Mara Kettle, Nicaragua 2015

I am currently a junior in Rutgers School of Nursing. During the month of January 2015, I was given the opportunity to go abroad on an International Leadership and Exchange program in Nicaragua with the Office of Student Life and five other student leaders. My experience in Nicaragua was insightful, exciting, and life-changing. I was welcomed to a country filled with rich culture and natural resources but like many other nations still faces challenges with growth and development. During my time in Nicaragua, my peers and I united to improve some of the challenges the country faces such as lack of access to educational and health care resources. We helped install a solar suitcase for a community clinic located in Managua which aids to provide electricity to perform routine health care examinations. I learned the value of family-centered care, unity, strength, teamwork, and diligence. I fell in love with the children at Los Quinchos and Las Yahoscas when my peers and I spent a day learning about their stories, playing soccer, and reading stories. My time in Nicaragua inspired me to study abroad during the Spring 2016 semester in Ghana, West Africa. I studied at the University of Ghana, located in Accra, Ghana. I interned at the West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF) where I helped develop a project of my own titled Sustainable Health Living which aims to provide food resources and job training for families impacted by HIV. I also worked on community outreach projects with my team members at WAAF in various regions in Ghana.

The photo below includes CIEE students, myself and school children of the Asisriwa village located in the Ashanti region of Ghana, West Africa. We were working on building a ground floor for the Asisriwa village first library. The library would be used by Asisriwa village and many neighboring villages in the Ashanti region. We needed water to mix with the cement to make our ground floor. Unfortunately, Asisriwa village was going through a period of dumsor, which is what we call "power outage" in the United States. Dumsor is an epidemic in Ghana, as it hinders the development of many businesses, as well as the productivity of many villages like Asisriwa.

This picture was taken as a sign of unity, empowerment, strength and resilience. Despite our challenges, everyone came together and participated in a 40-minute walk during the peak of the day (about 95 to 100 degree Fahrenheit weather) to a nearby village to obtain water manually to build our ground floor. Some of the CIEE students carried buckets of water on our head throughout the entire journey back to the Asisriwa village. It is interesting to note here that carrying gallon buckets of water is not some tradition or something that Ghanaians do for fun. It is an integral for many to obtain a vital resource they need to survive. This day for me was exciting and rewarding. It felt like I was apart of something great, a community, a positive effort, although I couldn't fix the problem myself, I was apart of some solution, and that was the best feeling in the world.

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