A Not So Boring Life

In the summer of 1975, while pursuing a degree in Theatre Design at Penn State University, I headed to Dayton, Ohio to work as a stage carpenter at Wright State University.   The summer theatre season put on by the University included six productions:   the musical Man of La Mancha based on the story of Don Quixote; the psychological thriller Veronica's Room (by Ira Leven –author of Rosemary’s Baby); the classic black comedy “ Arsenic and Old Lace ”; “ After Magritte ”, a surreal comedy by Tom Stoppard; “ The Real Inspector Hound ”, a one-act audience participation ‘whodunit’ also by Stoppard and, finally, Shakespeare’s “ Twelfth Night”.   You can well imagine the craziness of pulling together SIX plays over a four month period, all on the same stage!   The set designer, whose name is lost both to me and the internets) was considered one of the best of his time.   In order to meet the heavy schedule, we first completed the first set – in this case for Man...

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...