What I Learned in Nicaragua

This is what I learned in Nicaragua:

It doesn't matter what is going on or where we are, our lives provide us with the experiences we need to grow. No need to want or avoid, it is all the same.

I had five weeks to do nothing but learn Spanish, read, and reflect. I spent a lot of time walking the beach, trying to listen to what the Universe wanted to tell me. With enough time I did become quiet enough to here something important. A couple of ideas kept popping up.

It's all grist for the mill.

Ram Dass wrote a book with that title, but the phrase actually goes back to a sermon from the 16th century. The idea is that everything is life can be useful. There is no good and bad happening to us, it can all be used for the good.

My Spanish teacher is a Jehovah's Witness. He liked to read the Bible to me in Spanish. This lead me to read to him my favorite Bible passage, Romans 8:

For to those who love God, all things work for the good.

What does all this mean to me? It's this, it really doesn't matter where we live, what we own, who we are, we have to live life. We exist, we have a life to live, and I believe, lessons to learn while we are in this human body. We spend too much time trying to make ourselves happy and more comfortable. That is to miss the point of being human.

It was a shock to arrive in Nicaragua and start taking cold water showers. Then I had to deal with the heat, humidity, and mosquitos. I had avoid stepping in pig shit when walking in the street. I didn't have a refrigerator so I had to buy my fruit every other day. There was no television, nothing at all to do after 7 pm, no movies, no appliances. All the conviences were gone. Yet, within a week or two, it really didn't matter. I'd adjusted.

Then I was invited into several of the homes in Leon. Essentially, they have roofs over their heads and little more. Yet, they were living their lives just like we do, except they didn't have our conviences. (Although the kids do have tv's and sony play stations.)

I guess what I learned was that it is not our living situation that matters. We can adjust to all kinds of things that we think we couldn't. In America we worry more about the little things than the Nicaraguans worry about the big things.

So, being here in my nice warm house on this cold overcast day, all these wonderful things that surround me do not mean as much to me as they did before this trip. Now I know that it is not the things in life that make for happiness. Life is not about happiness. Or security. I'm not exactly sure what life is about at all. If anything, life seems more like a journey or a process, and not something that you can point to and say, "ah, this is life." The longer I live the more I realize that:

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived." Kierkegaard

So here is the deal: I want to go back there. I'd like to live there at least part of the year. Why? Not because Nicaraguans are nicer or better people, people everywhere are the same, it's that it is easier to live with people and really enjoy life when there are not so many "things" to get in the way. Our life styles, our toys, our possessions, take away our lives. I already miss talking to the fruit lady, the coconut woman, the beach kids selling sea shells, Tio Toro asking me for money to buy "Ron" (rum), drinking beer with crazy old Perry, Juan trying to convert me into a Jehova Witness, and Ana Francis trying to say "George Bush."

To read my travel blogs from Nicaragua go to:

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/francesco0/
nicaragua_again/tpod.html

You may have to cut and paste the url in two steps.

Perspectives on a Poor (Financially) Country

I arrived home late last night after being in Nicaragua for five weeks. My reason for the trip: to study Spanish, reflect, and learn. And I wanted to escape the dreary New England end of fall.

In the past when I travel I am happy to be home. Most of the time traveling is more of a chore than a vacation for me. I miss my family, my home, my routines. This trip was different. I stayed in one place and became part of a village and a city. I got to know people, their homes, their jobs or lack of jobs, their struggles. This is the first time that I have come home wondering where home really is.

I spent my time between Leon (Nicaragua's liberal, radical, university city) and Las Penitas (a poor seaside fishing village thirty minutes away). There is no hot water in either of these places (except hotels for foreigners). There are only curtains for doors. No glass for windows. No air conditioning. And in Las Penitas, no sewers.

That being said, the influence of American business and advertising is insidious. While many cannot afford to buy fruit and vegetables, they do consume plenty of Coca Cola. Their diets consist mostly of rice and beans. All but the very poor have cell phones, which they are always playing with (text messaging and music). And every kid I met in Leon had a Sony Play Station.

So, why have I come home feeling so unlike myself? I think it is that the country of Nicaragua got under my skin. My friend Perry, a crop-duster from Louisiana who lives there half the year, says that Nicaragua is like California one-hundred years ago. There is a sense of the wild west, a country that hasn't found itself yet. You can't even buy land securely because after the revolution, the Sandinistas took land from the rich and just gave it away without any titles or legal documents drawn up. It is like the old west here. In fact, I was told that up until five years ago everyone carried hand guns.

That being said, Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America. And the people, while struggling with their economic challenges, have a kindness about them that certainly made me feel a welcome part of their lives in the short time that I lived with them. Something about the way they carry themselves, kind of a humble pride, that is so appealing, makes me want to be a part of their unfolding future.

So here I am back in America where I can buy my organic fruits and vegetables at Whole Foods, I can entertain myself with movies and Internet searches, I'll run on the tread mill tomorrow instead of through dirt streets and dust filled with particles of animal waste. Why does it appear to me that those people in Nicaragua have so much more than we do? Why when I compare our lives to theirs, theirs seem so richer, colorful, so much more alive?

I don't know where I am going with this, except that I feel drawn to go back there and experience more of whatever it is they have that we don't. I am sure this isn't for everyone, but I hear the call to "go West young man." Alright, it isn't West and I'm not young, but complacency is for cows, not cowboys.

But before I head West I am heading East. January third I'm off to Thailand for five weeks. We'll see what this mostly Buddhist country has to teach me. I admit I'm a little nervous and that going to Asia is definitely out of my comfort zone.