At first it was strenuous trying to figure everything out, get into a new routine. I had been here before so not much was different, except everything was different all at the same time. They stare at you when you walk around, you have become the minority. They talk and you struggle to comprehend what is being said to you. The food is unlike anything you’ve seen growing up in an American home, the air thick with heat and humidity surrounds you and feels heavy on your skin. You learn its polite to kiss the air next to someones cheek when saying hello or that in most of the affluent houses you walk into there are armed guards waiting to greet you at the gate. All these things is what makes you fall in love with your new home right in between Costa Rica and Honduras, Nicaragua mi bella Nicaragua.

At nine years old I was told of the move that would change my life for the better, though at the time I was overwhelmed and tears ran down my cheeks at the thought of leaving my comfort zone. We had been there before for a week or two weeks at a time, but moving for an indefinite amount of time was something my young mind could not wrap around. This country most people thought was in Africa had now become my home and I, thrown into the middle of it, was about to go on the journey of a lifetime.

I truly believe travel is the great educator and that there is a naivety that comes with staying in one place your whole life. For six years I was able to live through a different culture and the things I saw and were exposed to will follow me around as long as I live. One of the most influential things that has stuck with me through the years that the Nicaraguans expressed to me was finding the joy in little things. I’ve talked about this before, only because it is something I feel can not be stressed enough. Some of the happiest people I have ever come across have been the ones in the small villages tucked away on back roads with dirt floors and metal sheets barely qualified to be acting as a roof. People living in the most simplistic way but loving me with a heart bigger than many I have known. Just the opportunity to sit in the small shacks and eat what they eat and feel what they feel peels away the layers of entitlement and supremacy we have a tendency to grasp onto in our high society living. A family that barely has enough food for themselves sits me down and insists that they make me a full blown meal. Generosity like that in such a time of scarcity will truly begin to put things into perspective.