Viva Nica!
Mutterings And Murmurs . Social Studies
Travel takes the fortunate to other lands, to possibly escape, if only for a while, what can only be ‘first world problems’. The term ‘First World Problems’ is used to minimize complaints about trivial issues in a developed ‘First World’ nation. It is a subset of the fallacy of relative privation and is often used instead of ‘What do you have to complain about? or ‘For crying out loud, stop your sobbing!’
The ‘Third World’ is a term that arose during the Cold War to define countries that were non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw pact of 1955 or U.S. Hegemony. The term may be mistakenly used to describe parts of the planet where people lack decent health care, education, and infrastructure or countries that do not or cannot provide adequate, reliable electricity and clean water. The word ‘Freedom’ is often associated with ‘First World Problems’ in that those of the ‘First World’ have certain freedoms that relative prosperity allows. This is often illusory and bears further thought and expression elsewhere.
The ‘Second world’ refers to any post Second world War nation that fell under Communist rule, or some other form of dictatorship, that was not influenced by U.S. or NATO hegemony. Consider that what is presently called the ‘First World’ is actually the ‘Second World’ because a majority of developed nations currently live under economic and social tyranny, and then only marginally as a Democracy with perceived protections offered by a constitution, or in the case of what was once a country called Canada, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many nations have been living under a false Democracy, enjoying perceived personal freedoms fronting the reality of personal taxation, national debt, and personal debt slavery.
You can never truly appreciate the reality of where you come from, where you live, and the reality of wherever you may be in a ‘Third World’ until the lights flicker or go out, the water goes sour or stops flowing, food becomes scarce, and the land goes quiet and dark save for the cries of frightened or angry people.
Tourism is typically relegated to first world convenient resorts and sterile exposure to culture, geography, flora and fauna. It involves controlled and organized tours of the photoshopped reality of what may be different from the tourist’s home country. There are exceptions of course. There are travellers that go where tourists fear to tread. They take risks beyond photo ops and selfies. They eat the local food and meet the local people. They allow themselves to be bug bit.
Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, second only to Haiti. 43 percent of the Nicaraguan population lives in rural areas and 68 percent of them are trying to survive off just over $1 per day. Overall, 46.2 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. There is a lot of on-line information that determine the root cause of poverty in Nicaragua to be a cruel dictatorship, a gruesome civil war and multiple natural disasters. There should be more said about the legacy of Spanish colonialism, the crimes against indigenous people by the Catholic church, and U.S. hegemony which has proven to be the main cause of perpetual poverty and political unrest in Central America and so many other parts of the world. Look how the Ukraine is being financed into third world status.
Is it possible to experience another place using only the five or six senses, the brain and memory? Can we use our eyes as the cameras they were designed to be?
Blink.
Click.
Impression.
Capture.
Temporary storage.
Following are some click captures that still circulate and flash in this jet lagged brain – of recently experienced parts of Nicaragua in Central America. I have to write them down before I forget them or they are replaced with other data.
Sandals
Blisters from day one
There can be beauty almost anywhere
48% humidity
Hot
Big, red fire ants
Bloody sheets by morning
Green
A tangier, zestier red onion
No apparent out of the box solutions
Sweat
Horses, cow, oxen pulling wagons
Fanta orange
Tostones
Families at the beach on Saturdays
Free range chickens and roosters
Free range goats and cattle
Machete
Sugarcane
Bananas
Cell phone addiction – just like home
Every transaction is a con
Fresh mango – everywhere
Every day a struggle for cash money
Credito costs 3.5% more
Smoking is for the middle class
Beach sellers
I’m wearing a hat, thank-you
Street barbecue
Good and not so good smells
Fresh, non GMO fruits and vegetables
Bathing and laundry in buckets and rivers
White teeth
Clean clothes
Junk food and candy
Coke Pepsi
I drank it e cielo
Public drunkenness is not socially acceptable
Clotheslines…everywhere
Very little homelessness
Plastic bags of colored water prepared while you wait
Howler monkeys
Elusive, invisible howler monkeys
Some brake and signal lights work
Smiling, laughing people
The hustle
Decay
Dirt and mud that rain can’t wash away
Rust
Crimson fronted parakeets
Turkey vultures
Scruffy strays
Litter
Peace
Motocicletas
Motorcycle gas cylinder delivery
Macarena – heard once…for tourists
Poverty
Duelling sound systems
Michael Jackson
Eye of the Tiger
Blue crowned motmot
Mobile tattoo buses
Surfies
Amigo! You need sunglasses? Weed?
Roof top water pressure
No water pressure
No water
School uniforms
School lunches
Escuela crossing
Children being children – same as at home
Natural clouds
Coke in glass bottles
Breaking waves
Rufus capped warbler
Maskers – even here
Fishing boats
Tuna on bicycles
Land crabs
Fish soup
Temporary loss of service
Standing, watching the sunset
Standing On A beach – The Cure
Quiet
Stars
Dark
Moon
La cuente por favor
Cell phone notifications
Noise
Insects under glass
Fireworks that sound like gunfire
Carne
Pollo
Drummers drumming
Failed Spanish colonialism
Dancers dancing
Construccion
Bande de frenado
Jungle
Lightening flashes behind the hills
Thunder
Singing along with ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’
Rain sounds heavier on tin roofs
Butterflies – everywhere
Ruta 66 to Colon has military checkpoints – many, many of them
AK-47
Catholicism
La Novena
Razor wire
Gated health clinics
Farmacia
Ivermectin in 6 gram tablets
Only 60 cords each
Desayuno Huesped
Chicken bus
Taxi? Amigo!
Homes without windows or doors
Homes with wrought iron bars on windows and doors
Seat 28A
Uncivilized air travel
Mr. and Mrs. T cocktail mix
Salted bark chips
Skyhags
Sunsets at 15,000 feet
Border security
Your passport please
Your vaccine records please
The purpose of your visit
Welcome home
Now what?
Now where?
