Posted: 03/31/2014

By Constance Spencer

I have recently returned from a poor dusty village west of Leon, Nicaragua where the locals live in huts built of plastic wrap walls and corrugated tin roofs held up by tree branches. During this trip with the Yale Alumni Service Corps, I helped organize volunteers to construct a school addition, build a bridge, teach children music and computers, give health education and medical care. While these were extremely valuable projects, I was most proud of my effort to haul medical equipment for cervical cancer diagnosis three thousand miles by plane, bus and truck so that it could be used to potentially save hundreds of lives. I had just completed treatment for cervical cancer myself and I was determined to help others get access to the same simple life saving procedure.However upon my return, rather than accolades (which I am really not looking for), I was given a registered letter from my HOA that my driveway had some dirt and mildew on it and they would be taking me to court. The incongruity I felt at that moment was beyond measure. I had just left a group of the most compassionate and generous people, both villagers and visitors, in the poorest of areas who represented the best in human nature, to return to face the opposite in a country of such affluence. What direction has our society taken that it has enabled some of us to care so much about mildew and so little about other people?  Read more: