Image by  Aaron Burden on Unsplash

 

  My (R)evolution, part 12.

The decision has been made, there’s no way back anymore in my mind. I am leaving the island, leaving Nicaragua, the beautiful country that has been my welcoming home for 13 years. 

In the weeks running up to my decision to pack up my life and leave, I’ve been keeping track of the news, which keeps showing more of the same: more peaceful protest marches of people demanding that the president and his wife step down. More police violence, more deaths every day. A National Dialogue with representatives of all groups involved, not coming to any kind of resolution or agreements. The situation isn’t improving, but also not escalating dramatically. Just slowly deteriorating.

Tourism in Nicaragua has come to a grinding halt. Businesses are laying off people, closing down.

Our little island at this moment probably is still the “liveliest” when it comes to tourism because it is a relatively safe place that people can reach by air, avoiding all trouble on the mainland. But it’s only a handful of unfazed travellers that makes it down here.

We’re running low on supplies, and nobody can guarantee us any deliveries any time soon, with all the road blocks being maintained firmly in place on all the major roads on the mainland.

The future has started to look pretty grim, when it comes to sustaining ourselves in the tourist industry, which is my only source of income too.

Image by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash

 

My (R)evolution, part 11.

 

On June 4, I am still asking myself: “Should I stay or should I go?”, as I described in part 6 of My (R)evolution.

In the afternoon of Tuesday June 5, we have a community meeting about the island’s sustainability project. I go to the meeting, although I’ve totally lost my enthusiasm for the project, as I already described in My (R)evolution, part ?

The atmosphere during the meeting is subdued, quite depressing. It’s obvious to everyone that we aren’t going to be able to push this project forward under the current circumstances of a country in revolution. Most of the time I am not even listening.

At the end of the meeting, one of the members of the organisation tries to cheer me up in a pretty helpless way: “You’re not giving up yet, are you? You’re not packing up and leaving us yet, are you?”

Think in full colour.

Spring greens and endless hues of blues. Squinting against the intense sunlight, you feel the moist salt on your skin, the breeze playing with your hair, the trickles of sweat running down your body from every fold of skin because that sun is hot.

Your nose picks up the sweetness of flowers attracting their love bugs; your ears are soothed by sounds of lapping waves. A hammock strung in the shade of the palm trees is inviting you for a siesta in paradise.

You’re living the dream: a stress-free life on a tiny tropical island.

Actually, I am living your dream. The picture I just painted in your mind’s eye really exists. It’s not a dream though.

I live in that dream picture—it’s just not the whole picture.

There’s much more to living on a tiny tropical island, and it isn’t all fun.