jstevens@observer-reporter.com
JEFFERSON - A few days before she was scheduled to return to Managua, Nicaragua, on June 29, Greta Tom shared what it was like the last nine months working as a missionary/volunteer at the Botha Cultural Center in an impoverished neighborhood outside the country's capital.
Appropriately, Tom, 26, a graduate of Jefferson-Morgan High School and West Virginia University, gave her presentation and served a traditional Nicaraguan dinner of beans and rice and a drink made out of oatmeal to friends and family at the Jefferson Baptist Church.
It seemed appropriate because it became quite apparent that the church is where Tom learned about the importance of developing a sense of community, an ideal she took with her and shared with the people of Nicaragua.
Tom said she felt called to the community in which she lived for the past nine months. She enjoys being in the environment in Managua and said the people of Managua are friendly and inspiring.
At first she thought she was going to "help" others but has since learned to walk with the people while both offering and receiving hospitality. The people of the Cultural Center and her host family are her community of support, faith and friends.
"I just know that I have been given more than I have given," she said. "It has been a very humbling experience."
It is that experience, both humbling and fulfilling, that that has drawn her back to this Central American country, where she will spend the next two years in service with the Volunteer Missionary Movement, a Catholic lay organization. Her previous affiliation was with an organization called the Mennonite Central Committee.
Tom majored in international studies and minored in music at West Virginia. "I entered school to study music. I had a full tuition scholarship to play oboe," she said.
But after two and a half years, she discovered she didn't want to focus just on music, so she switched to international studies.
"Frankly, I just wanted to graduate without any noble plans," she said.
So after graduating in 2006, she traveled to Amsterdam to work at a Christian backpackers youth hostel where she met many refugees from Africa, Afghanistan and other developing countries.
"These people had a big impact on me," she said, and after hearing their stores she felt called to further her volunteer service.
"I realized I had grown up in a secure and stable environment, so I decided I wanted to spend a year in a developing country to find out what life was like for two-thirds of the world," she said.
After returning home from Amsterdam, someone put in her in touch with the Mennonite Central Committee, which offered a one-year volunteer program.
"I applied and I could volunteer in either India or Nicaragua. I chose the latter."
She had researched the culture and had a good idea what to expect. "But reading about it and living it is completely different," Tom said.
She lived with a host family and the house was very simple although she had the luxury of an indoor bathroom. Water was only available sporadically - a few hours in the early morning and a few hours in the evening and all of their clothes were washed by hand in large tubs.
Tom recalled that while teaching English to the restaurant services class, she was helping them practice English by talking about the food they had just shared.
Tom asked, "What is gallo pinto?" They responded, beans and rice. She was uncertain about the soup she had just eaten and asked what it was called. One of the students responded, " sopa mondongo," which translates as "stomach of cow." From that point Tom learned to ask about the food before eating.
She witnessed much poverty in the city. Women walking to and from their villages hauling heavy baskets, children begging and selling trinkets.
The positive environment of the Botha Cultural Center provided an alternative and the opportunity to alleviate the poverty that at times engulfed the city.
Tom said Managua is a safe place, politically, but armed robberies are becoming more common. "Just like anywhere else, crime is born out of poverty," she said.
At the Jefferson church, Tom taught the children about something she holds close to her heart - nonviolence.
She showed them a piñata can be use to teach it. Rather than use a blindfold and a bat or stick to break apart a traditional piñata, the children circle the piñata, sing songs, and take turns pulling the colorful ribbons that hang from the middle.
One of the strings is tied to the "trap door" that opens the piñata and all of the candy tumbles to the ground.
Tom said it will be hard going back to Nicaragua because she will miss her family, although she does have one month of vacation each year and the cultural center closes in December.
Yet, she said, "Being in Nicaragua is where I am supposed to be right now. I believe it's God's plan and I can be content with that."