Welp, managed to get sick. Had a fever yesterday, but feeling much better today. Still a little stuffy/coughy, but much better than yesterday. My face is red and scaly from blowing my nose all day. It's pretty gross looking actually. Anywho, took today as a rest day to make sure I'm close to healthy when I get on the plane tomorrow morning. It's good to take a day to get to know the staff and ask some lingering questions about Chinadega and Nica. I've learned two things.
1. "President" Ortega is on his way to becoming the dictator of Nicaragua. Originally the prez could serve two five-year terms, but Ortega changed that and he is now on his third term, and likely to win in November.
2. People don't really vote here and when they try are often harassed or turned away at the polls if they do not affiliate with a certain party. This means a minority group in the country controls the majority. So much for democracy... So why isn't the UN here to monitor polls like the do in Afghanistan and other countries? Yeah, I asked the same thing. Nicaraguans probably don't even know what the United Nations is. Well this is the thing, Nicaragua is one of those forgotten countries. Ortega isn't trying to take over all of Central America (at least not now). The Taliban aren't using Nica as a safe haven. There are no wars. No genocide. So basically no one cares. Nica could collapse in on itself and it really wouldn't hurt the international political economy too much, if at all, so the country gets neglected.
The people are very poorly educated. Even the teachers misspell simple words, but they are trying. So now you're thinking, ah what can I do to help? (If you aren't thinking that shame on ya! How can you be so selfish??) Well, what you can do is buy a plane ticket, pack your bag, and come down here. You don't have to know Spanish, that's what translators are for. You sit at home and read this, or some news article. Maybe you watch a commercial and think about how awful that is and how blessed you are to have not been born in Nica. Then you turn the channel. In a week you won't even think about my blog posts from this week. In a month you'll forget you even read them. In a year, you won't even remember where Nicaragua is on a map (because when you read my first blog post you had to Google Nica to see where it was). But let me tell you, in a year these people will still be here. They'll still be poor, hungry, thirsty, uneducated, dirty, and neglected. And you'll still be able to help. Because they are beautiful, resilient, hard-working people looking for opportunity.
Till next time.
D
