My Life as Nelson (By Nelson Salgado)

Where It All Started…

“Water flowing over a sand bed”…. Interesting phrase! It could be the beginning of a fairytale or at least the advertisement spot for a tourist center, but it isn’t; it is the meaning of my home-city’s name: “Danlí”. I know it would seem like a word pronounced in French, but it comes from an indigenous language very similar to the Nahuatl.

Danlí is a small city located in eastern Honduras, and it’s there, in that very little and almost unknown geographic point where my story started.

Right after the victory of the Nationalistic Party in the December 1989 elections and before a terrible era for Honduras (in aspects such economy and security) was the moment when I was born.

My father is agriculturist and my mother is an elementary school teacher; they both raised five children: my two brothers, two sisters and me. Thank the lord, food was never lacking in my home.

Being the youngest in my family, I enjoyed a lot of privileges; for example I could choose the lunch box that I liked the most and my brothers had to use things from the older ones. I was the last child and my parents had already decided that they didn’t want more children, it meant more for Nelson. Lucky me!

Since I was three years old, my father loved to buy notebooks, pencils, markers and stuff like that for me because I really liked coloring and drawing. I think that is one of the reasons why I learned to write and read before my fourth birthday.

Honduran Food, Qué Rico!

For every culture, food is quite important because it’s a way which you can spend time with family and preserve traditions.

My mom and Francisca, my mom’s sister and my favorite aunt, cooked for Christmas the famous “nacatamales” (similar to the Mexican tamale and made with corn, pork, onion, tomato, pepper, peas, etc.). It was the most important Honduran tradition in my family.

Our forbears in Honduras, the Mayan Culture had a “corn god” and that expresses how important the corn is for my culture. My home city is known for its corn festival celebrated from middle of August through August 31^st every year. Those weeks everything what you eat is made with corn.

Broken Leg + Asthma = :(

“Health” is not the best word to describe my childhood. I broke my left leg twice; once at the age of six and the next time was when I was in second grade. In addition, the fact of being asthmatic since birth made visits to the hospitals and doctors something very common and daily for me.

Say It in English!

Once I overcame my “sick era”, by the time I was nine, my interest in learning another language appeared. One of my first contacts with the English language was the glorious 90’s classic “Baby one more time” by Britney Spears; I didn’t understand what she said but I did not care, I just tried to follow the lyrics.

I studied in a public elementary school with the name of the Chilean writer Gabriela Mistral. In Honduras the English teaching doesn’t start until junior school; thus my parents decided that I had receive English classes with a particular teacher and take a course during the Christmas vacations at the only bilingual elementary school in Danlí called “The Children’s World School”.

My teacher was Miriam Diaz who studied English in Houston, Texas. I received these courses every winter break until I was in junior school.

My Aunt’s Death

My aunt Francisca died on January 1^st 2003 (What a bad day to die!) leaving my ten years old cousin orphaned and my mom undone. I had lost my only aunt (I have more aunts and uncles but they’re not really close to me). By that time my older brothers and my older sister were already married and my other sister was going to go to Tegucigalpa in order to study microbiology in the National University of Honduras. My mother suffered a deep depression and to live with it, was tough for her and indirectly tougher for me.

Civil Engineering in a Catholic College

I’ve always loved mathematics, and I knew that I wanted to study a major related to it. I wanted to study computer science engineering but I chose civil engineering. Why? Well, in Honduras (like many other countries) getting a job is so complicated. Civil engineering has several minors and they are all very different from each other, thus there is a higher probability that in Honduras you see an unemployed computer science engineer than an unemployed civil engineer.

Although my sister studied in Tegucigalpa, the actual situation is quite different. Now, the Honduran economy is terrible, especially if you don’t have a permanent job like my father does. It makes studying in Tegucigalpa incredibly expensive, that’s why I decided to study in a private (but cheap) college located in Danlí: Honduras Catholic University.

UGRAD/World Learning/Ole Miss

“You’ve been accepted for a nine months exchange in the United States sponsored for World Learning and the State Department of the U.S., congratulations!” I’ll never forget those words that my advisor (in college in Honduras) told me through a phone call.

It naturally left me speechless; the whole stress, the hard interviews, the tough exams had given result.

UGRAD (Global Undergraduate Exchange Program) is a program that provides exchange scholarships to hundreds of students in Latin America, The Caribbean and East Asia organized for World Learning and financed for the State Department of the United States of America. I couldn’t believe that I had been chosen; the University of Mississippi, a very important American public college had accepted this nervous boy from a small Honduran city.

With my heavy luggage, my dreams, my Latino culture and my nervous personality I arrived in the United States on Sunday August 15^th 2010.

Who Am I Now?

Now that I’m living and studying in Ole Miss (although I just arrived a few days ago), I realize how different the southern culture is in comparison with my own one and how hard is get used to it.

I’ve met people from many different countries and that is really exciting because now I’m an ambassador from my culture, and I also can learn about their culture and their traditions.

Maybe in this moment I don’t know exactly who I am, but I do know that after this experience I’ll never be the same.