Success is privilege

Today I got to thinking: my official job title is “Economic Development Facilitator”. In other words, I’m supposed to facilitate economic development (just in case that’s not clear).

Earlier this morning, I sat with one of the 4 small business owners in my community. She has a “Bazaar”, which is kind of like a Hallmark-type store. She sells gifts, cards, small toys, candy, stationary, school supplies, and some clothes and shoes. She has, by far, the most successful business in the community. She has a big purple sign in front of her store with a cute slogan, and she says that people from outside of the community come in to buy stuff – which, considering the poor quality of roads here, says a lot. Interestingly, she was born in a bigger city, and long-story-short, she found herself here in the campo.

What I learned from this entrepreneur is that she is in a lot of debt, but more importantly, she a) makes profit, and b) KNOWS she makes profit. And she pays off her debt, poco a poco.

What I also learned from her is that she wants to open up a miniature supermarket (‘mini supers’), a popular business model in Costa Rica. But, she told me, she isn’t jumping out of her skin to do it, because another guy down the road has a pulpería (picture a miniature supermarket, then imagine it shrinking 90%, closing the door, and putting a person behind a big window where you ask for your stuff) and he told her that if she did, he wouldn’t survive. And he’s right. She would CRUSH him. She would also crush the 3 other small businesses in town.

Why? I blame 3 things:

1. She graduated high school
2. She has exposure to more “urban” businesses
3. Her older siblings have jobs, and one even went to college

I’m not saying that if you didn’t graduate high school, don’t have any exposure to “urban”-style businesses, and you don’t have successful siblings as role models, then you CAN’T have a successful business…but I am saying that those things make it a lot easier. I’m pretty sure that is an irrefutable statement, but if you would like to debate this, please email me, because I don’t feel like writing out my justification.

Drumroll…

The moral of the story is the following:

1. Most people who live here were unable to graduate high school because they either had to help their parents on their farms or help their parents raise the younger siblings
2. Most people who live here were born either here or in a nearby community, and have never had the money to live in a bigger city (by city, I don’t mean ‘NYC-scale’; I just mean ‘paved roads’)
3. Points 1 and 2 also apply to the siblings of most people who live her
4. Having the entrepreneurial skills that will crush smaller businesses comes from being born into privileged conditions

But, out of community spirit and respect for others, this savvy entrepreneur is most likely choosing not to follow the ‘mini super path’, because she knows she will crush the others and doesn’t want to do that…

…which led to the following realization: the only way my community will ever be considered “economically developed” is if some rich entity (be it person or corporation) comes along and buys it. Just like that…just buys it, and builds stuff on it, and pushes the people who live here off to some other invisible land.

After meeting with the savvy entrepreneur, I spent the rest of the day laying in my hammock and reading about poverty policy in the United States. So now I want to get a law degree, because I don’t have enough education debt yet (insert sarcasm here).

And of course, like a good blogger, I’ll post some fun pictures:

Peace Corps v. America: Match #1

Albert Camus said, "Life is the sum of all your choices".

So now that I've been in the Peace Corps 10 months, traveled home for 10 days, and then came back, I think I'm in an okay place to look at these two cultures: life in a hot, rural, off-the-map town near Nicaragua, versus life in a sprawling city laced with suburbs, temperature-controlled buildings and cars, and floors that even heat up when it gets too cold outside.

And now for the event that inspired this blog post: I spent 20 minutes in the supermarket the other night trying to decide which protein bar to buy. I'm going to write that again: I spent 20 minutes in the supermarket the other night trying to decide which protein bar to buy. In that time, I could have called a friend, run 3 miles, watched an episode of Sex in the City, visited my grandma, taken a nap, spent quality time with my cat, or taken a walk around the neighborhood. You get the point. Granted, perhaps 20 minutes is a bit pathological, but I can't help feeling...is it really all my fault?

Well according to Camus, I am a 'Balance Bare bar with 20 minutes of deliberation'. But why do we have SO many choices? In America, it seems that choices are synonymous with freedom. We should have the right to express our preferences. We should have the right to buy one of 50 varieties of protein bars. We should have the right to choose Greek yogurt, Bavarian yogurt, Plain yogurt, Goat yogurt, fat-free yogurt, medium-fat yogurt, full-fat yogurt. It is an expression of our freedom that we have the option of selecting out of about 90 varieties of sliced bread, 10 varieties of nut butter, 8 varieties of Triscuits. I guess this falls under the constitutional right to pursue happiness?

But if we are the sum of our choices, and Americans are CONSTANTLY making choices, what are we? I'm sure that Camus wasn't talking only about consumer choices, but it's worth asking ourselves. In Las Nubes where I'm doing my Peace Corps service, we don't make these types of choices. In Las Nubes, our consumer choices are more like, should I buy the big bag of rice so that it lasts longer, or the small bag because it's cheaper? Or, should I  buy a loaf of bread or should I make bread myself? At the end of the day, Camus would call most people in my town 'practical consumers' (or 'impractical', depending on who we're talking about). Again, you get the point. So does that mean that it is easier to know yourself when you have fewer choices to make? Maybe, maybe not.

Well, I'll leave you with that to think about, plus some visual comparisons of the two cultures...

...of course I'll update my blog regularly!

Let's see: the last time I updated this blog was September 27th, 2013. I wrote about how it had been a whole THREE WEEKS since the last time I had written. And then I moved to the town where I am currently doing my Peace Corps service, and have not written since. Whoops.

So between October 2013 and April 2014 (7 months), the following has happened:

• I moved out of one family's house and into another
• I got a kitten 
• I "ran" a half-marathon (some might say "crawled") 
• I cut bangs for myself and let them grow back out 
• I got a yoga mat AND a hammock (aka, I became a happier person) 
• I saw my first wild monkeys and snakes just hanging out 

And now... 

• I flew home to visit family and friends!

So here I am, back in the bedroom I inhabited years ago when I lived with my parents, freezing in the 40-degree-Fahrenheit April, gorging myself on the smorgasbord that is the American food industry, stressing out over traffic jams and too many iMessages, planning exactly what I will do for the rest of my days here, and wondering: have I changed at all? 

Have I changed at all? Meaning either, have my core values changed, or have I changed anything about the world around me. Because isn't that the point of Peace Corps? We all want to change the world, and we all know that we must "be the change we want to see". This isn't new stuff. But how do you know if anything has changed? Some brands of toothbrush bristles turn blue when they've scraped away enough crust, and Brita filters light up now when they reach their water-cleaning capacity. Unfortunately, though, people are a lot more discreet. But I think that one of the core lessons I've learned so far is this: all of life is a continuum. There is no such thing as a flashy indicator that lets you know when you've made a difference. Sure, people develop diagnostics, evaluations, and questionnaires that supposedly measure the spaces between befores-and-afters...but really? Think about it: in my line of work, I can teach small business owners the importance of tracking their income and expenses. The space between before-and-after is big. Cool! But...what difference really happened? Is it that they learned the physical act of writing things down, or that they learned the importance of keeping track of things? I could get existential and say that "it doesn't really matter", but let's be real: it does matter. 

Well, I'll leave you with that to ponder, along with some pictures, because I'm sure there is some research out there that says that people prefer when blogs have pictures. 

Río San Juan - the other side is Nicaragua 

Fishing hole 

Fresh cacao (or, what dreams are made of)

Pineapple field on a cloudy day 

By the way, this blog marks the beginning of my new ongoing blog project. AKA, I am going to update this weekly, and I also just launched another blog specifically about food and fitness in the Peace Corps. Check it out!