AYYYY Mi Amor! Mi Corazon!

A list of heckles I receive every day walking to and from school:

“Ayyyyy mi amor! Mi Corazon!!!!! Mi vida!”
(Translation: Oh, my love. My heart. My life.)

“Voy a casarme contigo y vamos a los Estados!”
(Translation: I’m going to marry you and we are going to the United States.)

“Ayyyy mi muneca….”
(Translation: Oh, my doll.)

“Adios chelita preciosa hermosa (insert smooching sound here)!”
(Translation: Goodbye beautiful precious whitey MWAH.)

“Adios amorSOTA!”
(Translation: Goodbye my LOVE! Straight out of ‘Dumb and Dumber‘.)

“tssst…tssst…tssst….”
(an appalling hissing sound meant to be a romantic attention-grabber)

“Adios, gringo!”
(An enthusiastic exclamation from the mouth of a two-year-old neighbor of mine who must think I am a man.)

And my personal favorite:
“Callie, I love you forever!”
(straight from the mouth of a seven-year-old who isn’t even a student of mine)

These taunts follow me from the moment I leave my house at 7:30 AM until I return at 7 PM. I’ve heard all of the above come from the mouths of my students, their fathers, and quite possibly their grandfathers; from bus drivers, bus attendants, and the owner of the local corner store. Last Valentines Day as I walked home with three rolls of toilet paper and a half-dozen eggs I received quite a few “ay, mi amor!”s, much to my surprise. I can’t think of anything more romantic than buying toilet paper.

I could blame it on the male gender in general, but after talking to a few of my students and friends I’ve found a few other causes for this constant heckling.

1) Boys here learn it from their fathers who learned it from their fathers who learned it from…
(you get the point)
2) Men here are too intimidated to actually have a conversation with women, therefore they choose to inflict a barrage of romantic mumbo jumbo upon them.
3) Men think that the women here actually LIKE this kind of verbal abuse (I’ve assured my Nicaraguan male friends that this is most definitely NOT the case).
4) Alcohol… the town drunk here, a most friendly soul who talks to walls and bricks and dogs (non-discriminating between living and inanimate objects, which I respect) calls me “his love” while asking me to buy him a litro of Caballito (at $1 a bottle and with a picture of a horse on front, comparable to a cross between rubbing alcohol and moonshine)… seriously though, alcohol plays a big role in the fact that men are not comfortable socializing with women on an equal basis. They feel they must be drunk in order to talk to women, and then instead of talking to them as peers, end up insulting them.
5) A major pastime here in Cusmapa, watching telenovelas (cheesy locally produced soap operas) largely contributes to the type of romanticism displayed by the men. Many suitors of mine claimed to love me “at first sight” and claimed to have not thought about another woman since laying eyes on yours truly (including, believe it or not, those I know to have more than one girlfriend). I suppose if I received the majority of my ideas about romance from soap operas I’d have a pretty skewed view on what love actually is. As the Red Hot Chili Peppers sing: “THROW AWAY YOUR TELEVISION.”

A prime example of the “love at first sight” phenomenon occurred today as Lauren and I walked to la Casona (the gigantic Fabretto-owned house in town used for large groups of volunteers) to have dinner with a group of folks from the States who are currently visiting Cusmapa. Marlon (an acquaintance of ours) approached us on the street, flushed and bashful. We know Marlon through his cousin Osmara, one of my high school students. The only time we’ve hung out with him was a few weeks ago at my birthday dinner at Osmara’s house. He studied in the states for a year in a forestry program in Oregon, and loves to practice his English with Lauren and I.

Marlon asked why we didn’t end up having a Halloween fiesta, to which we claimed the reason of volunteer poverty. He wouldn’t look Lauren or I in the eye, which should have been my first clue that something was weird and wonderful in our interaction. He stammered out an:

“I have a dream…”

“Yes…” (Lauren and I both wonder…)

“I have a dream…” (Marlon looks embarrassedly at his shoes. Awkward pause.)

“Um. Like Martin Luther King Jr.?”
(I can really be mean. Like I‘ve said before, I‘m not a good English teacher… or person)

“No.” (The joke went over his head, but Lauren giggles…
I’m glad at least someone finds me funny.)

“I have a dream….”

(Lauren and I look at each other and lean together in a “oh no, oh my, oh goodness, this isn’t going where we think it is” moment of understanding.)

“I can’t tell you.” (I shut off my giggles, and attempt to gain back his confidence by appearing serious and genuinely interested in the profound content of his dream.)

“Oh, come on. What was it?” (I’m such a good shrink.)

“It was about you.” (Marlon gestures at Lauren then looks back at his shoes and blushes and chuckles nervously.)

(Marlon mumbles something under his breath, losing his English speaking capabilities and resorting to an unintelligible Spanglish, which I myself am entirely guilty of speaking the vast majority of the time.)

“Um. Was it a long dream?” (Lauren, the gifted interviewer tries to pry some more information from our suffering friend and looks at me, eyebrows raised in utter disbelief in the ridiculousness of her life. She tries desperately to make the conversation a bit more bearable.)

“I can’t tell you.” (Oh sweet lord, out with it already buddy.)

(Marlon looks at me, then pulls Lauren aside for secrecy… obviously the dream’s contents are meant for her ears only).

I walk out of earshot and look at the sky, smiling. Good lord, I never know what to expect when I wake up every single morning in this country. All I hear from their conversation is Lauren’s awkward laughter as she asks:

“Haha but it was just a dream, RIGHT?” (oh Lord, how she hopes it was)

Then I hear, “…you can come over later… JUST FRIENDS…” and more nervous laughter. I know exactly where that conversation went. Lauren and I hold our giggles as best as we possibly can as she fills me in on “the dream” that Marlon experienced. Apparently in dream-land, Marlon is in love with Lauren. Shocking. And now he wonders if he can come hang out at our house “as friends”. Poor blundering guy.

I gotta hand it to Marlon, he’s the creative romantic type.
At least he didn’t use the
“I’m going to marry you and we’ll go to the United States” line straight off the bat.