin my studies at university. She nodded and told me she understood, that it was a good thing, but she will be sad when I leave.

Last week a previous LTV came to visit and stayed with us in our house down below. We had plenty of time to talk and get to know each other, and as I learned her story I was struck by the similarities to mine. She deferred school, worked and saved money all fall, and flew down in January when she was 18. She planned to stay for six months and then return to the states to start college. After six months she decided to stay another six months, and after that, ended up staying six more. In total she lived here for over a year and a half, all before she turned 20.

I started to think about my life and my time as a volunteer at Montaña de Luz. Could I stay for a year? Could I stay for two? But I already knew that my answer is no. At this point in my life, I do not have a year, or two, to give. I deliberately postponed my schooling and willingly left my comfortable suburban life to come live and work in Central America. I would not trade that for anything. Right now I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be. But I know this is not where I am meant to be forever.

Meeting and interacting with the OSU engineers only confirmed this for me. I can hardly wait to be one of them. I love all of their projects and appreciate the planning and research that went in to making each one the best it can be for this organization. Here I am learning everyday about the language, culture and people here, but I am excited to learn more about math, science and engineering in college. I took a gap year because I wanted to take time to learn from the world, not because I was done learning in classrooms forever.

I am now more than halfway through my stay at Montaña de Luz. I know I am unaware of all the changes I have undergone since arriving, but I hope when I return they will be apparent to those around me and I can continue to be a little light as long as I am learning.