BEING THERE

In Nicaragua, and during my travels back & forth, I always make a point of asking people I meet where they were born. It surprised me, at first, to learn that the great majority were born right there where we talked, in that town. I just met an engineer who travels the world working on his company’s gas turbine generators. His name & that of his company don’t matter here. He didn’t speak much Spanish and his waitress asked me to ask him how much that cigar (a Monte Cristo) he was smoking cost. Eight dollars, a price that left her speechless, mouth agape when I translated it to local currency.

Yes, he said when I asked, he’d been to Nicaragua, to Managua. He was chauffeured to & from hotel, restaurants and airport in a personally-assigned 4-wheel-drive SUV with a guard ridding shotgun with a semi-automatic weapon. Managua does have a dangerous reputation, not undeservedly, and his company surely demands &/or insures his security, but what pitifully little this man doing his job, seeing the world, actually does see. Yes, he can say he’s visited Nicaragua. But he barely touches the earth that birthed these people, their home. And when he returns to the States, his impressions of Nicaragua that he’ll share with friends & coworkers, most of whom have never been outside the USA, will reek of ignorance.

And what of the people who have never ventured far from home? It’s a global economy and, more and more, lives foreign and familiar interweave. They see the illusions of others on TV and book-learn of how others live on the internet. But that leaves most of the senses without the experience of knowing foreign others. Many are economic prisoners within their countries. Many are too content to go elsewhere, or too afraid. But foreigners are invading their world everyday. For many it’s uncomfortably disturbing; it‘s natural to fight for turf & home. For some it opens their minds to the greater world beyond.

Let’s face it: the majority of us on NL are pale-faced foreigners in Nicaragua (or interested in). For most Nicas we, how we behave, what we value are the only real glimpses they’ll get of the hearts & souls of the people of the industrial, info-minded, clock-driven worlds beyond. I tend to ask Nicas I meet plenty of questions, often personal ones, and practically all answer me warmly, welcoming my curiosity. But nearly all ask little or naught of me, of where I come from. It bugged me at first, their apparent lack of curiosity about me, my life. (A wounded ego?) Until I realized how much they observe me and reserve judgment. To them it’s how you act, how you dress, personal hygiene, and what you do, that defines the person you are, not your résumé. And yes, sometimes I look & behave too foreign to be comprehended, but I’m acclimating … slowly.