In and Out

The first and only time I visited Hawaii was in 1986. I spent two weeks on Oahu, relaxing and enjoying the February weather. It was my first exposure to tropical climes, and I was quite impressed by—among many other things—the blurring of the concepts of “inside” and “outside”. It first struck me as I was leaving the Honolulu airport. I left the plane through the usual attached movable hallway attached to the airport proper, followed the signs to the baggage claim, and then more signs to find ground transportation.

I didn’t notice the transition, but suddenly I was aware that I was in the great out-of-doors. I hadn’t passed through any doors that I could see. Where there had previously been walls and ceilings and fluorescent lights, there were now trees and breezes and birds. But I didn’t recall any line of demarcation between the two. I wasn’t sure if had missed something, or if things were just really different here.

The rest of my trip convinced me the latter was the case. Sitting in a bar, watching birds fly in and land a foot from your drink, seemed to be commonplace, though unheard of where I’d come from. The local shopping mall had a roof, and in the heart of it it was indistinguishable from any other. But at its edges, it had a gradual transition with its surroundings, rather than define itself by excluding them. This was an unexpected and rather refreshing discovery.

As we’ve moved farther south this trip, through El Salvador and now into Nicaragua, I’ve noticed a similar approach to inside and outside. Even in Guatemala, where the altitude makes for some rather chilly evenings, many houses include a courtyard. Here, more do. Some rooms can be closed off from it, but others cannot. There is much less of a distinction here between being outside in the elements, and safe inside, protected from them.

However, this attitude does extend to other humans. All through Central America, those houses with courtyards (as well as those without) have barred windows and doors, and sometimes steel doors. If the house is not in the middle of the city, but on a larger plot of land, it is surrounded by a high wall, usually cinder-block, with wooden or steel gates, and topped with anything from broken bottles to coils of razor wire and electrified wire. A nice house/lot will often have this sort of wall/fence/wire separating it from its less-expensive neighbors, lest those houses provide indirect access.

It is the same in big cities and in small villages. On the island of Útila, it was relaxed a little bit, but not gone by any means. And while there are variations between countries and regions and socio-economic levels, nowhere is it reduced to anything like what we’re accustomed to in the States. Indoor and outdoor space can blend and merge, but public and private space absolutely cannot. What is tolerated and welcomed from the environment is most emphatically not accepted from other people.

In the back of my mind is the question of whether this is a recent development, or if this need of impregnable walls to keep one’s self, family and possessions safe is a long-standing aspect of the culture. Is the social contract that much different here, that plain closed doors and windows do not provide sufficient protection from others? Well, clearly it is, but has that been the case for a long time, or did the civil unrest of the sixties through the eighties make it much worse than it had already been?

I know that some research would likely provide answers to these questions. I just haven’t done any yet.