I flew from Newark after having waited all of April for a truly warm
spring-and-daffodil day in the northeast. Slightly sunburned and
truly exhausted from a hurried three and a half weeks in the USA, I
returned to Nicaragua to blazing tropical heat and a country I know
well, but not at all. I arrived to the smoke of farmers burning
fields and a tropical haze that seeps messily into my every pore and
soaks my clothing. At 6PM at the airport, it was 85° and humid and
wonderful. I caught a cab to my new place in Las Colinas, unpacked
and tried to sort out the past month's worth of running around.
The character of America strikes you early when you've been away for a
while. I was appreciative even in the airport of a society that gives
you a straight answer to your question, and of people who, if they
can't help you, can tell you where you might find the help you need.
I was appreciative too, of our capacity for large-scale construction
and planning, and the foresight and organizational skills we prize so
much. Having lived not amongst poverty but amongst chronic
disorganization makes it so much more obvious to me how much progress
we've made in the United States since our colonial days. The poorest
of the Nicaraguan farmers have yet to progress to the technological
level of the wooden plow used by Jefferson at Monticello in the 1700s,
and the idea of farm equipment using satellite GPS equipment to
monitor crop density is nothing less than unthinkable in Central
America. Looking around I was proud to see how very much we do in the
United States, how hard we work, and how much we produce. And at the
same time, I was happy to leave it all behind to spend more time in a
country where six year olds don't shoot each other in elementary
school and retirees with semiautomatics don't blow each other away in
retirement homes, where road-rage hasn't been invented yet, and where
contentment means the family close by and a full plate of food on the
table.
Three and a half weeks weren't nearly enough time to do the things I'd
have liked to do back in the States, and family-wise I was only able
to make it to Philly to see David and Susan, and New Jersey to see
Laura and Frank. I'll remember this hurried trip as an endless
succession of long-missed foods: chapchae and sushi, Brazilian
feijoada, fresh pasta, deli sandwiches and iced-tea in Styrofoam cups,
cups of steaming Lapsang Souchang tea with my old roommate Kathleen as
we sorted out the world, fresh bagels with cream cheese and pesto,
espressos served scalding-hot, and glasses of Merlot. I return to
Nicaragua with a renewed desire to keep in touch with the people I
love, all too aware that with only two exceptions, my trip took me
from happy couple to happy couple. I even got to meet little Shannon,
the 2-year-old daughter of an ex-girlfriend. A milestone for me
perhaps, yet indicative of how the choices I've made with my life mean
embracing one future and putting another one off. I also return to
Nicaragua with a computer for my home, putting email at my fingertips
and making staying in touch that much easier. Give me a ring.
