Patch and writing by Aynn Setright, academic advisor for the study abroad program I did in Nicaragua

Aynn Setright, 42 year old native of Wyoming, USA.

I’ve lived in Nicaragua since 1985 when I first came here with Witness for Peace.  I live with my partner, Guillermo, and we have two sons, Gabriel and Camilo.  I currently have the challenge of providing academic and cultural assistance to US college students who come to Nicaragua for a semester abroad with the School for International Training.  It has been a privilege to interact with many young people from the United States who are working for change in the USA.  They change and I change….

Defining moment/Message:

I put on my patch a butterfly, that is a representation of transformation.  I’ve felt myself develop/transform so much over the years that it is hard to identify just one defining moment.  I’ve put into this patch the places I’ve been and the people who have been part of my life.  All of this has made me what I am.  I used some cloth from Guatemala for a background against a butterfly copied from a petroglyph off a rock by a river near Paiwas.  Both of these represent the tradition of indigenous people, women who also struggle and resist and transform threads to cloth and a rock to art and quilts to stories.  It is hard to change.  It’s scary and it often hurts.  But to be transformed and be a transformer is the most exciting thing in the world.

On a more political note, this out of shape butterfly is also Nicaragua – her transformation from dictatorship to revolution to the mess we have today… changing shape, moving in new directions.  Who knows where Nicaragua will go, who knows what transformations await her?