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.