Nicaragua

It had been a two hour drive from Managua filled with new sights that broke my heart. Though gorgeous, the country was ravaged by poverty and you could tell no matter where you went. Shantytowns were set up on the side of the road--little shacks made of scrap metal, cinder blocks, wood, and black plastic. Each was built off the next, like a winding maze. With every turn, you entered someone else’s home. There was trash everywhere. It didn’t matter that you had a clear view of the tree covered mountains off in the distance. If you looked down near the road, there were piles and piles of trash. It was so different from home. Different in every way possible it seemed: the scenery, the rules of the road, the government and its corruption, the way of life. They were still family oriented; you lived with the family until you were dead. You raised your family with them and kept them in your everyday life. Family is what mattered--not wealth or material things (though this wasn’t true for the entirety of the Nicaraguan people).

We turned onto a dirt road that was cut off 50 yards down by a chain link fence. It was as though we were in a fortress made of the concrete walls of other homes. On the left was our home for the week. A squat, aqua-colored house. There was a concrete stoop out front with an old woman sitting in a plastic lawn chair; like the ones we sit in to watch fireworks on Fourth of July. She stared off into the distance; didn’t seem to notice our arrival. The scene was like every other one we had passed in the small surf town. They were brightly colored, made of cinder blocks, had few windows, and metal roofs that I knew would roar when the rain fell on them.

We seemed so out of place there. A bunch of white girls--foreigners--coming to a little town on the coast, rolling up in a new, white minivan while most of the cars were in disrepair and were rusted from the salty air. We were gringas. And you could tell. We got out of the car and were ushered to a intricate, black wrought-iron gate. Our guide swung it open and motioned for us to follow inside.

We walked into the gated courtyard, which connected the larger, aqua colored house to the one painted a bubblegum pink color making them into a single, cramped compound that the entire family lived in. We found what can only be described as a well organized junk yard--like a hoarder had decided to occupy the outdoor space between the two buildings and fill it with the miscellaneous things he or she found on the street. It was comprised of opaque, plastic barrels filled with unknown goods, beaten up metal tables and rust-covered chairs, a couple of random doors in varying colors and conditions leaning against the shack-like house, bright multicolored children's toys--reminiscent of my own childhood-- scattering the ground, a large, well-used wood burning stove with dirty pots and pans stewing on top, steam rising out of a few of them and curling up into the dense, humid air, and laundry hanging from twine set up in an intricate design overhead. And the people--all with smiling faces and excitement in their eyes--welcoming us into this place that made me long for home even more than before; but this was home to them, and now it was home for us as well.