CHAPTER 5Destino: Personal and Collective Purpose

AS A CHILD I didn’t believe in destino at all. In fact, I thought God had gotten it all wrong. If I had designed my life, it would have been a different movie. Take the first act, for instance.

I was born on a hot, humid clothes-sticking August night, in the middle of the Nicaraguan jungle. Most people in those days didn’t even know where Nicaragua was—and if they did, they didn’t much care. The mining town of Bonanza spurred the emergence of a small community living in little wooden houses that leaned into the rocky hills. Across from the company’s commissary, overlooking a lush green ravine, my mother lay down on that hot summer night to birth her seventh child.

Whose plan was this? What happened ...

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