About Nicaragua SST

Explore volcanoes: Gaze across the blue crater lake in the collapsed Apoyo volcano. Peer down into the Masaya volcano and smell its sulfurous fumes. Relax in a hammock on one of Lake Nicaragua’s 365 tiny islands created 20,000 years ago when the Mombacho volcano blew its top off, or look for monkeys in the orchid-rich cloud forest that now thrives at the top of the extinct Mombacho volcano.

Ask Nicaraguans their opinions of the Sandinista revolution in the 1970s, the Contra War in the 1980s, and peace since the 1990s. Drink pinolillo, eat nacatamales, and sing “Nicaragua Nicaraguita.” This is Nicaragua SST.

You will fly to Nicaragua, located in the middle of Central America, with the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on the west and east coasts, and with Honduras and Costa Rica to its north and south. After arriving in the capital, Managua, we will go to Jinotepe, a mid-sized cities less than an hour away and at an elevation of 1500 feet in a coffee-growing region of the country.

Nicaragua was one of the first host countries when Goshen College started the SST program in 1968. The country continued as an SST location until December 1972, when a major earthquake destroyed Managua two days before Christmas. But SST again returned to Nicaragua after a few years, until the country became unstable in the 1978. Now, for the third time, Goshen will be back in Nicaragua for SST.

Study

Each student will live with a host family and participate in language study after being placed in a small class with other students at the same Spanish level. Lectures will feature Nicaraguan history, politics, poetry and literature (a disproportionate number of famous Latin American authors come from tiny Nicaragua), sustainable development, art, the Somoza dictatorship, interviews with former combatants from both sides of the civil war, and tropical biodiversity.

Service

Possible service assignments during the latter six weeks could include community health, reforestation, gender issues and peace education. The assignments may be located on the Pacific coastal lowlands, the island of Ometepe, the rolling pasturelands in southern Nicaragua or the mountainous north-central highlands.

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About SST: via Goshen College

The following is a short summary of SST from the Goshen College website!

Here, you can view pictures that leaders post as well as read journal entries from various students....

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About SST

SST is a 13-week journey, in which you will learn to know a different culture from the inside out - its language, its customs, its history and, most importantly, its people. You will also learn to better understand yourself and your place in the world. Pack your suitcase and an inquisitive mind, because your classroom is now an open door.

Many colleges offer international education options and the number of students studying abroad is at an all-time high. Yet, SST is one of the nation’s most original study abroad programs because it takes you from North America to another culture and another way of life. By joining SST, you join more than 7,000 Goshen alumni - guided by more than 230 faculty leaders in 20 countries - in a 40-year-old tradition of entering a new world of interest and insight.

Expect to be transformed. Often our SSTers say that their hosts give them far more than they feel they are offering in return - through kindness, acceptance, laughter and generosity. Through the successes and the challenges on SST, you will grow as a person and discover new insights into God’s presence in the world and in your heart.

Study

"I learned a lot of facts about the culture in classes, but the real education was in communicating with my host family."

~ Nick Gingerich ’05, Dominican Republic SST

"The most surprising part of entering another culture I found is that once I started to form relationships with Ethiopians, they began to honestly express their impressions of my own culture. I learned a lot about how my own culture is viewed in the world."

~ Celeste Kennel-Shank ’05, Ethiopia SST

With about 20 other students, you will begin your SST experience in your host country’s capital with six weeks of intense study, including focused language instruction with trained nationals.

Language classes occur daily. Class sizes vary, ranging between 5 to 10 students per teacher, providing students a better opportunity to improve speaking ability. In the evenings, in most locations, you will return to a host family, a wonderful way to get a perspective of everyday life – the workday, simple meals, personal histories and joyful recreation.

In the afternoons, seminars and field trips will put you in touch with educators, scholars, government officials, historians, authors, service workers, musicians and other experts on different aspects of life in your host country. You may find your classroom expanded from the Great Wall of China to Lalibela, churches carved entirely of stone, in Ethiopia.

Service

Service is the true heart of the SST experience, as you meet and engage people from a different culture. In this second half of SST, you will gain profound insights into the host culture—and the different meanings of service. No longer is it simply accomplishing a task, but service can be as simple and profound as listening to the life experiences of others.

"It was on service that a family received me as a complete stranger and, more than anyone I’ve ever met, taught me the meanings of hospitality, generosity and unselfishness."

~ Danny King ’05, Germany SST

Service assignments vary on every SST, but typical assignments would include:

	Teaching English
	Working in a school with children
	Helping at a health clinic
	Assisting in a community development project
	Volunteering at Habitat for Humanity