different lifestyles, different perspectives

Last blog I told about the work we did during the emergency missions, how we did it, and what the results were. In this blog I would like to talk about the differences in lifestyle and the different perspectives people can have on life.

We as western people are very used to our way of living and we tend to think that, generally speaking, our way of living is best. We set ourselves high goals, we work hard, we want everything fast. We expect the same from others. We complain when we are standing in a traffic jam or when the train comes 5 minutes late, and we can’t live without electricity, cell phones, internet and television. There are a lot of things we take for granted. In case we go to another country where standards are completely different, like for example in Nicaragua, we reflect our own standards and ways of living on the people and habits of that other country. We feel sorry for people who don’t have a cell phone, television or computer. Sometimes we get frustrated by the way how people work for example, or how inefficient things are being arranged. All because, according to our standards and bias, things are better where we come from. Our first reaction is that we think that we are better off. Most people who travel to a less developed country for the first time experience this feeling, this culture shock. It is only after a while that you start to really appreciate the other culture.

I had a bit of the same experience when I first got to the Region Autonomo Atlantico Norte (RAAN), in the northeast of Nicaragua, where one of the emergency missions was. I felt very sorry for the people there. No electricity, no knowledge about the world, no opportunities for the kids to study, in my eyes just poor people with no future. Horrible! How can people live in these circumstances? But then I got to know the people, their habits and their life a little better and I asked myself if there life is really that bad. If they don’t know our life, would they feel bad about the life they are living?

What I found special in the communities I talked about in my last blog is that most people I met there are super friendly and always helpful. They are happy to give you some food, even though they themselves have nothing. They just like to share. Sometimes you get the feeling that the difficult situation doesn’t affect them at all. That they are just used to the situation and know how to deal with periods of less food and/or water. You look around and see that the kids are playing, screaming and laughing, the women are washing the clothes in the river like normal, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, working on the land and looking after the family (but are also laughing and smiling) and the fathers are lying in their hammock and doing nothing. (Man there don’t do anything it seems. All the hard work is done by the women. That’s culture they say... (but that’s another theme)) It’s really beautiful to see that they are just happy with what they’ve got. They don’t know about television. They don’t know about internet. They don’t know about big cars, new computers or airplanes. They don’t have to have the best of the best. New gadgets, bigger houses or better speaker sets. All they know is what they see around them, how to live with what they’ve got near, how to grow food and how to survive. No stress at all, just living day by day and being with the family. They don’t complain much and if you ask them, they will say that they are happy. Of course after the hurricane and the heavy rainfall that destroyed the crops the situation is worse and there are worries about how to deal with the shortage of food. The situation is severe. And I’m absolutely not saying that their life is better, but there are lots of positive things to say about their way of living. If the same would happen to us, only having one meal a day and with worries were our next meal would come from, would we be smiling and laughing and giving total strangers an orange or some rice?

I would never change places with them, because I would know what I’d miss, but I think there are many positive things about their lifestyle and about the way they live. I also don’t know if they would like to change positions with us. They would probably get totally lost in our (stressful) and in some aspects very individualistic society.
These are things you often find when you are abroad. It’s always good to see how other people live and good to get to know other cultures. It makes you reflect on your own way of living and about what’s really important in life.

I love this experience.