A Cautionary Tale: No Matter How Familiar, We Are but Guests in a Foreign Country

As more and more people adopt the life style of "citizen of the world", it becomes increasingly easy to feel at home in a foreign land.  It's a wonderful experience so long as that familiarity is grounded in an abiding love and respect for the foreign country's people and culture, but it can be dangerous when the familiarity leads one to begin to treat the foreign home as if it is merely a cultural extension of the U.S.

For those who like a true crime / romance story, there is a sobering piece in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required for on-line edition) profiling an American who was tried and convicted of murder and rape in Nicaragua.  If one takes the WSJ story at face value, it appears that Eric Volz was railroaded into a conviction -- the judge, cowing to a mob organized by the victim's mother, ignored substantial evidence that Volz was several hours drive away at the time of the murder as testified to by at least seven of his co-workers and clients and corroborated by cell phone records.  (An inside look at the case can be seen on the Good Will Hinton blog and on the Friends of Eric Volz blog).

The victim was Volz's Nicaraguan girlfriend.  It appears that Volz's first real crime was in ignoring local dating norms, instead treating his girlfriend as an American would relate to a girlfriend here.  The result was a very angry mother of his girlfriend.   His second crime was reacting to the work of police and prosecutors the way a bossy and arrogant American would when confronted with a lax investigation. 

Volz was fluent in Spanish and worked in Nicaragua as a real estate agent.  He had a local girlfriend (the victim of the crime) whom he helped set up a clothing boutique.  In the end, it appears that he became so comfortable in his adopted foreign home, that he forgot he was a guest.   Although appealing his conviction, he is currently serving what could be a 30 year sentence in a maximum security prison in Nicaragua.   I suspect that he is not so comfortable anymore.

Be careful out there -- but most of all, be respectful.  While this is an extreme tale, in some cases, violating cultural norms could get you in as much or more hot water as violating the law. 

Comments

[Rob Gordon]

Have you ever been falsely accused of a crime? That is EXACTLY the way people act.

RG

[Craig Maginness]

Rob:

Thanks for the comment. Don't get me wrong -- as I think I indicated in the post, from what I've read, it does sound like he was falsely accused and convicted -- and I certainly am not making excuses for the prosecutors or the judge or trying to diminish his or his family's anguish finidng themselves in such a terrifying situation.

Having said that, again from what I have read about the situation, it seems as if many of his troubles started with the fact that the victim's mother had it out for him, and I infer from what I've read that at the root of that animosity is the fact that he was following American cultural norms for dating while living in a latin culture. And that is where the cautionary tale can be found.