P365 D53: Fieldwork

We spent a day and half on Rama Cay doing fieldwork. I have been doing fieldwork since I was 10 with my Dad, who was a paleontologist, then as an archaeologist for eight years as an undergrad and in CRM, and now as a biological anthropologist in graduate school. However, no amount of experience or classroom knowledge can prepare you for some of the things you face in the field. My first experience in the field with my father, the trailer we were hauling came off the hitch on the truck and then tried to pass us on the right before flying into a ditch. It was kind of like the old Disney cartoon where Mickey, Donald, and Goofy go camping. Then we pulled into a small town of Simms, Montana, where my Dad looks at an old lady crossing the street and goes "Oh, that is my Aunt". We were able to get the trailer hitch fixed and get on our way but there is always something unexpected.

In the present case, it was the overwhelming poverty, that we in the US just aren't accustomed . As I have mentioned before Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere after Haiti. This is largely due to a prolonged dictatorship and civil war that was fought for a number of years and of course US interference (for a good editorial comment on this go here from the blog Backyard Briefing). While parts of Nicaragua are becoming more developed particularly along the Pacific side, the Caribbean remains largely isolated from the rest of the country. In the southern Caribbean the major form of transport is panga. There are two large autonomous provinces (north Atlantic and south Atlantic). The language spoken along the Caribbean side is largely Creole English due to the influence of the British who maintained control of the region until the 1840s. However, even the face of their daily struggle the people we worked with were extremely generous and provided us with food and housing wherever we went and for that I am grateful.