My (R)evolution, part 2.

Since April 19 of this year, there is political upheaval going on in Nicaragua,

the country that I have called home since 2005. What’s happening isn’t pretty, and it doesn’t seem that the situation is going to be solved anytime soon: the people of Nicaragua have—quite suddenly—stood up against their president, Daniel Ortega, and his wife, vice-president Rosario Murillo.

I can’t say I have openly announced it, but over the past few years I have regularly wondered when something would finally spark this fiery nation back into their old mode of standing up for their rights. Last century they fought a 28 year civil war to overthrow the dictatorship of the Somoza family. Nicaraguans showed then a drive for freedom and equality to reckon with. Men and women didn’t give up in their fight for democracy, and won.

In 2006 Daniel Ortega was elected president. In 2011 he was re-elected. Then he single-handedly changed the constitution so that he could be re-elected until his death.

I happened to be in the capital, Managua, in the weeks prior to the last elections in 2016. In the city, shared taxis are the most used means of “public” transport. They are a great way to engage in conversations with the local population.

On one taxi-ride I asked the driver when exactly the elections were scheduled. He shrugged his shoulders…,

My (R)evolution, part 1.

That rug is just a metaphor, because I live in a place that isn’t really fit for rugs. In the tropics, we don’t have rugs. Door mats maybe, but no rugs.

Since 2005 I call Little Corn Island my home base. It’s a tiny tropical island off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Turquoise seas, white sandy beaches, waving palm trees, my own little yoga and massage studio set in a lush garden right next to my tiny but super-comfortable home.

Of course, now you all think I’m living the dream. Well, maybe I was. Until April 19 of this year. Now I’m living in what some of you would more likely call a nightmare. A friend of mine described it as “living on the edge”. Whichever way you want to label it, when the country you’re living in as a foreign entrepeneur throws itself into a revolution, you cannot help but feel as if the rug got pulled out from underneath your feet.

From one day to the next the Nicaragua people woke up from peacefully dozing to fiercely demanding that the president and his wife step down. In a month’s time more than 70 people have found their death and hundreds have been injured in riots caused by police violence and looting. Road blocks are disabling proper transport, due to which many regions (amongst which our little island) are cut off from their regular supplies of food and fuel.

 

Living your dream isn't brave.

For the last 10 years, I have been living my dream, by myself, in a strange land far from everything that is (or was) familiar.

People see that and they think they would never be able to do it themselves, so they tell me I’m brave.

But I don’t really deserve a medal. Living your dream isn’t brave.

To me, brave people are those who risk their own lives or freedom for the sake of others. The people who overcome tremendous difficulty in life and can still find a smile in their hearts. The people who suffer deeply, but don’t give up hope.

Those are the brave ones, and I’m not of their calibre.

All I have done is get sacked from a job, pack a bag, and take off travelling, leaving the demands of modern society behind for some adventure and freedom. How brave is that?

So no, living your dream isn’t brave. I’m not brave. It’s that I have been able to let go of most of my fears.

Many of us are full of fears of all shapes and sizes: fear of losing our jobs, partners, money, or health; fear of losing face, of rejection, of abandonment; fear of gaining weight, not being pretty or good enough.

We fear failure in every way.

But when the fears subside, life begins. Continue reading “Living Your Dream isn’t Brave.”