Dispatch Number 45 -Errant Thoughts V

Travel Burnout
After eight months on the road I am tired of making decisions. Where to eat , what to eat, where to walk, trying it all in Spanish -fatigue sets in. I want someone else to make choices.

Ironically, visiting the Catholic church on the town square becomes my decision free refuge.

Nomad Life
Thoughts on the nomadic lifestyle I lead while traveling the Western Hemisphere. The wanderer. The drifter. The vagabond. The nomad. The adventurer. The romantic. The stranger. The rootless. The uncommitted. The curious.


Dream
The nomad. Leading the nomadic life. The dream. Not a dream of attainment, but the dream of being and doing who you are now. Live this life for there is nothing to suspend and wait for later. It is a dream of living life now and not suppressing the way one really wants to live. A dream in that sense. Not the dream of finding perfect love or visiting some overwrought ideal of a deserted island with palms, birds and blue water. A different meaning to the word dream altogether.


Had
Trying to capture what we once had.


Cities
Cities are so distracting in their pleasures and disorienting in their removal from nature. Distractions aplenty with shopping, restaurants, music and drink. Disorienting because electricity deeply alters the sleep/rest cycles. One looses a sense of time in cities because there is no horizon and the sun is blocked from clear view. It is easier to know the time out in the open country without a clock than in a city.


God's effect through something called Religion
Wailing woman making the rounds to each deity in this church, wailing the whole way. Long drawn out wails that fill the chamber mixed with the taxi horns outside on the busy street. It is real to her.
-Catholic Church, Nebaj, Guatemala


Camus
"One always has exaggerated ideas about what one doesn't know."
-Albert Camus, The Stranger

Cell Phone
"To communicate with God, it is not necessary to use a cell phone"
- Notice inside a Catholic church aimed at the chatty ones -Esteli, Nicaragua


Exports
The United States is the number one export partner for each and every Central American country including Mexico, from North to South:

82% of Mexico's exports go to the U.S.
42% for Guatemala
60% for Honduras
32% for Nicaragua
26% for Costa Rica
36% for Panama

The pattern of politics following business emerges.


On the Other Side
The open market lives! An ancient way of life and commerce continues in these modern times. People from the countryside come to buy and sell.

Towns with No Cars
It is not a dirt road town, there are no cars. In the village Rio San Juan de Nicaragua they have narrow raised sidewalks running in neat lines making up quadrants. You can only get here by boat.

Kamp
This camp is on a large farm, Finca administered by Alvaro a warm helpful Costa Rican who tends to the chickens and pigs, milks the cows, rides a horse to herd the cattle. He is followed everywhere by a trio of very attendant dogs. If they are not out on the finca working with him then they are traumatizing the horse in the pasteur. The horse while under pursuit tries to stop, hold ground and eat grass out of sheer will, but the dogs set him to running again. Depending on where you stand on the property it smells of wet dog fur or the munkiness of rat and bat droppings.

Made (by hand)
One of the joys of traveling Latin America is that most things are made by hand, often in small artisan shops such as the shoe and saddle maker, wrought iron workshops, foods like cheese, yogurt and fresh breads made ocally and in small batches. Things crafted in the pre-industrial way. The roads are often built by hand and in houses the craftsmanship shows itself in the tables and chairs, window frames and heavy wood doors.

Quotes
'Faith is believing in something you know isn't true.'
-Unknown

'The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.'
-Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Hotel Estrella
A cute tiny greenish-black turtle crosses the room straight for me. The hotel pet. I think how cute it is coming just like a dog to visit me. It comes straight for my big toe and bites it. Hard. As I jerk back in recoil my friend says they're the territorial type. No wonder the things are almost exstinct.

David
Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama

Dispatch Number 44 -Human Nature

Human Nature. We want what we don't have. The poor Nicaraguan wants my wealth (relative to him), he experiences me as a rich tourist. I want his simple life, a slower more human pace (relative to me), one closer to the soil, closer to my food.


I want what I don't have in my own culture. Life in these poor indigenous villages and settlements is striped down to bare essentials where gas stoves, concrete floors, electric fans, electricity and running water are considered luxuries. Most go without these extras. In Nicaragua 80% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, (the indigenous population lives on less than $1 a day); it is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.


The poor Nicaraguan wants my relative wealth and I want his slower and simpler life -we want what we don't have. As a traveller I spend more than $4 per gallon for gasoline, $2-4 per meal and $5-8 for a place to sleep. What travelers like myself spend in a single day the average person in Nicaragua could live on the same money for nearly 12 days.



David

Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama

Dispatch Number 43 -Two Boys

My cultural experience with two Nicaraguan boys that were seven or eight years old began with a "Hi" in the parking lot where I was staying. When I returned to get something from the truck they gathered up their nerve and asked for money -the handout. Begging.

Give us money., their hands held out
Why?, I asked.

This question stumped them into silence. I seldom give money to beggars, it weakens a person and produces dependent behavior. I look for other ways.

So I took the chance and asked, Do you know how to wash a car?
Yes, came their prompt reply.
How much?
After they whispered in consultation for a moment the older one said, 20 Cordobas, the equivelent of USD$1.00.
OK. I said.

They lacked the basic equipment and borrowed a bucket, soap and a scrub brush from the woman who ran the reception where I was staying. She cautioned me that they would need direction on how to do it. I waited until they got started so I could influence their work without telling them what to do. Empowerment and confidence is EVERYTHING to a child.

After they had been at it a while I joined them and to my pleasure the smallest one was standing on the roof of the truck scrubbing away. I worked with them, guiding the work while they had the satisfaction of doing it themselves. They were hard workers and highly motivated. It felt good to adapt to the begging by not dismissing them outright and looking for a way to show them one perspective of the relationship between money and work. I believe that by offering them work it made them stronger, rather than a handout that takes a piece of their self-respect with it.

It is the role of the community to teach the children basic conduct and skills. My travel philosophy is to interact with the people, learn their culture, eat local food, acquire the language and watch everything my eyes can absorb. So with the two boys it was a moment to participate in community.

Before I paid them I explained that I had shown them how to wash a car and that now they knew all they needed to do it on their own next time and emphasized that they were smart kids. I paid them in front of the reception lady to make the community experience complete.

You can talk about it or do it.

David
Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama