Open Minds Open Doors

Me: At one point we went without water for 8 days.

Mom, Omi, Grandma, Dad, anyone from home: WHAT?!?! 8 days!?! That's unimaginable!! But how did you all survive?! What did you do?!

Me: At one point we went without water for 8 days.

Fellow volunteer, Jessi: (Less than sympathetic smile) Umm...yeah, it's rough right?

Living here in Nicaragua for the past two years has brought about a whole new set of norms for me, and while some of them are common no matter which volunteer you talk to here, the variety of “Peace Corps experiences” in Nicaragua is much wider than one might think. Each volunteer is placed in a community, town, or city in his or her own corner of the country. While some frequent restaurants and bars, have internet in their houses, can watch TV while laying on a sofa, and work in Universities; others have no electricity, no water, must travel miles by bus to get to the nearest “ciber” to use the internet, and work in one-room school houses. Some have apartments in the cities with cafes, supermarkets, and movie theaters within walking distance. Others have grown fond of shopping in their “mercados,” or farmer's markets, and have forgotten that movie theaters even exist in this world.

I live in a relatively big town; definitely not a city, but not a tiny community either. Within a two block radius of my house, I have a giant Catholic church, two elementary schools, two high schools, a beautiful central park, a gated basketball court, an ice cream store, the Mayor's Office, a pharmacy, a restaurant/bar/club, two “cibers,” a school supply store, and countless “pulperias,” aka corner stores that people run out of their houses. I feel as though I'm living in the ideal Nicaraguan town. It's not too developed which means there are no draws for tourists and I can therefore have a genuine Nica experience without a bunch of “gringos” wandering around polluting the culture. I'm just a half hour bus ride from the nearest small city where I can sit with my laptop in a bakery and use wireless internet. I can even bus it to touristy beaches when I need to escape and still get back before nightfall.

Finally I just about always have electricity; and during rainy season, there is always potable water in the pipes.* (During dry season, we generally have water every other day.) Who could ask for more?

*See next blog for an update on the water in our pipes this “rainy” season.

Well, the above conversations were had a while back when, during dry season, we were experiencing water rationing that was a bit less reliable that the usual “every other day” rule. At one point...oh yes, I've already told you...8 days. During those eight days without water, people in my town came together like you've never seen. The lack of water made for immediate bonding between any two strangers on the street; it was the perfect conversation starter. People who still have open wells in their yards immediately let it be known that anyone who needed water could show up with their buckets to start hauling. People who own horse drawn carts could be seen transporting giant rain barrels full of water from the well houses to the people who didn't have wells within walking distance. I quickly learned to boil my well water, and was blessed enough to not have to haul it myself. (My little next door neighbor, Carlos Erik, loved to bring me a small bucket each morning and that was enough for me to drink and cook with while my boyfriend, Carlos, (surprise??) made sure I had any other water I might need for washing clothes etc. )

Whenever I mentioned that week to people at home, I was always met with the same shocked disbelief. It was difficult enough for them to imagine even “every other day” water rationing, much less eight long, hot, waterless days. I felt like a survivor when I said that it really wasn't so bad. I was a hero who had braved eight days without a drop of water from a spigot. When I mindlessly mentioned it to my volunteer friend, Jessi, however, I was met with a different reaction. She paused before answering, giving me a moment to remember who I was talking to. In her town, there is never water. Walking to the well and hauling up buckets is part of her daily routine. Just as I've become accustomed to saving buckets for the no water days, she's become accustomed to walking with a 5 gallon bucket on her head from the community well back to her one room house everyday.

It really made me think. We can really get used to anything. People in my town had become so accustomed to having reliable, potable water that when it disappeared, they were outraged. Although it hasn't been many years since they all lived with just well water, the forced regression was unappreciated to say the least. When the lights go out here, people immediately respond with phrases like, “Que problema!” and “Y ahora, que hacemos?” (and now what do we do?). Just a generation back, it was normal to not have electricity, and now people here can't imagine living a day without getting to watch TV and listen to music.

It's the same in the US. Think about it. I'm 26 years old, and while I spent half of my life without the internet, now I can't imagine surviving without it. I made it to 18 years old before they invented Facebook, and now I feel as though I'd have absolutely no way of communicating with all of my “friends” without it. The entire infrastructure of the US would collapse if there were no water for eight days. Latrines don't even exist there, so what would everyone do about going to the bathroom in toilets that don't flush? People don't have open wells, and at least no one in my generation has ever hand washed a load of laundry, much less gone to the river to do so. So what would happen?

Meanwhile, Jessi and her neighbors do just fine with their situation. Sure it's less than ideal, but it's just a different daily routine. People there still have normal lives; it's just that their normal is different than my normal. Just like my current normal is different than my college normal, which was different than my high school normal and so on.

So really, what is normalcy? People for example, who have lived in the city their entire lives, in any part of the world, can't imagine living in the country – and visaversa. They each have such acutely defined ideas of normalcy that their own stereotypes and assumptions about other ways of life are completely exaggerated. City people are viewed by country folk as conceited, rich, anti-social snobs that are too busy to enjoy life, while those city dwellers view country people as uneducated, porch-sitting hicks. Ignorance and close-mindedness are what cause such extreme opinions. People in “developed” countries tend to imagine that those in “developing” countries are starving, hopeless, helpless, and sad, while this is by no means the case. Similarly, people in “developing” countries tend to think that all people in the US or any other “developed” nation live in giant houses, can afford anything their hearts desire, and want for nothing – also a misunderstanding.

I guess I have no real conclusion to reach with this blog. It just occurred to me that by living in our own little bubbles and not ever interacting with people who live differently than we do, we truly limit ourselves culturally, intellectually, socially, and experientially (which a squiggly red line is telling me is apparently not a word). Without even realizing it, we allow our untested assumptions to form our opinions about other peoples, other cultures, and other ways of living. These notions of us and them, and normal and other, while perfectly natural, can sometimes be harmful. We would do well to remember that without diversity of opinions, wants, cultures, languages, lifestyles, abilities, colors, and sub-cultures, this world would be a very different place.

I'm thankful to come from a nation as diverse as the United States, and hope to promote an appreciation for such diversity when I'm back to teaching in good ol' New York, one of the most diverse states there is. But appreciating diversity within my own country might never be enough for me. There is still so much of the world to see. Who knows if I'll ever get enough.