Ancestral Homecoming: From corporate life in NYC to traditional living in rural Honduras

I am excited to invite you to my conversation with Luisa Batiz. Luisa grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn but her family is from Honduras. When Luisa was a child she spent her summers living off-grid with her relatives in a small village in Honduras.

Luisa was the first in her family to go to college, and by all accounts she had “made it,” building a successful career in education administration. Although she had reached a level of financial success, she didn’t feel happy or fulfilled in her work. She started questioning the way she was living, the things society was telling her she should strive for and decided to take a leap of faith and move to Honduras full time. 

This is a story about reconnecting with your roots, living with an abundance mindset, and stepping away from convention to create a more fruitful life.

Read more about Luisa and see photos from her life in Honduras on urbanexodus.com/blog

Transcript

Luisa Batiz: 0:00

Initially, my moves started in fear. But over time, it was like, that's not the reality that I want to live in either like I don't want to live in like a doomsday reality. I want to try and create like the story of what does it look like for us to pivot? Have you ever dreamed of making a radical shift? What does it take to build a more intentional life? What is gained from reconnecting with yourself with community and with the natural world? I'm Alissa Hessler. I've spent the last decade meeting with people all over the world who have made remarkable transitions in their lives. How do they do it? What did they sacrifice? What have they learned? Stepping away from convention isn't easy. But we all have the power to reclaim the things that we've lost, to slow down to change course, to create the life we want for ourselves and for future generations. The urban Exodus podcast shares, practical advice, and inspirational words to embolden and guide you on your own journey. These are the stories of those brave enough to venture down the road less traveled. This is the urban Exodus. Urban Exodus is community supported programming, please consider sponsoring an episode or making a contribution so we can keep these conversations going. The easiest way to contribute is to click the support button on the top of urban exodus.com. You can also become a member of the urban Exodus community to peruse our archives of hundreds of photos, stories and interviews of people who left city life or subscribe to Apple podcasts premium to have access to bonus episodes, or rapid fire interviews with guests in our new mini podcast. Ditch the city where I answer listeners questions and offer practical advice on a whole myriad of topics. If you have a question for an upcoming episode, that you'd like us to consider, please send us a DM on Instagram, or through our contact us page. Thank you for helping me continue to do this work. I couldn't do it without all of you. And if you haven't already, we would really love it if you'd leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or whatever service you listen on. And please recommend urban access to your friends. I'm excited to invite you to my conversation with Louisa Matisse. Luisa grew up in Brownsville Brooklyn, but her family is from Honduras, and they are Garifuna. The descendants of the African survivors of slave ships that escaped or shipwrecked in the Caribbean Sea. When Louisa was a child, she spent her summers living off the grid with her relatives in a small village in Honduras. Louisa was the first in her family to go to college. And by all accounts she had made it building a successful career in education administration. And although she had reached a level of financial success, she didn't feel happy or fulfilled in her work. She started questioning the way she was living, the things that society was telling her she should strive for, and decided to take a leap of faith and move to Honduras full time. She bought a little plot of land with ample fruit trees and a shell of an old house that she has been working to bring back to life. She wants to create a place where people can reconnect detox from capitalism, and embark on their own journey to lead a more intentional and sustainable life. This is a story about reconnecting with your roots, living with an abundance mindset and stepping away from convention to create a more fruitful life. Okay, so I am absolutely thrilled to have on the podcast, Louisa T's and Louisa. You have just embarked on a big adventure, a new chapter, you have left New York City, the place where you were born and grew up and you have moved to Honduras, and you are running an Instagram called sexy sustainability. And you are sharing your life of untangling yourself from corporate America, from capitalism from these various systems of oppression that are, you know, oppressing people and our planet. And I'm just really excited to speak with you today Louisa and hear about your journey. So first off, I would love if you could share just a little bit of your personal backstory, where you grew up and the paths that you've taken that have got you to where you are now.

Unknown: 4:59

Yes So I was born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, for those of you that are not familiar with the community, it's a it's a pretty low income, black and Latino community. And I was like, just like the classic bootstrap story. I did really well in my education and graduated from Binghamton University went into education. I was a teacher for a number of years before I transitioned into recruitment, and then eventually becoming a director recruitment for a pretty large charter school network. And just what I found over time was like, I've always been rooted and doing laboratory work. But what I realized is that like I was just doing work from a space of just like creating more people that were going to be a part of a system that was essentially broken, like I consider my life and like two chapters, like I see myself as like, before, I woke up from the American dream. And after waking up from the American dream, because I grew up in a household of immigrants, both of my parents are from Honduras, they both got it for nice cutting for NASA basically, like I'm descendant of marooned and slave folks, and to kind of go into like a long story of who they are. But I basically come from Descendants of rebels. And like most immigrants, my family came here looking for better or economic opportunities. And that was their baby that did all of the right things, like went on to college and, you know, got the great job and did all of those things. And somewhere down the line, just like getting really burnt out from working with it. And like the charter space, like I just kind of realized that this is not the way this wasn't the path towards liberation for my people. I just felt like I was recreating this same thing. And I was just like a, almost like a cog in the system. And so what ended up getting me to Honduras, I knew even before I decided to make, even before I decided to actually come to Honduras, I knew that like, what was mainly important, especially when I was going through extreme burnout was like, I need food and shelter and a safe space to call home. And neither do I want to be in a space where I'm paying a 30 year mortgage, I don't want to do that like because then this further just like traps me in this system that I don't necessarily want to be a part of. So all of those things were kind of taken into account. So I started looking at different places to potentially go to and get land. Mind you, I knew absolutely nothing about farming or any of that stuff. I just kind of knew that. I just knew that the way that I was living wasn't the way that I wanted to live. I was like, this is ghetto, like, what like I came here to pay bills like what, like who decided this? Who decided that this is going to be my reality that I was going to work like a slave. And then wait a Tom 60 did to really enjoy life? No, this can't be it. So now I'm in the mix of I call this like a practice of freedom and a practice and self sufficiency. I decided to make the move tandoors probably in 2018 is when I decided to list when I decided to like have like my first space down here. But I've now been living here since April of this year.

Alissa Hessler: 8:11

You are in the midst of exploring a place to move to I know that you are considering moving to places in the US what ultimately influenced your decision to return to Honduras.

Unknown: 8:24

So what ultimately I actually when I came in 2018 and I was spending time with my grandma just to kind of give you like a bit of like background. It's like, even though I was growing up in New York City in a pretty like impoverished area. I always joke around I was like I was born during the crack years in NYC when you know nobody This is pre gentrification when nobody came to New York City like I'm like gentrification happened in my lifetime. You know, I remember when nobody wanted to go to Nostrand Avenue on a train and now it's like you paid $3,000 rent, no shirt Avenue. But yes, I went. So the reason I share that is because I spent my childhood summers in Honduras, and where my family is my family was completely off the grid. They're still off the grid completely. I mean, this is even before I knew what the term off the grid was like I literally pooped at the beach at the beach was where I pooped white leaves. No kidding. It was like literally, like up for water. And my mom sent a kid from Brooklyn there every summer. Really? Yeah, um, I had I found that extremely enjoyable. I was super adventurous as a kid. I used to climb mango trees. We'll go canoeing and go fishing. A delicacy here something I don't admit to I am a I'm a vegan slash vegetarian for the most part, but once upon a time a delicacy here in Honduras is turtle. So once upon a time, I did kill a turtle and eat a turtle. Hopefully no one beats me up about it. Nothing will ever do in my life. But these are like the things I did as like a child, I remember when the full moon would happen in the Pueblo, that would be the time when at night, it was fully lit, because there wasn't any light there, like everybody just had candlelight. And we lived in Cobb homes and people had basically had composting toilets. And this was just like normal stuff. So I grew up with that experience. And when I came back to Honduras in 2018, like for people that are not familiar, a lot of people are fleeing Honduras, there was a point in time where it got super violent here, and a lot of folks were fleeing the country looking for economic opportunities. And this is still a thing that's happening. And so when I went back to the village and spend time my grandmother, I remember before I went, my uncle was like, oh, you should you should buy a bag of like bananas. And I was like, why would I buy bananas if it grows so abundantly and like the webelo. And he was like, No, people don't grow food anymore. Like, you know, a lot of the people are older, so folks are no longer gone to their their farmlands. And so what I realized is that a lot of people were selling off their farmlands for like, low prices, selling off farmlands. They were no longer doing like subsistence farming anymore. A lot of like, the younger people, there was just like a lot of brain drain that was also happening in the blood loss. So a lot of the younger folks will either go into, like the major cities looking for jobs, or they will come into America, or go into Spain, looking for opportunities. And so with that, with all of that happening, like I just felt like, there's like, no, if I'm going to go back anywhere, and I want to do something, I actually should go back home. And just make it cool to go back into doing agricultural work. Because I think sometimes we forget, we forget about the abundance of nature, like something I think a lot about, like what makes money valuable is that it's scarce. But that's not really in alignment with nature. And so I've been just here, navigating a complex like situation, because it's not a common place that expats come to, but then also just like understanding, like the privilege I have of like being an American citizen and being able to go to the world and go to different places. So something I think a lot about is how do I connect the resources that I do have in estates? How do I connect those resources here to like the Pueblos and the communities?

Alissa Hessler: 12:22

It's such an untangling, right? Because you did everything right. You know, you like went on the path, you got the all the things that we are told that we were supposed to achieve and go for full steam. But the promise of that is happiness, you know, good quality of life. And I think that a lot of people realize that it's it feels more like a trap, like an endless hamster wheel. What does that process been like that untangling process of trying to pull yourself away from, you know, the way that society and even sometimes our own family says like, Oh, why would you do that? No, to go this way.

Unknown: 13:05

So I actually I worked with a coach. And so initially, probably in 2017, I started working with like a life coach slash business coach. And I had like different ideas of like businesses and things like that, that I wanted to set up. But mainly, like, what I had to do was like, shift my mindset, because a lot of like, how, I guess, how the way that I saw myself getting money, a lot of it was linked to full time employment and doing salary type work. So even just breaking away from the idea that like, I don't have to actually be an employee of someone in order to survive, like that alone was just like a shift in mindset. And it took me about three years to shift out of that, like literally, like I tell people in terms of how I've done manifestation work or I don't even we call a manifestation but it's also just like reprogramming like our mind and our brain. Like I literally just had to write different stories. Like I remember I had like a something that I wrote, and I was like, I was thinking God, and I was like, God, thank you so much for allowing me to leave my job with love, and having remote work. And this was even before like, I started working remote before the pandemic. And so I remember at the time, like even the idea of getting remote work seemed like unfathomable and literally, like I got an email from an organization saying like, Hey, we're looking for recruiters. And his work is remote, most so random. So random, but this was literally just from at first. It's like, it's almost like I remember hearing somewhere that like you can't have anything you can't see. And the first thing was I just had to see it and just know that it was like a possibility. And this was before like, I wish I would have invested in zoom before pandemic but neither here nor there. But this is before everybody was like living in zoom meetings. It was like, Oh, I was already living in zoom meetings. For Okay, but that was part of my work. It was just like literally programming my mind. And like knowing that like what I what I was seeing, I could have access to it,

Alissa Hessler: 15:09

the manifestation in your mind and then working towards it right I

Unknown: 15:14

wish I had more words to just kind of like describe just like, I feel like a lot of times I've worked in the hamster wheel because it's the only thing that we know. And then to even like, outside of it is a whole nother ballgame. So like, there's this book that I read, it's called emergent strategy by Adrian Marie Brown. I always recommend people check it out, especially if you're into social justice, social change, and what does it look like to create change with others, like she routes a lot of her stuff and Octavia Butler's work? And it's like, what are the tools for surviving the apocalypse, essentially. And there was like a part of me feels like I'm in some kind of like apocalypse. But I have moved away from doomsday energy into now like, what does it look like to thrive, but I was actually just did a post about this. But when I think about what got me here, fear brought me here. When I say fear got me here, it was from a place of like, I don't know why I just used to wake up with like, anxiety and panic attacks. And I was like, This doesn't feel good. I don't know what the hell was going on here. But I just I just found myself terrified that like, Oh, I could get sick one day, and like, I could lose all of this, or like, something crazy to happen. And what's going to happen like, this is not the place I'm going to be, I don't want to be in a small little apartment. In the event that like some kind of natural disaster happens, or some sort of terrorist attack happens or all like this is not the place I want to be at. So I say that because like, initially, my moves started unfair. But over time, it was like, that's not the reality that I want to live in either. Like, I don't want to live in like a doomsday reality. I want to try and create, like the story of what it is, what does it look like for us to pivot? What happened, we were at the brink of the end. And then beautiful people and different folks started to come together and like, create different narratives and different alternatives. And I just want to be a part of that.

Alissa Hessler: 17:19

It is a journey too. And the journey unveils itself over time. But I think that a lot of people have been working from that place of fear, the fear plants, the seed of like, the anxiety attacks, like you have to listen to your body, you have to trust your gut. And we are so distracted and so busy in our lives. I think that's a big part of the American culture, just in general. And so to be able to quiet your mind down and really just like tune into yourself and make a change. That's really hard. I wondered if you had any advice for anybody that's listening to this, because I have a lot of listeners based in cities right now on like steps that they can take to kind of realize whatever it is that their God is telling them to do.

Unknown: 18:09

Yeah, so for me, like I mentioned, journaling has been super, super pivotable pivotal in my journey. Like, I love the fact that I can go back to journals, and you know, just kind of reflect on where I was previously. And just, it's so important that we write ourselves into history. And so I always say like, write it out, write it out something about writing, it's like you cast the spell, and you write stuff down. And I'm like living proof. And example, I used to be crying in my office, when I was writing about like having like, land and fruit trees and all this stuff. And I didn't have any of that. So that's one of my recommendations is like, right, and allow yourself to dream like don't allow, don't like limit yourself from draining. I know this all sounds like super like, lofty and all of that. But sometimes it just kind of takes time to like process and move through different stuff. So that's my recommendation. I'm a big journaler I'm always like, journal everything out. And then like some practical steps you can take so like for me, before I made the move, probably probably about five years ago, I used to live paycheck to paycheck. And so that was one of the things I started to do is just like shift my relationship with money. And I know people are probably in different phases of like their life, like some people may come from, like families where they have huge safety nets. And this is not even a thing to worry about. Kudos to you. I'm excited for you guys. But the folks that don't necessarily have like that huge safety net, really begin to shift I recommend shifting your relationship around money and not looking at money from a place of scarcity. And so for me, that also required me to do like journaling and writing so I look at money as I as if it was like an actual like person and a human being And I kind of like talk to it in that space. And so some practical things I did was, I started living on 75% of my income and saving 25% of my income. I know all people are not in spaces where they can do that. But if you want to do some kind of like move and stuff like that, I personally, so like having access to money and different resources is extremely important. So that's like one recommendation I give. And then in terms of just like work, everybody has a contribution to making the world. And so what kind of work do you like enjoy doing, but can also like survive and thrive and it doesn't require you to be like in a specific location, location, I think there was something I just thought of, I think is Japanese is called he catchy or something. I don't remember what it is. But basically, it's like, it talks about like, there's like this middle point where like, it's your gifts and talents, your contribution that you can make in the world and like how basically how this they get kind of like support, like you find true joy when you're able to kind of combine and merge all of those things to like, create resources for yourself. I feel like a lot of my journey has been mental and asking for permission for the most part and learning that I don't need to ask people for permission. Like I can go ahead and just do it.

Alissa Hessler: 21:22

Calling all small business owners, are you looking to expand your customer base beyond the reach of your local community, speak to our loyal audience of over 38,000 listeners by sponsoring an episode of the urban Exodus podcast, for more information, visit urban exodus.com/podcast. Not having to ask permission. I think that that's such an important piece that people can take away from this conversation. Because, yeah, you just feel like, I don't know, when I was working in the corporate world. It was a feeling like, I was lucky to be there. And so I kind of, you know, like, it's like, I'm lucky to have this, like, I need to stay here. And it did feel like this just forever, the golden handcuffs. It was a real it was a real thing. And it's it was very hard to realize that I didn't need to ask permission of anyone to choose the path that was right. For me.

Unknown: 22:25

I literally like there was a point in time where like, I wouldn't tell people that I was in Honduras, because I was like scared. I was I don't want people to think I'm on a vacation. Like, I was like, you're not gonna be here life is a vacation, but it was just like, I don't want people to think things about me. Or not, when it contract mean, because they think I'm somewhere in paradise. And yeah, anyway, the here nor there. I'm now even comfortable saying like, Yeah, I'm in Honduras. When I hear roosters in my background, they're like, Who the hell is this? luminaire?

Alissa Hessler: 22:58

Well, it's been interesting, too, because I think that the pandemic, in some ways has like opened a door for that people are setting more boundaries. People aren't asking permission as much anymore. They're like, actually, my life, my time is my most valuable resource. So I have to create boundaries to protect that time and space. You're doing that in your life. I wonder what the transition has been like for you though, because it is a big transition. I mean, I know that you spent summers there, but I wondered what the cultural differences are between the US and the Honduras that you've noticed. And I'd also love for you to talk a little bit about the Garifuna heritage. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly, your people, the culture and the history for people that might not know anything about it. Yeah,

Unknown: 23:45

so this transition, it's been challenging to say the least, I have definitely miss New York City. I've missed the convenience of New York City, like just basic things where it's like, I'm going to eat french fries and it's like, no, you don't have access to Uber, eat, don't eat french fries, go Pilla, potato, chop it up. Stuff like that, like I'm like, it's also wildlife here like I have, I have had scorpions in the home. I've had a snake here, apparently appointed a snake, a Tom a guy snake, step by. So that's one of the random creatures that come on that level. It has been challenging. Another thing too, is I'm actually here on my own. So I didn't want to wait for other people. I always imagined myself like doing this with like a partner and stuff like that. But me and my previous partner, we actually have broke up and stuff like that. And so that was like initially challenging, especially just because I'm here in a country where like most people, like most people think of Honduras and they think of the violence that's here. And so like Like that has like infiltrated some of my mind to where it's like, oh, it's violent, you know. And it's not like a place where you see like, a woman on their own like, so this is not necessarily a common solo travelers like destination and go to because when you look up Honduras, it talks about how dangerous it is. That has not been my reality at all. But these are things that like exists, where it has, like, infiltrated like some of my own being. So there's been times where like, I'm hearing like rustling and stuff like that. I'm like, what is that? psychopaths. And what is that? It's horses, as wild horses, is no human beings, like it's very rare that like humans actually pass this way. But sometimes like it does happen. So that initially was challenging for me. I'm also not super close to like my own family. And so just to kind of tell you a little bit about like my people that Gaudi for now it's, like I mentioned are descendants of marooned enslaved folks. Initially, there, there was a ship with enslaved humans coming to the Caribbean. And when that ship arrived in St. Vincent, the ship actually kept sided. And the folks that were on the ship, they fled, and basically lived in St. Vincent amongst like the people, this was like a mid late 1700s. And then when a British came to take over St. Vincent, they fought for many years with the Gotti for knives, and they weren't able to actually beat them in battle. So what they did was they exiled them to island off the coast of Honduras and basically exiled them there to die. Because in the late 1700s, today, we're now a nation of people. It's over 300,000 of us, we're all over the coast of Central America. And not only in Honduras, my people also in Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua as well. And then also like in a lot of major cities in the United States, because here, like in Honduras, and in Central America, I'm not sure how common this is in Guatemala, the same way we have like race issues in America, the same thing exists here. And so a lot of times when it comes to like different job opportunities, and stuff like that, that gaudy foreigners don't really have access to them. So people ended up fleeing like they're super educated, but they might not actually get the opportunity to get like the teaching jobs, the doctor jobs in the hospital and all of those stuff, those jobs tend to be reserved for people that already have access to power. And so that's something that does like exist, like within my community, where I decided to come to I'm not super far from like the airport. And I did that on purpose, because I wanted to have access in and out, but where my family is from here is about 10 hours away from where I am, like I've mentioned, my family's grid, super off the grid, I'm off the grid right now. But I'm kinda like, I'm off the grid and like a little bit on the grid. That's what I like to say I'm off. I'm not like super deep in like the middle of the jungles, because I just would have been too much for me, for where I am, at this point in time, I still needed to have access to some people. And folks, I'm on the outskirts of a Bledlow. I have well water, and I had to do a lot of like work to get Wi Fi and internet here. But here I am talking to you via zoom.

Alissa Hessler: 28:16

I think it's interesting, you know, like, fear is such a big part of control and of perception, and it like keeps people from one another. And in the media, you hear Honduras and you hear Oh, it's you know, it's violent, it's scary, don't go there. But then that's not rooted in your reality. And how No, I just I wondered if you had anything to say just about like fear and how it's kind of used to no control people.

Unknown: 28:49

Yeah, like what I'm thinking of, as I think of her name right now. But she talks about the danger of a single narrative, and it's a quote that she has, and that's something I think a lot about here, like in Honduras is that what I see a lot of times is that stories are so important to me. And the way you tell a story dictates like who the people become and what the reality may end up looking like. Some like you hear about all of like, the violence and all of this different stuff. But it's like, no, there's actually a lot of community here, where, you know, my neighbors, we all look out for each other. When I left for some time, I went to Mexico for some time. And when I came back, like my neighbors knew that I was gone. They were like, Oh, when did you come back? And it's like, wow, like, I didn't know I was having that much of an impact that you would know that I left. It's like we haven't seen you in some times. But what I find is that a lot of times when it comes to people just being super fearful, it's like you're less likely to take chances and take different risks. You also don't value what you have around you.

Alissa Hessler: 29:52

What was the reaction of your family when you said that you were going to move there?

Unknown: 29:57

So initially when I brought it up into that And then at my mom just thought I was having like a crisis, she was so burnt out from work, like, she just doesn't know what to do. And so she wants to go and try and be a farmer in Honduras. And she, she's not ready for that. My mom was like, she's crazy, right? But when I kept bringing it up, and I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna get myself ready, and I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna get a pot of land, and I'm gonna grow food. And I'm just gonna go down there. Over time, she started to believe me, but it took her time to get to a place where it's like, oh, she's serious. Last year, when I ended up getting this space, she was like, Oh, she's really suited, serious about going, man. So now I do have the support of my mom, my family here in Honduras. They still don't they, they still doesn't really register to them that I'm here. I don't know if that makes sense. But they always ask me like, when are you going back home? They always ask me when you go back to New York, and now it's been about four or five. It's been about four months as I've been here. They still like, Do you have any plans of traveling back? And I'm like, no, no, no, I don't have any real traveling right now. I'm open to wherever I'm going to. So I've been. It's interesting. That's what I will say, because most folks are here trying to leave Honduras, and not over here trying to necessarily stay. But one thing I will say all of the places I've been to around the world, I've been at so many different places. I've never been to a place that had so many fruit trees. There's so much abundance, like I'm on like a half acre of land. I'm about 20 fruit trees here. And they're all fruit and what is so fertile here.

Alissa Hessler: 31:40

I'd love for you to describe your land, your house and how you found the place where you are right now.

Unknown: 31:48

Yeah, so I came. So this space right now it's about a half acre right now what I'm building, there was already an abandoned home that was here on a property. So what I did was I renovated this space, it used to be a three bedroom house that turned it into a two bedroom house. And then in the process of building to other like wooden like cabanas like spaces for when folks come down and like visit, they're able to actually stay here within the space where I am there a lot of other Airbnb properties and stuff like that. But for the most part, these properties are not owned by that eco not people. There's been like a lot of like land disputes here. And so there was a point in time where some of our people just for needing access to money and resources sold a lot of the land. So most of the beachfront properties like these, like luxury Bnbs that are on a beachfront, but they're not owned by like the actual community. So that's what's happening right now, like within like this community, but there's some work that's in the works right now, because my people actually ended up winning a lawsuit. And so basically, the Honduran government like owes this community a lot of money. And they also have to return a lot of ancestral lands that are here. So I'm in a space where like, technically, you're not supposed to own or sell land unless the person is from the community. So I was only able to actually get this property because my family is guiding for now, because this is ancestral land. The other thing that really took my breath away was the beach here, like the beaches here, it's absolutely stunning. So I'm about a 10 minute walk from the beach, crystal blue water. And just like you could see the fishes in the water and stuff. And I was just absolutely absolutely floored and fell in love. Oh, it's

Alissa Hessler: 33:36

amazing. Tell me the process of fixing up the house too. Have you done most of the work yourself? And how have you gone about learning all of the skills that you have acquired since being there?

Unknown: 33:48

Yeah, so I'm not a DIY buyer. So my story is very different. I was not the one like, Hey, I'm over here. No, I was not a DIY er, for me, what was really important was that I've worked with people within the local community, because I'm big on, you know, if I have resources, how am I? How am I creating opportunities for other people to thrive in a way that the way that I'm measuring my success and impact as by the number of opportunities I can create. So my goal by the end of 2023, is to employ 22 people. And so when it came to actually get in this space renovated, I just knew that I wanted to work with people that actually live in that community and were from and work it from that. So that's what I did. I just connected with people here. I didn't do a lot of this labor. I did like the painting for some of like the spaces here. Not much a lot of it was just like me drawing in my journal and in my book, using the space that I already have and like drawing stuff out and then giving it to contractors and being like, hey, like my little chicken, chicken scratch drawings and I'm like, Hey, could you do something like this? And then they'll come back to me with another drawing that looks a little bit more for I should have not. Okay, let's go ahead and do that. So that's been have been working on like this space, it has been a headache to say the least, because I knew absolutely nothing about I just knew nothing about buildings. And so I've been like in my own learning process. So for example, my Well, I built I had, I've built a well, about four times already, there was mineral like that in the water. So I had to get another well done over. So now I don't have orange water anymore here. But these were like the things that I started to kind of like learn. What I had envisioned was that like, I would renovate this space, get it to a place where I can actually like live in and then focus on like the other parts that I wanted to do and be more like eco friendly and eco conscious in terms of our sourcing materials, and all sorts of stuff. But this first phase took a lot of like, it was a huge learning process. That's what I would say, like I knew nothing about how to build wells, I had some issues with one of my first contractor where like he was like stealing materials and just doing kind of work but not completing certain work. So I had to get a new contract that halfway through the project. And I had to physically actually be here just to make sure that like the work was getting done at a space that I wanted, the way I wanted it to get done. For the most part.

Alissa Hessler: 36:25

I wondered if you had any advice for people who are looking at moving out of the United States, maybe Honduras, maybe somewhere else in South America, figuring out a rural place in another country that feels right for them. Do you speak Spanish? Are you fluent in Spanish? What advice would you give to someone who's like, oh, I would love to do exactly what you're doing on ways to set themselves up for success.

Unknown: 36:53

So I would say one is have connections within the community, you don't necessarily have to have in terms of just like finding land like abroad, in general, like you get a lot more better deals, if you're able to actually go directly to the buyer versus trying to find something online and go through a realtor, you get better deals working directly with people. Another thing that I find is so important is that we have to actively decolonize ourselves because I think sometimes at least from like the folks that I do know, with those like black off grid community, a lot of it is rooted in like America sucks. And it's a horrible place. But you know, we have a lot of that inside of us. So if we're not actively doing the work to decolonize our mind our thoughts in a way we move, we go to other places and just recreate the same thing. So that's something I think as a collective, we have to be super cognizant of as we make these moves abroad. Because it's your access to it's your access to the American dollar that allows you to go to space, especially in Latin America, and get deals and quotations. So these are like the things that I do think about like so folks want to make the move, like down here, like, personally, like where I am in this space, I'm super protective of my community. So I haven't necessarily been at like, let me open up the floodgates and give you the context of people that are selling land like I have not been because yeah, I don't want to be a gentrify er, like it's Oh, I started gentrification here. But I do feel like there's a world where, you know, folks that do have resources can work in harmony, and basically, like, support others we're getting access to resources to, I do see that that world like exists. But I can't say that I don't feel like I currently know what that looks like right now. I'm still like in this space of like, I don't know if I want to open up the doors yet.

Alissa Hessler: 38:59

I just wanted to give an enormous thank you to all of you who have made contributions to offset the production costs of this podcast. It means so much to me that you find enough meaning and value to pledge your support to keep this going. If you haven't had a chance to contribute, we've made it really easy for you. Just click the support button on the top of urban Exodus website. You can also get access to bonus episodes, rapid fire interviews, and our new mini podcast. Ditch the city by signing up for our apple podcast premium. Or you can become a member of the urban Exodus online community where you can access hundreds of photo stories, interviews, tutorials, videos and more. Find out more by visiting the membership page on urban exodus.com. Rural gentrification is happening right now in rural communities where people are going in and buying up all of the affordable housing and then people can't afford to live there anymore. Same thing that's happening in urban areas across our country, how can people move into a rural community and build those bridges and you know, not kind of become a gentrify er of sorts,

Unknown: 40:13

be conscious of your consumption, if you can go local, go local, I'm always like, local, everything, like, I buy bread from the local bakery here, and I get my coconut bread from there. If I need like, like, you can make coconut milks and stuff like that here. And they, they do like a lot of coconut oil and stuff like that. It's like, hey, go get it from like the local person, don't go out and actually buy this coconut oil from Amazon, when you can actually get it down here, you might pay a little bit more for it. But you're also supporting a woman and your support, you're supporting a woman owned business within your community. So that's one thing I always say like, go local, shop local, find your people local. If you're going to do work, like work with people, because what people want access to is, at least like in my community, people want access to money and resources, because this is the reason why people are fleeing Honduras, because they feel like they don't have access to it. The other thing, too, is having conversations and knowing like what are the needs of the community. So like I was mentioning is that I have an idea in my head of like things that I want to do around supporting agriculture and different stuff like that. But what I'm noticing is that there's an opportunity here to give like small micro loans, especially to women led businesses that can really support them, and moving like forward. So what does that look like for me, so like, I have a, there's a woman here, she has like a property on the beach. And she's currently now like sending it up to basically do like, it was like a beach beam column chompers. They're like beach restaurants for the most part. And so I didn't have much necessarily, but I was like, Hey, I'm gonna give her some men so that she can build her well and have her water source. So things like that. Whereas I went, what do people actually need and what's going to be beneficial for folks? So those are like my two like, tips for folks be conscious in your consumption and actually talk to people and find out like, where their mind is, and what do they actually need, and not necessarily coming in with a vision of what you think they need.

Alissa Hessler: 42:17

I wondered if you could speak a little bit about your experience working in the corporate world, and what that did to your psyche and your physical health what that experience was like for you,

Unknown: 42:27

I used to be like, riddled with, like deep anxiety. I remember I used to check over emails a million times just to make sure I didn't have any typos like in my emails, because God forbid, you know, I use the wrong version of there, like I am now like, I'm this person, like. But for me, at least, I remember I experience a lot of impostor syndrome, where I was working, I was like one of the few like black women that was like a director within the space, I managed a team that was primarily white. And I was doing a lot of this work like pre George Floyd. And the reason I say pre George Floyd, these are two different errors, because I remember going up against institutional racism, I was working in an organization, they weren't interested in moving into being anti racist. But yet, there were a lot of things happening within the organization where black people and people of color just didn't feel welcomed within the space. Like they felt like including myself, like, I felt like I needed to assimilate in order to walk into my office, like I couldn't talk to them about like my weaves. Or, you know, like, or my, like, everyday, my, like different hairstyles, like just different things. I just didn't feel like as a person that I was, like, fully accepted and celebrated within the space. And so I just found myself like, just not feeling like super affirmed, feeling like my culture was affirmed. Like I remember it was one time, I was sending out emails to the organization to get referrals. At the time, Beyonce came out with the album formation. And I remember I put a Beyonce reference in my emails, and they were like, No, take that out. Like, you know, just like stuff like that, where I'm like, what, like, I can't reference Beyonce, like, I'm trying to get them to actually open the email. Like, it was like little things like that, where it's like, ah, you know, I just, I just don't feel like this is like a space where like, I can be like, fully celebrated and we, I have to almost like play a role and and anything that was away from whiteness was just not like accepted and like appreciated. And the reason I say pre George Floyd's because I just like noticed that like this thing shifted as like a society and we became just are more aware of like microaggressions within the workspace, you know, anti racism I feel like became like, common language amongst like, the liberals and stuff or abolitionist Like all these different terms became like common anti capitalist, like, all these things became common terms. And it's like, in 2018 and 2019, that was not common whatsoever. Also to just like, and I'm not sure you may have this experience, but I think in general, when people grow up low income, and then you experience going into like the middle class, and then like folks that have experienced the feeling, have had multiple homes, have the yachts and all of these different things, like it's just a different culture altogether.

Alissa Hessler: 45:32

And I think that there is a narrative that you can't be successful outside of that, you know, like, and like it's put upon us so much. And I think it's especially put upon people that maybe were born lower income, or like middle class of like, this is your path. And you can't veer off of that path. But then, you know, you look at I know, now I've met people who've gone to Ivy League universities, and like, the way they teach at Ivy League universities is like, start your own thing. It's not about putting you on this like path of being stuck in a middle management position forever trying to climb up the, the ladder. And so it's just interesting, that kind of reprogramming of your brain of like, you know, what, and the scarcity mentality, because I think that the scarcity thing makes people stay where they are. In your preliminary interview, you said that you were disillusioned with the American dream, but you once believed in it. What does the American dream mean to you? Now,

Unknown: 46:36

I don't know if it's necessarily the American dream. But the dream in general, for me is like to live in a habitable Earth where everybody has access to dignified employment opportunities, where like, it's just one of those things where no one, no one should have to fear about where they're going to live. No one should have to have fear around what food they'll have access to like that, to me. It's unfathomable. There's so much resources in the world. And it's crazy that people are living with food and housing insecurity today, especially with just everything that's going on with climate. Like the first people that will be impacted by the rising temperatures are black and brown people. And I find like, I feel like it's my mission to do work to basically create a counter narrative for that. And so now it's like the dream is like, how do we get to contribute in a meaningful way, where we're also able to thrive, and I don't want to survive anymore. I just want to thrive now.

Alissa Hessler: 47:37

You spent your summers in Honduras how you've seen climate change manifests. They're coming back through the years what is happening in Honduras right now from a climate perspective? Yeah, so

Unknown: 47:49

in my lifetime, I remember when Coca Cola bottles were glass bottles, and I remember you would drink a soda at the local Woodbury, which is basically like a bodega like a store, you would drink it there. And then you put it back into just like they have like these crates, and they were basically recycled. And within the last 30 years of like, my life here, I have seen like, I'm like Coca Cola is basically a plastic company. And there's no real way of actually recycling these plastics, because there isn't an infrastructure here. So what I literally see is like, although the beaches are stunning and beautiful, like it's at a beach and a space where there isn't like necessarily like a business or a home there, those areas are basically filled and riddled with plastics. And growing up, this wasn't super common here. My family basically, we all live on a beach, I come from a family of fishermen and farmers. And so my grandfather, he came to Honduras about 20 years ago, after he retired, literally, he has like a his area was like gated up, like the ocean just beach erosion has taken like basically half of like his property. And so like, in my lifetime, I have seen like the beach get closer and closer and closer and closer to my community and my people. And that's why I give so much about like, our consumption, how we use plastics and all of that stuff, because when, you know, hurricanes and things like that happen, like it drastically like impacts my folks. And I know like the places that are impacted the most of the Global South, you know, in America, like we have the privilege of not actually processing our trash. What happens to our trash, nobody knows, guess what, it goes to space, they send it to other countries, or it goes it gets incinerated. Dumping in the ocean, it gets incinerated in Newark, you know. And then it's like you look at different communities, you're like, wow, why do all these people have asthma? And it's like, it's all this that's like being produced here. And so for me, it's not far away. And I'm like, oh, like my grandfather has already lost half of his property to the beach. From beach erosion, I literally can walk around. And I remember when I didn't see the Pueblo like Bill was so much plastic, because it wasn't there before. Like, it was literally glass bottles before. And now it's just like plastic is everywhere.

Alissa Hessler: 50:14

We've become such consumers in such a massive way. How have you stepped away from that? Like, you're super knowledgeable and passionate about sustainability and fashion and reducing your footprint? What advice would you give to people who are maybe starting their journey in that? Because I also think there's a lot of greenwashing that's happening right now. And like makes it kind of a hard space to navigate?

Unknown: 50:43

Yeah, for me, I asked myself questions in terms of the before I purchase something, I've asked myself if I do already have something like this? And if the answer is yes, I usually stop myself right then and there and attracts for me, it hits personal like I say, it's personal. For me, it's like I see the impact of increasing temperatures here. Like if that Oh, like, literally, my family lives on the beach. So each, each year, the beach gets closer and closer. So it to me is super like it the problem is very urgent. And so that's something that I'm grateful for, like I'm grateful that God it just so happens that I decided to come into this world and in this incarnation in the body of a black guy at Pune, a woman whose family's from the coastal lines, I get to see firsthand the impact that we're having on the globe. But I will say for folks that are like new to this and is starting to get conscious of it. It's like, just just look at your own life. Like I know, for me growing up, I never imagined that there will be a hurricane in New York City. And it's like, in my lifetime, there was a hurricane in New York City that shut the city down for a whole week and homes got flooded, meant Lower Manhattan didn't have power like that, to me was unfathomable. You know, 10 years, not 10. This happened in 2012. But that, to me was unfathomable. 15 years ago, I've never in my life thought there will be a hurricane in New York. But there was a hurricane in New York, when I see the the forest fires that are happening in California. What's happening in Amazon. Like you can't tell me that this stuff is normal. And so I just have to like, so I think about that, because that just like routes me in to like why I actually need to care about my consumption because I'm, I'm integrally integrally connected to the entire globe. So that connects me right then in there. And then what I also think about is like, what voids Am I trying to fill for myself, like, I can't wear certain clothes because I literally have people in my family that work. They work in sweatshops and Honduras and export trading zones like so for me, I'm like, It's not far away. Like for most folks, they're so far away from the problem that, you know, it's kind of hard to like contextualize it. Whereas like, Oh, I'm right next to it. And it's like, my cousin's still lives paycheck to paycheck, and makes h&m clothing in a sweatshop right now in Honduras, you know, and, you know, works six days a week in order for folks to have different clothes. And so at some point in time, it's like if I want to see a different reality, at some point in time, we have to pause and like, we can sit down and point out corporations all day long and be like, Yo, these corporations are like creating like these products that are rooted in exploitation, but if we continue to purchase them, then we agreed a business as usual. And for me, it's like I don't want to agree to business as usual. Like I stopped eating meat not because I hated chicken. I stopped eating meat because I couldn't do industry like the industrial meat process is absolutely horrific and disgusting. And like we shouldn't happen anymore because what are they doing? They are like literally burning the Amazon so we can have cattle like what like for burgers? Like no no, no.

Alissa Hessler: 54:10

I really appreciate that you live by your morals. I think people talk a lot about you know wanting to do that but you're actually like living it and I know that that is not the easiest path. I wondered what you miss about living in the city that conveniences maybe the community things that you that you miss?

Unknown: 54:35

Yeah, so I definitely like I jokingly say I'm missing my cyclicity lifestyle like I definitely miss like going out for drinks with my girlfriends and stuff. I even miss swiping left and right on Tinder and does

Alissa Hessler: 54:48

they have Tinder there I was there like four options or no Tinder.

Unknown: 54:52

I have not tried so like i My mind has not been there but like even some of it as simple as like, I miss one. Unlike right on Tinder, and going out a random date to meeting random people, or random folks I haven't tried here, so I don't really know. But I definitely like miss being able to just like go to a vegan restaurant. And just getting up and being like, oh, I can. So I grew up in Brooklyn. So I had every type of random food on Earth. So it's like, you can give vegan Filipino food, what the hell like, that's an option like, vegan African food vegan, like, anything you wanted. So that's something I really like, I really miss about being like in the city.

Alissa Hessler: 55:40

I'll tell you I missed brunch. So much like it was so weird. Just not like spending a very long time at a meal with a bunch of friends when you aren't working. That was such like a treat. It felt like and I did miss that a lot when I

Unknown: 56:00

moved. Yeah. So that's, that's like the main thing that I've missed. It's just like those little things. However, like what I feel is like, I don't necessarily feel like, oh, I absolutely hate in New York City. I never in my life want to go back. Like I'm not I'm not a part of that camp. I fully believe in like having the time period to just kind of go back and experience it and then come back. So that's like my ideal, like happy medium. Guatemala's not too far. So Guatemala is a really great place. It's awesome. I love it there. So my if I want to get like a little brief moment of time of having brunch, and having like, cool vegan food, I could go ahead and go to Guatemala, right now and have that experience.

Alissa Hessler: 56:47

Have you had any girlfriends come to visit you out there yet?

Unknown: 56:51

Not yet. But I actually have a girlfriend that's coming on the 31st. Yeah. So she's coming out. She's also an expat. She's been living out in Playa Del Carmen for some time. But she's gonna be coming out here. But I haven't been like really inviting folks to ASEA. And part of the reason was like, I just wanted to get the space more together before I actually opened it up to invitations. Hope is that like, I'll be able to use this space and kind of double it as a unique Airbnb experience for folks. And it's rooted in like, I think of it as like a two fold experience, like I had mentioned before, it's like, how do we get resources from the states and bring it back down here? How are we getting money into like the hands of like local people and local communities so that they can rise and actually pay for education for their students, not for their super for their children and stuff like that. Because here, once you get to high school, you have to pay for high school. And so a lot of like families that are like lower income and don't have access to money, they're not able to send their children to school anymore. And then it just creates the same cycle over again, that's, I think there's a huge opportunity for, you know, folks that want to travel with the conscious, they're also like eco friendly, unconscious, there's an opportunity for them to come here have an awesome experience, but then also give back to the space that they're coming to

Alissa Hessler: 58:12

looking forward, like, you know, a year into the future. What do you want to have established there? What's your vision for the future?

Unknown: 58:21

Oh, so good. So a year from now, what I would love to have established, I would have loved to already have hosted up to 30 people here within the space. I would also love to have a zero waste store here. There is a woman that lives down the street from me, she's my neighbor, and she has a she has basically like a bone barrier here, which is like a bodega. But I would love to like support her in shifting that bone barrier to being plastic free. So I would love to do some kind of like plastic free like shop that becomes like a hub, a community hub space where it is free internet for students and children that want to come in and use it and in it to do work. But then they can also come there and have access to healthy foods and snacks that are not wrapped in tons of plastic. I think a lot of times we see a lot of like these plastic free Zero Waste stores. A lot of times they're in like communities of higher income higher income earners. And it's like, how do I get that down here because we literally just don't have the infrastructure here in place to actually process the trash that's being produced there. I would also love to see trash cans all over the Pueblo because the other thing too is that we just don't have trash cans here. So a year from now I would love to have like trash cans where it's like, here's the recycle the recyclables, here's the inorganic and have like some sort of like composting waste management system that will be here. That's what I would love to see a year from now.

Alissa Hessler: 59:51

Well, you are a powerful manifester. So I know that you are going to create some real magic there. You are just like so. Such a pleasure to speak to. And I just feel so lifted by hearing your thoughts and your vision for the future. And I feel the same as you were, you know, you could easily go down the path of we're doomed, but like pulling together people that want to rethink the ways that we've been living and try to move in a different direction. And I just really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today and sharing your story and your wisdom with us.

Unknown: 1:00:32

Thank you so much for just inviting me to be a part of this conversation, this whole experience. I love all the work that you guys are doing.

Alissa Hessler: 1:00:41

Thank you again, Louisa, for joining us on the show. Some of my key takeaways from this episode. reprogramming a scarcity mindset can be a years long process. But recognizing that scarcity isn't in alignment with nature and the natural processes of the Earth, make the concept of abundance much easier to integrate. A lot of us, especially Americans have broken or severed relationships with our ancestral roots. It can be incredibly healing and transformative to reconnect with the people practices, skills, and landscapes of those who came before us. And lastly, we have to fight against any feelings of despair for the future, and look for ways to be the change and lead by example, Luis is positive, action oriented approach to life gives me hope, and it makes me refuse to believe that it's too late for us to change course. Hi, friends, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the urban Exodus podcast. This is a listener supported program that is only made possible through your continued support. And if you haven't already, we would really love it if you'd leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or whatever service you listen on. And please recommend urban access to your friends. An enormous thank you to my incredible producer Simone Leon, and my amazing editor Johnny Sol, and my music man Benjamin Thoreau, and thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Alissa Hessler and this is the urban Exodus