I’m an American ex-pat recently moved to Central America. I’m a full time RVer and intend to move between Southern Mexico and Panama (Maybe South America later) and follow the seasons and see the sites. I looked for a web forum with information about living and traveling in Central America and come up really wanting.

I am a long time participant in a web site about Costa Rica but it is very strictly limited to issues about Costa Rica. With the advent of the CA4 and CAFTA, I believe there is a place for a forum about a more general forum about Central America.

I’ve created LivinginCentralAmerica for that purpose. New forums take a while to get up to speed and be really interesting but I’m asking you to join and participate as actively as your knowledge and time permit. Trust me if we all work on it a little it will be very useful.

I’ll do my best to organize useful information under, files, links, photos, etc. if you do your part to keeping interesting discussion going.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LivinginCe…

I’m going to moderate this thing to keep it on track but, I promise to be really loose in the early stages.

Please join, check in often and be interactive. It’s free …. NO SPAM, just set your message delivery preferences properly.

Regards,
GPSGary
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Are you sure you want to go there for humanitarian sake? This will not be like a regular vacation or a regular spring break. While there are a ton of new things to see, try, taste and do, mission trips are not for the faint of heart. Especially not to Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a poor country, and although it’s been doing decently well despite Ortega being its president, there are still people who are poor in rural and secluded areas. Although the government has been constructing homes and providing indoor plumbing and improved sanitation services and communication outlets in many parts in the country, there are still some areas that still do not have basic necessities, including running water and sanitation services. People who go to Nicaragua with humanitarian missions with non-governmental or faith based organizations tend to go to the least advantaged people in the country, usually to help construct houses, establish houses of worship, establish schools, improve infrastructure and give a hand to struggling families.

With that being said, you should be going to Nicaragua to help out those who are less fortunate than yourself. Although extreme poverty has decreased substantially in the past few years, there are still people who are living on 2 dollars a day and are forced to send their children to sell goods instead of sending them to school in order to make ends meet. Thereby, creating a never-ending cycle of poverty based on the lack of education and knowledge of other opportunities.

Some people live in shacks. While the upper class live in extravagant homes or in gated communities and the middle class live in decent homes, the poor sometimes live in shacks made out of tin or scraps of metal, which serves as minimal shelter in times of harsh weather. Giving these people an opportunity to live with 4 walls and a roof over their head is perhaps the best thing you can give to a poor person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjKmAGWU2gE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrVg-QZGQ74

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnOwcQUHDKY

Although these videos illustrate the more extreme side of the poverty spectrum, I’m sure they are enough of an inspiration to have you writing an essay.

Best of luck.
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Been to Nicaragua and love everything it offers. Nicaragua is a beautiful country with astounding wildlife and scenery. Beautiful place to visit as a tourist and for a mission trip.

Hypocritical Pharisees on missions should stay in their homes along their weapons.
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Few universities give legacies to children of graduate and professional school alumni and Duke is not one of them to my knowledge.

Duke appears to be more interested in class ranking than GPA as it requests that class rank, rather than GPA, be used on http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com from which the other statistics in this answer are also taken.
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You are probably not.

If you want to go to Iraq, ask Iraq.
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xoxo.
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