"Differing Cultures" by Leslie R.

            Life gets hard for everyone. We see the lives of others and compare theirs to ours.  As much as we may appreciate what we are fortunate enough to have, we often get sidetracked and find it hard to remain content and strive to get more. This is due to the society we have been lucky enough to live in, but unfortunately there are many people who aren’t so lucky.

This past summer the idea of other people living with a different mindset became very real to me. I went to visit my family in Nicaragua for the first time since I was two years old. When we landed, I was shocked to see the amount of bright green trees lining the streets and breathe in the fresh, non-polluted air. As I traveled through the country I saw all the beauty the country had. There were dense forests and white sand beaches along the coast. While I was there I saw active volcanoes and waterfalls and was in awe at the beauty of the architecture of the monuments in the capital. It truly felt like paradise where joy and laughter were constant. The people there added to the landscapes and brought them to life even more with their happy personalities and obvious pride in their mesmerizing country. I became infatuated with everything Nicaragua had to offer and couldn’t wait to explore as much as I could in the two weeks I was there.

            

However, all the beauty the country was filled with wasn’t the full story. Life there seemed to move at a different pace than it did in the U.S. All the people I met were proud of the jobs they had and worked hard but never stressed the importance of attaining more materialistic things. Rather, it seemed that no matter what, family was the most important aspect of life and sharing laughs and talking about your day at a dinner table was a daily occurrence. This was surprising to me because most of the time my family ate together and talked but usually we all had to do something else and our interactions rarely lasted an hour at a time.

            On top of the different speeds at which our countries moved, there was a very different lifestyle in Nicaragua. Homes were much smaller than they are in the U.S. and most didn’t have the commodities of washing machines and dryers, or air conditioning. Most people only had a few fans to deal with the extreme heat in Nicaragua unless they were government officials or they had family in the U.S. that sent money to help them pay for such luxuries. Often times, families were dependent on one income and sometimes had more than one family living in one house due to the high level of poverty in the country. People have very low income in Nicaragua and that made it much harder to have things like insurance or proper health care. Old age in Nicaragua was extremely hard because although people are given government pensions, the amount of money they get isn’t nearly enough to pay for all their medicines and bills. Most of the elderly have to work to have enough money unless they have children who give them money or are part of the government, in which case they can retire easily without worrying how they are going to get their next meal. Public hospitals are stocked with very few supplies, have no air conditioning, and charge high prices for medicine and vaccines.

            This was eye opening to me because of course I was aware that people in other countries had less than we did but I had never actually seen it in person. I became frustrated with myself because I took time to get used to the different life style in Nicaragua. I realized how dependent I had been on all the luxuries that we have all the time and when they were gone, it took me some time to figure out what to do with such limited resources. The lack of medical attention in the country and the hardships people had to go through to take care of their families was shocking. I find it interesting how different my life is from that of my family in Nicaragua and how while my family doesn’t struggle as much, there are people who don’t know where they are going to find money to pay for medicine or food and I spend my time worrying about having enough to buy a new pair of shoes. My trip to Nicaragua really opened my eyes to see all the blessings I had in my life and how grateful I am to live in the U.S. and I learned how we should all appreciate the simple things we take for granted because many people in the world don’t have such luxuries available to them.