April 30, 2008

Encouraging Sustainability, One Village at a Time

Forrest Raub ’09 reflects on his recent Spring Break Mission Trip to Nicaragua…

Forrest Raub ’09 (left) is pictured with a Nicaraguan teacher during the Spring Break Mission Trip to Central America.

Raub and eight others—including two faculty/staff advisors—spent a week in the Central American country working with Sustainable Harvest International. The organization strives to help farmers reverse rainforest destruction by teaching them sustainable land-use practices.

Waking up around 5 a.m. each day, the group completed a variety of manual-labor projects, including creating ditches for biodigesters, which help to produce methane gas and, ultimately, provide an alternative energy source for the villages. The OWU volunteers also helped to build a fence around a local school to keep cattle and pigs from grazing into the schoolyard, and they started a mahogany tree nursery for the villagers to use as an income or living-fence-post source in the future.

The villagers opened their homes to the travelers nightly, providing mattresses or hammocks to the group members. One such villager, a 25-year-old teacher from the local school they had visited, had a particular impact on Raub.

“That was probably my favorite part of the trip,” says Raub, a zoology major, noting that the teacher travels to a university to study English four times each month. “His passion for education and everything, it really made me appreciate going to college.”

The biggest challenge, says Raub, was the reverse culture shock. Nicaragua’s poverty level is second highest globally, just behind Haiti. He also struggled at times with the language barrier, speaking only a few words in Spanish, and the dietary options were an adjustment.

“We had rice and beans, literally, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I guess that was kind of challenging for me because I definitely lost a lot of weight on the trip, I have to say that,” says Raub, who is 6 feet 3 inches tall and accustomed to a more varied, American diet. “We learned to appreciate very simple but extraordinarily beautiful things,” he says.

To current or prospective students who might be considering a Spring Break Mission Trip in the future, Raub offers nothing but encouragement.

“I would tell them to absolutely go for it,” says the native of Louisville, Ohio. “As we’re approaching this point in our lives where we’re looking ahead at our futures, it’s really important to establish where you think you want to go and your passions and your interests and everything, but it’s also important to realize that there’s life that exists outside your immediate bounds.”

Interested in hearing more about Raub’s trip to Nicaragua? To hear a podcast containing more details about Raub’s experience, visit the Events section of the OWU Podcasts site.

– Ann Marcum