Skip to main content



As I hear from friends and family in the U.S. regarding their experiences hunkering down into government mandated and/or self-isolated protection from the Coronavirus pandemic - working from home, limiting their excursions to markets and other locations in search of basic necessities, avoiding contact with other than immediate family and household - I cannot help but reflect on the situation in Nicaragua (where I live now) and dozens of other countries where I have worked as an International Development Specialist. These countries are normally classified as "underdeveloped" or "emergent" (adjectives that tend to focus primarily on economics). In the context of these nations, where a significant portion of the populace survive on a day-to-day basis through their participation in informal business and markets, “social distancing” is a whole other ballgame. In Nicaragua alone, an estimated 2.4 million women and men (@1.7 million living below the poverty line) leave their homes in the early hours of the morning, spreading out through the countryside and cities on foot or crammed into inexpensive but over-crowded public transportation.  For them, there is no alternative: you work today or you don´t eat tomorrow. They interact with each other and the rest of the populace in local and regional markets and other commercial centers, at temporary construction sites, going door-to-door and on the street.  There is an awareness here of the seriousness of the pandemic.  Some steps have been taken to limit the potential for germ transmission.  Some businesses have started providing alcohol wipes and hand sanitizer to clients.  A major supermarket chain, a regional subsidiary of Walmart, placed Plexiglas barriers between cashiers and customers. More and more people are wearing masks and gloves when they are outside of their homes.  But it is not enough.  For every person taking precautions, there are dozens who, either from ignorance or simply lacking the economic resources to dedicate even a minimum of their income to the purchase of a mask, gloves or additional hand cleanser, remain vulnerable as carriers or transmitters of the virus. Nicaragua is still in a somewhat privileged position with a low number of cases.  The Nicaraguan government is reporting only three confirmed infections as of this writing (plus one death from complications of the virus) and are quick to classify these cases as “imported”, touting no “local community-based transmission”. Government officials have stepped up information campaigns regarding handwashing and ways to reduce contact but, amidst growing criticism, have been reluctant to promote additional, more drastic measures geared to limiting large gatherings of people that are being taken by other governments around the world - such as the closure of school and non-essential business. Plans for Easter Week celebrations – in Nicaragua traditionally the period of greatest concentration of people as hundreds of thousands head to the beaches and other vacation spots – continue without modification.  The rational for this lack of additional precaution or reduction of activities appears to be primarily economic. And of course, Easter Week is always a boon for those millions of people living below the poverty line with its potential to add a few extra cents to their meager income.  But, as it begs the question, at what cost?  When the coronavirus infection rate begins its upward spiral – and right now it seems inevitable that – barring some sort of divine intervention (there are sufficient believers in the country) or the prompt development a miraculous vaccine that can and will be distributed to all who need it (there are believers in that as well) - Nicaragua and hundreds of other “developing” countries around the world are going to be caught up and swallowed by this voracious pandemic in the months to come.  Or maybe I’m just feeling pessimistic today.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Marbles are for... Somewhere between unsuccessfully trying to suppress a few sobs at the poignancy of flawed humanity and experiencing a deeply satisfying grin as Bill Murray over-sings Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm” during the credits of my second watching of the movie “St, Vincent” on Netflix, I was hit with a memory from long ago Junior High School as Murray’s Vince, recovering from a stroke, was made to pick up marbles with his toes and deposit them into a nearby bowl.  A strange thing to associate, is it not? But that is what well-done fiction is all about: connecting us with both universal and very personal things. Along about 1964, shortly after the assassination of JFK and still under the influence of his school- based physical education initiative, our local school officials had every student evaluated in terms of stature and other physical qualities.  I remember standing sideways in front of a graphed board set up in what doubled as the Junior High gym...
MUD BY ANY OTHER NAME… Before leaving the remote village where we had arrived after a half-hour motor-boat ride across a placid coastal lake and a pleasant, spirit-inspiring, forty-five minute journey in a dugout canoe through acres of mangrove trees, my hosts asked me if I wanted to borrow a pair of rubber boots as we continued on our way to visit a farmer who was planting nitrogen fixing trees on his small plot on the Atlantic Coast of Honduras.  “There will be mud along the way”, they said.
THE HATFIELDS AND THE MCCOYS I was getting ready for a trip to a project region in the south central Department of Olancho in Honduras, but there was some doubt whether conditions in the zone would allow for a safe journey back along the country roads leading to the isolated communities that were participating in the project.  There was talk of increased violence in the region; not that violence was something unheard of in these rural, frontier environments, but over the last year the level of reported deaths in the department (not by automobile accidents or natural causes) had risen to a point where additional safety considerations and analysis were needed.  The news coming out of the area consisted of a too-often vague and mixed up tale of gang rivalries, drug trafficking wars and/or family feuds.  It all seemed just too jumbled up to make sense.  But, by talking to staff of our local partner organization, I was finally able to piece together at least part of ...