Before I made it to Valpo, the chorale recorded "Horizons" by Peter-Louis Van Dijk on their As It Is In Heaven album. Some of the lyrics will serve to organize this post. I've never had the chance to sing it, but it has affected me powerfully in the ways it relates to the cultures I've come to know south of my home country. The song relates the story of the San nation in South Africa, and is based on a cave painting dating to the time the first "gringos" showed up on the scene.
Sleep, my springbok baby,
Sleep for me, my springbok child,
When morning comes I’ll go out hunting,
for you are hungry and thirsty.
Like most of the native peoples on the American Continent, the San were short on stature and steel compared to their new white counterparts. They were an exceptionally peaceful people, a trait used very effectively against them. Rather than fearing or repelling the white men, they sought to form friendships through gift-giving and continue their way of life. They admired their height, skin, and opulence as godlike.
When morning comes, they’ll come a-hunting,
for they are hungry and thirsty.
In Nicaragua, there's a plaque with a quote attributed to Niracao-Calli, a local chieftain:
"The Spaniards know about the flood, (and) who placed the stars, the sun, and the moon. (They know) where the soul was. (They know) how Jesus, being man, is God, and his mother a virgin giving birth, and why so few men wanted so much gold."
Unlike Costa Rica, Nicaragua had three valuable traits: a large population, vast natural resources, and a transit route across the American continent. All three were taken by force when the Spanish used slaves to transport gold, timber, and other goods between the Pacific coast and Lake Nicaragua, where they could be exported up the San Juan and away to Spain. They pillaged the country, leaving a trail that leads today to Nicaragua's status as the poorest country in Central America and the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere.
They will come across the waters:
Mighty saviours in their sailing ships,
And they will show us new and far horizons.
But hey, I'm not Spanish. My ancestors didn't "colonize"anyone - they just took tracts of "unused" land and "cultivated" it through the Homestead Act. I'll ignore the direct influence their tax dollars later had for now, except to say that I've been pretty disgusted with my own U.S. History education after learning about William Walker, the Banana Wars, and several other unsavory aspects of our collective past. You see, it really depends on your perspective. I can view the fact that I'm sitting here typing on a MacBook Pro (which represents more money than the median annual salary in Nicaragua) as the result of exploitation or as the result of hard work - both are correct. Either way, some of us have what some of us don't, and for anyone my age or younger the odds that we had much to do with which it is are pretty slim. History happened one way and not another. Trying to understand why is certainly valuable, but almost only insofar as it inspires action in the present. I say the present because the future doesn't really exist, at least not yet. I feel that sting every time someone asks me here whether I'll be coming back to Central America - I'm not opposed to the idea, but I'd be lying if I said I were planning to do so. The present enables the future, but focusing only on the future cripples the present. If God is a verb, it's in the present tense.
And they came, came across the waters:
Gods in galleons, bearing bows of steel,
Then they killed us on the far horizon.
So where does that leave us? Should I feel guilty? No. Guilt inspires pain, not healing, and blaming ourselves for something we didn't do (though we may have benefited from it) is a logical absurdity. Instead, I think we should simply focus outside ourselves. The economic disparity that allowed me to fall in love with reading at the same age where this child was teaching himself origami in order to help his family exists, but it doesn't make either of us the better person. I think the thing I learned most on this trip is that the people we worked with didn't want pity, at least not primarily. They wanted to be heard. They wanted to be loved. Sometimes that meant a gift of alleviation, but sometimes it meant a conversation. In this boy's case, it meant both.
I promise I'll fill in some of the details on our encounter next time, but I really needed to get that out. I feel better now, and I hope it inspires you and I both to look for a chance to love our neighbor. Today.