For 15 Eastlake High School students, this year’s spring vacation was unlike any other because of where they went and what they learned.
Contributed
Fifteen Eastlake High School students, including several members of the Spanish Honor Society, traveled to rural Nicaragua this spring for an educational trip that included donating school supplies to needy children.
In early April, the group embarked upon a trip to rural Nicaragua, where they interacted with the native population and gave school supplies to needy children.
Many of the Eastlake students are members of the Spanish Honor Society, a nationwide academic club with interests in promoting the study of Spanish language and culture. The club isn’t affiliated with Eastlake or the Lake Washington School District, and students paid for the trip on their own.
Senior Rebekah Horne, the president of Eastlake’s honor society, said the group was supposed to visit a school on Ometepe, a small island on Lake Nicaragua, but due to the Easter holiday, the school was closed.
Instead, they went to the nearby village, a 40-person settlement outside of Granada, one of the country’s largest cities.
Prior to spring break, the honor society spent two weeks collecting pencils, crayons, chalk, paper and other school supplies from their Eastlake classmates. Horne divided the supplies into 18 equal packages.
“It ended up being perfect because there were, like, 18 kids there,” she said.
The extreme poverty of the Nicaraguans was a shocking experience. Their tour guide told the group that it’s the poorest country in Latin America, with most people living on $2.50 or less per day.
On the boat ride to the island, the group saw many homes that were nothing more than shacks constructed from native trees.
“It was crazy to see how people live like that, but it was interesting,” said senior Jamie Webber, who does public relations for the honor society.
Contributed
The honor society spent two weeks collecting pencils, crayons, chalk, paper and other school supplies from their Eastlake classmates.
Webber is enrolled in an Advanced Placement Spanish class, so the trip was very useful in terms of advancing her language skills, she said. She talked with a small boy, who told her about his love for art, and how rarely he had the proper supplies for his hobby.
“I liked that I could understand that, and so I think my Spanish improved,” Webber said. “Also, just traveling was really good, taking away a love and passion for traveling, and learning about different cultures.”
Every day during the trip, the group woke at about dawn and stayed busy doing a variety of activities, said senior Jordan Webber, the honor society’s vice president.
One of her favorite parts was hearing the legend of Charco Verde, or “green puddle.” The legend stated that local farmers sold their souls to the devil so their crops would prosper. When they died, however, they turned into cows and lived under the lake.
“We were on the beach there, it was midnight, and this herd of cows just wandered past us,” Jordan Webber said.
The students later visited a permaculture farm, where sustainable farming practices were being integrated into the local way of life. The farm was harvesting mangoes, ginger, turmeric and other foods.
“People go to Latin-American countries, Spanish-speaking countries, and work on permaculture farms, and that’s how they get their room and board,” said junior Morgan Pearl, a Spanish Honor Society member.
“The whole idea was learning about sustainable farming, because erosion has been a huge problem there recently with the water and the wind taking away the soil,” Jordan Webber added.
After graduation, Jamie Webber is attending the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, while Horne and Jordan Webber are going to Gonzaga University. They’re pursuing different career paths, but each of them plans to continue studying Spanish.
Sandra Don Chokr, an Eastlake Spanish teacher and adviser for the honor society, said traveling is one of the best ways for students to see their lessons are applicable to real-world settings. The club went to Cuba and the Dominican Republic in prior years, and plans to go to Costa Rica next year.
“Going to the permaculture farm, and the supply drive that we did for the children in Nicaragua, I think it’s really important for them to see that there’s a purpose for learning language,” Don Chokr said.
“And when they leave high school, it’s not something that they can just forget about.”