Back From an Epic Adventure

Yes, I know, I know: it’s been a while. You all thought I
became discouraged and quit blogging. Surprise! I’m back and even more inspired
than before (and have a deep understanding on a personal level of why our
Constitution is so great and worthy of preserving.)

I didn’t mean to quit blogging for almost half a year. I
kept meaning to do it, but other things just kept me away. I’ve had a crazy six
months, but what has happened only gave me more fodder for my political rants.
I’m going to start my comeback to blogging by telling the tale in a few installments.
If it feels like what I’m writing has nothing to do with American politics, I
promise that at the end I have a very real point to make when I tie it all
together.

You see, my husband and I got some silly ideas into our
heads that we wanted to MOVE to Nicaragua and start some businesses there.
Well, the ideas weren’t quite so silly; we did end up with a good business
(more on that later.) But we never imagined the epic adventure (or
misadventure) on which we would end up embarking.

Let me start at the beginning, so this doesn’t sound so completely
out there (and I promise this all ties into politics in the USA.) We were
living in California with its ridiculously high taxes and its welfare state,
and decided to flee the state like most income producers that don’t want to put
up with being robbed of their hard-earned money. As some of you may know, I am
a first generation American with most of my family (parents, sibling) still
living in Nicaragua. Anyway, there were some really good opportunities to
invest in hydroelectric and wind power plants there according to the Nicaraguan
government’s “come invest here arm”, Pro-Nicaragua. Since my husband and I have
extensive experience in energy, finance, and environmental engineering, and we
have the contacts to build projects such as these that the country desperately
needs to quit relying on Venezuelan oil, we thought, “Hey! This could work if
we went there and developed some stuff.” With my family’s contacts to boot, we
had a really good “in” to make it happen. Heh, heh…or so we thought.

Without going too far into details, an energy deal required
four aspects: government cooperation, an agreement with the local energy
distributor called a PPA (Purchase Power Agreement) that ensures that they will
buy your energy, financing for the project, and a contractor to build the
thing. These aspects are all like a chicken-and-egg thing. The bank won’t
finance the project unless you have the other three, the government won’t
cooperate unless you have a builder and financing, the builder won’t talk to
you unless you have financing and a PPA, and so forth. In our case, however,
these weren’t so far-fetched because we were supposed to have government
cooperation and a PPA already worked out through our contacts and as a result
of previous meetings with key officials including President Ortega (the key
word here being “supposed.”)

In addition to the energy project, we also started another
business that consisted of a website designed to find household jobs for
domestic workers (maids, nannies, etc.)

So, we gave our 30 days notice and started packing for our
exciting trip. We used a freight forwarder to ship our stuff and our two cars
to Nicaragua, and made our travel plans. Here is where the fun began.

You see, I am a dual citizen who can take advantage of a
special law in Nicaragua that allows Nicaraguans who have been abroad to import
their household goods and one car, duty free. So naturally we decided to ship
everything in my name, as known by the Nicaraguan government, which includes my
mother’s maiden name as part of my last name.
Of course, in the USA I am known officially by my married name. Keep
this in mind for the hijinks that ensue later in my story. Anyway, my husband
had to sign over the vehicle titles to me for the Nicaraguan government to
accept the vehicles. American customs posed no issued on the way out (why would
they?) so it was time to focus on making sure I could get our stuff into
Nicaragua.

My father in Nicaragua located a customs broker to help us
though the process and I started researching the requirements for being able to
import my stuff duty free. The customs broker, who works with the Miami
consulate, informed me that I needed to provide proof that I had been outside
Nicaragua for five years. Ok, no problem. I looked on the website for the Miami
consulate and it seemed to match what she said. Then out of curiosity, since my
things were leaving out of California, I checked the website for the San
Francisco consulate. They said 3 years. Los Angeles said 2 years. Ok, strange,
but none of these were a problem. Then I called the Miami consulate (where I
had a contact) and was informed that I needed to have been abroad for 10 years.
Huh??? Which was it? I told them that the person in Nicaragua, their website,
and 2 other websites all said different.

Well, 10 years is kind of hard to prove, and now the bureaucrats
were insisting that was the requirement regardless of what the law stated. I
was stuck. I had five years worth of tax returns but nothing before that except….college
transcripts! Um, those were already packed and on the ocean. Never fear,
though, because then the customs broker said that the consulate changed their minds
and said I could provide 5 years of proof instead. Oh, and could I wire $1500
for her services? Um. Little did I know that this was just the beginning…

My adventures with customs don’t end here, but I’ll wrap it
up for today. Before I go, I’ll leave you with a thought and a question: Nicaragua
is not unique in this, not by far. How many times have you encountered a
government official here in the USA who is making arbitrary decisions about
your life, and you powerless to stop them?

See you next time!