Nicaragua portrayed in photo exhibit

Lillian Casillas welcomes people into La Casa, or "the house" in Spanish, as though it is a home.\nEvery academic year, about 8,000 people step foot into Casillas' "house," but only about 800 Hispanic students attend IU, making it a home not just for students of Hispanic background, but also for people interested in the culture.\nFreshman and Spanish major Carrie Biddle started traveling to Posoltega, Nicaragua when she was 14 through IU's Sister Cities program. She brought back photos of her last trip to share in an exhibit Wednesday night with the IU community at La Casa, 715 E. Seventh St.\nThe Nicaraguan exhibit will be on display this spring along with poems by the late Nicaguan poet Ruben Dario. Casillas, La Casa director, said she hopes this exhibit will bring more students into the organization and promote cultural awareness.\n"I think it can be very scary ... coming in here if you're not Latino," she said. "Or I have a lot of Latinos who don't come because they assume they have to speak Spanish, and so we try to make sure they feel comfortable."\nPosoltega has a mission to "promote peace through mutual respect, understanding and cooperation -- one individual, one community at a time," according to its Web site, www.sister-cities.org. \nThough Biddle is not Hispanic, she took an interest in the culture and became involved with the Sister City program. Casillas said she hopes to see this interest evolve in more students.\nWhile Biddle was a senior at Harmony School, 909 E. Second St., Biddle said she decided to travel to Nicaragua for a senior project. She was in Mexico and Nicaragua last April, studying and helping the people there. Even in high school, Biddle was involved with La Casa, and before Biddle left for the project, Casillas told her to take lots of photos so she might be able to have an exhibit at La Casa once Biddle became an IU student.\nCasillas and Biddle decided the exhibit would be a good way to draw people into La Casa this semester.\nBiddle said the photos are meant to represent the people and mainly the children in Posoltega. By bringing Posoltega to La Casa, Biddle said she hopes visitors will think about helping out the city's children. \n"I would like people to spark an interest (in Nicaragua)," Biddle said. "(I want) to get a group based from La Casa of students of different majors and different years to go to Posoltega, and do some kind of work, but basically to reconnect the University." \nSophomore Adrienne Garcia, who works at La Casa and helped with the exhibit, said the poetry is meant to bring more of the Nicaraguan culture into La Casa, but the photos are the main feature.\n"I went down there and I tried to capture everyday life," Biddle said. "More than just scenery, to see how people live -- see it from their eyes."\nThe Sister Cities program has sent people from Bloomington to Posoltega to help with the "Comedor Infantile" program, which provides 150 children one meal per day, five days a week. Garcia said often that meal is the only meal they get. \nLa Casa has held three different exhibits featuring work by students who have traveled to different Hispanic countries each semester, Casillas said.\n"It gives students a chance to go outside their comfort zone, coming into La Casa," Casillas said. "It's an opportunity to broaden horizons."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Christine Lunde at clunde@indiana.edu.