I guess the first logical question to such news would be, "Why?" Well, farming in the northern U.S. isn't easy. The growing season is short and the area we're in currently has horrible soil. It's expensive to raise animals when you have to buy hay from other farmers. In Nicaragua there is a year round growing season. Not only will we be able to grow plenty of food for our animals, but we'll be able to grow food for ourselves (a lifelong dream of ours). Still, you might ask, "Why not just move to California or another warmer state?" That one is easy. California is simply unaffordable (plus we're not fond of the laws down there). The U.S. is not a cheap place to live. It's hard for a family to be able to buy land and actually own it without a ton of debt hanging over them. The last thing we want is to be in debt. In Nicaragua the wages are terrible, but living off of U.S. wages in Nicaragua is ideal. Even if you were just an off site telemarketer you could live like a king/queen down there. As most of you know, Brad has off site computer work, so that will work perfectly with our plan.
Nicaragua is a poor country. You can easily find a 3 bedroom home for $300/month. The problem is, as I mentioned before, the wages are terrible. A doctor only makes about $100 a month, which can't even pay the rent in many areas. Extended family often live together to make ends meet. Petty thieves are everywhere.
The weather sounds wonderful. Whatever warm temperature you like, you can pick an area of Nicaragua that has that year round. Right now that sounds heavenly. The cold winds are already blowing and we've had multiple snow storms here. Farming can be difficult in such a cold climate. In the "spring", when Brad is out of town for work, and I have to get up and go milk goats in the freezing wind I sit there and wonder what we were thinking when we got into farming here of all places. I'm not kidding myself, I'm sure there will be problems in Nicaragua, too. They will be different ones from here, but there will be some. For example, instead of the cold winds when I go out to milk the goat, maybe I just won't find our goat at all. Maybe our neighbor will have stolen our goat the night before since they were hungry and wanted some milk. If that's the case, and we end up losing a bunch of livestock to thieves, we'll probably come back.
Our first trip down there will be a 4-6 month long one. Our goal will be to decide whether we truly like it enough to live there, to learn Spanish better, to figure out what area we would like to live in, to meet locals in that area, etc. It should be a wonderful learning experience no matter what our final decision is. We won't take more than a few suitcases for that first trip. After that, assuming we still want to live there, we'll ship over a container of our things.
Well, my children are asking for lunch now, so I had better sign off. I'll try to write more tomorrow about this venture. Remember, I love questions! :)
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