JAWS,
Roadside Jesus, Doggie-Paddling
Driving home from dropping our good friends off at the airport in
Managua, we stopped at a little Comedor – basically a kind
of small, street-side restaurant that serves up plates of chicken,
rice and beans, with the occasional entree option of beef or pork.
We were all pretty famished and the heaping plates not only looked
good but were tasty, rating pretty high on our local food barometer.
We’ll give it three out of four estrellas (stars). Prior to
eating, we asked where the bathroom was and were ushered in through a
small door connected to the restaurant. The bathroom was tiny, and
strangely situated in the corner of what looked like both a garage
and a church worship hall. There was a station wagon, hearse-type
vehicle in front of the bathroom, and the rest of the long, narrow
room was filled with white fold-up chairs, a make-shift altar and a
bathtub that must have been for baptisms. In Nicaragua there exists
such a fluidity and connection between all sorts of spaces. Back home
it seems that the boundaries between places and properties are
delineated much more clearly, but also more rigidly. Here, for
example, the inside of your house is not so removed from your front
yard, a restaurant and a church can almost be one in the same, and
the place you buy your food staples is the front living room of
someone’s house. There’s something inviting and welcoming about
this approach to living with others that resists being defined or
limited, something that is not readily measurable. It seems to say,
“come on in and let’s talk and get to know each other without
bringing our preconceived baggage, because guess what, yes this is my
house, but it’s also my restaurant, my business, and the place I
worship.” “I am many things, and have many layers and so do you,
so let’s get to know each other.” Welcome!
Volcanoes evoke power and strength while inspiring fear and
trepidation. But usually they are far away from us, standing only as
silent witnesses and seers to the devastation they once wrought and
the destruction they might unleash again at any time. They are also
creative forces, breaking down and building up, covering and then
unearthing. Nicaragua has something like 26 volcanoes, a good
portion of which are considered active, including Telica and
San Cristobal -the country’s largest mountain at 1,750
meters – both of which are always watching us when we walk to
school, or run, or ride the bus to Leon. Masaya is both the
name of a small city south of the capital Managua and of a large
volcano, one of the more active ones in Nicaragua. It is so active,
in fact, that you can actually look down into the enormous crater and
see red hot lava, spurting, frothing and looking every bit as mean as
you would expect thousand some odd degree lava to look. Either
because it’s so spectacular (or possibly so dangerous) each vehicle
that drives up the mountain gets 5 – count em five - minutes to
explore the crater’s rim. We drove up last Tuesday at just past
4:30pm, passing a panorama of volcanic rock and magma residue from
previous eruptions, nine of us spilling out of our absurdly large
micro-bus rental (the only size that would fit our party was a
16-passenger Toyota Hiace) as we raced to make the most of our cinco
minutos of viewing time. Approaching the rim we peered over the
fence, expecting a rush of red liquid to engulf us and our van,
Pompeii-style. Instead we were greeted by a gorgeous crater and
farther in, deeper into the its gut, we saw lava - real, live lava.
It was a pretty special experience, and it was a true bummer when the
park guard/stopwatch lady began waving her hands that our time was
up. But it’s all good because now, we’re all lava whisperers.
“We might see Jesus on our walk home,” remarked Cully as we left
our friend Ivania’s house after having dropped off some donated
clothes that many of you have been kind enough to send. Thank you!
In fact we had seen Jesus on our walk to Ivania’s, replete with a
crown of thorns, a purple robe, and of course a cross. He had been
standing idly under the porch of one of our neighbors, surrounded by
cows, waiting to begin his march to the church. We caught up with
him almost in front of Yader’s house, now being carried by four
strong men (including Yader and his brother Fernando). A women was
standing in front of Jesus reading some words we couldn’t hear, and
as the small procession of some thirty-odd people passed us, we saw
the afternoon light shining down and reflecting off the cross. All
along the dirt road, people were sweeping and raking garbage and
leaves and then burning them, cleaning the road for the procession
and leaving a dry, earthly fragrance in their wake. Others were
setting up chairs and throwing water on the road so that Jesus and
his bearers could stay semi dust-free. The procession continued past
us, a small but committed band of followers, proving very adept at
dodging oncoming trucks (two), motorcycles (three) and a herd of cows
(like thirty). Their walk to the church was hot and dusty and not
without obstacles, but they persevered with a faith you could sense
but not see. We are told the same parade plays itself out every
Friday at about 4pm up until Easter, and there is a good shot we’ll
see the Via Crusis play out again.
Lake Nicaragua is the largest body of water in Central America and
depending on your viewpoint, it can look like a real ocean, at times
even sporting mini-waves that you could almost ride. It spans much
of the southern part of the country, and has all sorts of cool places
to hike, swim, kayak, and just chillax. The city of Granada (one of
the oldest colonial cities in Central America) sits on the lake’s
shore and it’s not hard to find a guide who will take you on a tour
of Las Isletas, some 365 small islands that stretch out from
Granada’s shores in a mini-archipelago. Most of the islands are
pretty tiny but what they lack in size they make up in panoramic
excellence as they are framed by cool sounding volcanoes like
Mombacho. Lots of the islands are home to Nicaragua’s rich
and famous (there are a fair few of them, including the Pellas family
who has interests in the national beer (Toña)
and the national rum (Flor de Caña))
and you can meander through and among the islands on a motorboat or
by kayak. We took the motorized option for a 1 1/2 hour tour which
we were pretty happy about, especially after we found that the lake
is home to the Lake Nicaragua Shark, a relative of the saltwater bull
shark. This crazy fish has figured out a way to leave the ocean,
swim up a nearby river and literally ‘leap’ into the lake. They
get up to 5 meters in length, and are considered one of the more
aggressive types of sharks. AND THEY’RE IN A LAKE! But for anyone
coming to visit, don’t worry, there have been very few
attacks:)...so far.
In December, a new handmade bed arrived in our front yard, hauled by
Yader, Fernando, and a horse. The same trio delivered a new dining
room (our open-air patio) table a couple weeks back, but this time
out of the blue. Like, who does that? Just delivers a new table to
your house, unannounced and ready to eat off? The Valdivia Rivas
family, that’s who. Perhaps they realized our need when we had
them over for dinner in January and attempted to fit eight people
around our dinky coffee table. Or it may have been during one of our
monthly movie nights, when they marveled how our little mesa
could balance four 3-liter bottles of black, red (the nasty stuff),
orange and green sodas, 10 bowls of popcorn, and a DVD player. Either
way, the freshly delivered table, made by Yader’s dad Yader, is
massive in comparison, handcrafted out of black pine and currently
used to eat, play cards, fold clothes, and study on. Now our problem
is our chairs, which in comparison to the table make our entire
family look like little munchkins when we eat.
It only seems fitting that our most recent injury happened to Harlan,
who severely jammed his left index finger while wave riding at Pone
Loya Beach. We think his finger rammed into his brother Olle’s
hip, as if Harlan was pointing at Olle to move aside to allow for a
smooth ride to shore. Miriam splinted it with a popsicle-stick
thing, but given its location near his growth plate, we decided to
seek a doctor’s advice. Miriam and Harlan’s medical consult
adventure involved making a series of appointments with multiple
doctors and offices. The first clinic they tried had no orthopedic
doctors on hand, while the second they found only by chance after
receiving three sets of conflicting directions. There they made an
appointment with Doctor Rafael Cruz for the next day at the Ruben
Dario Clinic (Dario, a poet, is given almost Saint-like status in
Nicaragua), but in the meantime followed a lead to the Centro de
Imágenes
Diagnósticas
San Sebastian where they were told they could get the finger
x-rayed. Unfortunately, prior to x-rays they were required to
actually have a medical consult and thus had to leave the deliciously
air-conned office, cross the street, and wait for one hour to be seen
by Dr. Carlos Lopez. After a quick examination of the digit, Miriam
and Harlan re-crossed the road to get the x-ray. The chickens then
crossed the road again to get to the other side and have the x-rays
read by Dr. Lopez, who diagnosed a break after reading the x-ray,
then re-re-referring them to yet another doctor who was said to be
equipped with the proper casting materials. They were at this point
almost done, only needing to pay for the third time, visit another
doctors office across town where the diagnosis was changed from break
to jam, and pay for the fourth time in about three hours -
Easy-Peasy. In the end, Harlan’s finger could be found wrapped
securely in the popsickle sticky thing, gauze and tape, exactly as
Miriam had dressed it in the first place. But on the up side, Miriam
and Harlan were successful in virtually geo-mapping every
orthopedic-related office in the Greater Leon area in record time.
One Sunday morning, we had a cow break. The usual early rising
animal suspects are our cat, rabbit, two juvenile chickens, Adilsa’s
two dogs, Don Leonel’s 2 or 3 horses, Miriam and Carlos’s 5 pigs,
the occasional errant rooster, a once in a while wild skunk, and one
or more of our neighbor Esteban’s nettlesome dogs. But bovines
never swing by our house. On this particular day, we were holding
school at our home, rare for a Sunday but necessary in order to catch
the boys up with the school they missed (they weren’t complaining!)
during consecutive visits by beloved friends. We noticed a cow
grazing nearby, and didn’t think much of it until Carlos came
through our patio, shooing it away. Whatever it was munching was
clearly off limits. Next Aciles came by, tossing rocks and using a
stick to motivate her to mooove on. He did this twice, and then
Harlan and Cully, in the middle of Chapter 30, Unit 4 of Math Class –
Solving One-Step, Real World Problems - decided to put their
learning to the test. Harlan grabbed a broom and Cully a couple
rocks. Using a team approach, they came at her from opposite sides,
the wildly waving broom and flying rock combo doing the trick
initially. She came back four more times during math class, twice
with the intention of eating Adilsa’s nearby nascent banana plants,
and each time she left for five minutes before returning. Only when
Adilsa returned on her motorcycle and brought down the hammer (don’t
mess with Adilsa when a cow is eating her garden) did Bessie move on
for good.
We used to like dogs...really. In fact, prior to coming to
Nicaragua, we liked them a lot. Both Miriam and Cully had dogs as
pets growing up, and still have fond memories of playing fetch, being
met at the door by a wagging, slobbery friend, or going on long walks
with a faithful companion by your side. Things have changed for a
couple reasons. First, dogs are literally everywhere in El Tololar.
They are usually scrawny, not well cared for at all, and pretty
stinky. They’re scrawny because they are lucky even to get
leftover table scraps, and thus are always scrounging for food. This
means that on any given day, 5-10 different dogs are lurking at the
edges of our yard, waiting for the right opportunity to make a dive
into our garbage pit, where admittedly they probably find some pretty
good chow. We still try to shoo them away when we can, but it’s
tiring grabbing a slingshot and a rock ever half hour so they often
have free reign in our hole. Existing in a constant state of
starvation also makes them desperate, and often downright mean.
About 1 am on a recent full moon night, Cully awoke to hear a whole
lotta shaking going on in the kitchen. Rainer our rabbit had
thankfully slept outside under Aciles latrine that night as he is
wont to do, so the kitchen commotion was all the more perplexing as
we were sure (pretty sure) we had locked our kitchen door. Not. Upon
opening our bedroom door, two of Esteban’s dogs (oh, how we loathe
them) sprinted out of our kitchen with either very guilty looks or
sly grins, fortunately only having eaten six eggs. Doggy desperation
for food also leads to aggressiveness, and there are times when it’s
not a stretch to ponder that they could easily jump from egg/scrap
eaters to human flesh eaters. On a recent 3:30 am walk to Ivania’s
house, in fact, Miriam almost experienced this dietary shift first
hand as she was all but eaten by literally every dog that lives along
the dusty road between our homes. Few of them, and certainly not Cujo
the giant, black, ferocious killer dog, were at all dissuaded by her
shouts and swings with the long, hard broom handle she was carrying.
Result – no more morning walks to Ivania’s to cook enchiladas for
Miriam, as clearly walking softly and carrying a big stick only
worked for Teddy Roosevelt.
Before we left Boston, we partnered with the boys’ school (big
props to Tucker Elementary!) to do a computer drive for Earth Day.
The drive resulted in some 15 donated computers and smartphones, and
earlier this week two were given to the top performing students at
Lechecuago Secondary School. It’s hard for us to truly appreciate
the value of a second-hand computer, but to an aspiring student here
with very little money, they are a game changer. Each computer came
updated with lots of software, including Rosetta Stone (English), and
the two recipients were over the moon. Cully was asked to give a
short speech in front of the 400 student auditorium, and lets just
say he’s got some more Spanish studying to do :). But, it was
edifying to see one of our favorite expressions (Small Investment =
Big Impact) play itself out once again here in Nicaragua.
One of the flagship programs for Tololamos
is the Vivero (tree nursery) Project. It’s first year was
2013, when they planted some 10,000 tree saplings and donated more
than 8,000 to any community members who wanted them. This year, the
project is ramping up again and we have been fortunate to be a
part of it. We helped fill some of the more than 6,000 planting bags
with soil, then last week we helped plant seeds in the bags. The
planting part is a lot less labor intensive than the filling part,
and it has been an education in horticulture for all of us. One the
first day, we helped plant some 8 different species of trees,
including ones with cool names like acacia amarilla, madero negro,
cortez negro, and laurel macho. We subsequently helped plant
four additional types of seeds, including orange, tamarindo and both
red and yellow marañon,
the seeds of which Miriam and Adilsa gathered together from trees
near our house earlier this week. The project is a great example of
a Public-Private Partnership, as the seeds and bags are donated by
the Ministry of Forestry, while the funds and the labor are provided
by Tololamos. The cool thing is, more trees means less dust,
healthier soil, cleaner lungs, less chronic health problems and
ultimately a more productive local ecosystem. If all goes well, the
saplings should be ready by the end of May. Come swing by and get
one if you can :)
Up until early this year, there was a sizeable market near the
Cathedral (the largest in Central America) in Leõn.
The market filled a whole street and stretched from the cathedral
(the Spaniards ensured there was one every couple blocks) almost all
the way to Calvary Church, a few blocks east. Then one day, as with
the the post office, it just disappeared. Poof. It was a bit
perplexing, because there were hundreds of vendors there, serving
everything from shoes, to jewelry, to all sorts of comida tipica
(local food). Actually, a part of the market remained as the tens of
small Ferreteria (hardware) stores that lined one side of the
street were still there. Naturally, we were curious what had
happened (this was how hundreds of people made their livelihood every
day for goodness sakes). After a bit of searching, we found our
answer. A whole new indoor market had been built in a massive space
next to the old street market (not readily visible from the street)
and there you could find familiar faces and smells, all watched over
by a Mary and a Jesus statue, each supervising the daily transactions
from on high. One more thing about market places; why is it that
stores selling the same stuff (shoes, bikes, clothes, hardware) all
congregate in one place? Kind of like the Burger King/McDonalds/Wendy
phenomena, stores with the exact same stuff (at least Mickey D’s
and BK have the Big Mac and Whopper to differentiate themselves, and
Wendy’s has that stuff they call chili) sit next to eachother all
throughout Leõn,
seemingly relying on luck and the caprices of their clients to shop
with them instead of their next door neighbor. An economist would
say it’s because of economies of scale and concentration, but we’re
not so sure...
Lessons we’ve learned, Part I:
A) You’re not supposed to stick cotton swabs in your ear they say,
but come on, we all do it, right? The thing is, usually, if you’re
successful, they come out yellow. Here the yellow is coated in
black, from orifice dust, so you should use a second Q-tip to make
sure you get the wax.
B) Always shake out your shoes before putting on, both because it
will keep your freshly laundered socks a little cleaner, and it can
prevent scorpion bites.
C) Sweeping is useless. The floor will just get dirty again, so why
sweep at all?
D) Sleeping (or trying to) is also useless at times. Inevitably, at
that precise moment between wakefulness and slumber, Murphy will make
sure that either a rooster will crow, a dog will bark, an errant bug
will hit your mosquito net, or (much more rarely) an earthquake will
shake you awake. It’s a given. Sleeping pills do help, but only a
little.
E) Still trying to figure out what is harder, the rainy or dry
season. If you were a mathematician, would this equate: gnats + ants
+ flies + sweeping water at midnight + moldy rooms and clothes +
pig-infested puddles + power outages = crazy heat + no water +
constant sweat + more scorpions + wind-driven dust + allergies.
Thanks for Reading!
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