It is late afternoon and the College Center’s game room feels more like a dingy hole-in-the-wall tavern. Blood curdling screams and the sounds of sporadic machine gun fire blare out from a row of arcade style video game consoles. Jose Vidal Roa, a Cooperative Association of States for Scholarships (CASS) student, is seated at a table next to the cabinet displaying a model airplane, a Portland Trail Blazer license plate frame and an old MHCC baseball jersey.

Just two years ago, baseball played a prominent role in Vidal Roa’s future. He was one of three finalists out of a field of more than 200 baseball players trying out for the major leagues in his native Nicaragua. He was offered a position playing shortstop for one of the 14 teams that make up the major leagues of Nicaragua.

Vidal Roa dreamed of playing for his local team and hoped one day he would be selected for Nicaragua’s national team. His dreams were dashed when he found out playing baseball would prove too costly.

Ballplayers in the Nicaraguan majors must pay their own money for housing, uniforms, and transportation to practice and away games. Besides the prohibitive costs, his commute took several hours, part of it on horseback. Baseball would have to wait. 

Vidal Roa grew up on a 30-acre working farm a few hours outside of the capital Managua, complete with 10 head of cattle and a handful of horses. A typical workday began at 5 a.m., milking cattle by hand, feeding them, then working in the corn and wheat fields until late afternoon.

“I love working outdoors. Farming is something my family has done for generations,” he said.

At 22 years of age, this Mt. Hood Community College student has acquired a lifetime of equestrian skills. Horse breaking is just one of the many responsibilities he had as a farm hand.

“When the broncos are two years old, you begin by getting on the horse and holding on. If you get thrown you just get back on it, until the horse gets tired. Each horse is different. Some react violently, others just stay put, and sometimes a horse simply falls to the ground,” explains the modern-day cowboy. “You then put a muzzle on them everyday for two hours, so they become used to it. After 15 days, the muzzle is replaced with a bridle to teach the horse to follow the rider’s directions.”

After two months of conditioning, the animals are put to work in the fields. This cowboy lifestyle would have to be put on hold as well.

A friend of Vidal Roa’s family told him about CASS, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded scholarship program that brings students from a variety of developing counties to the United States for two years and teaches them natural resource management skills.

Students then return to their country of origin to apply those skills, in order to alleviate some of the environmental problems of their native country, such as deforestation and wildlife conservation.

Vidal Roa applied for the scholarship and was accepted. He arrived in June 2004 not speaking a word of English. After nine months with a host family and four college terms, He now attends classes instructed entirely in English. His natural resources studies have taken him to some impressive sites, like Crater Lake and the redwood forest of Northern California.

“The geological history of Crater Lake is awe inspiring,” he said with a wide-eyed look. During his stay, Vidal Roa has had the opportunity to try some things that would have been nearly impossible to do in Nicaragua.

Snowboarding and ice skating are among his favorite activities. Last July he travelled with a group of students to Seattle, where they were treated to a fireworks display and some roller coaster rides.

Vidal Roa thoroughly enjoyed the fireworks at the Space Needle, but said he would rather be riding a bucking bronco than the Ferris wheel any day.