visits

i have started visiting some of the families of my students. i'm doing this to get to know their realities a little better and to feel less like someone that comes to school and then leaves without ever being a part of the community that i work in. i live over an hour from where i work, so this is a problem.
the first family i visited was of my 11 and 13 year old students, leimon and ana marie... they are cousins. leimon's house was about the size of my bedroom growing up. dirt floors. chickens and pigs running around. leimon is the oldest of 5 kids and as far as i could tell there was no father around, but who knows. it was very good for me to see this. i want to know better where all of my students are coming from, because some of them are much better off financially than others living in larger brick houses having cars and other amenities. one of my bosses was telling me that the school program that i work with was started this year to serve more of the former, the students and people living in worse conditions, but have gotten a lot more people from urban areas. this is creating interesting class conflicts. as i was riding on the bus on the way home from school, two girls were sitting in a seat, and normally students squish to make room for a third. i encouraged them to scoot over and they made room for me. instead i invited one of my students to sit, he kindly refused, and then another, and then i asked another to sit and the girl, one of the better off students, said to me... "no teacher, not with him. i won't sit with him." she put her nose in the air, literally, and refused to share her seat.
i think what bothered me most was that as the people here in nicaragua have certain "developments" and increased economic opportunities (though not many), those that benefit from them become less community oriented and more individual wealth oriented... as much as it can be called wealth. so the influx of american "opportunity" is destroying nicaragua in a much deeper way dividing people into more class divisions with a growing "middle class." its just kind of depressing sometimes.
2 days later i visited another student with a house 4 times the size of leimon's. but still many many people living in it--one room, dirt floor, 3 beds which are in the kitchen/living room/dining room. it is good to see though. i can better see my own wealth living in managua in a nice clean house and understand how separate and distant my experience of life in nicaragua still is from my student's experience. this bridge may never be crossed. but it doesn't mean we can't keep trying, and if nothing else, swimming is always an option.

james