The Summer of Travel

No point in apologizing for the lack of blogging since no one, save the authors, have bothered to read this thing.

I am in Nicaragua and I am working with an organization whose name I will not say. I am in graduate school and I am studying international development. I thought it may be beneficial to actually visit a developing country at some point (since other locals I've visited are in Europe). I hope while here I can learn about how development works, in a real sense. I have read much on the subject from many different disciplines and perspectives but I want to see it and I want to feel it.

This country is really damn poor. I mean, excessively lacking basic materials and goods; this is my opinion. I know that coming from the United States and from a moderately well-to-do family that my initial impressions are largely skewed, that is, having a car older than 10 years or living in an older part of town would be "poverty" for me (subsequently, I'm sure you can substitute better examples of this poverty-relativity thing that I am trying to convey).

Now, all of this is hindsight as the issue since I arrived less than a week ago was how this affects me. Before coming down I had prearranged a room to live in with someone in the organization and, apparently, I did not ask the right questions and the person I spoke with did not provide the right details -- I was overwelmed in seeing how poor the the neighborhood was and how seemingly ramshackle and dirty the house was. I had romantic images of me roughing it encompassed by the the phrase "getting dirty" coined by D.L. Blanchard and I. The idea was the travel to a place that involved, essentially, a test of limits for ourselves -- especially of the norms of comfort and continuing to push away from tourism and reach the other side of what it is to travel. This is a big portion of that trip for me. I have a bit of sadness but I know this is normal and regardless of what happens this will pass.