“I left Missoula two or three days after I got done being mayor, January 5th or something,” Kadas said. He met his partner, Martha Newell, and their two sons in Costa Rica. A few weeks later, they continued on to a small town in north-central Nicaragua. It's a hilly region of cattle ranches and coffee plantations, Kadas said.
“Our kids went to the local school. We did some volunteer work. I did a lot of reading,” he said. At the time, Missoula and four other cities were actively bidding to convert the for-profit NorthWestern Energy into a publicly owned utility. NorthWestern had spurned the offer, saying MPPI's offer of $2.3 billion was not a good deal.
“Through April, I was still doing a lot of work,” he said.
It was a great way to get to experience life alongside the locals. Almost all the buses are old U.S. or Canadian school buses. The fare was cheap.
“It's a great way to see the country and be shoulder to shoulder with all the companeros,” Kadas said. “People were very poor, I would say, in the town we lived in. Most didn't make much more than a couple dollars a day.”
An economist by training, Kadas watched with interest when the hillside lot next door to his family's rental sold. The lot went for about $4,000.
“One morning a bunch of guys showed up there and started digging,” he said.
Kadas watched as the crew used wheelbarrows and their backs to haul bricks and other building materials to the site. The men mixed concrete by hand and even bent the rebar by hand, having built a little jig for the job. The workers measured the sheet metal for the roof and cut it with a machete and a block of wood. The only power tool employed on the job came into play at the very end. It was a hammer drill used to set the doors, he said.
In June, the family left Nicaragua for two weeks of travel in Peru and then another six weeks in Ecuador. They used local buses and found cheap places to stay. In Ecuador, they hiked on the slopes of a rumbling volcano. The clouds parted at one point, and Kadas could see rocks spewing from a fissure and landing about eight miles away.
“A little while later, the sound would finally reach us, and we heard this roar,” he said.
Three days later, after the family had left, the volcano erupted more seriously. Ash covered the ground for 40 or 50 miles. Rivers of lava flowed down the hill.
Next stop was the Galapagos Islands.
“It's an amazing place, particularly for the kids. You can get so close to the animals - the birds, fish and sea lions,” Kadas said.
Kadas found fascinating the way the Ecuadoran government manages the Galapagos, compared to other national treasures.
“You're severely restricted where you can go. You have to have a guide with you at all times. They're working to preserve it in a sophisticated way,” Kadas said.
Other national parks have nothing near that level of care.
“We went to this old volcanic crater lake. It was getting beat to pieces,” he said.
Farmers planted fields of corn in the crater and would burn off sections to clear debris.
“They'd just start a fire out there. They've been doing it for thousands of years. It's a level of use that certainly you would not expect in the United States. They're using it a whole bunch of different ways without nearly as many restrictions as we would,” Kadas said.
In Ecuador, Kadas saw an emerging middle class. People owned cars and land and had marketing and business connections around the world.
“It's interesting to see the economic plight of these Andean and Central American countries and how they're struggling with it. It was interesting to watch the elections,” he said. “The whole political scene in Latin America is dynamic, pretty positive. They're having elections, transitions in power based on democratic results. It's a recent phenomenon.”
Two days before the family planned to return to the United States in August, there was a death in their family. They flew to Cleveland.
Kadas, Newell and the boys returned to Missoula at the end of August. The former mayor had been gone eight months. His family had been away for 11.
“We did it because we wanted - before the boys got into high school - to make sure they experienced a different culture and learned another language. We're happy with how that part came out,” Kadas said. Both boys speak Spanish comfortably.
“Set them down pretty much at any bus station in the world, and they'll figure it out. That's neat and comforting,” Kadas said.
He laughed at what people do when they see him.
“Most people look in shock and say, ‘I thought you were gone.' They do a double-take,” he said. Others will approach him or call him by name and visit with him.
“They just call me Mike. I'm always amazed at how many people know who the mayor is or was,” he said.
Kadas turned 50 a few weeks ago. He has begun to look ahead. He isn't yet gainfully employed, for instance.
“No. That's what I have to do, to figure that piece out. I've got a couple of little projects, nothing serious,” he said.
One big priority will be his family. His political life over the last 10 years has demanded as much as 12 hours of work a day.
“I think I missed a lot of stuff with my kids. I don't want to miss much more of that until they get through high school,” he said.
On a day in early December, he spent the morning shopping downtown. Then he took a walk on Mount Jumbo.
“The kids will be home when I get home. I'll help them with their homework. Not too rigorous. I'm practicing relaxing, and I need to get back into shape, for one thing,” he said.
Reporter Robert Struckman can be reached at 523-5262 or at rstruckman@missoulian.com
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