From Managua, Nicaragua June 2006

I struggle with what it means to be a privileged individual with enough dough to traipse around Latin America for three months, dough that stretches a long way thanks to the suffering economies of these countries. My budget for a month in Nicaragua is about equal to the median annual income of this country. Sometimes I feel as if I have no right to be doing this. Shouldn’t I give all that money to someone who can make a difference here with it? While I find all kinds of ways to justify my being here, for better or worse, I like to think that most importantly , the experience of actually seeing how things are is quite important to further developing my ideas about development and social justice.

While in school, I focused a lot of my studies on Latin America, both in my Spanish language studies, and in areas of women’s studies and political science. As a result, I came here with a knowledge of Latin American history and current events. I also came with a pre-determined idea of what I thought things would be like. Like many an academic, I was pretty sure I knew a lot, and like many an academic, I’m so relieved to get out of the brick and mortar classroom and into the real world classroom, where its obvious I only know so much. If I had to name the most important observation I’ve made so far, it would be the vast number of similarities I find between the U.S. and Nicaragua when it comes to social issues. While I didn’t come here expecting to find all of Latin America suffering, a victim in need of help, I did expect somehow that things here would be worse or more ugly or more desperate than in the U.S.

And things are ugly here. There is a negligible lack of reliable infrastructure, the destruction and exploitation of natural resources is unconscionable, there is garbage everywhere, the buses and taxis are all on their last legs and totally unsafe, people can’t find jobs, the government is horribly corrupt, there is poor access to health care and good public education, children become sick and die from treatable illnesses, people live in slums, parts of Managua are considered VERY dangerous and the nicer neighborhoods hire private security guards to patrol the streets and people close themselves up behind security fence and razor wire and wrought iron bars. But when I compare it to the U.S., I don’t necessarily find an absence of these problems. I can’t say we don’t have horrible, desperate poverty in the U.S., nor can I say that everyone has access to health care and education. Both the U.S. and Nicaragua have high rates of single motherhood, teenage pregnancy, and domestic violence. The U.S. is not free of violence and filth and drugs and destruction. The things that I find shocking here, shock me because they are unfamiliar, but I think there are an equal number of shocking things in the U.S. that I have become numb to and have therefore become invisible, much in the same way that privileged people here become numb to the things they see around them.

For example, in Nicaragua, and all over Latin America, there is a huge number of homeless boys on the streets, many of whom are addicted to sniffing glue. In the U.S., it is not socially acceptable to us to have young children living on the streets and so even though the largest number of homeless in the U.S. are children, we do a good job of keeping them out of sight. Here, they are right in front of your eyes. Shocking? You bet, but less acceptable than homeless kids in the U.S.? Not really. And actually, you would think homeless folks in the U.S., of any age, would be far more unacceptable to us considering our wealth compared to a country like Nicaragua. So every time I see something and think that wouldn’t, doesn’t, couldn’t, hasn’t happened in the U.S., I have to stop myself and reconsider.

Here is where I can apply some of the things I did learn within the brick and mortar walls of the university. The key to creating change in the world is through coalition building and creating systems where help, ideas, solutions, and change flows in both directions, not just from the “top” down to the “bottom,” because the problems exist everywhere. I have just as much to learn from Latin America as I have to offer. The U.S. and the rest of the global north has not fixed all of its own problems nor will it be able to fix the worlds problems from the position of a benevolent patriarch. Many of the problems we have failed to solve ourselves are being addressed creatively and with a unique perspective here in Latin America. Our histories are deeply intertwined and there is no such thing as us vs. them as we benefit on the backs of these countries and we have a history of putting our boot down on the head of any attempt at their autonomy that goes against our idea of “democracy.” We are responsible for the exploitation of the natural resources here and we are responsible for the consumption and production of waste which has left a big, whopping hole in the ozone layer which lies over this part of the world. We are also responsible for the exploitation of Latin American labor, both within the borders of these countries and within our own. What is important about my relationship to Latin America as a U.S. citizen is what I share with the people here, not how I differ.

As I prepare to leave Nicaragua for Colombia, I think about all the warnings I received in the U.S. about going there. Isn’t it dangerous? Won’t you be kidnapped? Murdered? Robbed? While I’m certainly afraid of narcotraffickers and guerrillas and paramilitaries, I’m much more afraid of the power mongers in the U.S. whose insatiable need for blow drives the machine that makes Colombia so dangerous in the first place. Let me spell it out, Colombia is a dangerous country because people in the U.S. have a MAJOR drug problem. So why should I avoid going there? Why should I avoid trying to make a positive contribution to a country which has suffered so much violence directly and indirectly because of my country? So as I consider my safety and my position as a U.S. citizen traveling in Latin America, I realize that it’s not that Latin America is safe, necessarily, but that the U.S. is not as safe as it appears, either.