Sea of People

by Sivan Weitz (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Nicaragua

I looked down to see glass crunching under my sandals. The whole path of uneven dirt and cobblestone was lined with trash and shattered bottles. Next came bare feet whizzing past me. Raw, burnt skin running around on the same street I walked down. Feet that belonged to kids. Little kids that lived in this tiny coastal town in Nicaragua. This coastal town that my family took a boat with soft cushions to get to. This coastal town that these kids have likely never left. It wasn’t the first moment I saw the stark contrast between our lives, but one of the most obvious. It was new year’s day; a day of celebration. Pulling up to the port of San Juan Del Sur we couldn’t see the blue of the ocean because it had turned into what can only ironically be described as “a sea of people.” Thousands of fully-clothed men, women, and children, wading in the water for the entire stretch of the beach. Our captain explained to us that it’s a tradition here on New Year’s Day to run into the ocean with all your clothes on. We took the day slowly. We walked through the streets taking in what was this run-down village. It was all dust-ridden souvenir shops, sidewalk refrigerators with empty shelves and the occasional restaurant serving rice, beans, and tortillas. There wasn’t much history to be shared or beauty to photograph. Conversation was less than lively, but I could tell we were all filing away our observations. Looking past the cracked rooftops and chipped paint, we saw families. Women with dried wrinkles holding their swaddled babies, children with holes in their t-shirts chasing one another and wrestling to the ground, teenage couples holding one another in their own perfect world. Smiles everywhere. More smiles than I had seen walking down our privileged streets back home. After a few hours, we all sat on a covered patio above the sand for beers to cool down. We stayed silent as we watched what was erupting on the beach in front of us. The loudest laughter. The steam coming off tortillas being grilled on miniature grills set up on the beach. Stretched out, soaked through t-shirts being covered in sand as people laid on the bare ground. Embraces, hugs, kisses, drinking, cheering, dancing all over. The most genuine celebration of the new year. This day has been clocked in my memory forever. Later on, I discussed it with my family and we all felt the same. We felt the happiness that comes with simplicity and purity. We saw how lack of material goods had no effect on how these people felt. The locals of San Juan Del Sur had more joy with next to nothing than we have with our access to almost everything.