Today, someone asked me what I did this summer.

I replied, “I was in Nicaragua… for two months”

They responded, “Woah! What were you doing there?”

I answered, “An internship. At a health center.”

They remarked, “Wow, that’s cool.”

And I agreed, “Yeah, it was cool.”

 

Nicaragua was anything but “cool.”  I instantly felt uneasy at letting the conversation end like that. It went against the promise I made to myself that I wouldn’t simplify my experience through describing it with the trite and insignificant adjectives of “cool” and “good” that we often use around campus.

 

Yeah, it was small talk. We were walking somewhere, and it wasn’t the time or place to sit down and platicar (chat) about women’s health, machismo, public health education and promotion, and my two-month glimpse and living within Nicaraguan culture. But I still wish I had used an adjective with more than four letters.