For Frankkie

Reprimanded by a Roman

It would seem that, much to my joy and appreciation, someone is keeping up with our journey and is anxious for the next episode to be written and published. So, Frankie, this is for you. And I promise to keep them coming in a more regular fashion so you have something to read during your bouts of insomnia.

 I love writing about our travels. When you know you are going to write about the experience you look at things with a third persons eye. What you see and photograph is not just for you, it is for your friends, your family, your loved and your lost. What I write about and how I write is thus influenced and affected. I do hope you find the stories interesting and, maybe, a little inspiring. 

Yesterday, we had one of those, one in a million days. Breakfast in El Salvador, coffee in Honduras, and dinner in Nicaragua. There aren’t many times in your life you can say that. One fine day of beautiful country hopping, and stressful but entertaining border crossings.

It was a long day of quiet reflection. Many hours of gradual transitions. I put on my favourite Sara Tavares album, she always help one to think. And while we meandered my mind did too. 

I thought again of how privileged my life has been. My assumed poverty was not poverty at all. I have never had money in the bank, no savings, and I have always lived hand to mouth, but that has been my life choice. I wanted to travel too, to see the world, and I have come to realise that that has been a privilege too. Many citizens of many countries cannot. It maybe through sheer poverty, but it is also through politics. Imagine being born in a country with no prospect of ever leaving. I can’t. 

I have said before and I will say again, travel cures racism. Seeing the world through the lives of others gives us a greater sense of ourselves and how lucky we were to be born where we were, and affords us a greater sympathy and understanding. But it also makes me keenly aware that generally the poorest are also the happiest and the most inventive. Peru showed me that in a very real way. The time I gave my new iPhone to some local kids who had never used or even seen one and watched as they easily discovered and adopted its many intuitive features, and how they laughed and giggled whilst playing Angry Birds. And how I felt ashamed at myself for giving them something for a short time that they could never aspire to have again. And, here, watching kids wearing rags and barefoot playing in the muck and grime but having a great time. Or the shacks and shanties, homes to happy families, emanating filth and squalor yet portraying mirth and merriment. It’s a contradiction sometimes. My learnt sensibilities don’t apply any more. My sadness and pity is unfounded here. Human beings make the best of what they have in the conditions into which they are born. 

I will always feel the privilege and be aware of the hardships I have seen. But I will look at these things with the eyes of wisdom and the knowledge that hope and optimism is not constrained to us in the west. It is coming for these countries too. With the advent of the technological age, the internet and the smart phone, the younger generation here is learning that there is another way. Deceit and corruption will be challenged. Ideologies and aspirations will gradually become reality. Whether you like technology or loathe it, it is having a profound affect on the third world. And change will come, slowly but steadily. In the 12 years since I was last here I have witnessed that change. The youths with their faces in Facebook glare are now clothed in western attire, the streets are cleaner, the politics have changed a little for the better. I see good things happening. Slowly, and bit by bit, the people have greater opportunities than they did. There is a long way to go but it is happening.

It is a sobering way to see the world. Usually we fly over it. But driving through it is emersing yourself in the sights, sounds and smells of a beautiful and diverse region of the world. I am filled with optimism. Not to see it become like us, but to be more like itself. An independent, proud and prosperous place. I can’t wait to stay and dive into its culture and maybe even assist in its transition in some small way.