Hola Amigos

Estoy en Nicaragua en el Hotel Concorazon con mis hijos. Granada is so quiet I don't recognize it. This is because today is election day for the new mayor. Friday, the bus service slowed to a crawl. Saturday, they stopped selling booze. Today, with a sober electorate which can't go anywhere, the vote happens. Here, it is a simple voting system of 'one person, one vote'. I haven't seen any adverts, but everyone seems to know the issues.

The US backed overthrow of the government of Honduras a few summers ago was meant as a warning to the countries of Central America that they can't step out of line or they will feel the big stick from the north. Honduras was easy prey (we tend to make trouble in the countries which can offer the least resistance: Iraq rather than Syria or Iran, Vietnam rather than China, and so on.) Here, the people had too much war, too many invasions from the US, too much Oliver North and Ronald Reagan, they want no war. But, they also don't want to give up the little progress they were able to sustain after the Contra war.

I would hate to be in the position of Nicaragua. At the same time, it is hard on my conscience to be from the crazy war country which can and does ruin the lives of so many on the globe. Most people I talk with have a feeling of affinity for President Obama, but then they shrug and remark that whomever is elected, they still keep making wars. I have noticed that too.

I went to a party on November 2 for the Day of the Dead. It was hosted by an expat. The party was about half expats and half locals. I looked around and realized that almost all the locals worked in one way or another for the expats. We were having a party for a tradition that we were adopting. The people of Granada were at the cemeteries. Having just returned, I saw the social thing clearly. The upper class here would never socialize with us. If they want to hang out with people from the US, they go to their house in Miami or New York. The underclass might show up at our parties because of their jobs, but for the most part, we are not with their families at the cemeteries. We are middle class schmucks in a country with no middle class. We, who used to be the majority in the USA are nobody in a poor country. If we are still middle class in the US in ten years, we may be a small majority there also. It takes a lot of our money to be the war country.