ooooo, this is interesting
Submitted by anthonyg on Thu, 2007/12/20 - 14:40.
Hmm, you can have your own little blog right here on Nica Living? How super! I think I'll just write about my family's travel and time in Nicaragua.
A short synopsis about us: I was born in the U.S. to Nicaraguan parents. Spent the first three years of life in Nicaragua and then moved back to the U.S. A few years ago, I decided to visit Nicaragua with my wife and daughter, spent a few weeks and I was enthralled. I felt very much at home in Nicaragua and it was then I decided to establish some roots there again. Job and such things kept me from doing much for a few years, but now I have the opportunity to seriously look at Nicaragua as a place of business and residence for me and my family. My wife is a mid-west girl that felt severe culture shock simply moving to the southwest with me. Nicaragua is a bit overwhelming for her, but she did enjoy our last trip and we'll spend more time 'living like a nica' on this next visit.
We are going for 3 weeks in January (2008) for a little vacationing and visiting family, but mostly for me to explore some business opportunities.
Because of the geographic distance between my 'home town' (in Nueva Segovia) and Managua and other such places of business, I decided to have a car there and am shipping one from the U.S. It does seem like a rather silly thing to do, and here is the forum topic about it:
My recounting of health and travel vaccines are in comments to this post.
I guess I'll chronicle our trip and such things on this blog!
advice on immigration
Get a job that pays about $70,000 a year with a company car. Don't worry about residency, citizenship, cedula, you can work all that out later.
Open a dollar bank account and put you life savings in it. That shows you are committed to the country and the banks here never fail like they do in the States.
Take everything you own in the US and buy everything you'll ever need in the US. Put it in 5 steel containers and ship it along with your car, jetskis and yacht, you can't get good stuff down here. Don't worry about taxes and customs, they are chicken feed down here. What a chick pull, towing your trailer with the jetskis.
Take up philandering, swearing in Spanish, throwing trash, spitting on the sidewalk, and getting pie-eyed drunk .. you'll fit in better. Go to the local Disney world and ride different roller coasters for an 8 hour day to get used to the roads.
Let me know how you get on!
That was HUMOR, durnit! Merry Christmas
So that's how you pulled your new wife
Towing your trailer down the streets of Jinotega with the jetskis.
i'd never have married!
Veronica would not have been in the very long line trailing the gringo with the jetskis. She has different priorities. Would have been a lot of fun. Like owning a refurbished muscle car in the 90's or an early Miata. (I can neither confirm nor deny ...)
I blogged here during my year of living in Nicaragua . . .
and found it to be very rewarding. Have your own adventures and please, write them up here.
Don't pay too much attention to those who want you to do (or not do) . . . . whatever they think is good or bad. Just do your own thing and have fun. Nicaragua affects people in different ways and it is all interesting and wonderful to explore what sometimes seems like a different world.
Doors of hope fly open when doors of promise shut. -Thomas D'Arcy McGee
come here and be quiet!
Can't people just come here and BE for while instead of DOING? The more doing you plan, the deeper the hole gets.
there IS the possibility that your wife is not letting on how opposed she really is - that was the case with me and she divorced me when I turned out to be more than chasing dreams.
The possibility exists that Nueva Segovia, family home or not, is not the answer and that Jinotepe would be better - so would you still need the car? I did not know that location of ones forebears was a good indicator of business location. If you're always driving to Managua to do business, doesn't that tell you something?
Just come here and let your mind empty of US junk for 6 months, it'll all look different after a while.
Peace
And the car, btw, is not
And the car, btw, is not only for my use while I'm there but for mother's use as she's moving back to Nica now that she's retired. The home village is a ways off and supply runs are problematic.
if the car is in moms name ...
Nicaraguan citizen retiring to home country is permitted tax free importation of a car but must retain it for 3 years. Since there is no question whatever of your moms upcoming change of status, a car in her name would be a snap.
We must do, we can't just exist!
I am not wealthy, so wherever I live, I must work to support my family and provide for my children's future.
If anyone is to move and live somewhere, what else are you supposed to do other than get a job and get a place to live? Are we to live in a hostel off credit cards for 6 months? Would you advise a Nicaraguan moving to the U.S. to just kick back for 6months? How absurd.
absurd?
Senora Profesora Angelica rents rooms with food and laundry, center of town $120 a month. 6 months = $720.
Are you seriously saying your financial pressures are such that 720 bucks is life or death?
OK, heres the math. Work in the US for a year, earn $30,000, save $3,000 for the kids future. 10%. Difficult but not impossible.
Work a year in Nicaragua, earn $10,000 (PLEASE tell me how!), save 10% - $1,000 - for the kids future.
Any 'job' here that earns much more than 10k is one of illegal, you own the business, or totally involves selling to gringos.
As soon as you said "provide for my children's future" you totally and completely eliminated Nicaragua from the solution. Unless you are a juggernaut powerhouse full of investments and ideas and go knock em dead entrepreneurship. I suppose you could open a casino ... start a new beer company ... something of that order.
Don't call me absurd, sweetheart, for it is you that has not done your research. You save for the future in high income countries, not in low income ones.
Listen to Webtrainer
Do your own thing and don't listen to what people say is good or bad because if you listen to people like Jinoturistica you might as well stay in a cave and never leave. Jinoturistica do you ever have any positive comments you must be the most miserable person I have ever met. What do you know what his wife is thinking maybe your wife left you because your lame! Instead of a tourist office you should open up a physchic palm reading stand because you seem to know what everybody should do!
opinions?
Will I wake up Friday? Will you? Am I GOD?
I look at a situation, walk around it for a while, give it some reasonably logical thought, compare it to a couple hundred stories I know, then offer an opinion.
Perhaps you personally have a lot of experience of living in Nicaragua. I have little personal experience. All I have to go on is the couple hundred stories that tourists and residents have told me over the last 18 months. I have no idea of the extent of your contacts or how closely you listen to other people, perhaps you are very good and have a vast body of knowledge.
My style of tourist office is that a tourist will probably sit with me an hour or two and I will make nothing on the deal - except that I listen, and learn, and aggregate their stories. I have a body of knowledge that is growing and is far bigger than a mere 18 monther would normally have. It's my job to know stuff. I do my job well.
I tend not to paint a rose tinted picture. When I write something, I like to think there is an 80% chance that the answer given will genuinely assist someone.
People don't like to hear that their pet plan has bad breath. Lo siento. If you perceive well-informed, blunt, pointed comments, suggestions and opinions as Oracle pronouncements and tablets of stone, you have no business having an Internet connection.
Yeah, lots of people call me miserable. Realistic, factual, honest - people like sugar; I serve lemon and grapefruit. I'll worry about it - for 1.3 seconds. OK, worry period is over.
Hello, this is Tony from Jinotega, you're on the air!
Tony from Jinotega
your writing is getting better too. Merry Christmas, Man of the Misty Mountains
who are you?
and what did you do with tony? tony, don't worry. we're comming to rescue you. i don't know who that is typing with your username. but we will get him. and whoever that is giving out reasonable advice, keep it up. i liked the last advice that i got from that reasonable tony usurper, move down early! miles to go before i can rest.
You see, What did I tell you
HHHancocks HHHalf Hour!
webtrainer, tony et al
actually, for Tony whom half the time is just fishing for a response, a reincarnation of "Tony Hancock"( apologies, you would have to be British to get that) is probably not far off the mark. not bad advice really, don't make big plans ahead of yourself. Who needs the stress?
bring back Eric Sykes!
... didn't realize I was fishing for a response. Guess thats true.
At a toastmasters meeting the question came up "what is the most important thing we do when someone new attends a meeting?" All the stock answers. NO, said I "the number one thing is to get them to come back. If they never come back, you have lost the thread and the opportunity to change their lives." So, yeah, fishing for a response would fit right in.