It will be two years next month since I have seen you and 5 years since my first trip to Nicaragua. As a high school sophomore I was lucky enough to travel to Nicaragua to a rural village in four hours Northeast of Managua, as I have told you before. Upon my arrival I have seen the unwavering hospitality of the Nicaraguan people and their enormous hearts. My time in Nicaragua has also challenged me to think about my privilege simply having been born in the US and some of the realities of third world poverty. My stay with your family was a life changing experience for me. While I remember my time with you fondly and often, I am thinking about you under different circumstances. For my class on globalization I am reading a book about the worldwide
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While I never visited your work, I remember hearing you at 5:30AM leaving to catch the bus and I waiting for you to get home close to 7PM so that I could practice my Spanish with you. I remember the extra shifts you would take on Saturday and how you would sleep for a lot of Sunday in preparation for another workweek. I remember when I told you some of the costs of my life, especially that of my plane ticket and we both put our lives in some perspective based on that. Your jaws dropped when I told you the average amount of college tuition for a student in the US. Now after reading this book I am thinking about how our lives are connected not only through the time we spent together but by the global market of goods in which you produce and I …show more content…
The Somoza dictatorship robbed Nicaraguans of everything. He stole from many government institutions and didn’t care to provide education or infrastructural improvements for the majority of Nicaraguans suffering from extreme poverty by the end of his rule. When A major earthquake hit in 1972 he failed to provide any medical aid to the Nicaraguan people and didn’t rebuild any of the severely damaged homes and buildings in Managua. The United States had a clear role in supporting the Somoza regime from most of its existence along with many other world leaders. Not only that, but the United States government under the Regan Administration had a huge hand in the contra war in Nicaragua that similarly crippled any economic or social progress that could have otherwise taken place. As an American I have been conscious of this since my first visit, when my Spanish teacher highlighted how incredible it was that a small village was willing to take us in considering where we come from. Nicaragua, in a similar way to Cambodia, has a violent past that has greatly impacted its current situation and its role in the globalized system as a
While I never visited your work, I remember hearing you at 5:30AM leaving to catch the bus and I waiting for you to get home close to 7PM so that I could practice my Spanish with you. I remember the extra shifts you would take on Saturday and how you would sleep for a lot of Sunday in preparation for another workweek. I remember when I told you some of the costs of my life, especially that of my plane ticket and we both put our lives in some perspective based on that. Your jaws dropped when I told you the average amount of college tuition for a student in the US. Now after reading this book I am thinking about how our lives are connected not only through the time we spent together but by the global market of goods in which you produce and I …show more content…
The Somoza dictatorship robbed Nicaraguans of everything. He stole from many government institutions and didn’t care to provide education or infrastructural improvements for the majority of Nicaraguans suffering from extreme poverty by the end of his rule. When A major earthquake hit in 1972 he failed to provide any medical aid to the Nicaraguan people and didn’t rebuild any of the severely damaged homes and buildings in Managua. The United States had a clear role in supporting the Somoza regime from most of its existence along with many other world leaders. Not only that, but the United States government under the Regan Administration had a huge hand in the contra war in Nicaragua that similarly crippled any economic or social progress that could have otherwise taken place. As an American I have been conscious of this since my first visit, when my Spanish teacher highlighted how incredible it was that a small village was willing to take us in considering where we come from. Nicaragua, in a similar way to Cambodia, has a violent past that has greatly impacted its current situation and its role in the globalized system as a