Nikki Yeager

Here I am, looking out at the water and writing little stories with those warm Bahama breezes blowing my hair into a tangly mess. Here I am sitting next to palm trees and eating coconuts for lunch.

And I can't help but to think, how did this possibly happen?

20 years old and here I am living in the Carribbean, hanging out with my coworker between lunch breaks at the beach. Here I am in a life most people only dream of and there's really no explanation for my being here.

It's strange because this country is such an intermediary between the developing and the developed nations of the world. There are houses with porches and electricity and water that turns hot when you turn one knob and cold when you move the other. There are boats and planes and roads paved with concrete. Grocery stores carry everything and restaurants are air conditioned.

But then there's poverty. And there are bribes and corruption and an economy that seems to be forever spiraling downward. There are people living in shanties and cultural aspects that can only exist in the poverty ridden streets of third world countries.

People shout hello on the street (in a non-creepy way) and hitchhike without fear. One smile across the dashboard of a stopped car and you're suddenly engaged in a full blown conversation between windows at a stop light... with someone you've never met and will probably never see again. People remember your name.

It's a strange sort of cultural limbo between that of the US and that of a country like Cambodia. And just like the entire island seems to be torn between the two, my lifestyle is completely confused. I want to eat with my hands one minute and am forced into a formal place setting the next. I'm walking down the street saying hi to all the men and women with broken shoes and dirty shirts in one neighborhood and a mile away I'm sitting on a yacht listening to conversation about businesses and net worth (ugh, kill me.).

But during it all I can't help but flash back to that same thought. I'm in the Bahamas. I'm partially running an entire organization. I am living the life of someone who's been to school, been to work and then came to help out in a comfortable climate in a cozy little house.

And I never forget the fact, so much of this is luck.