Multi-generational Global Citizenship

This post is part of Blogging Abroad's 2017 New Years Blog Challenge, week one: Global Citizenship.

When I was thirteen in 1958 I went to Havana with my father for a long weekend. We lived in Miami at the time and he worked as a baggage handler for Pan American Airlines. The trip, including a couple of nights at the Hotel Nacional, was essentially free. A father-son trip like this was out of character for my dad and me. I was very affiliated with my mother and he and I didn’t have much to say to each other. I would guess there was some unspoken reason for the trip; some instigation on my mother’s part, some crises in their very stormy relationship. Who knows? But there I was in Havana at the height of the “gangsterismo” era, with the corrupt, murderous dictator Batista just hanging on by his finger tips. However, still enjoying the full support of the US government and still profiting massively from Mafia kickbacks for gambling, prostitution, and drugs. At the time, I knew nothing about this nor about the looming revolution. It is possible that bombs were going off in Havana, possible that revolutionaries were being hauled off to be tortured and murdered.

My father hit the casinos and I hit the streets. My memories are 58 years old and, of course, not to be fully trusted, but I think I was pretty much on my own. If I did anything with my father other than sleep in the same hotel room, I don’t remember it. I do remember wandering along the Malecón and watching boys about my age swimming and fishing naked from the sea wall. I remember walking along broad avenues, back streets, and wide plazas where it seemed every surface was covered in intricately patterned ceramic tile. I remember music in the parks, on the street corners and blasting from the bars. Everything had a sexual charge. I was 13, of course everything had a sexual charge.

As near as I can reconstruct it, I was in Cuba for between 48 and 72 hours. The family history is that my father lost all his money and we flew home early. As with many events in my family, this could either be accurate or it could be the version of the events that made the best story.

I believe this brief vacation was the start of my concept of myself as a global citizen; as someone who looks at the world with a broader perspective than can be provided by citizenship in only one country. The trip was on the eve of the triumph of the revolution. Within months, maybe within weeks, Batista would flee and a victorious Castro would enter Havana. The timing primed me to pay attention to everything that happened afterwards and substantially contributed to my left-wing, radical thinking in terms of politics, economics, history and culture.

Flash forward 58 years and I’m 71 years old and a Peace Corps volunteer living and working with my wife Deborah Drew in Chinanadega, Nicaragua, acknowledged by everyone to be the hottest city in a very hot country. 

I am also the oldest volunteer currently serving in Nicaragua. A big majority of Peace Corps volunteers are in their early to mid twenties. 

Just before Christmas, my step daughter, Helen Devol, my wife’s daughter, comes to visit with her family; her husband Dave and their three kids, Sammy 17, Simon 14, and Tess 11. They are amazing kids! OK. So I’m their grandfather and not objective. So sue me. I know exceptional when I see it. I’m going to focus here on Simon, the fourteen year old.

In addition to being smart, funny, and good looking, he is also the most kinetic kid I’ve ever known. I don’t mean hyperactive or ADD. He is perfectly capable of sitting still and concentrating for extended periods when its called for, but his default setting is physical play. Any object he encounters in the environment is an invitation to climb, run, jump, bounce, flip, balance, etc. He carries an iPhone 7 with him and documents all his antics in photos and videos. He is a fireworks fanatic, a fascination he shares with his dad. They both love blowing shit up.

The point, besides how wonderful Simon is, is that he is a global citizen. Since he was 10 he has been going to the international children’s camps, LPC (Luethi-Peterson Camps). He spends four to six weeks every summer with a group of campers from all over the world and he has attended camps in Spain and Italy. Now he has had this experience of traveling around Nicaragua for two weeks. I am hoping it will have some of the same effect on him that my time in Cuba, at the same age, had on me. I see in him a desire for new experiences, a willingness to engage with whatever comes his way, a non-judging openness that is rare in US teenagers. 

We spend New Years Eve with our neighbors in Chinandega, eating roast pork, drinking rum, translating back and fourth between English and Spanish, and setting off fireworks. A little after midnight a “torro” emerges from the car wash down the street. It is a large cardboard construction in the general shape of a bull that has been loaded with fireworks of every size and description. The young men of the neighborhood get inside it (where they are relatively protected), light the fuse, and chase people up and down the street while the bull shoots rockets in all directions. Simon takes one look at the contraption and can’t believe his luck at being in this place at this time. With a huge smile he says, “Oh my god! This is really dangerous! My goal is to touch it while it is exploding.” He achieves his goal more than once.

 

http://www.hotelnacionaldecuba.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malec%C3%B3n,_Havana

https://luethipetersoncamps.org/