Inquisitive bright brown eyes locked in on me. Two kids on a dirt floor, below a rusted tin roof. This “neighborhood”, located at the bottom of the long hill to my house, is as bad as I’ve seen in Nicaragua. Someone told me the people there were displaced from the 1992 tsunami and never moved on. This daily visual of ramshackle structures housing entire families etched in deeply, among several other reminders of human hardship. It was then in 2019 that I decided not to deflect what I see, but rather to see it all. See my neighbors. Without a plan, I vowed not to be one of those foreigners; build a beautiful house, drink in the vistas, drive the roads, surf the waves, enjoy the cultural events, eat all the delicious food, and ignore the language. That is, to teleport and impress my bubble, my fortress, MY lense, to this place.
But how to start? A massive housing restoration project felt like a foolhardy way to begin. Sometimes it’s wise to take heed of the things you find yourself telling your kids; in this case, that “every big thing starts with one small step.” For me, it was obvious.
Talk to Maria.
Maria Aburto, my partner in building my house, a stalwart of the community of San Juan del Sur, and a beautiful soul. I told her I wanted to help and I was thinking about foundational human needs, like healthcare and education. There’s a small hospital in town, after all. She told me she knew people at the hospital (of course, Maria knows everybody) and that she would invite them to a lunch at TreeCasa resort. They accepted. That lunch changed my life…
In December 2019, I sat with the leadership team of 5 Nicaraguans from Hospital Primario Gaspar Garcia Laviana. The Director was there, though he said very little. The observant type with a big appetite and likely zero expectations. With a short memorized speech in Spanish, I awkwardly introduced myself as a new homeowner looking to give back and I asked what were their biggest challenges and needs in servicing the community. They gazed at me with cordial incredulity, clearly this was a novel experience. Maria helped fill in the gaps of my Spanish, at that point unsuited for the depth of this conversation.
Naturally they could point to many challenges, they said. Yet without equivocation, it was oral health, particularly in remote villages. No services, no education, and people don’t travel miles on buses to visit the hospital for a free dental checkup. I was surprised at the answer, in that moment I was unaware of the data linking oral health to chronic disease and life longevity.
In that beautiful place, mobile dentistry was born in Nicaragua, over churrasco and calala juice.
If I could provide all the equipment, supplies, and ongoing budget, they could put together the vehicles and staff. I moved much faster than Nica time, the hospital team was stunned. And just one week before the entire world would shut down in March 2020, I bought a portable dental unit from Alibaba in China, a professional mobile dental chair from the US, and had made contact with several medical supply providers in Nicaragua. I had to write a letter to the Ministry of Health, or Minsa, letting them know who I am and that I would be working with them in good faith to address oral health in the community. The program? Sonrisas Felices.
2020 was a skunk works year. We spent the entire year bringing all the elements together and managed to do several field clinics, in a true test and learn pilot model. The hospital was overwhelmed with sick and dying covid patients that really spiked in July/August, so it was impossible to garner serious momentum.
During that time I asked Maria how I could help in the realm of education, that I was sure there are kids that need to get to school? Again, this felt overwhelming. Maria had family friends in Managua with a high-school aged daughter who had fantastic grades and wanted to become a doctor but her education would be a strain on the family. We did a zoom call, where I discovered that there was an actual path for her to begin university, albeit with difficulty. It took a lot of strength for me to deny these people, I was SO juiced up and ready to help.
Yet I discovered two vital things out of that call and in further investigation about how to realize an education program - 1) that it was obligatory for me to help people who literally had no shot at an education, and 2) that I was going to focus on girls. I’ve been to enough places in the world and I’ve read the stories and the research. Profound support of women and girls is the single most powerful way to lift up a community.
I toiled away conceiving how to do this, the logistics were daunting. Then one day in May 2021, nearly 18 months after my lunch at TreeCasa with the hospital group, I stumbled across a Facebook post for an education non-profit in San Juan del Sur..that’s been there for 20 years..doing the very thing I’d been trying to create from scratch!! Under my nose, with an office in town. Oh sweet universe, thank you..despite arriving on Nica time :).
A visit to the office of the Fundación Jean Brugger and just one month later I became sponsor to my first student, Dayling Guzman. She began a 4 year university degree to study teaching. That is also how I met my very close associates and friends, Katie Brugger & Javier Flores. More on these lovely people later. Katie’s mom Jean started the Fundación and has been providing higher education scholarships and community service programs to promising kids of low income families since 2003. A truly amazing organization.
I decided to “white label” them under the umbrella of Sonrisas Felices. So when I talk about the educational efforts of Sonrisas Felices to my network and donor base, it’s really the Fundación under the hood managing the scholarship logistics. This approach helps keep my story more coherent and, more importantly, makes it easier to create more opportunities for girls.
2021 is the year Sonrisas Felices really took shape and took off. My pillars were set in oral health for the masses and education for individuals. Which makes perfect sense because I’m not a dentist nor a teacher 😜.
