In San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, an exceptional window to the Pacific a few kilometers from Costa Rica, since the end of January they have found a small and intimate piece of paradise on earth.
The disappointment, the nostalgia for times without covid, the desire to start over outside a country that considered their work “unnecessary” were such that the decision first came almost as a joke, and then it became a plane ticket. Actually, three, because the whole Banchi-Forzoni family started, Lorenzo, Alice, and little Nora. A return to life, a way of not feeling useless in Pistoia and therefore in Italy. In their country, they used to be swing dance teachers and event organizers.
“In 2020 -explains Alice- suddenly we find ourselves with hundreds of students in five cities and many events scheduled to have zero events and half of the students in October and then even less with the closing and moving of all the courses online”.
After the first confinement, the spring of 2020, everything happened with ease and joy, in autumn there is an increase in infections, new closings, few prospects, a mood on the ground, and around Christmas the meeting with an old friend who tells Alice and Lorenzo about Nicaragua: “I’m leaving in January, why don’t you sign up?” A little courage, a pinch of recklessness, and an immediate job commitment to teaching swing dance at the San Juan del Sur cultural center brought them to the table.
“The response to swing dancing here was a bit modest compared to Italy, but in any case, we were able to work, regain enthusiasm, build relationships and we were able to continue with online courses for our Italian students.”
Life in San Juan del Sur is marked by the sound of the ocean, the bright colors of the small houses, the yoga sessions in a place dedicated to meditation, the powerful presence of almost intact nature, and a perpetual temperature of around thirty degrees.
“We use face mask much less and out of prudence, we have opted for very limited community life. Our daughter had the opportunity to go to kindergarten in a completely natural, beautiful context and is regenerating with us. Life is cheap: we live in a beautiful little house surrounded by nature. For the Easter holidays, we had the opportunity to explore the country and discover it”.
“Making this decision was neither happy nor easy: for us, it was an investment, a kind of lifeboat, our work remained “unnecessary” for too long. We are lucky, but here we live with little and I really believe that anyone like us could do it: we stay in a shelter, the health risk is less than what we would have run at home, we learn from nature to treasure the resources we have …”.
This text was taken from La Nazione newspaper and internal photos of users on Instagram.
