a place of their own

Well thankfully today was a little better than yesterday. I was able to go out and get a few interviews done today, and I talked with one guy that was very helpful and was a part of the emergency management in Bluefields, so that was good. I have just 7 surveys completed, and I am going to get my butt in gear to hurry and finish here. I can’t wait to be out of here…. I sort of feel bad saying that but, this place really wares on you after a while! I don’t feel comfortable walking down the street, not that I feel in particular danger, but this community doesn’t get to many tourists, so they are not used to a white girl walking around. The dirtiness and the rain and everything is just starting to get me a little down. So hopefully I can start to get these surveys done really fast and leave!
On Sunday I went to church with Noel, the service was 2 hours long and it was mostly singing and dancing with some time for the preacher doing some shouting. It was really amazing to see the people here thought in church. They seem to be clinging to God for help, for salvation. It is….well I don’t know how to describe it, because I know how poor the people are and how difficult they have had it for many years now, but at the same time, it doesn’t look to me like they are trying to do much about their situation, they just pray about it. Yes, prayer is important, but it is not going to put food on the table. These people still need to find ways to make money. The other interesting thing is how educated most of them actually are. Many have college degrees, especially the middle generation, and the schools here were said to be some of the best in Central America. However, even the educated people can’t get jobs here in Bluefields and must go away to work. They also say that there are some of the richest natural resources in the world right in this area with fish, forests, gold, ect. I just don’t understand how the people can’t be a little more creative and make some industries for themselves. They just seem to constantly blame the government, which I understand has been very unfair to them, but that is not a solution. Maybe Nicaraguan government (with the help of the U.S. …not a surprise) has been taking everything from them for so long that they have gotten tired of trying. It is just a sad situation. I wish there was something I could do to help, but then I realize that this is in a way a how these people choose to live, although it may be getting progressively worse. It would not work for an outsider to come to their place and tell them how to do things. This makes me think of the war in Iraq to….just because an outsider is coming in to tell these people to do things a certain way doesn’t mean that that is what they want or will survive off of. This made a little more since when the local I interviewed today explained to me that the Creole people here in Bluefields were not raised with very much ambition. Most business owners in this community are outsiders that have come here and made it for themselves. So it is possible to do, the local people just lack the ambition or something to do it. All of the mottos here seem to suggest to relax, take it easy, enjoy life not work your way through it… Well I certainly agree with that mentality! However, seeing that that attitude doesn’t put food on the table either makes me realize that there is such thing as “a little to chill”.
What is really amazing about this place is the sense of home and knowing that this place, no matter how bad it is, is theirs forever, no matter if it is called Nicaragua, England, or whatever. Bluefields has always been the home to this unique mixture of people, and it seems that they can only really relate to another, since no other place has quite the same unique ethnic mix. This make me look at my own life and realize how far away from my sense of place I have become. I look at the closeness in these families and hope that someday I can feel that again with my family and friends. I just feel that I want to belong to something, a feeling that I have really ever felt. All of the traveling and moving makes it nearly impossible to establish a place of your own, and now I am realizing how alone I really am without a place.