PCV Courtney Kerlanska met her husband in Nicaragua
Read and comment on this story from The York Journal Tribune on RPCV Courtney Kerlanska who met her husband while she was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua. The Peace Corps shipped her straight to Central America, to live with a host family and spend her days absorbing courses in Spanish, agriculture and other disciplines. “It was full immersion training,” the Saco native said. “In a village of 600 people and nobody spoke English.”
She repaired each day after class to a small park near the school to read. Noel found her there. He also came each day to sit, talk, ask questions, coaxing her to speak more Spanish. His kindness found its way to her heart. Dating in rural Nicaragua, Courtney said, isn’t like dating at home. Rather than going “out,” the two would go to someone’s home to sit and visit with friends and family. It’s enough to make most any grandparent wistful; it also keeps a tight rein on romance.
The two dated for more than two years before they were married in Santa Rosa last October. They moved to the U.S. in February, after Noel did some soul searching about leaving his family, six brothers and sisters, and his home in the mountains. Read the story at:
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From Nicaragua, with love Peace Corps stint brings couple together By ALAN ELLIOTT/Journal Tribune aelliott@journaltribune.com
Noel Centeno and his wife Courtney Kerlanska could teach seminars on culture shock.
Kerlanska had her first full dose almost four years ago, as a 22-year-old fresh out of college and deep in Nicaragua’s central mountains. Centeno shouldered his share in February, when the couple moved from the tiny, temperate Nicaraguan village of Santa Rosa to the frozen coast of Maine.
“We’ve been going through so many changes,” Kerlanska said. “Our roles here are very different than they were in Nicaragua.”
Noel and Courtney married in Central America in October, halfway through her fourth year with the Peace Corps. They are living in Saco until August before heading to New Orleans, where Courtney will pursue a master’s degree in urban planning.
She already held a combined anthropology/journalism degree when she first decided to sign up for the Peace Corps. Originally vying for a post in Africa, Kerlanska chose South America as a destination when all positions in Africa were full.
After studying Spanish at Thornton Academy she could read the language with some comprehension. She spoke, however, nary a lick.
The Peace Corps nevertheless shipped her straight to Central America, to live with a host family and spend her days absorbing courses in Spanish, agriculture and other disciplines.
“It was full immersion training,” the Saco native said. “In a village of 600 people and nobody spoke English.”
After three months of training, Kerlanska dove in further. She shipped out to the yet smaller village of Santa Rosa, assigned to teach sustainable farming practices. Each day she faced a group of 30 to 40 polite but skeptical farmers, all reared by their fathers to cultivate the land according to tried if not necessarily true techniques.
She repaired each day after class to a small park near the school to read. Noel found her there. He also came each day to sit, talk, ask questions, coaxing her to speak more Spanish. His kindness found its way to her heart.
Dating in rural Nicaragua, Courtney said, isn’t like dating at home. Rather than going “out,” the two would go to someone’s home to sit and visit with friends and family. It’s enough to make most any grandparent wistful; it also keeps a tight rein on romance.
The two dated for more than two years before they were married in Santa Rosa last October. They moved to the U.S. in February, after Noel did some soul searching about leaving his family, six brothers and sisters, and his home in the mountains.
“I had to think a lot about it,” Noel said. “It was difficult to decide.”
Until August, Courtney waits tables at Joseph’s by the Sea in Old Orchard Beach and substitute teaches at Thornton Academy. Noel spends his mornings working at Lincoln MIllwork in Biddeford, and attends English classes – aiming eventually for a GED diploma – in the afternoons.
The couple are learning to budget together, and they enjoy staying home to watch subtitled DVD movies – a treat that in Nicaragua required a three-hour bus ride.
They call Noel’s family every fourth Sunday, at the nearest phone - 45 minutes from Santa Rosa. Since coming to the U.S., Noel has been pleasantly surprised by the snow, by the mountains and by the lack of racism – an element of U.S. life he’d been warned about in Nicaragua.
Courtney now returns the kindness Noel showed in Santa Rosa. She coaxes his English and helps orient him to U.S. culture. There is no longer someone always watching, but their new pace of life also leaves a few fond advantages with the tiny park in Santa Rosa.
“In Nicaragua there was much more ‘us’ time,” Kerlanska said. Click on a link below for more stories on PCOL
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