Why I'm Moving to Honduras

My substitute blogger, Andrew, a.k.a Puky, obviously didn't post anything in my absence. What should his punishment be? What about four weeks without Gameboy or Playstation?...

Anyway, one of my fellow Honduras Bloggers, posted why she moved to Honduras. This got me to thinking about my own reasons, and for my own therapy I've decided to post the same topic. If nothing else, it will be interesting for me to review this post in a few years...

Ever since we were married (eleven years in January), my wife and I knew we would retire in Honduras. She is originally from Honduras and her entire family lives there. She was living in Honduras when we married, and she moved to the States because of our marriage. She has never really liked living in the USA, and was perfectly content with her life in Honduras until I stirred things up.

I've always enjoyed going to Honduras, and have been there many times. (I just wish I had studied Spanish in school instead of French). We always assumed that by moving to Honduras, I could retire at a younger age and have more time with my family. The cost of living is considerably cheaper than the USA. Thus, my reasoning was that if I saved a fair amount, invested wisely, and lived somewhere where the cost of living is cheap (Honduras), I could afford to retire young.

We just didn't know when exactly we would make the move...then, came Katrina. And she came with a vengence!! She shook my world to its core.

When Katrina hit, I was in North Carolina visiting my 88 year old father who was in the hospital in intensive care (fortunately, he has since recovered). My family was forced to evacuate by themselves, and I met up with them in Memphis. We returned to survey our damage, loaded up the mini van and went to Houston where we lived in an unfurnished apartment for a month...until we evacuated from Houston and returned to New Orleans when Hurricane Rita had us in her sight.

We were fortunate in that our house was not severely damaged and we were able to live in our house while repairs were being made. But when I saw the devastation, it was truely heart wrenching. The devastation stretches for miles and miles...Still today, not much has changed. This year we were lucky and the hurricane season was very calm.

Katrina made my wife and I reassess our priorities. We are tired of evacuating once or twice every hurricane season. But more importantly, we realized that quality of life is our greatest priority now. So we moved up our relocation date and decided to start building our home outside of Tegucigalpa. If it hadn't of been for Katrina, when would we actually move to Honduras. I don't know...Maybe five or ten years from now. But, we would have eventually ended up there.

When I say quality of life, I know that Honduras is a poor country, and many people would say "what quality of life?" But it reminds me also of the more innocent America that I grew up in. I'm not nostalgic, but I want more time with my family, I want to enjoy a more leisurely life while I'm still relatively young. And, I want to live somewhere where I might be able to make small differences in positive ways.

I'm also disillusioned with many aspects of American life and culture. Some are the same old ills that everyone speaks of, materialism, 24/7 lifestyles, etc. and some disilluionments are of a more personal nature.

I guess in the end, its time for me to follow my wife home.