Nicaragua Post #1



San Cristobal, one of Nicaragua's seven active volcanoes. Photo by Al Jazeera.

With days left before leaving for Nicaragua, it's going to get busy. The almost surreal feeling that comes with realizing that months of planning and organizing, phone calls and E-mails -- and the occasional Skype call -- are about to converge into the real event is something I am by now well-acquainted with.  This, after all, will be my 5th trip abroad in eighteen months and my -- I dunno -- perhaps 22nd trip abroad so far this lifetime.

 

The broad outline for this my first trip to Nicaragua is as follows:  1) Fly from Lexington to Managua, Nicaragua via Delta Airlines, going  through Atlanta and arriving in Managua at around 9:00 p.m. 2) Early the next morning take a one hour flight to Big Corn Island, where later that same day I will scuba dive. 3) Early the following morning take the 30 minute boat ride to Little Corn Island, spending one to two nights there where I will scuba dive. 4) Return to Big Corn for one or two nights before flying back to Managua. 5) Spend approximately six days in Managua where I will serve as a volunteer consultant at Nicaragua Christian Academy/Najapa Campus. 6) Spend approximately five days at Nicaragua Christian Academy/Matagalpa Campus before returning stateside.

 

Other than the time spent on the Corn Islands, I will stay with Nicaraguan families, making this somewhat of a cultural immersion experience, which really is my preferred mode of traveling abroad. It would be hard for me to exaggerate how much I value directly experiencing the culture I am traveling in, the day-to-day hum of its people and civilization. It can be profoundly challenging and stressful, but it can also be deeply rewarding, at times even joyous.  It is also part of who and what I am. And it is a trip often best done solo.

 

I've been watching the weather there and, clearly, Managua is hot at this time of the year. Daytime highs of 96 - 100 F are the norm. Matagalpa, at a higher elevation, will be markedly less blazing.  The Carribbean Corn Islands, with a consistent breeze and constant proximity to the ocean, will likely be the most pleasant.

 

My communications with the folks at Nicaraguan Christian Academy seem to be off to a good start. They seem friendly, reasonable.  I hope -- indeed, I pray -- that I am able to make some positive accomplishment to that institution during my visit. 

First Journey

Straining towards those first memories of being in the world, images appear,
sometimes remarkably palpable images from the mind of a five year old: the texture of a tame crow’s claws on my index finger on a hot summer morning, or the scent of death when finding my beloved dog dead in a ditch near a busy roadway.

I continue to walk backwards in time, and then remember a neighbor’s backyard, an abundance of bushes, and the way their branches rose and undulated downward, creating a tunnel through which I, not even three feet tall, could step into a magical parallel universe. How amused and wise I felt when my mother came looking for me, walking my direction and calling me, and how she could not see me even though I was perhaps just six feet away from where her feet had stopped.

I remember crawling out of that bush moments later and walking across the next door neighbor's backyard, and then across the next neighbor's backyard. I had not previously wandered so far from home. I felt emotions that I would today recognize as trepidation and guilt. But I also felt strangely bold. I knew that not responding to my mother's call was "bad." I knew that mom would not like me wandering so far from our house.  And yet something compelled me to keep walking.

But then I heard a voice.  The voice of a girl, the voice of a girl my age. There followed tentative steps towards each other until we stopped at opposite sides of the fence that separated us. I remember some of the emotions I felt as we spoke to each other in that special language of young children, and her uncertain facial expression as she struggled to voice words she had learned just months prior.

Both incidents ----the one in the bush and the backyard encounter -- really happened, though I am not at all sure they happened on the same day, or even the same year.   Childhood memories become personal ancient history.  My memories, however, are today iridescently sweet, or at least this one is. Deborah Rosenfield and I became good friends, and it is only in retrospect that I appreciate the role she played in forming my attitudes towards girls and women. She was a dear friend (a querido) though I was too young to appreciate or even understand that. That day marked perhaps my first journey.

A journey is much more than simply traveling. It involves physical movement -- be it two doors or two continents across -- that either by accident or design fundamentally changes you. That first encounter with Deborah changed me. I came back to my house, and my waiting mother, a fundamentally different person.  Something had gone into motion. It was the movement of my life. It was one of my first "transformative pushes."

Deborah and did many things together during the years that our friendship flourished: shared the hot chocolate that her mother made when we'd finished playing in the snow; played in her attic on rainy days, and on her swing set and slide during the hot days of summer. Eventually, however, that same movement pushed us apart when my family moved across town when I was nine years old, leaving her, in time, like one lost forever.

I hold no surviving photos of Deborah.  In my my mind's eye, however, she looked rather like the child below.

The Great American Passport Myth

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-d-chalmers/the-great-american-passpo_b_1920287.html

My First Post on this Blog

Bolivia, Spain, and China. These are the countries that I have visited in the past 13 months.  Cuba will soon follow, followed (hopefully) by Nicaragua. Before that there was Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Before that arctic Canada and its maritime provinces up to Labrador.  Before that Alaska. Before that England and Scotland, Ecuador, Colombia, France, and Italy.

I love to travel. Travel is a big part of who and what I am.  I have visited about 19 countries and about 45 of the 50 states so far. Others have visited more countries and offer a more impressive travel resume.  I don't care. This is my story. I am a different person today from what I would be now had I not traveled.  My two years in in Sierra Leone as a Peace Corps volunteer left a tattoo on my psyche that I will wear as long as I live.

Travel isn't always fun, and this is especially true if you like traveling in developing countries, a.k.a. Third World countries, which tends to be my preference.  I lost 35 lbs. in Sierra Leone from dysentery. While there I helped bury a village child and witnessed an old man's slow, grinding, death from tuberculosis.  At age 22 I had my first close encounter with the Grim Reaper when intense winds nearly sent our aged passenger plane into a mountainside near the Colombia/Ecuador border.

Most of the unpleasant encounters weren't life threatening, of course, though a few of them were most unpleasant.  Human feces was thrown on me in Barcelona. The police searched our luggage, and several of us were nearly strip searched, in Cali, Colombia. (The Colombian police at that time were known to plant evidence -- drugs -- on hapless Gringos.)  I came within a hair of being pick-pocketed in Bogota. Harassment was a given if you were a Porto (white person) traveling in West Africa. The list goes on.

But there is another list. There is no laugh like an African's. The cordiality and kindness of the Chinese brought mist to my eyes. Barcelona is still the world's hippest city. The Scotts in my experience are among the kindest people in Europe.  The endearing liveliness of the Italians.  The French, as a group among the world's most cultured people, who have made food an art form. The multi-racial society of Honduras, where I have been made to feel like family. The Mayans, whose culture is perhaps the most fascinating among First Nations.  The incredible underwater wall off the coast of Grand Cayman Island.  That list too goes on....and on... and on.

Until now, I have not attempted to systematically record my travel experiences.  Why now? Well, I believe that I may have practical, useful, advice to offer. But, in addition, in recent years I have a come to grasp how much travel has shaped me, how much it has taught me. It has been, despite some emphatic bumps in the road, an endeavor that has brought me much happiness and left me wiser, more compassionate, and more understanding of the human condition. I want a record of this aspect of my life.  Though my life has known its share of unhappiness, this will not be a maudlin narrative. My life of travel -- that path at least -- has been joyful.

I am a quintessential "meaning junkie."  I want the universe, and our lives, to have a purpose; I want there to be "some broader design, some higher purpose sublime." (That is a line straight from a song I wrote. Go to kevinmmurphy.homestead.com to listen.) Therefore, you will detect in this blog both rational and heartfelt efforts to connect dots, to find meaning. If you continue to follow this blog.

What does all this have to do with traveling? Are you ready to find out?  Am I?