Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere (just behind Haiti). Roughly 80% of the country subsists on two dollars a day or less. Keep in mind that that is accounting for the parity principle. So when someone says that a population lives on two dollars a day that is a reference to the equivalent of what two dollars would get you in the US. In effect, this means that the vast majority of the country makes due with less money than most homeless people in the states have in their pockets at any given time. On top of its current state, Nicaragua also possesses a bloody political and revolutionary history that reads like a work of fiction; a peoples' movements that toppled a US-backed dynastic dictatorship, a CIA sponsored counter-revolution that killed hundreds of thousands, and tragic return to unyielding poverty.
Honestly, I don't know what to expect but I feel like it's an opportunity I can't pass up. It's one thing to spend all of your time discussing and denouncing the evils of our current global socio-economic state, it's a whole a different ball game when you're staring its effects in the face.
I have spent so much time lately thinking about my life, my privilege, and my future. Though I am afraid of failing to accomplish the goals that I've set for myself, I'm tired of waiting to see if I can make them a reality. Nicaragua undoubtedly will mark a new chapter in my life. The difference this time is that for once I feel like I get some control in the authorship.
