A narrow strip of mountains, jungles, and fiery volcanoes unites North and South America and splits the world's largest oceans. Central America has been a focal point for flourishing cultures, biodiversity, migration, and trade for thousands of years. The modern-day inhabitants of this isthmus are the descendants of the Mayan and Aztec empires, in addition to descendants of the Spanish invaders of the 1500s and the enslaved Africans brought with them. For centuries, these diverse peoples and their cultures have interacted and mixed to shape modern-day Central America's distinct and vibrant nations.

Today, the communities sharing this unique heritage continue their legacy of adaptation, responding to rapid environmental and social challenges with innovative communal strategies. This gap year semester takes a hands-in-the-dirt approach to interacting with Indigenous culture and collective life in Guatemala and Nicaragua through extended rural homestays, one-on-one language study, work on communal farms, and a participatory examination of land use and grassroots activism.

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