Never stay anywhere you don’t feel at home
This piece of cheap art has always graced our front doorway. It is a reminder that when we get the impulse to run, we should act on it.
I’m sure you can tell by the direction this blog has taken that we have been getting itchy feet. When you are out of step with nearly everyone around you, it is time to move on.
For the past 5 years, Bob and I have been trying to live in a culture that is so oil-dependant that the current regime saw fit to go to war over it. Our food is grown with it, most of the products we encounter on a daily basis are made from it, the streets are paved in it, and the landfills are choked with it. Walking is a thing of the past. So we are packing up and leaving the country.
With another nasty presidential election looming on our horizon, we made the decision to bail out. Within 10 days we solicited and received an offer for employment outside the United States. In about 6 weeks we will assume the roles of managers at Casa Iguana on 740-acre Little Corn Island off the mosquito coast of Nicaragua.
On Little Corn Island, there are no automobiles, Wal-Marts, jet skis and if we are lucky, no weed whackers or leaf blowers. Things arrive via small boat and make their way around the island via wheelbarrow.
What we have seen of the industrialized, oil-driven culture is that it is a killer. It is responsible for the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, the hole in our atmosphere, disease, a feeling of dog-eat-dog isolation and the corresponding rise in mental illness, drug abuse, corporate crime, despair and destruction.
“The Iraqis possess the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and that is oil.” – Camille Armantrout