rainy season has officially started here, though we'll have a few days of rain then it's bloody hot for a week before it rains again. we're still experiencing water shortages, and only have running water for about 2 days per week. anyways, all the rain has led to a massive influx of bugs (mainly beetles) and frogs (hopping around in puddles on the street) and other random critters.
last thursday i had a disturbing experience where i found the second tarantula within 24 hours in my bedroom- so i squished it with a shoe only to have the thing basically explode and about 50 baby spiders come streaming out of an egg sack i hadn't seen on its belly. i somehow maintained my composure enough to find a bottle of windex in our kitchen (of course i don't have bug spray or anything useful like that) and drowned the little buggers. now normally i'm all about saving little bugs lives but when they're gnarly spiders like that in my room that crosses the line.
the line was leaped across however that night as i was sleeping. i woke up at around 2 AM to something crawling up my pant leg and knew immediately it wasn't the normal beetle/moth/ant/mosquito experience. so, half-asleep still, i reached my hand down to brush it off and was stuck in my kneecap by a huge sting (OH GOD!) and looked down at my hand to see a HUGE black scorpion clutched on to my fingers (it was the size of my hand- probably about 6 inches long) so i shook it off and it ran under my bed (GREAT) then i sat down for a moment thinking "well, this really could be the end of it all" shaking something awful and trying to make myself breathe. i found my nicaragua guidebook (obviously i didn't have any bug identification books) because i wanted to know if i should go to a doctor, if i had to worry about dying or anything like that... thank goodness i had seen it and knew it was a big negrito scorpion which according to my MOON guidebook are "not normally deadly" to healthy humans. a bit of good news, but didn't make me feel any safer, that's for sure. i tiptoed into the kitchen (don't ask me why at this point i was not wanting to wake my roomates up) and reached into the freezer to get some ice (which was the only thing i could really think to do) since my kneecap felt like someone had stabbed a knitting needle through the middle of it (unlike what the guidebook said it would feel like "a bee sting" HA!). we didn't have any ice, so i grabbed the next best thing... a bag of frozen chicken drumsticks, and laid in bed for a couple of hours with my knee raised feeling the numbness slowly spread through my body. a very unnerving feeling, let me tell you. the wierdest part of it was that though the rest of my body was nearly numb, my knee was still throbbing like crazy.
somehow i fell back asleep for a few hours and when i woke up in the morning i felt much worse. i stood up and immediately had to sit back down, dizzy and unable to balance. i made my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water and to try to eat something (i knew that if i didn't, i'd feel even more faint) and told my roomate chico what had happened to which he replied:
"oh don't worry, i've been stung 5-6 times by scorpions and you'll feel awful for a while but you'll be fine. just drink some milk."
now i don't know anything about recovering from a scorpion sting but his advice seemed better than anything else i'd heard- so i drank the rest of the delicious boxed milk i had on hand and still felt terrible. luckily one of the drivers, jose, was at the house and drove all of us to school so i didn't have to worry about walking there. i told magda what had happened and she was much more concerned than chico, so she had me talk to the doctor at the school who took one look at me and said:
"oh, you'll feel better in 3-4 days so don't worry too much about it. you won't die, they aren't THAT dangerous."
3-4 days of numbness seemed like a pretty big deal to me, and with the way i was feeling at the time i decided to go with the rest of my roomates to somoto where i'd be closer to a doctor who could do something for me if things got worse. the ride down was pretty miserable, but by the time we arrived i was feeling a bit better and my arms and legs were less numb, which made walking a heck of a lot more manageable. the 3-4 days really only ended up being 24 hours, and after that amount of time only my mouth was numb (which i'd heard was the last place to re-gain feeling). so... i stayed in somoto for the night, bought a mosquito net... and now sleep a little bit lighter and am more wary about shaking out my sheets and blankets before going to bed.
ah... the lessons i've learned. at least now i'm not scared of tarantulas anymore, as long as i don't get any more scorpions crawiling up my pants in the middle of the night i think i'll be just fine.
lunes, 23 de abril de 2007
lunes, 16 de abril de 2007
Amarguillo (How Else Could We Understand?)
A blast of the brightest sunshine yellow sparks,
brave amarguillo trees speckled
amidst dried fields of hopeful farmers
withering crops
crinkling pine needles
fallen trees crying for water, for life.
Smokey the Bear shakes in his Forest Service boots.
I’m told the dry season never ended last year,
and in some towns the water gets shut off for three months at a time.
Forty people died in Chinandega last weekend in temperatures hovering between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius.
Heat stroke can’t be blamed when water’s not an option.
The sharpened guillotine blade hangs on a thread,
perched for the fall.
This is normal.
My roommate Fransisco laughs at my awestruck shock at this statistic
and the joy disperses, as fleeting as it came
with my wondering "Como puede vivir sin agua por tres meses?
(an honest question- how do you live without water for three months?)
Honest but severely loaded.
How do you LIVE?
In one instant I’ve found why Nicaraguans have such faith in God.
His answer:
"We believe because how else could you explain a world in which we must live without water for three months at a time? How else would we understand?"
A slap in the face.
How else could a world in which people with all the power choose to
fund and fight unwarranted religious wars based on fear and oil
yet disregard poverty as part of the "other" world,
the THIRD world.
Why would we care about the THIRD world as much as OUR world?
We invest our money CAREFULLY there, in this other world
Just enough to keep them coming back for more
Just enough to keep the hands outstretched
Just enough to keep the UN off our backs
Just enough to keep opportunities for photo opportunities arising
Just enough to keep them silent and downtrodden
Just enough to keep their starry-eyed focus on our American dream alive.
What is this "American Dream"?
If it’s not meant for all of America,
rather meant to justify the rise of the rich to their castles in the clouds
and blame the victims of our carelessness,
our neighbors
who gaze in our dining room windows
awestruck at the opulence
salivating with hope for our scraps
who struggle every day just to live.
I sound cliché-
how do I paint you a clearer picture what it means to struggle every day to LIVE?
Have you woken in the morning to the same hunger pangs, knitting needles in the depths of your stomach that have haunted your dreams for your whole life?
Have you constantly and consciously been forced to drink water infused with sewage and garbage day-after-day simply because you had no other CHOICE?
Has this water given you life-threatening fevers and blinding migraine headaches?
Has your water been carried up a mountainside in 5-gallon-plastic-jugs by your seven-year-old daughter every morning, her back hunched unnaturally under its crippling weight?
Have you also been forced to send this daughter to beg for pesos to buy rice and beans,
her bare feet dodging broken glass and rusted barbed wire?
How do I get you to see this painting in color, not in the black and white of "THE OTHER"?
For if you are to realize that this type of poverty exists in every moment of every day
for millions upon millions of our brothers and sisters
throughout the entire world
and in your backyard
it MUST be in vivid color
high definition if you will.
Do I need a PowerPoint presentation and a flat screen TV
or will these words of impassioned truth
reach beyond your ears and your eyes and into your heart?
These words, " THE OTHER" and "3rd WORLD" must be abolished
we must learn to empathize
if the world can ever change for the better.
If we can open our minds and our hearts to realize
"THE OTHER" as an intimate, essential, precious component of ourselves,
if we can understand that these words "THE OTHER" and "3rd WORLD"
have been fabricated by people with power,
people who judge and fear change,
people who refuse to grant freedom,
and voices to the voiceless
their bullets silenced with a justification of "US versus THEM".
We must not buy into this
unjustified disabling dichotomy
For each time we turn a blind, ignorant, guilt-laden eye
averting our gaze from the pain and suffering of this world
we in fact turn from the deepest part of our soul.
Who felt the right to draw black lines
zigzagged boundaries across our globe?
How have we not noticed these lines are INVISIBLE?
Invisible until we forget the past
and break ground to construct another embarrassing wall
as if blocking our view of the wrong side of the tracks
will make our neighbors disappear.
The make-believe black lines are pathetic enough,
but walls go beyond the zigzags.
We’re playing a game of Risk so real
that if we allowed ourselves a moment of clarity
our hearts would break into a million pieces.
Do we need these fancy adjectives
these walls
to justify how terribly we treat each other?
Is this all just a big game to people like Mr. G. W. ?
I’d compare his game to chess
but I know the only players he’s aware of are the king and the pawn.
Maybe if he could ever wipe that all-knowing smirk off his face
for long enough to say something real
we’d have a glimpse of some sort of truth…
Ironic how mumble-jumbled and repeated key words
"insurgents"
"terrorists"
"freedom fighters"
"rebel forces"
"fanatics"
cause more conflict, misunderstanding, hatred and war than bombs ever could.
How many soldiers to this date have died
defending these words?
I’d tell you but I’m not trying to give a history lesson.
Would it matter more if it were ONE person or THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND?
How can I paint this picture in COLOR when our own government will not allow the media to show pictures of caskets being carefully carried off a military plane draped in those glorified stars and stripes?
An image sticks in my mind, a 2002 clipping from a newspaper scrap booked next to lyrics from John Lennon’s "Imagine" … a middle-aged man, long beard trailing in the dust, white robes spattered with blood, white linen and crimson death pooling around his knees, arms outstretched desperately to the skies, mouth hanging open in a primal wail that only a man at the foot of the coffins of his two children aged four and six years old could pour forth on an unjust world, dried riverbeds of tears marking the end of any happiness and future he’d seen in life. His babies, gone forever at the hands of "freedom fighters".
"Imagine there’s no Heaven, it’s easy if you try."
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine, Mr. Lennon, that there’s no Heaven
when we’re willing to kill each other in the name of GOD.
How do we think GOD feels about these justifications?
Does he sit on his throne in the sky contentedly staring down as we play plastic soldiers
with real guns
remarking to himself "How lovely are these wars in my name?"
(these words strike too close to "Hallowed be thy name")
or "I must give this judgmental sect of soldiers for Christ a first class seat on the train to glory?"
(those who claim "there are two types of people in this world, those who believe in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and those who don’t")
Even if Jesus Christ was our personal savior and the only son of GOD…
I’d still like to hope GOD sees in color.
Or…
Does GOD sit silently as tears stream down his cheeks,
mourning the death of true life?
Pleading for all of humanity
to give up our fabricated terms of differentiation,
to face each other as human beings,
casting fear aside,
breaking down walls,
tearing across boundaries,
looking through open and non-judgmental eyes,
bowing deeply in acknowledgment of the divine in all,
in communion with nature and our Brothers and Sisters,
filling the deep and lonely fear of vulnerability
with simple, deep, and unconditional love?
We claim an operation in Iraq based on FREEDOM.
Is this another fancy word we’ve manipulated for our own causes?
Freedom from what?
From our own fears and anxieties?
From having to explain the selfish reasons we’re still there?
From "THE OTHER"?
From terrorists?
From four and six year-old Iraqi children?
Where does freedom end and murder begin?
It’s a slippery slope;
the boundary between the two as invisible
as those inked black lines flowing across the maps of humanity.
Yet across the deserts of hopeless lands
rise moments of triumph and brilliant life
amarguillos, my eyes see in rusted dry brown and mid-day sunlight yellow
tufts of blossoms defiant in the face of drought,
peeking over walls to the better side of town.
"Amargo, like coffee without sugar" my friend Henry explains.
He speaks of bitterness with an unsettling smile.
It’s why we believe in GOD.
"How else could we understand?"
brave amarguillo trees speckled
amidst dried fields of hopeful farmers
withering crops
crinkling pine needles
fallen trees crying for water, for life.
Smokey the Bear shakes in his Forest Service boots.
I’m told the dry season never ended last year,
and in some towns the water gets shut off for three months at a time.
Forty people died in Chinandega last weekend in temperatures hovering between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius.
Heat stroke can’t be blamed when water’s not an option.
The sharpened guillotine blade hangs on a thread,
perched for the fall.
This is normal.
My roommate Fransisco laughs at my awestruck shock at this statistic
and the joy disperses, as fleeting as it came
with my wondering "Como puede vivir sin agua por tres meses?
(an honest question- how do you live without water for three months?)
Honest but severely loaded.
How do you LIVE?
In one instant I’ve found why Nicaraguans have such faith in God.
His answer:
"We believe because how else could you explain a world in which we must live without water for three months at a time? How else would we understand?"
A slap in the face.
How else could a world in which people with all the power choose to
fund and fight unwarranted religious wars based on fear and oil
yet disregard poverty as part of the "other" world,
the THIRD world.
Why would we care about the THIRD world as much as OUR world?
We invest our money CAREFULLY there, in this other world
Just enough to keep them coming back for more
Just enough to keep the hands outstretched
Just enough to keep the UN off our backs
Just enough to keep opportunities for photo opportunities arising
Just enough to keep them silent and downtrodden
Just enough to keep their starry-eyed focus on our American dream alive.
What is this "American Dream"?
If it’s not meant for all of America,
rather meant to justify the rise of the rich to their castles in the clouds
and blame the victims of our carelessness,
our neighbors
who gaze in our dining room windows
awestruck at the opulence
salivating with hope for our scraps
who struggle every day just to live.
I sound cliché-
how do I paint you a clearer picture what it means to struggle every day to LIVE?
Have you woken in the morning to the same hunger pangs, knitting needles in the depths of your stomach that have haunted your dreams for your whole life?
Have you constantly and consciously been forced to drink water infused with sewage and garbage day-after-day simply because you had no other CHOICE?
Has this water given you life-threatening fevers and blinding migraine headaches?
Has your water been carried up a mountainside in 5-gallon-plastic-jugs by your seven-year-old daughter every morning, her back hunched unnaturally under its crippling weight?
Have you also been forced to send this daughter to beg for pesos to buy rice and beans,
her bare feet dodging broken glass and rusted barbed wire?
How do I get you to see this painting in color, not in the black and white of "THE OTHER"?
For if you are to realize that this type of poverty exists in every moment of every day
for millions upon millions of our brothers and sisters
throughout the entire world
and in your backyard
it MUST be in vivid color
high definition if you will.
Do I need a PowerPoint presentation and a flat screen TV
or will these words of impassioned truth
reach beyond your ears and your eyes and into your heart?
These words, " THE OTHER" and "3rd WORLD" must be abolished
we must learn to empathize
if the world can ever change for the better.
If we can open our minds and our hearts to realize
"THE OTHER" as an intimate, essential, precious component of ourselves,
if we can understand that these words "THE OTHER" and "3rd WORLD"
have been fabricated by people with power,
people who judge and fear change,
people who refuse to grant freedom,
and voices to the voiceless
their bullets silenced with a justification of "US versus THEM".
We must not buy into this
unjustified disabling dichotomy
For each time we turn a blind, ignorant, guilt-laden eye
averting our gaze from the pain and suffering of this world
we in fact turn from the deepest part of our soul.
Who felt the right to draw black lines
zigzagged boundaries across our globe?
How have we not noticed these lines are INVISIBLE?
Invisible until we forget the past
and break ground to construct another embarrassing wall
as if blocking our view of the wrong side of the tracks
will make our neighbors disappear.
The make-believe black lines are pathetic enough,
but walls go beyond the zigzags.
We’re playing a game of Risk so real
that if we allowed ourselves a moment of clarity
our hearts would break into a million pieces.
Do we need these fancy adjectives
these walls
to justify how terribly we treat each other?
Is this all just a big game to people like Mr. G. W. ?
I’d compare his game to chess
but I know the only players he’s aware of are the king and the pawn.
Maybe if he could ever wipe that all-knowing smirk off his face
for long enough to say something real
we’d have a glimpse of some sort of truth…
Ironic how mumble-jumbled and repeated key words
"insurgents"
"terrorists"
"freedom fighters"
"rebel forces"
"fanatics"
cause more conflict, misunderstanding, hatred and war than bombs ever could.
How many soldiers to this date have died
defending these words?
I’d tell you but I’m not trying to give a history lesson.
Would it matter more if it were ONE person or THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND?
How can I paint this picture in COLOR when our own government will not allow the media to show pictures of caskets being carefully carried off a military plane draped in those glorified stars and stripes?
An image sticks in my mind, a 2002 clipping from a newspaper scrap booked next to lyrics from John Lennon’s "Imagine" … a middle-aged man, long beard trailing in the dust, white robes spattered with blood, white linen and crimson death pooling around his knees, arms outstretched desperately to the skies, mouth hanging open in a primal wail that only a man at the foot of the coffins of his two children aged four and six years old could pour forth on an unjust world, dried riverbeds of tears marking the end of any happiness and future he’d seen in life. His babies, gone forever at the hands of "freedom fighters".
"Imagine there’s no Heaven, it’s easy if you try."
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine, Mr. Lennon, that there’s no Heaven
when we’re willing to kill each other in the name of GOD.
How do we think GOD feels about these justifications?
Does he sit on his throne in the sky contentedly staring down as we play plastic soldiers
with real guns
remarking to himself "How lovely are these wars in my name?"
(these words strike too close to "Hallowed be thy name")
or "I must give this judgmental sect of soldiers for Christ a first class seat on the train to glory?"
(those who claim "there are two types of people in this world, those who believe in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and those who don’t")
Even if Jesus Christ was our personal savior and the only son of GOD…
I’d still like to hope GOD sees in color.
Or…
Does GOD sit silently as tears stream down his cheeks,
mourning the death of true life?
Pleading for all of humanity
to give up our fabricated terms of differentiation,
to face each other as human beings,
casting fear aside,
breaking down walls,
tearing across boundaries,
looking through open and non-judgmental eyes,
bowing deeply in acknowledgment of the divine in all,
in communion with nature and our Brothers and Sisters,
filling the deep and lonely fear of vulnerability
with simple, deep, and unconditional love?
We claim an operation in Iraq based on FREEDOM.
Is this another fancy word we’ve manipulated for our own causes?
Freedom from what?
From our own fears and anxieties?
From having to explain the selfish reasons we’re still there?
From "THE OTHER"?
From terrorists?
From four and six year-old Iraqi children?
Where does freedom end and murder begin?
It’s a slippery slope;
the boundary between the two as invisible
as those inked black lines flowing across the maps of humanity.
Yet across the deserts of hopeless lands
rise moments of triumph and brilliant life
amarguillos, my eyes see in rusted dry brown and mid-day sunlight yellow
tufts of blossoms defiant in the face of drought,
peeking over walls to the better side of town.
"Amargo, like coffee without sugar" my friend Henry explains.
He speaks of bitterness with an unsettling smile.
It’s why we believe in GOD.
"How else could we understand?"
martes, 10 de abril de 2007
let the rain fall down...
my three month "anniversary" of being in nicaragua! i can't believe how fast the time is going- yet sometimes it truly seems to stand still. today was my first day back at work after a week-long trek around southern nicaragua with james and josh. i visited my family in la concha for a weekend, then we went to isla de ometepe, grenada, and i spent the last few days of my trip in managua staying at the jvi house. here are some trip highlights:
- morning from hell getting out of cusmapa: a bus breakdown between las savannas and somoto- 45 minutes of three guys taking pieces of the motor off, cleaning them, and re-assembling them on the sidewalk much to the amusement of passers by- fransisco assuring me that they were "engineers" as i (baffled) watched one lean over the running engine with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth- drinking apple juice and feeling very much a spectator in some ridiculous nicaraguan sport
-spending time with paulette and gaiermena, enjoying her lovely library, meeting new members of their animal clan (or zoo as i like to refer to it)
- climbing a mandarin tree with elton and raquelita (two of the kids in my family in la concha) to get a view of a volcano- eating handfuls of plump perfectly ripe mandarinos, stuffing ourselves silly- trying to explain to them why i felt more comfortable with my feet planted firmly on the ground
- day trip to grenada with mama gina, raquelita, and madi (from florida who is living at their house)- hopping on a boat and walking past a 50-year-old woman saying the rosary, boat ride to an island with a "pool" which was filled with kids and dirty lake water, sharing beers with mama gina, a beautiful sunset over the lake and a purple moon rising
- long trip full of mishaps to get to ometepe: left late, took a useless 100 cord taxi cab ride to see the "scenic route" in grenada, a long bus to rivas, another taxi to san jorje, caught the last ferry to the islands- had a spectacular sunset approaching the island, caught the last bus to altagracia (which got us half way to our hotel) and wandered around asking about a place to stay for cheap, stumbled into a house where we were put up for 30 cords per night (less than $2), ate fritanga with an argentinian jewelry maker and his girlfriend- talking about politics and hitchhiking while attempting to drown out evangelical ramblings in the city's central park
- beers at a random tucked-away bar, the glorious cartoon of a man who struck up a conversation with us: think billy crystal but nicaraguan with a purple long-sleeved satin button-up shirt and poufy curly hair and a voice like a cross between mickey mouse and the gatekeeper to the city of oz ("not nobody, not no how!")- some choice quotes from his side of the conversation:
"you like this music? (we were singing along to summer of '69) i thought only people my age like this music? you like Brian music? (i assume here he was referring to brian adams) and patrick swazy? you know him? i would not recommend you to Rambo, the movie- all nicaraguans are rambo junior (i don't even know what that means). i have been practicing my A.B.C.'s this week. you know, mouth to mouth? A.B.C.'s? we are all very important people (gesturing to the three other men who were seated at his table). these two work at the mayor's office, he is a doctor, and i am that guy" (at this point i was holding in what was sure to be an explosion of laughter and replied enthusiastically while pointing for emphasis: "you ARE THAT GUY!". james turned to me and said "no, Cal. he's a GUIDE. he's a TOUR GUIDE." OH. i still think he was that guy. best character i've come across in a very long time.
- bonfire the first night at monkey's island hostel, sharing a little rum and skinny dipping under a full moon
- josh & i taking a somewhat treacherous swim out to an island made of volcanic rocks, seeing monkeys curiously poking their heads out of the trees (joking that both of us are blind and neither one had glasses on... which was sort of sad)
- waking up in the middle of the night and listening to the rain for an hour
- a day spent reading, playing 31, chess, checkers, and singing along to james playing the guitar- sharing pistachios and macadamia nuts with jacinto (the hostel owner) who'd never tried them before
- throwing rocks at 60' tall mango trees to get the ripe fruits to fall- young nica boys taking pity on the gringos and showing us proper form
- sophie the crazy belgian who has a not-so-sneakily taken picture of james in the buff
- chocolate ice cream shared in an empty market vendor stand
- glorious fritanga and the biggest vat of ensalada i have ever seen, people-watching in the park of grenada
- playing pool, yahtzee, and trivial pursuit with james while eavesdropping on josh playing monopoly with two 18 year old norweigan girls in our hostel- key cards and factoids learned: pope JPII wore white doc martens, the buffalo bills cheerleaders are called 'the buffalo jills', there are 15 people on a scottish jury, they don't speak egyptian in egypt, israel's not in europe (HM. think i need to work on my geography), and the kicker: about 10 years ago london tried to enforce slow and fast lanes on its sidewalks (i wonder are there speed limits to these lanes?)
- waking up early in our hostel (after enjoying a night's rest on couch cushions and being bit by a nasty spider) and enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning breeze before anyone else woke up
- finding out my high school choir gets to go to DC in june for an international children’s arts festival!!!!
- walk to the laguna apollo- being a bit sketched out about getting robbed and having a guy with a leather glove endowed with metal spikes try to convince us to take his "safer" road down to the lake. we may be gringos but we're not that stupid!
- day spent at the laguna relaxing, swimming, exploring underwater, reading out loud to each other, picnic-ing, and getting royally sunburned
- catching the last bus to managua by an absolute miracle
- sleeping in till 9 AM!!! going to james' favorite reading spot and devouring a david sedaris book, james knocking down starfruit out of the tree we sat under (just the fact that i was reading under a starfruit tree was pretty awesome in general i think) for a snack
- good friday service- my teary-eyed singing along to 'be not afraid'
- an excellent and very patient guitar lesson from james
- a fest of a dinner for the arrival of ad's friends from the states (who she hasn't seen for more than a year) beans, veggies, garlic bread (thanks josh!), and spaghetti
- james and josh finding, reading out loud, and performing songs they'd written in high school mostly about loves... my favorite being josh's "apple of my eyyyeeeee"
- giggling with margy till my belly hurt and i had tears running down my cheeks
- riding an expresso bus with reclining seats (i didn't even know those existed here!) not getting off at the right spot (though i've made the journey about 10 times now) and instead an hour later realizing i had no idea where i was- taking a random taxi to somoto (when i realized it we were somehow near a junction and somoto was only 10 minutes away!), feeling like a silly gringa
- getting to talk to my fam on the phone (and regs!)
- a day spent in easter celebration by writing letters and cooking a weeks worth of beans, listening to the rain trample across my rooftop
today i got back into the swing of things, though in my 5 classes i had a grand total of 10 students... but we finally had the internet so i got to respond to all sorts of emails and post pictures, chatted with jason and nikki (who i miss terribly), had quite a bit of cleaning time (the amount of dust here after a week is phenomenal!), gave a frustrating english class (i hate the books we have to use) to ONE person, loved my little ones- who held my hands and gave me hugs at the end of class, practiced the guitar, had a heck of a time with my tenors in the high school choir.
right as i was about to leave it started raining so i thought "i'll wait it out" because i wanted to bring my computer and guitar home. so i sat to practice the guitar a bit and watched the rain. the eye of the thunderstorm seemed to hover over the oratory for at least 45 minutes, pouring huge droplets and letting forth a FURY of thunder which (even when i anticipated it) made my heart leap. i finally decided (after a good hour of a relentless storm) to just leave my computer in my office, and that i'd better get home before it was completely dark. i went to get the key from juan carlos (one of my roommates) and in the 20 seconds i was outside i got absolutely soaked to the bone (i needed the house key because a missionary stayed at our house last week and left with my key- or so i thought).
i resigned myself to getting good and soaked and made my way toward home, leaping across small rivers which had formed in the road and hopping gleefully in puddles. a small figure came scurrying toward me buried under a broken umbrella- the only other person silly enough to be out in the dumping rain- she stopped, lifted her protective cover- and it was Anyelka- i exclaimed "what ARE you doing?!" and she answered "i came to look for you" so we walked, her arm around my waist and mine around her shoulder back to he house. along the way i lifted her over particularly large streams of water while we giggled and she pointed out a frog hopping across the street which made me wide-eyed and open-mouthed in delight. i had water running down my entire left half but a smile on my face. when we reached the house there was a light on and jubelki poked her head out the door. dona miriam was STILL THERE! (it was about 6:30 by this time) they had all been worried and waiting for me to come home. turns out dona miriam had my house key- the missionary had left it with her, and she couldn't bear the thought of leaving my house open, so she was waiting till i got home. i invited the girls to stay for tea and crackers, and we chatted for a bit- anyelka started to try to go home barefoot because her shoes were so awful and soaked so of course i gave her a pair of shoes to wear.
again i am humbled by the amount of thoughtful and genuine care i receive from people here, i am brought to my knees. three months blessed by lots of living, learning, and love- good health and good spirits, and the making of wonderful new friends. here's to many more months to come!
love and miss you all- joy and peace to you! cal
- morning from hell getting out of cusmapa: a bus breakdown between las savannas and somoto- 45 minutes of three guys taking pieces of the motor off, cleaning them, and re-assembling them on the sidewalk much to the amusement of passers by- fransisco assuring me that they were "engineers" as i (baffled) watched one lean over the running engine with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth- drinking apple juice and feeling very much a spectator in some ridiculous nicaraguan sport
-spending time with paulette and gaiermena, enjoying her lovely library, meeting new members of their animal clan (or zoo as i like to refer to it)
- climbing a mandarin tree with elton and raquelita (two of the kids in my family in la concha) to get a view of a volcano- eating handfuls of plump perfectly ripe mandarinos, stuffing ourselves silly- trying to explain to them why i felt more comfortable with my feet planted firmly on the ground
- day trip to grenada with mama gina, raquelita, and madi (from florida who is living at their house)- hopping on a boat and walking past a 50-year-old woman saying the rosary, boat ride to an island with a "pool" which was filled with kids and dirty lake water, sharing beers with mama gina, a beautiful sunset over the lake and a purple moon rising
- long trip full of mishaps to get to ometepe: left late, took a useless 100 cord taxi cab ride to see the "scenic route" in grenada, a long bus to rivas, another taxi to san jorje, caught the last ferry to the islands- had a spectacular sunset approaching the island, caught the last bus to altagracia (which got us half way to our hotel) and wandered around asking about a place to stay for cheap, stumbled into a house where we were put up for 30 cords per night (less than $2), ate fritanga with an argentinian jewelry maker and his girlfriend- talking about politics and hitchhiking while attempting to drown out evangelical ramblings in the city's central park
- beers at a random tucked-away bar, the glorious cartoon of a man who struck up a conversation with us: think billy crystal but nicaraguan with a purple long-sleeved satin button-up shirt and poufy curly hair and a voice like a cross between mickey mouse and the gatekeeper to the city of oz ("not nobody, not no how!")- some choice quotes from his side of the conversation:
"you like this music? (we were singing along to summer of '69) i thought only people my age like this music? you like Brian music? (i assume here he was referring to brian adams) and patrick swazy? you know him? i would not recommend you to Rambo, the movie- all nicaraguans are rambo junior (i don't even know what that means). i have been practicing my A.B.C.'s this week. you know, mouth to mouth? A.B.C.'s? we are all very important people (gesturing to the three other men who were seated at his table). these two work at the mayor's office, he is a doctor, and i am that guy" (at this point i was holding in what was sure to be an explosion of laughter and replied enthusiastically while pointing for emphasis: "you ARE THAT GUY!". james turned to me and said "no, Cal. he's a GUIDE. he's a TOUR GUIDE." OH. i still think he was that guy. best character i've come across in a very long time.
- bonfire the first night at monkey's island hostel, sharing a little rum and skinny dipping under a full moon
- josh & i taking a somewhat treacherous swim out to an island made of volcanic rocks, seeing monkeys curiously poking their heads out of the trees (joking that both of us are blind and neither one had glasses on... which was sort of sad)
- waking up in the middle of the night and listening to the rain for an hour
- a day spent reading, playing 31, chess, checkers, and singing along to james playing the guitar- sharing pistachios and macadamia nuts with jacinto (the hostel owner) who'd never tried them before
- throwing rocks at 60' tall mango trees to get the ripe fruits to fall- young nica boys taking pity on the gringos and showing us proper form
- sophie the crazy belgian who has a not-so-sneakily taken picture of james in the buff
- chocolate ice cream shared in an empty market vendor stand
- glorious fritanga and the biggest vat of ensalada i have ever seen, people-watching in the park of grenada
- playing pool, yahtzee, and trivial pursuit with james while eavesdropping on josh playing monopoly with two 18 year old norweigan girls in our hostel- key cards and factoids learned: pope JPII wore white doc martens, the buffalo bills cheerleaders are called 'the buffalo jills', there are 15 people on a scottish jury, they don't speak egyptian in egypt, israel's not in europe (HM. think i need to work on my geography), and the kicker: about 10 years ago london tried to enforce slow and fast lanes on its sidewalks (i wonder are there speed limits to these lanes?)
- waking up early in our hostel (after enjoying a night's rest on couch cushions and being bit by a nasty spider) and enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning breeze before anyone else woke up
- finding out my high school choir gets to go to DC in june for an international children’s arts festival!!!!
- walk to the laguna apollo- being a bit sketched out about getting robbed and having a guy with a leather glove endowed with metal spikes try to convince us to take his "safer" road down to the lake. we may be gringos but we're not that stupid!
- day spent at the laguna relaxing, swimming, exploring underwater, reading out loud to each other, picnic-ing, and getting royally sunburned
- catching the last bus to managua by an absolute miracle
- sleeping in till 9 AM!!! going to james' favorite reading spot and devouring a david sedaris book, james knocking down starfruit out of the tree we sat under (just the fact that i was reading under a starfruit tree was pretty awesome in general i think) for a snack
- good friday service- my teary-eyed singing along to 'be not afraid'
- an excellent and very patient guitar lesson from james
- a fest of a dinner for the arrival of ad's friends from the states (who she hasn't seen for more than a year) beans, veggies, garlic bread (thanks josh!), and spaghetti
- james and josh finding, reading out loud, and performing songs they'd written in high school mostly about loves... my favorite being josh's "apple of my eyyyeeeee"
- giggling with margy till my belly hurt and i had tears running down my cheeks
- riding an expresso bus with reclining seats (i didn't even know those existed here!) not getting off at the right spot (though i've made the journey about 10 times now) and instead an hour later realizing i had no idea where i was- taking a random taxi to somoto (when i realized it we were somehow near a junction and somoto was only 10 minutes away!), feeling like a silly gringa
- getting to talk to my fam on the phone (and regs!)
- a day spent in easter celebration by writing letters and cooking a weeks worth of beans, listening to the rain trample across my rooftop
today i got back into the swing of things, though in my 5 classes i had a grand total of 10 students... but we finally had the internet so i got to respond to all sorts of emails and post pictures, chatted with jason and nikki (who i miss terribly), had quite a bit of cleaning time (the amount of dust here after a week is phenomenal!), gave a frustrating english class (i hate the books we have to use) to ONE person, loved my little ones- who held my hands and gave me hugs at the end of class, practiced the guitar, had a heck of a time with my tenors in the high school choir.
right as i was about to leave it started raining so i thought "i'll wait it out" because i wanted to bring my computer and guitar home. so i sat to practice the guitar a bit and watched the rain. the eye of the thunderstorm seemed to hover over the oratory for at least 45 minutes, pouring huge droplets and letting forth a FURY of thunder which (even when i anticipated it) made my heart leap. i finally decided (after a good hour of a relentless storm) to just leave my computer in my office, and that i'd better get home before it was completely dark. i went to get the key from juan carlos (one of my roommates) and in the 20 seconds i was outside i got absolutely soaked to the bone (i needed the house key because a missionary stayed at our house last week and left with my key- or so i thought).
i resigned myself to getting good and soaked and made my way toward home, leaping across small rivers which had formed in the road and hopping gleefully in puddles. a small figure came scurrying toward me buried under a broken umbrella- the only other person silly enough to be out in the dumping rain- she stopped, lifted her protective cover- and it was Anyelka- i exclaimed "what ARE you doing?!" and she answered "i came to look for you" so we walked, her arm around my waist and mine around her shoulder back to he house. along the way i lifted her over particularly large streams of water while we giggled and she pointed out a frog hopping across the street which made me wide-eyed and open-mouthed in delight. i had water running down my entire left half but a smile on my face. when we reached the house there was a light on and jubelki poked her head out the door. dona miriam was STILL THERE! (it was about 6:30 by this time) they had all been worried and waiting for me to come home. turns out dona miriam had my house key- the missionary had left it with her, and she couldn't bear the thought of leaving my house open, so she was waiting till i got home. i invited the girls to stay for tea and crackers, and we chatted for a bit- anyelka started to try to go home barefoot because her shoes were so awful and soaked so of course i gave her a pair of shoes to wear.
again i am humbled by the amount of thoughtful and genuine care i receive from people here, i am brought to my knees. three months blessed by lots of living, learning, and love- good health and good spirits, and the making of wonderful new friends. here's to many more months to come!
love and miss you all- joy and peace to you! cal
jueves, 29 de marzo de 2007
Jungle Death March Part II
Fourteen year-old Anyelka, my closest comrade here in the mountains, arrives on schedule at precisely 10:35 AM. She pays me a visit every Sunday after mass ends to deliver my week's batch of clean laundry. She wears a canary yellow polo shirt, dirty whitewashed jeans, and broken plastic flip-flop sandals reminiscent of the jellies I remember wearing in middle school. The intensely light colors of her outfit highlight her smooth cappuccino skin tone, and her cat-like obsidian eyes sparkle with teenage secrets. She fishes in her pocket to produce a solitary earring, which is presented to me along with a handmade wire and bead bracelet. My gifts for the morning, which I’ve learned to accept with sincere gratitude rather than attempt to refuse.
Last week Anyelka asked me with unabashed curiously why I only had one small grocery bag full of clothes per week for her mother to wash. I told her that I did not need all the clothes washed that I'd worn for the week, only the completely dust-ridden ones. She looked at me wonderingly and shrugged her shoulders with a slight smirk which I take to mean "oh that -- (insert adjective here)-- gringa!" The shoulder shrug with hands held up in a despairing question mark is a common expression for the locals in San Jose de Cusmapa, who marvel at their token gringa's foreign ways. I wonder how long it will take for Anyelka to give up on my un-cleanliness, for as Walt Whitman wrote, "the scent of these armpits, aroma finer than prayer" and I find that his sage advice applies directly to my clothing habits. I also wonder why, when we're facing a fairly serious water shortage here on our mountain-top, where the nearest "river" (read: foot-wide trickle) is located at least 4 kilometers below the city, that my not wanting to have more clothes washed on a weekly basis has become such a concern for Anyelka. I’m not used to a fourteen year-old pitying my "bedraggled vagabond" style. And by pitying I mean pitying. I truly believe that she has taken upon herself the impossible task of turning me into a presentable woman. If I really knew Spanish I'd explain to her that it's truly not worth her effort. Instead I smile widely; her enthusiasm for my hopeless habits is a lovely gesture of friendship.
Anyelka inquires if I'd be interested in meeting her Padrino (godfather) in the afternoon, an invitation that I simply cannot resist. I've just sat down at my computer to get some reading done for a project I'm starting here with women’s health education (something I'd effectively put off all weekend by hiking all over the place, taking pictures, sleeping on the spectacular down pillow Steph left me, making a glorious stir-fry for my roommates, and practicing my struggling guitar skills) so I ask her to come back around three in the afternoon to fetch me. After she waltzes out the door, fulfilled with a cup of tea and a mango (both of our favorites) I make a valiant attempt to get back to my reading.
Five minutes later I hear a shuffling of steps in our living room and recognize the notorious muttering of the three-toothed cackling homeless woman of Cusmapa. Her sun-baked grinning face greets me with hardy laughter and she croons a string of Spanish of which I understand less than one word . I've found that teeth are an important factor in whether or not I'm able to understand the language... at least a 70% increase in my understanding happens when a person has more than a handful of teeth. Her gnarled fingers generously pat me on the head like I'm a small, well-behaved child. I hand her a package of saltine crackers and lead her to the door, trying to explain that she can't just come in to our house without knocking... a particularly ridiculous statement as all doors in Cusmapa are always open to this ancient wandering soul. I feel sort of a kindred spirit with this semi-crazy crone, as we're regarded by community members with the same sentiment. We're intriguing and eccentric yet harmless apparitions- not of the same reality, clumsily stumbling along the outer boundaries of the community begging for a moment's inclusion. As I shoo her out the door I'm able to decipher a mumbled yet sincere "gracias" before turning back to my work.
Moments later I hear footsteps climbing our front steps and a knock, peek around the corner and OH NO there stands a very hopeful local Romeo (and by local Romeo I mean he lives 3 hours from Cusmapa by bus). I met him last weekend and had (what I thought was) a very terse conversation (read: I'm most definitely not interested in you) before assuring him that I had a very serious race-car-driver boyfriend back in the States. Yet, he saunters into my life again, Saved by the Bell era bleached jean jacket flung over his shoulder, waiting for an invite to sit down. I'm brisk with him to the point of rudeness. At this point but I’m really not in the mood to get hit on by a creepy guy who think's he's Webster's definition of saucy sexiness. He gets the hint after a few minutes, and literally turns on his heel to make a quick exit when Domingo, one of my roommates, returns from lunch and passes him in the doorway with a friendly handshake (read: "come on in, buddy!) then immediately disappears into his bedroom. Damnit Domingo. I continue to read about women's reproductive rights (ie: I'm most definitely not interested in talking to you!) and he finally asks "am I annoying you?" (um... are you kidding me?!). In trying to adhere with the local cultural practice of saving face of both people involved by lying to somebody's face I reply “of course not, I just need to work" and explain to him how important I think it is for women here to be able to have the right to legal abortion (at least when the mother's life is at risk- a right which was taken away by law about six months ago). I think this topic will turn him off infinitely. I’m dead wrong. This statement somehow turns into a half hour discussion on religion, at the pinnacle of which he generously gives me a copy of an Evangelical DVD (after I’d told him that I think Evangelical religions are absolutely frightening and assured him that I wanted nothing to do with that type of church). I politely and enthusiastically refuse his preaching peace pipe. His weak laughter in retaliation of my refusal only augments the awkwardness; he continues with unyielding romantic advances. At this point I answer with a ruthless silence. Finally he stands, clears his throat, and attempts a cheek-kiss, which I meet with a handshake. He tells me he hopes to see me soon. I say the only thing which seems appropriate in the moment, "adios". Sometimes “goodbye” is all there’s left to say...
I've entirely wasted two hours of my "working" time entertaining and attempting to thwart various visitors. The clock reads 1:50. I sigh... one hour of work before Anyelka's return. I'll give you ONE guess what happened next. Of course my dear little friend shows up an hour early (which is nearly unheard of in Nicaragua, most of the time people arrive to events or meetings between 20 minutes and two hours late) obviously excited for our little jaunt. What choice did I have but to close up shop? I completely surrender any hope of getting work done on this interrupted Sunday afternoon. We walk in silence in the mid-afternoon heat to say a quick hello to Blanca (Anyelka's 32 year-old mother) who stands in the doorway holding a wiggly two-year-old Luis (the baby of the family). Luis greets me with great gusto and pats my hand in response to my greetings. Blanca, always quick to smile, assures me that Anyelka's padrino's house is "circa" (very close) to Cusmapa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up una momento. My "Nicaraguan cultural knowledge" alarm goes off in high volume. I’ve heard these words before.. a "very close distance to walk" in La Concha this January turned into a 8 mile "Jungle Death March" (as Sky, my buddy from New York and I dubbed it in an exhausted attempt to find some sort of humor in the situation). The Jungle Death March ended with me falling three times and nearly crawling on hands and knees to the top of a mountain ridge in a sweaty collapsing mess. The crowning moment was when we finally stumbled upon a roadside pulperia (corner store) where a crinkled bespectacled woman in an apron sold us water which had been (in her words) "partially" frozen. I’ve never had a more joyous and devastating moment in the span of a coveted gulp of water. Sky and I had toasted, our water bottles clinking magnificently as only the promise of cold water after a dust-laden death march can feel, and tipped back our heads at the same moment, only yearning for a giant gulp of gloriousness. Instead I received a meager three drops of water. In all honesty I nearly cried in that evil moment. Instead, Sky and I immediately caught each others eyes and laughed hysterically for about five minutes, enough time for our COMPLETELY frozen water to thaw for a hearty gulp. After the Jungle Death March I decided to acknowledge that most Nicaraguans' sense of distance would be extremely different from my North American lazy-assed perspective.
In my state of alarm, I indicate to Anyelka that I thought her padrino lived IN Cusmapa, not SOMEWHERE CLOSE TO CUSMAPA (why else would i have signed up for this program?). My mind reels with the desperate knowledge that I’m already in for the long haul. Ticket booked, signed, sealed, delivered, no refunds, no change-of-date, no coupon for a free alcoholic beverage. I make an executive decision to return to my house to put on sunscreen and get a water bottle, change into more appropriate clothes for "a very close distance walk" and am struck like lightning with karma for my annoyed demeanor by a rock jumping under my foot which sends me flying across the cobblestone street in front of my house. I completely skin my knee before the journey even begins. This not a good omen; but it does lighten my spirits, giving the whole adventure a surreal air.
We set off down the river-bed of a road at about 2:45 PM and Anyelka assures me that we'll return by 5. I completely concur with her cousin Aleygda, (age 13) who's also accompanying us, when she exclaims "mentira!" (you're lying!) HA! We read right through your claim that your padrino only lives half-an-hour walk from Cusmapa! Jader (Anyelka's five-year-old brother who's had a veritable river of snot running down his face since the moment I met him) and Marvin (Aleygda's seven-year-old brother) skip ahead of us exclaiming and pointing out various bugs and trees for our viewing pleasure. My next clue that I'm embarking on another Jungle Death March comes after about 15 minutes, when the dried river bed we're hopping from side to side down suddenly veers off to the right, a foot-wide rocky path down the mountainside into the tangled forest of the unknown. This path just so happens to be the same one Domingo pointed out to me earlier in the morning as “dangerous”. Great. After a few tenuous first steps down the 60 degree incline, I get a bit self-assured with my mountain-goat like mountain scaling abilities and immediately am upended, skinning my entire forearm on a sharp rock. I let out a few choice explicatives, dust myself off, and glare at the menacing path which winds before me in a mocking display of unearthed tree roots, boulders, and pools of dust. At this point I absorb myself in conquering the path with all the sheer force my gringa-ness allows me, I concentrate fiercely with each step. You will not skin any other part of my body today, enough is enough. Anyelka fake-falls twice to make me feel better. Again, a true friend, allowing me to not look so ridiculously silly in my constant follies. In her motherly ways, she walks behind me watching my every movement, exclaiming and clucking when I make the slightest error "cuidado!" (be careful!). She also makes a point of making me look up from my careful steps every five seconds to regard a pine tree, which I think I’ve seen my fare share of growing up in Montana.
After about a half-hour of clambering down this precarious path to the forest floor, we hit solid flat ground. I make no attempt to hide my joy for the upcoming leg of our adventure- which looks remarkably tranquil compared to the last hair-raising descent. The right of our path is lined with a variety of trees- most look like what I’d imagine olive trees to be- scraggly and grey-barked, branches reaching toward the sky at unthinkable angles, sinew broken by time and the constant gale of mountain wind. To the left, a sea of mountain ranges. I’ve heard varieties of these facts but apparently the first mountain range is in Nicaragua, the second misty range is in Honduras, then the flat expanse of the Pacific Ocean can be seen in the distance. I learn today that the volcano I’d thought was in Honduras is in fact Volcan Momotombo, near the foot of which lies the capital city of Managua. I also now know that the third range of mountains (which can only be seen on a completely clear-skied day like today) are in El Salvador. I’m no geographer, but I realize that my home state, Montana, is probably bigger than all three of these countries combined. Anyelka stops to pick up a dead bug from the ground, which strikes me as a cross between a house-fly, a dragon-fly, and a grasshopper- and looks positively too large for my comfort. "chinchilla" she tells me, as she points to the trees. they must be the culprits of the constant cacophonous symphony of monotone ringing rising from the forests here, a vibrato which at points during the next hour or so of walking runs through my nerves with an electric current of shiver-inducing sound.
We pass a wild-haired woman and her little one sitting in the shadows of a naked tree waiting for something, anything, to happen. Anyelka tells me they're selling some type of fruit from a red sandbox bucket. I brought two pesos with me for the adventure, which seems to be enough for the sprightly woman to finger through the fruit to pick out the best ones for each of the five of us. I end up with a half-chewed on (by some small animal I'm assuming) piece which looks like a cross between an apple, a nectarine, a plum, and a pomegranate with a waxy yellowish-red skin and an entirely fake looking stem (right out of a Christmas decor catalog). At first bite I pucker with the bitterness, however my thirst overpowers the flavor and I soon find myself appraising it as a lovely specimen of the fruity kind. I'm thirsty at this point because the first time I'd produced my 16-ounce water bottle and taken a swig I'd been swarmed by the kids and was left with a nice mouthful of backwash for whatever thirst-inducing trails that certainly lay ahead. Note to self: next time bring a gallon of water (and a donkey, and a ankle wrap).
We're suddenly on the valley floor and stumble upon what must be a new school surrounded by barbed wire fence, plopped in literally the most rural place I've ever seen. I’m awestruck, and even more so when Anyelka informs me that if you follow the road the school's situated on you'll be in Honduras in 4 KM. What that really means, I have no idea. Just the thought of walking to Honduras in itself is marvelous. We walk across the "road" (which around these parts is one of the nicest, flattest, most navigable roads I've seen), and the kids assure me that from here it's "very close". We round a corner to find a woman relieving herself in the middle of the path about 40 yards ahead. The kids whisper and giggle to themselves and tell me she's crazy. She pulls up her turquoise skirt and picks up the burden of her water bucket, ducking under a barbed wire fence all in one stealthy and sure movement. As we pass, she eyeballs me suspiciously and returns an "adios". Aleygda tells me that a few months ago she killed both of her parents, and that's why they call her crazy. I gulp. Well, now not only am I on a Death March but I'm literally on a Death March in the middle of absolute nowhere and we have a known murderer who I’ve just sauntered past and gregariously greeted. Why am I not surprised?
Anyelka informs me that this walk seems long to me because I've never been here before. I scoff in my mind. No shit Sherlock, but we have been hiking now for nearly two hours. Thirty minutes later we finally step through a creaking wooden gate on to the infamous Padrino's property. I stop dead in my tracks to marvel at a 20 foot tall boulder, an artifact of ancient times, upon which a grove of trees have planted themselves, their leaves whispering in the soft late-afternoon sunshine. My companions, who by now have become accustomed to my substantial and un-ceasing obsession with trees, wait patiently while I snap off a few photos. The path winds round the other side of the boulder, where a house is nestled into the hillside. Anyelka calms her Padrino's dog who has probably never seen a white person before and by the sound of his grumbling growl I assume has white-woman flesh on the brain. I consider my unclothed calves, which to this malnourished pup must look like a drumstick mirage of mythic proportions and allow for a few queasy moments to pass before he's calmed down. I'm hospitably asked to enter and to sit in one of two chairs which decorate the one-room house. From the ceiling hang bunches of dried corn and green plantains. The corner houses a clay oven upon which simmers a pot of coffee. I'm graciously offered "cafecita" (a cup of coffee). I think to myself how strange a lot of social situations would be here if I didn't drink coffee, it's entirely a national pastime. Consuming your host's homebrew here is an essential part a part of being a guest.
I have a brief conversation with said-Padrino, a middle-aged man going on 80, with a thin graying moustache and a body frame of a man who's spent his life hard-laboring in the fields, who now feels the deep pressure of time and age. His left eye clouded with cataracts, and hair peppered with hints of black peering boldly through silver, he asks me if I know Mateo (one of the American volunteers who lived here about 5 years ago) and I tell him no, then ask him how far it is to Honduras. He tells me 15 kilometers. A bit different than Anyelka's 4 kilometers- but at least I’m getting a mean of 9.5 which is definitely walkable. Chickens wander in and out of the dirt-floored room, and I watch the kids hunkered down by the door sharing a cup of coffee, listless in these few moments of non-movement.
Anyelka gives up on the prospect of a deep long-winded conversation between her Padrino and I, and we descend out the back door down the hillside to a little quebrata (water pump which serves as bathing area and laundry facility) where three girls in their early-teens vigorously scrub today's laundry, absolutely soaked to the bone. The kids find it strange that I'm not compelled to rinse my feet off. I’m all too aware that we're soon to be on our return voyage, so I don't really see the necessity of washing them. Again I'm met with a notorious "hopeless gringa" shoulder shrug and we clamber back up the hillside to the house. We're given a bunch of bananas for the walk back, I’m squawked at by a frightened baby (this also happens to me often here, as to them my thick-rimmed glasses and facial piercings probably look absolutely and horrifyingly alien), and we say our goodbyes. I'm told to return soon, which I promise to do. Now that I know how close they live to Cusmapa, how could I not visit more often?!
We take a different path back. Another pattern I'm noticing about the way things work around here is that when you walk somewhere you never take the same path to return. Always walking in circles... Twenty minutes into our walk I find myself ducking under a barbed wire fence and the kids are looking at each other warily. I know this kid look, I’m not that old yet. In universal kid language it means "we're most definitely not supposed to be here right now but let's not tell the old lady cause then if we get caught we can just blame it on her". We tiptoe past what appear to be bunkhouses and are met with the yipping of yet another underfed canine admiring my white chops. We quickly duck out of sight behind a latrine and are suddenly in the front yard of Tia's (Auntie's) house. Five kids sit on a long bench out front, sharing a small elementary calculator and one notebook, arguing about the solution to a math problem. They snicker at my plaid boy-shorts as I lumber in front of their huddle. I use the word lumber as I've been making a lot of "fat gringa" jokes lately mainly because, well, my roommate informs me on a constant basis that I'm fat. He never says it like it's a bad thing, just like it's an indisputable truth. I don't know which of these meanings is worse, but they're equally detrimental to a gal like me who already towers above 99% of the women here by at least a foot (take into consideration that I'm only 5'6").
Present circumstances being that I'm wearing a scarf around my head and sporting baggy boy-shorts, sweating like a bandit, I suppose if I saw me right now I'd be doing a lot of snickering too. I'm invited in to a 8 X 8 foot room for a brief moment, till Tia's baby has one look at me and starts howling it's little head off. I make a beeline for the exit. By beeline I mean I take a step backwards and go back outside, and take a seat on the bench near the group of snickerers. An old man in a loose-fitting forest-ranger uniform joins me and we sit in deep silence. I study his time-worn wrinkles as he stares off into the distance. He seems nearly blind but moves his gaze toward a group of chiming clattering children down the road and offers a wide-mouthed non-toothed grin. We don't exchange any words, but I love this man. I suppose it's good that we didn't try to talk considering my five-toothed rule, which he certainly didn't pass. I smile warmly watching him tottle off down the road towards the children, seeking one of their hands to lead the way. I don't know where he goes, but I wish him blessings and a peaceful voyage.
Anyelka's done her best to calm Tia's baby, but to no avail, so we leave with a "mucho gusto" (nice to meet you) and take a much less strenuous, much longer road back up to Cusmapa. About half-way up the mountain she points out our first route to me, a sinister serpent weaving across the mountainside. I look down at my skinned forearm- a spectacular souvenir from the afternoon. At this point romantic dusk lighting takes over the world and I’m struck by how much this golden lighting affects my mood and perception of events. I stop every 200 yards to take pictures of the setting sun. As we finally reach the outskirts of Cusmapa I am thrilled to see smoke rising from houses, battered clothes hanging from rusted barbed wire fences, and barefooted children running willy-nilly down dirt pathways; marking a hodgepodge of images which I now distinctly recognize as "home". All major injuries averted for the day, of which I'm convinced that the dogs being at eye level with my calves were the most life threatening, I take a deep breath of the setting sun, wish my little friends a good evening, and saunter to my house for a much deserved, sure to be completely un-frozen, gulp of water.
Last week Anyelka asked me with unabashed curiously why I only had one small grocery bag full of clothes per week for her mother to wash. I told her that I did not need all the clothes washed that I'd worn for the week, only the completely dust-ridden ones. She looked at me wonderingly and shrugged her shoulders with a slight smirk which I take to mean "oh that -- (insert adjective here)-- gringa!" The shoulder shrug with hands held up in a despairing question mark is a common expression for the locals in San Jose de Cusmapa, who marvel at their token gringa's foreign ways. I wonder how long it will take for Anyelka to give up on my un-cleanliness, for as Walt Whitman wrote, "the scent of these armpits, aroma finer than prayer" and I find that his sage advice applies directly to my clothing habits. I also wonder why, when we're facing a fairly serious water shortage here on our mountain-top, where the nearest "river" (read: foot-wide trickle) is located at least 4 kilometers below the city, that my not wanting to have more clothes washed on a weekly basis has become such a concern for Anyelka. I’m not used to a fourteen year-old pitying my "bedraggled vagabond" style. And by pitying I mean pitying. I truly believe that she has taken upon herself the impossible task of turning me into a presentable woman. If I really knew Spanish I'd explain to her that it's truly not worth her effort. Instead I smile widely; her enthusiasm for my hopeless habits is a lovely gesture of friendship.
Anyelka inquires if I'd be interested in meeting her Padrino (godfather) in the afternoon, an invitation that I simply cannot resist. I've just sat down at my computer to get some reading done for a project I'm starting here with women’s health education (something I'd effectively put off all weekend by hiking all over the place, taking pictures, sleeping on the spectacular down pillow Steph left me, making a glorious stir-fry for my roommates, and practicing my struggling guitar skills) so I ask her to come back around three in the afternoon to fetch me. After she waltzes out the door, fulfilled with a cup of tea and a mango (both of our favorites) I make a valiant attempt to get back to my reading.
Five minutes later I hear a shuffling of steps in our living room and recognize the notorious muttering of the three-toothed cackling homeless woman of Cusmapa. Her sun-baked grinning face greets me with hardy laughter and she croons a string of Spanish of which I understand less than one word . I've found that teeth are an important factor in whether or not I'm able to understand the language... at least a 70% increase in my understanding happens when a person has more than a handful of teeth. Her gnarled fingers generously pat me on the head like I'm a small, well-behaved child. I hand her a package of saltine crackers and lead her to the door, trying to explain that she can't just come in to our house without knocking... a particularly ridiculous statement as all doors in Cusmapa are always open to this ancient wandering soul. I feel sort of a kindred spirit with this semi-crazy crone, as we're regarded by community members with the same sentiment. We're intriguing and eccentric yet harmless apparitions- not of the same reality, clumsily stumbling along the outer boundaries of the community begging for a moment's inclusion. As I shoo her out the door I'm able to decipher a mumbled yet sincere "gracias" before turning back to my work.
Moments later I hear footsteps climbing our front steps and a knock, peek around the corner and OH NO there stands a very hopeful local Romeo (and by local Romeo I mean he lives 3 hours from Cusmapa by bus). I met him last weekend and had (what I thought was) a very terse conversation (read: I'm most definitely not interested in you) before assuring him that I had a very serious race-car-driver boyfriend back in the States. Yet, he saunters into my life again, Saved by the Bell era bleached jean jacket flung over his shoulder, waiting for an invite to sit down. I'm brisk with him to the point of rudeness. At this point but I’m really not in the mood to get hit on by a creepy guy who think's he's Webster's definition of saucy sexiness. He gets the hint after a few minutes, and literally turns on his heel to make a quick exit when Domingo, one of my roommates, returns from lunch and passes him in the doorway with a friendly handshake (read: "come on in, buddy!) then immediately disappears into his bedroom. Damnit Domingo. I continue to read about women's reproductive rights (ie: I'm most definitely not interested in talking to you!) and he finally asks "am I annoying you?" (um... are you kidding me?!). In trying to adhere with the local cultural practice of saving face of both people involved by lying to somebody's face I reply “of course not, I just need to work" and explain to him how important I think it is for women here to be able to have the right to legal abortion (at least when the mother's life is at risk- a right which was taken away by law about six months ago). I think this topic will turn him off infinitely. I’m dead wrong. This statement somehow turns into a half hour discussion on religion, at the pinnacle of which he generously gives me a copy of an Evangelical DVD (after I’d told him that I think Evangelical religions are absolutely frightening and assured him that I wanted nothing to do with that type of church). I politely and enthusiastically refuse his preaching peace pipe. His weak laughter in retaliation of my refusal only augments the awkwardness; he continues with unyielding romantic advances. At this point I answer with a ruthless silence. Finally he stands, clears his throat, and attempts a cheek-kiss, which I meet with a handshake. He tells me he hopes to see me soon. I say the only thing which seems appropriate in the moment, "adios". Sometimes “goodbye” is all there’s left to say...
I've entirely wasted two hours of my "working" time entertaining and attempting to thwart various visitors. The clock reads 1:50. I sigh... one hour of work before Anyelka's return. I'll give you ONE guess what happened next. Of course my dear little friend shows up an hour early (which is nearly unheard of in Nicaragua, most of the time people arrive to events or meetings between 20 minutes and two hours late) obviously excited for our little jaunt. What choice did I have but to close up shop? I completely surrender any hope of getting work done on this interrupted Sunday afternoon. We walk in silence in the mid-afternoon heat to say a quick hello to Blanca (Anyelka's 32 year-old mother) who stands in the doorway holding a wiggly two-year-old Luis (the baby of the family). Luis greets me with great gusto and pats my hand in response to my greetings. Blanca, always quick to smile, assures me that Anyelka's padrino's house is "circa" (very close) to Cusmapa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up una momento. My "Nicaraguan cultural knowledge" alarm goes off in high volume. I’ve heard these words before.. a "very close distance to walk" in La Concha this January turned into a 8 mile "Jungle Death March" (as Sky, my buddy from New York and I dubbed it in an exhausted attempt to find some sort of humor in the situation). The Jungle Death March ended with me falling three times and nearly crawling on hands and knees to the top of a mountain ridge in a sweaty collapsing mess. The crowning moment was when we finally stumbled upon a roadside pulperia (corner store) where a crinkled bespectacled woman in an apron sold us water which had been (in her words) "partially" frozen. I’ve never had a more joyous and devastating moment in the span of a coveted gulp of water. Sky and I had toasted, our water bottles clinking magnificently as only the promise of cold water after a dust-laden death march can feel, and tipped back our heads at the same moment, only yearning for a giant gulp of gloriousness. Instead I received a meager three drops of water. In all honesty I nearly cried in that evil moment. Instead, Sky and I immediately caught each others eyes and laughed hysterically for about five minutes, enough time for our COMPLETELY frozen water to thaw for a hearty gulp. After the Jungle Death March I decided to acknowledge that most Nicaraguans' sense of distance would be extremely different from my North American lazy-assed perspective.
In my state of alarm, I indicate to Anyelka that I thought her padrino lived IN Cusmapa, not SOMEWHERE CLOSE TO CUSMAPA (why else would i have signed up for this program?). My mind reels with the desperate knowledge that I’m already in for the long haul. Ticket booked, signed, sealed, delivered, no refunds, no change-of-date, no coupon for a free alcoholic beverage. I make an executive decision to return to my house to put on sunscreen and get a water bottle, change into more appropriate clothes for "a very close distance walk" and am struck like lightning with karma for my annoyed demeanor by a rock jumping under my foot which sends me flying across the cobblestone street in front of my house. I completely skin my knee before the journey even begins. This not a good omen; but it does lighten my spirits, giving the whole adventure a surreal air.
We set off down the river-bed of a road at about 2:45 PM and Anyelka assures me that we'll return by 5. I completely concur with her cousin Aleygda, (age 13) who's also accompanying us, when she exclaims "mentira!" (you're lying!) HA! We read right through your claim that your padrino only lives half-an-hour walk from Cusmapa! Jader (Anyelka's five-year-old brother who's had a veritable river of snot running down his face since the moment I met him) and Marvin (Aleygda's seven-year-old brother) skip ahead of us exclaiming and pointing out various bugs and trees for our viewing pleasure. My next clue that I'm embarking on another Jungle Death March comes after about 15 minutes, when the dried river bed we're hopping from side to side down suddenly veers off to the right, a foot-wide rocky path down the mountainside into the tangled forest of the unknown. This path just so happens to be the same one Domingo pointed out to me earlier in the morning as “dangerous”. Great. After a few tenuous first steps down the 60 degree incline, I get a bit self-assured with my mountain-goat like mountain scaling abilities and immediately am upended, skinning my entire forearm on a sharp rock. I let out a few choice explicatives, dust myself off, and glare at the menacing path which winds before me in a mocking display of unearthed tree roots, boulders, and pools of dust. At this point I absorb myself in conquering the path with all the sheer force my gringa-ness allows me, I concentrate fiercely with each step. You will not skin any other part of my body today, enough is enough. Anyelka fake-falls twice to make me feel better. Again, a true friend, allowing me to not look so ridiculously silly in my constant follies. In her motherly ways, she walks behind me watching my every movement, exclaiming and clucking when I make the slightest error "cuidado!" (be careful!). She also makes a point of making me look up from my careful steps every five seconds to regard a pine tree, which I think I’ve seen my fare share of growing up in Montana.
After about a half-hour of clambering down this precarious path to the forest floor, we hit solid flat ground. I make no attempt to hide my joy for the upcoming leg of our adventure- which looks remarkably tranquil compared to the last hair-raising descent. The right of our path is lined with a variety of trees- most look like what I’d imagine olive trees to be- scraggly and grey-barked, branches reaching toward the sky at unthinkable angles, sinew broken by time and the constant gale of mountain wind. To the left, a sea of mountain ranges. I’ve heard varieties of these facts but apparently the first mountain range is in Nicaragua, the second misty range is in Honduras, then the flat expanse of the Pacific Ocean can be seen in the distance. I learn today that the volcano I’d thought was in Honduras is in fact Volcan Momotombo, near the foot of which lies the capital city of Managua. I also now know that the third range of mountains (which can only be seen on a completely clear-skied day like today) are in El Salvador. I’m no geographer, but I realize that my home state, Montana, is probably bigger than all three of these countries combined. Anyelka stops to pick up a dead bug from the ground, which strikes me as a cross between a house-fly, a dragon-fly, and a grasshopper- and looks positively too large for my comfort. "chinchilla" she tells me, as she points to the trees. they must be the culprits of the constant cacophonous symphony of monotone ringing rising from the forests here, a vibrato which at points during the next hour or so of walking runs through my nerves with an electric current of shiver-inducing sound.
We pass a wild-haired woman and her little one sitting in the shadows of a naked tree waiting for something, anything, to happen. Anyelka tells me they're selling some type of fruit from a red sandbox bucket. I brought two pesos with me for the adventure, which seems to be enough for the sprightly woman to finger through the fruit to pick out the best ones for each of the five of us. I end up with a half-chewed on (by some small animal I'm assuming) piece which looks like a cross between an apple, a nectarine, a plum, and a pomegranate with a waxy yellowish-red skin and an entirely fake looking stem (right out of a Christmas decor catalog). At first bite I pucker with the bitterness, however my thirst overpowers the flavor and I soon find myself appraising it as a lovely specimen of the fruity kind. I'm thirsty at this point because the first time I'd produced my 16-ounce water bottle and taken a swig I'd been swarmed by the kids and was left with a nice mouthful of backwash for whatever thirst-inducing trails that certainly lay ahead. Note to self: next time bring a gallon of water (and a donkey, and a ankle wrap).
We're suddenly on the valley floor and stumble upon what must be a new school surrounded by barbed wire fence, plopped in literally the most rural place I've ever seen. I’m awestruck, and even more so when Anyelka informs me that if you follow the road the school's situated on you'll be in Honduras in 4 KM. What that really means, I have no idea. Just the thought of walking to Honduras in itself is marvelous. We walk across the "road" (which around these parts is one of the nicest, flattest, most navigable roads I've seen), and the kids assure me that from here it's "very close". We round a corner to find a woman relieving herself in the middle of the path about 40 yards ahead. The kids whisper and giggle to themselves and tell me she's crazy. She pulls up her turquoise skirt and picks up the burden of her water bucket, ducking under a barbed wire fence all in one stealthy and sure movement. As we pass, she eyeballs me suspiciously and returns an "adios". Aleygda tells me that a few months ago she killed both of her parents, and that's why they call her crazy. I gulp. Well, now not only am I on a Death March but I'm literally on a Death March in the middle of absolute nowhere and we have a known murderer who I’ve just sauntered past and gregariously greeted. Why am I not surprised?
Anyelka informs me that this walk seems long to me because I've never been here before. I scoff in my mind. No shit Sherlock, but we have been hiking now for nearly two hours. Thirty minutes later we finally step through a creaking wooden gate on to the infamous Padrino's property. I stop dead in my tracks to marvel at a 20 foot tall boulder, an artifact of ancient times, upon which a grove of trees have planted themselves, their leaves whispering in the soft late-afternoon sunshine. My companions, who by now have become accustomed to my substantial and un-ceasing obsession with trees, wait patiently while I snap off a few photos. The path winds round the other side of the boulder, where a house is nestled into the hillside. Anyelka calms her Padrino's dog who has probably never seen a white person before and by the sound of his grumbling growl I assume has white-woman flesh on the brain. I consider my unclothed calves, which to this malnourished pup must look like a drumstick mirage of mythic proportions and allow for a few queasy moments to pass before he's calmed down. I'm hospitably asked to enter and to sit in one of two chairs which decorate the one-room house. From the ceiling hang bunches of dried corn and green plantains. The corner houses a clay oven upon which simmers a pot of coffee. I'm graciously offered "cafecita" (a cup of coffee). I think to myself how strange a lot of social situations would be here if I didn't drink coffee, it's entirely a national pastime. Consuming your host's homebrew here is an essential part a part of being a guest.
I have a brief conversation with said-Padrino, a middle-aged man going on 80, with a thin graying moustache and a body frame of a man who's spent his life hard-laboring in the fields, who now feels the deep pressure of time and age. His left eye clouded with cataracts, and hair peppered with hints of black peering boldly through silver, he asks me if I know Mateo (one of the American volunteers who lived here about 5 years ago) and I tell him no, then ask him how far it is to Honduras. He tells me 15 kilometers. A bit different than Anyelka's 4 kilometers- but at least I’m getting a mean of 9.5 which is definitely walkable. Chickens wander in and out of the dirt-floored room, and I watch the kids hunkered down by the door sharing a cup of coffee, listless in these few moments of non-movement.
Anyelka gives up on the prospect of a deep long-winded conversation between her Padrino and I, and we descend out the back door down the hillside to a little quebrata (water pump which serves as bathing area and laundry facility) where three girls in their early-teens vigorously scrub today's laundry, absolutely soaked to the bone. The kids find it strange that I'm not compelled to rinse my feet off. I’m all too aware that we're soon to be on our return voyage, so I don't really see the necessity of washing them. Again I'm met with a notorious "hopeless gringa" shoulder shrug and we clamber back up the hillside to the house. We're given a bunch of bananas for the walk back, I’m squawked at by a frightened baby (this also happens to me often here, as to them my thick-rimmed glasses and facial piercings probably look absolutely and horrifyingly alien), and we say our goodbyes. I'm told to return soon, which I promise to do. Now that I know how close they live to Cusmapa, how could I not visit more often?!
We take a different path back. Another pattern I'm noticing about the way things work around here is that when you walk somewhere you never take the same path to return. Always walking in circles... Twenty minutes into our walk I find myself ducking under a barbed wire fence and the kids are looking at each other warily. I know this kid look, I’m not that old yet. In universal kid language it means "we're most definitely not supposed to be here right now but let's not tell the old lady cause then if we get caught we can just blame it on her". We tiptoe past what appear to be bunkhouses and are met with the yipping of yet another underfed canine admiring my white chops. We quickly duck out of sight behind a latrine and are suddenly in the front yard of Tia's (Auntie's) house. Five kids sit on a long bench out front, sharing a small elementary calculator and one notebook, arguing about the solution to a math problem. They snicker at my plaid boy-shorts as I lumber in front of their huddle. I use the word lumber as I've been making a lot of "fat gringa" jokes lately mainly because, well, my roommate informs me on a constant basis that I'm fat. He never says it like it's a bad thing, just like it's an indisputable truth. I don't know which of these meanings is worse, but they're equally detrimental to a gal like me who already towers above 99% of the women here by at least a foot (take into consideration that I'm only 5'6").
Present circumstances being that I'm wearing a scarf around my head and sporting baggy boy-shorts, sweating like a bandit, I suppose if I saw me right now I'd be doing a lot of snickering too. I'm invited in to a 8 X 8 foot room for a brief moment, till Tia's baby has one look at me and starts howling it's little head off. I make a beeline for the exit. By beeline I mean I take a step backwards and go back outside, and take a seat on the bench near the group of snickerers. An old man in a loose-fitting forest-ranger uniform joins me and we sit in deep silence. I study his time-worn wrinkles as he stares off into the distance. He seems nearly blind but moves his gaze toward a group of chiming clattering children down the road and offers a wide-mouthed non-toothed grin. We don't exchange any words, but I love this man. I suppose it's good that we didn't try to talk considering my five-toothed rule, which he certainly didn't pass. I smile warmly watching him tottle off down the road towards the children, seeking one of their hands to lead the way. I don't know where he goes, but I wish him blessings and a peaceful voyage.
Anyelka's done her best to calm Tia's baby, but to no avail, so we leave with a "mucho gusto" (nice to meet you) and take a much less strenuous, much longer road back up to Cusmapa. About half-way up the mountain she points out our first route to me, a sinister serpent weaving across the mountainside. I look down at my skinned forearm- a spectacular souvenir from the afternoon. At this point romantic dusk lighting takes over the world and I’m struck by how much this golden lighting affects my mood and perception of events. I stop every 200 yards to take pictures of the setting sun. As we finally reach the outskirts of Cusmapa I am thrilled to see smoke rising from houses, battered clothes hanging from rusted barbed wire fences, and barefooted children running willy-nilly down dirt pathways; marking a hodgepodge of images which I now distinctly recognize as "home". All major injuries averted for the day, of which I'm convinced that the dogs being at eye level with my calves were the most life threatening, I take a deep breath of the setting sun, wish my little friends a good evening, and saunter to my house for a much deserved, sure to be completely un-frozen, gulp of water.
miércoles, 14 de marzo de 2007
two months!
buenos dias! it's been a bit since i've written on here about my life- but i've been writing LOTS of letters so if anyone's interested in being a penpal i'd like that MUCH more than this silly internet business. just email me and i'll send you my address. hope this update finds each of you happy, healthy, living fully, and spreading the ripples of hope, love, and empathy that we so desperately need in our world.
i'm having a bit of a reality check these past couple of days- spending time with a group of 20 or so high school students from the states (private boarding school in boston)... nothing like being around these kids to make me realize how far i've come and why i'm here rather than back in the US! actually i think many of them are here for the right reasons- to learn about the culture, to help (they're working on breaking ground for construction of our new classroom building- definate HARD labor), and to actually interact with people beyond a surface level. however, i'm also experiencing lots of frustrations with them such as their tendency to 1) complain about everything, 2) this morning whining about getting up at 7 because they're "on spring break" (HONESTLY?! are you here to sip virgin pina coladas and frolic on the beach or are you here to HELP?), 3) the usual high school bullshit (i know i was like this too), ie: bringing prom dress magazines to a place like nicaragua, and 4) their relative unawareness of why they're here in general (i asked one girl and she responded "because i convinced my parents to buy me this trip instead of a lettermans jacket and a class ring"... well YEAH it's awesome she's here but i didn't ask her HOW she bought her plane ticket... i was sort of hoping for something deeper than that). maybe i'm placing too many expectations on them, or being hasty to judge, but i just guess above all else it's hard to be around them because they remind me of what i left back in the states- that being a complete unawareness of how poverty truly exists in the rest of the world... remind me of how far removed i am yet how close i am also- as it hasn't been long that i've been aware of these realities myself. even being here they stay in this lovely house in cusmapa with running water, great food, comfortable beds- and i wonder if some of them will go home STILL totally unaware of the actual type of poverty which exists here- dirt floors, chicken coops in the kitchen, only tortillas to eat, no electricity or running water (or even SAFE water available), malnutrition, kids that walk to school more than an hour each way every day, the amount of mothers completely raising families without any help... i just want to shake them and make them see what i see- but know i can't do that. also they haven't been having any sort of discussions at night about what they've been experiencing here which is strange to me. i'd think if i were a teacher and chaperoning this trip i'd make it a point to have multiple discussions with my students DURING the trip about what they were seeing, experiencing, learning... and WHY things are the way they are here. maybe that's just me...
another part of the frustration equation is i've been writing back and forth with my cousin julie for the past few months about all sorts of things- but one of these things being the inhumane conditions in which most of the employed people of nicaragua endure on a daily basis. my friend karlita (she's from nicaragua, my boss' secretary in managua- a 27 year old SINGLE woman with a great job, extremely intelligent, doesn't put up with any of the bullshit guys try to pull around here, and is just basically wonderful) and i were talking about her trip to the US a few years ago and she was trying to buy some "american clothes" which meant she went to buy a shirt at walmart (made in taiwan), bought a tommy hilf shirt (made in singapore) and went to buy some nike shoes (made in china... or something to that extent) and was absolutely baffled that she couldn't find anything to buy that was actually made in the US. i guess i never really thought of the fact that there arent really ANY factories in the US (beyond stuff like ford and dodge... some food factories...) but as far as actual production of the goods we take for granted, buy cheaply, and trash without a second thought... we don't have any type of production of those things in the states. we never have to SEE the sweatshops, the factories (which karlita was telling me about) in nicaragua that employ people for about 12 hours per day who get a half hour lunch, can not go to the bathroom, sometimes get beaten, and make less than 25 cents per hour. the government here has all these contracts with chinese businessmen who build factories, employ thousands of people at these rates in horrific conditions- then the government can brag that employement rates are up. the thing is, who in america actually WANTS to know why their walmart tshirt is so ridiculously cheap? i know until the last couple of years, i haven't had any kind of awareness... which is awful (not the awareness itself, but the lack thereof).
julie and i were also talking about being in a third world country and how realizations about your relative safety can be a bit unnerving (although i know her experience has been a bit more drastic than mine- as i don't have to worry too much about crime where i'm living now, only in the bigger cities). if you allow yourself to be truly honest about what would happen to you if something awful were to happen (crime or health-wise) you begin to realize how truly alone you are. even stuff with sickness- steph (the other volunteer) and i were in managua to get her some tests (her stomach's been bad pretty much the whole two months we've been here) and went to a nicaraguan doctor and she just kept saying "well if he doesn't figure it out i'll just call the embassy and they'll know what to do" UM. what? i'm sorry but i really think the US embassy in nicaragua probably has more important things to deal with than a volunteer's tummy bug. i think a lot of americans just really have this false sense of security even in the most remote of places that if something bad happens they'll be able to figure it out, things will get fixed because they're american. steph's comment cracked me up, like we could have just called the embassy and they would have sent over a limo to take us to their state of the art hospital (which they do have one of those i believe) free of charge where i'd have been offered steak and macaroni and cheese and jello salad in the waiting room and they'd fly in the best doctor available in the US for a quick visit... no questions asked. HA. instead we ended up in a private hospital that had just lost it's electricity for the afternoon (minus the emergency room and ICU) and i felt, honestly, that if i had to be in a hospital there i'd probably be OK but i really wouldn't be certain. it was a bit sketchy to say the least. i can't even imagine what a public hospital is like- i'm planning on visiting one before i leave here, just to get some sort of persepctive. the thing is, we have to PAY an arm and a leg in the US for our healthcare but at least we have the OPTION of receiving high quality care in sterile environments... and are guaranteed electricity at our hospitals.
things here are going well for me- teaching-wise i've been very busy. we have a concert tonight for the high school group, then the 22nd is a big celebration for Padre Fabretto (who basically founded the town of cusmapa) so we're getting all ready for that concert also. english classes are going well so far- though attendence is always sketchy at best and there's no chain of command so student's aren't held accountable for missing class at all. THAT will prove to be extremely frustrating over time as i'm expected to return to step one when a student's there who doesn't understand the material. the awful thing is there's many students who really want to be there, and love learning english- but there's others who i can tell think it's complete bullshit. a question, then: why am i teaching english to kids who don't want to learn english in one of the most rural places in this country? shouldn't i be teaching the kids who WANT to learn it rather than spending all my efforts on those that don't care to? guess that's part of the challenge of teaching, making those who don't deem a subject to be relevant understand that EVERY subject's important in some form. still, doesn't make it any easier. my friend james (the one doing JVI) told me that he's feeling the same way, so he's been indulging himself in letting his high school class use 10 minutes of classtime every day to discuss a controversial subject (first in limited english) but then in spanish... he just picks things, for example: the fact that nicaragua recently completely banned abortions (even if the mother WILL die if the baby isn't aborted) and lets the kids debate about them in class. he refuses to give his point of view, just stays there to keep things civil and respectful. NOW that sounds like my kind of class! i think what's hard is that i want to teach a class where there's deep conversation, debates, and students are empowered to give their opinions on issues that matter (rather than teaching about the times of day and colors). again, another reason why i'm excited my spanish seems to be improving... i'll be able to talk to my students more and more about what they believe, and what parts of their lives they see needing to change. THEN i can start being able to work on these changes from the ground up, with the students :) something to look forward too, though i'm thoroughly enjoying this time of getting to know them as well. as always enjoying the ride rather than looking to the finish line. i had the biggest compliment i've recieved yet on my spanish- after talking to one of my fellow fabretto employees who's working on a rural secondary education outreach project for a while he just looked at me and said "you talk like a nicaraguan." QUE MARAVILLOSO! i was a bit pleased at myself after that little comment- which served as karma for me to speak crappy spanish the rest of the weekend.
i had one of the most random experiences i've had down here yet this past weekend- i went with steph down to managua so she could get some tests done and we stayed in a hotel there for a few nights. the first night we were sitting down to dinner and the other couple in the restaurant struck up a conversation with us asking if we knew how much it should cost them to get to the airport. i told them we lived in nicaragua, we had the name of a taxi driver we could give them and the guy asked me where we worked/lived, then looked at me and said "wait, what's your name?" turns out he and i had been writing back and forth online because i was giving them some tips for their vacation here- and we just happened to be staying in the same hotel in managua the last night of their trip. it was SO bizarre. we ended up hanging out with them for a couple of hours talking about their trip and how they want to move here... they're from alaska, he's an anthropologist and she's a lawyer- both in their late twenties- just an awesome, life-affirming couple. i just couldn't believe the randomness of meeting him (i mean managua's a BIG city too!). it was good to meet some americans who want to help here for the right reasons- and are looking to take action soon (rather than just vacationers)- they described adventures of getting lost in the mountains, almost falling off a cliff, learning how to make tortillas, being woken up by howler monkeys, and misadventures in their spanish learning experience. it was great for me to meet these type of visitors (who i find here in nica are NOT as few and far between as they seem to be in many other places) who plan on taking valuable parts of their experience home and spreading awareness, and then DOING something about it. excellent.
ah, good news! i think i'm headed back down to managua next weekend with magda and cindy guadalupe (my co-worker and her daughter who i wrote about earlier in my 'power of one' blog) to get her to a doctor's appointment on friday! i talked to my boss, peter, about it when i was in managua last weekend and told him i thought we needed to get the ball rolling- and this groups going down on a private bus on thursday, so they'd have room for magda. it's virtually impossible for magda to travel with cindy on a public bus, and dangerous too... so the fact that they have a bus going down there already works out perfectly. i'm going to go down there with her to help out if she needs anything (even if it's just to carry bags or somethin) so i told magda that today, that i planned on going to which she responded "why?" and i said "to help..." and she was really happy about that. i hope something comes out of it... i guess there's also a school near managua where they do parental training on some physical therapy that magda could take some classes at, which would be awesome. vamos a ver... (we shall see...)
i realized how much i love being here yesterday when i finally came back to town and went to teach my littlest kids choir class. i was absolutely ecstatic. seriously beaming ear to ear... it was wonderful. i do really enjoy teaching, and just one smile from one of those little ones is enough for me... they're precious. one of them even gave me a hug today!!! my first student to do that. i DO feel like i've made a commitment to love the people here, and have begun to make that leap (the leap of love)- i think because of certain roadblocks that are just a part of the culture (ie: kids not being held accountable for showing up for class, certain kids not being expected by their parents to do anything beyond living in cusmapa and struggling to survive forever, combined with my own realization of distancing myself sometimes....) it's sometimes hard to remind myself that my being here in the first place is a pretty great thing- and the fact that i already feel so at home here, that i'm opening myself up more and more to the experience... means that my heart is already here. and that i don't necessarily need to teach these kids perfect english, to be a hardass, or to make the music program "the best" but that i just need to LOVE and let the rest happen as it will.
last night as i lay under the stars with karlita and laura (a nurse who came with the group from the states, AWESOME lady who's into energy healing and all sorts of interesting stuff) i sang to the stars and was enveloped in a warm mountain breeze... listened to the roosters and felt extremely peaceful. we did some yoga this morning as the sun was rising over the mountaintop... nothing like meditating in the early morning when the birds are waking up and the fresh breeze whips around you, brings you to life... i also realized that i'm going to HAVE to start doing yoga outside on a regular basis, no matter what the neighbors think of me (i'm sure they already think i'm a wierdo!) so that every morning i can awake with a deep bow of appreciation for the beauty i experience here every day, as well as a salute of namaste to my pig friend who tiptoes around my backyard on her ridiculously small high-heeled piggy feet.
suppose that's about all for now- things are moving along fast! i celebrated my two months of being here last saturday by drinking some hot chocolate :)
here's to many more months of good health, high spirits, wide eyes, and an open heart.
love to all, callie
i'm having a bit of a reality check these past couple of days- spending time with a group of 20 or so high school students from the states (private boarding school in boston)... nothing like being around these kids to make me realize how far i've come and why i'm here rather than back in the US! actually i think many of them are here for the right reasons- to learn about the culture, to help (they're working on breaking ground for construction of our new classroom building- definate HARD labor), and to actually interact with people beyond a surface level. however, i'm also experiencing lots of frustrations with them such as their tendency to 1) complain about everything, 2) this morning whining about getting up at 7 because they're "on spring break" (HONESTLY?! are you here to sip virgin pina coladas and frolic on the beach or are you here to HELP?), 3) the usual high school bullshit (i know i was like this too), ie: bringing prom dress magazines to a place like nicaragua, and 4) their relative unawareness of why they're here in general (i asked one girl and she responded "because i convinced my parents to buy me this trip instead of a lettermans jacket and a class ring"... well YEAH it's awesome she's here but i didn't ask her HOW she bought her plane ticket... i was sort of hoping for something deeper than that). maybe i'm placing too many expectations on them, or being hasty to judge, but i just guess above all else it's hard to be around them because they remind me of what i left back in the states- that being a complete unawareness of how poverty truly exists in the rest of the world... remind me of how far removed i am yet how close i am also- as it hasn't been long that i've been aware of these realities myself. even being here they stay in this lovely house in cusmapa with running water, great food, comfortable beds- and i wonder if some of them will go home STILL totally unaware of the actual type of poverty which exists here- dirt floors, chicken coops in the kitchen, only tortillas to eat, no electricity or running water (or even SAFE water available), malnutrition, kids that walk to school more than an hour each way every day, the amount of mothers completely raising families without any help... i just want to shake them and make them see what i see- but know i can't do that. also they haven't been having any sort of discussions at night about what they've been experiencing here which is strange to me. i'd think if i were a teacher and chaperoning this trip i'd make it a point to have multiple discussions with my students DURING the trip about what they were seeing, experiencing, learning... and WHY things are the way they are here. maybe that's just me...
another part of the frustration equation is i've been writing back and forth with my cousin julie for the past few months about all sorts of things- but one of these things being the inhumane conditions in which most of the employed people of nicaragua endure on a daily basis. my friend karlita (she's from nicaragua, my boss' secretary in managua- a 27 year old SINGLE woman with a great job, extremely intelligent, doesn't put up with any of the bullshit guys try to pull around here, and is just basically wonderful) and i were talking about her trip to the US a few years ago and she was trying to buy some "american clothes" which meant she went to buy a shirt at walmart (made in taiwan), bought a tommy hilf shirt (made in singapore) and went to buy some nike shoes (made in china... or something to that extent) and was absolutely baffled that she couldn't find anything to buy that was actually made in the US. i guess i never really thought of the fact that there arent really ANY factories in the US (beyond stuff like ford and dodge... some food factories...) but as far as actual production of the goods we take for granted, buy cheaply, and trash without a second thought... we don't have any type of production of those things in the states. we never have to SEE the sweatshops, the factories (which karlita was telling me about) in nicaragua that employ people for about 12 hours per day who get a half hour lunch, can not go to the bathroom, sometimes get beaten, and make less than 25 cents per hour. the government here has all these contracts with chinese businessmen who build factories, employ thousands of people at these rates in horrific conditions- then the government can brag that employement rates are up. the thing is, who in america actually WANTS to know why their walmart tshirt is so ridiculously cheap? i know until the last couple of years, i haven't had any kind of awareness... which is awful (not the awareness itself, but the lack thereof).
julie and i were also talking about being in a third world country and how realizations about your relative safety can be a bit unnerving (although i know her experience has been a bit more drastic than mine- as i don't have to worry too much about crime where i'm living now, only in the bigger cities). if you allow yourself to be truly honest about what would happen to you if something awful were to happen (crime or health-wise) you begin to realize how truly alone you are. even stuff with sickness- steph (the other volunteer) and i were in managua to get her some tests (her stomach's been bad pretty much the whole two months we've been here) and went to a nicaraguan doctor and she just kept saying "well if he doesn't figure it out i'll just call the embassy and they'll know what to do" UM. what? i'm sorry but i really think the US embassy in nicaragua probably has more important things to deal with than a volunteer's tummy bug. i think a lot of americans just really have this false sense of security even in the most remote of places that if something bad happens they'll be able to figure it out, things will get fixed because they're american. steph's comment cracked me up, like we could have just called the embassy and they would have sent over a limo to take us to their state of the art hospital (which they do have one of those i believe) free of charge where i'd have been offered steak and macaroni and cheese and jello salad in the waiting room and they'd fly in the best doctor available in the US for a quick visit... no questions asked. HA. instead we ended up in a private hospital that had just lost it's electricity for the afternoon (minus the emergency room and ICU) and i felt, honestly, that if i had to be in a hospital there i'd probably be OK but i really wouldn't be certain. it was a bit sketchy to say the least. i can't even imagine what a public hospital is like- i'm planning on visiting one before i leave here, just to get some sort of persepctive. the thing is, we have to PAY an arm and a leg in the US for our healthcare but at least we have the OPTION of receiving high quality care in sterile environments... and are guaranteed electricity at our hospitals.
things here are going well for me- teaching-wise i've been very busy. we have a concert tonight for the high school group, then the 22nd is a big celebration for Padre Fabretto (who basically founded the town of cusmapa) so we're getting all ready for that concert also. english classes are going well so far- though attendence is always sketchy at best and there's no chain of command so student's aren't held accountable for missing class at all. THAT will prove to be extremely frustrating over time as i'm expected to return to step one when a student's there who doesn't understand the material. the awful thing is there's many students who really want to be there, and love learning english- but there's others who i can tell think it's complete bullshit. a question, then: why am i teaching english to kids who don't want to learn english in one of the most rural places in this country? shouldn't i be teaching the kids who WANT to learn it rather than spending all my efforts on those that don't care to? guess that's part of the challenge of teaching, making those who don't deem a subject to be relevant understand that EVERY subject's important in some form. still, doesn't make it any easier. my friend james (the one doing JVI) told me that he's feeling the same way, so he's been indulging himself in letting his high school class use 10 minutes of classtime every day to discuss a controversial subject (first in limited english) but then in spanish... he just picks things, for example: the fact that nicaragua recently completely banned abortions (even if the mother WILL die if the baby isn't aborted) and lets the kids debate about them in class. he refuses to give his point of view, just stays there to keep things civil and respectful. NOW that sounds like my kind of class! i think what's hard is that i want to teach a class where there's deep conversation, debates, and students are empowered to give their opinions on issues that matter (rather than teaching about the times of day and colors). again, another reason why i'm excited my spanish seems to be improving... i'll be able to talk to my students more and more about what they believe, and what parts of their lives they see needing to change. THEN i can start being able to work on these changes from the ground up, with the students :) something to look forward too, though i'm thoroughly enjoying this time of getting to know them as well. as always enjoying the ride rather than looking to the finish line. i had the biggest compliment i've recieved yet on my spanish- after talking to one of my fellow fabretto employees who's working on a rural secondary education outreach project for a while he just looked at me and said "you talk like a nicaraguan." QUE MARAVILLOSO! i was a bit pleased at myself after that little comment- which served as karma for me to speak crappy spanish the rest of the weekend.
i had one of the most random experiences i've had down here yet this past weekend- i went with steph down to managua so she could get some tests done and we stayed in a hotel there for a few nights. the first night we were sitting down to dinner and the other couple in the restaurant struck up a conversation with us asking if we knew how much it should cost them to get to the airport. i told them we lived in nicaragua, we had the name of a taxi driver we could give them and the guy asked me where we worked/lived, then looked at me and said "wait, what's your name?" turns out he and i had been writing back and forth online because i was giving them some tips for their vacation here- and we just happened to be staying in the same hotel in managua the last night of their trip. it was SO bizarre. we ended up hanging out with them for a couple of hours talking about their trip and how they want to move here... they're from alaska, he's an anthropologist and she's a lawyer- both in their late twenties- just an awesome, life-affirming couple. i just couldn't believe the randomness of meeting him (i mean managua's a BIG city too!). it was good to meet some americans who want to help here for the right reasons- and are looking to take action soon (rather than just vacationers)- they described adventures of getting lost in the mountains, almost falling off a cliff, learning how to make tortillas, being woken up by howler monkeys, and misadventures in their spanish learning experience. it was great for me to meet these type of visitors (who i find here in nica are NOT as few and far between as they seem to be in many other places) who plan on taking valuable parts of their experience home and spreading awareness, and then DOING something about it. excellent.
ah, good news! i think i'm headed back down to managua next weekend with magda and cindy guadalupe (my co-worker and her daughter who i wrote about earlier in my 'power of one' blog) to get her to a doctor's appointment on friday! i talked to my boss, peter, about it when i was in managua last weekend and told him i thought we needed to get the ball rolling- and this groups going down on a private bus on thursday, so they'd have room for magda. it's virtually impossible for magda to travel with cindy on a public bus, and dangerous too... so the fact that they have a bus going down there already works out perfectly. i'm going to go down there with her to help out if she needs anything (even if it's just to carry bags or somethin) so i told magda that today, that i planned on going to which she responded "why?" and i said "to help..." and she was really happy about that. i hope something comes out of it... i guess there's also a school near managua where they do parental training on some physical therapy that magda could take some classes at, which would be awesome. vamos a ver... (we shall see...)
i realized how much i love being here yesterday when i finally came back to town and went to teach my littlest kids choir class. i was absolutely ecstatic. seriously beaming ear to ear... it was wonderful. i do really enjoy teaching, and just one smile from one of those little ones is enough for me... they're precious. one of them even gave me a hug today!!! my first student to do that. i DO feel like i've made a commitment to love the people here, and have begun to make that leap (the leap of love)- i think because of certain roadblocks that are just a part of the culture (ie: kids not being held accountable for showing up for class, certain kids not being expected by their parents to do anything beyond living in cusmapa and struggling to survive forever, combined with my own realization of distancing myself sometimes....) it's sometimes hard to remind myself that my being here in the first place is a pretty great thing- and the fact that i already feel so at home here, that i'm opening myself up more and more to the experience... means that my heart is already here. and that i don't necessarily need to teach these kids perfect english, to be a hardass, or to make the music program "the best" but that i just need to LOVE and let the rest happen as it will.
last night as i lay under the stars with karlita and laura (a nurse who came with the group from the states, AWESOME lady who's into energy healing and all sorts of interesting stuff) i sang to the stars and was enveloped in a warm mountain breeze... listened to the roosters and felt extremely peaceful. we did some yoga this morning as the sun was rising over the mountaintop... nothing like meditating in the early morning when the birds are waking up and the fresh breeze whips around you, brings you to life... i also realized that i'm going to HAVE to start doing yoga outside on a regular basis, no matter what the neighbors think of me (i'm sure they already think i'm a wierdo!) so that every morning i can awake with a deep bow of appreciation for the beauty i experience here every day, as well as a salute of namaste to my pig friend who tiptoes around my backyard on her ridiculously small high-heeled piggy feet.
suppose that's about all for now- things are moving along fast! i celebrated my two months of being here last saturday by drinking some hot chocolate :)
here's to many more months of good health, high spirits, wide eyes, and an open heart.
love to all, callie
martes, 27 de febrero de 2007
bursting our bubbles
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heard has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” (Paolo Coelho, The Alchemist)
Most of us exist on a day-to-day basis in perceived bubbles of security. We use daily rituals and routines, financial responsibilities, and the need to “succeed” in some universal (ie: financial) sense of the word as an excuse for sticking to our daily grind. Deep down, we are aware that this bubble represents only a thin layer, a false boundary, between our hearts and the world. Although we present others with our striking independence, we are constantly doubtful and lonely… unsure of our place in the world, yet knowing we will not be content to merely float about in this solitary bubble for our entire lives.
We fear the “other”, believing that the world which exists outside of our thin scope and belief system will somehow shatter our spirit. We fear what could happen to our secure lives if we actually journeyed to experience the world. One cannot truly experience the world as a traditional vacationer, as a wandering spirit. A true experience of the world can only be achieved by living with a people, by learning to respect and even cherish their culture (both the negative and positive aspects), by developing a compassionate awareness of their suffering, and by bearing witness to their hardships and successes as if they are one’s own. Developing an awareness of the amount of suffering and injustice in this world WILL shatter one’s spirit… many times. It takes great courage and a willing to delve into the dark corners of humanity. However, in these dark places… in the places where people toil day in and day out simply to survive… on the fringes of our broken world… exists boundless beauty, stoic hope, and an unparalleled faith in community and brotherhood.
Part of our fear of truly experiencing unknown cultures must be rooted in our knowledge that, on a very deep and primal level, we are all the same, we are all one. If every person in our world could experience the power of the undercurrent of humanity, our delusions of a perfection and individuality would be thrown into the unknown winds; leading to a chaotic yet delightful rollercoaster of being and doing, of learning about other ways of the world, of shattering preconceived notions of individuality and sowing the seeds of a worldwide personal responsibility for the well-being of ALL people.
Somewhere, deep within each of us, is a cry waiting to burst forth, a cry of unity and of anguish in response to the injustices of this world. The injustices which, without action, we aid in perpetuation while fueling the vicious cycle of poverty which keeps the downtrodden silent and invisible. From this same place comes a humming harmony (some call this harmonic hum God, but I truly haven’t decided yet, so in my musician’s mind, I’ll refer to it as a ‘hum’) which goes beyond words and formalities, beyond imaginary borders, beyond angry and vengeful governments, and beyond the gap between those who “have” (but often lack in wisdom and spirituality, and a real sense of community) and those who struggle simply to live (who are rich in being with each other, in the depth and bonds of relationships, and often with an unfaltering faith and generosity in the face of inhumane amounts of hardship)… a harmony which moves through the unspoken language of all living things, whispering, simply “love.”
Although paying heed to this ‘hum’ and loving all can be extremely trying and at times downright exhausting- one begins to realize that if every person treated each other in reverence to the ‘hum,’ to the innate harmony so easily disregarded in the face of selfish fear and power, we would have, rather than a consistently increasing amount of suffering and injustice, a literal heaven on earth.
Most of us exist on a day-to-day basis in perceived bubbles of security. We use daily rituals and routines, financial responsibilities, and the need to “succeed” in some universal (ie: financial) sense of the word as an excuse for sticking to our daily grind. Deep down, we are aware that this bubble represents only a thin layer, a false boundary, between our hearts and the world. Although we present others with our striking independence, we are constantly doubtful and lonely… unsure of our place in the world, yet knowing we will not be content to merely float about in this solitary bubble for our entire lives.
We fear the “other”, believing that the world which exists outside of our thin scope and belief system will somehow shatter our spirit. We fear what could happen to our secure lives if we actually journeyed to experience the world. One cannot truly experience the world as a traditional vacationer, as a wandering spirit. A true experience of the world can only be achieved by living with a people, by learning to respect and even cherish their culture (both the negative and positive aspects), by developing a compassionate awareness of their suffering, and by bearing witness to their hardships and successes as if they are one’s own. Developing an awareness of the amount of suffering and injustice in this world WILL shatter one’s spirit… many times. It takes great courage and a willing to delve into the dark corners of humanity. However, in these dark places… in the places where people toil day in and day out simply to survive… on the fringes of our broken world… exists boundless beauty, stoic hope, and an unparalleled faith in community and brotherhood.
Part of our fear of truly experiencing unknown cultures must be rooted in our knowledge that, on a very deep and primal level, we are all the same, we are all one. If every person in our world could experience the power of the undercurrent of humanity, our delusions of a perfection and individuality would be thrown into the unknown winds; leading to a chaotic yet delightful rollercoaster of being and doing, of learning about other ways of the world, of shattering preconceived notions of individuality and sowing the seeds of a worldwide personal responsibility for the well-being of ALL people.
Somewhere, deep within each of us, is a cry waiting to burst forth, a cry of unity and of anguish in response to the injustices of this world. The injustices which, without action, we aid in perpetuation while fueling the vicious cycle of poverty which keeps the downtrodden silent and invisible. From this same place comes a humming harmony (some call this harmonic hum God, but I truly haven’t decided yet, so in my musician’s mind, I’ll refer to it as a ‘hum’) which goes beyond words and formalities, beyond imaginary borders, beyond angry and vengeful governments, and beyond the gap between those who “have” (but often lack in wisdom and spirituality, and a real sense of community) and those who struggle simply to live (who are rich in being with each other, in the depth and bonds of relationships, and often with an unfaltering faith and generosity in the face of inhumane amounts of hardship)… a harmony which moves through the unspoken language of all living things, whispering, simply “love.”
Although paying heed to this ‘hum’ and loving all can be extremely trying and at times downright exhausting- one begins to realize that if every person treated each other in reverence to the ‘hum,’ to the innate harmony so easily disregarded in the face of selfish fear and power, we would have, rather than a consistently increasing amount of suffering and injustice, a literal heaven on earth.
lunes, 26 de febrero de 2007
of mice and stolen cheese sandwiches
i finally told paulita (my supervisor) last friday that i hadn't had propane to cook with in my house the entire week. i'd been cooking everything in a toaster oven... which takes a bit of creativity. truth is, though, i need to be able to cook (and to at least boil water to get the bugs out of it) and i was getting a bit frustrated with the no gas situation. that and the fact that i've literally eaten 24 banannas this week and i think my body's beginning to reject them. NO WORRIES said paulita, smiling grandly and giving me a moment of hope, we'll take care of it. she ushered me into the school's kitchen and busied herself collecting all sorts of food items for me (spaghetti, oatmeal, mayonayse, sugar, and margarine... you know, the essentials). the best part of the whole situation was, that every item of food she got out for me i'd say "i already have that" and she'd laugh and continue to fill my box with the un-neccessary staples. so i ended up with a 2 LB bag of sugar (which i haven't used a teaspoon of sugar in the last 2 months), 4 sticks of margarine, a hunk of queso, two bags of oatmeal, and four bags of spaghetti. what i'd like is for someone, anyone, to tell me how to cook spaghetti noodles in a toaster oven. as i walked home with my box i eagerly awaited yet another weekend of toaster oven cuisine (ie: toast, ramen, and bananas) and laughed, again, to myself at paulita's unabashed joy at providing me with such an abundance of food resources... and wished desperately that the random guy who came to take my gas tank away last friday (for what i assumed was a fill-er-uper job) would miraculously re-appear with another rusty tank full of liquid gold.
now, in the still heat of sunday afternoon a quiet breeze blows through the heavy, normally dead-bolted back door and i gaze across the yard (well, more of a dirt pit than a yard) and pretend to watch the chickens and pigs roam around in search of scraps in my backyard... while actually, and more importantly, i await the culprit who stole my cheddar cheese and mustard sandwich off my kitchen counter yesterday morning to return for round two... and i don't think it was the pig (although the thing's literally the size of a small cow)...
i owe an explanation. steph came to visit for the weekend (hitchiked on an ambulance...which in iteslf is one of the miracles of this trip so far) and we spent friday night having dinner at my boss' house (scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, and games of peek-a-boo which i've found to induce universal belly laughter in the toddler sector), watching 'school of rock', and eating a bar of dark chocolate her parents sent to me in their last care package. we woke on saturday to the lovely and incessant pounding of a hammer and what sounded like a weed whacker outside my bedroom window at 7 AM. after lazing around in bed for a while, we ate breakfast and packed a picnic lunch- with plans to hike to the peak of the mountain that cusmapa rests beneath. when the group of donors visited earlier in the week, peter brought me a hunk of cheddar cheese (as i regularly joke that i miss cheese more than my family...which is sometimes the truth...) and i'd been saving the rest of it for making sandwiches saturday for our hike. we got all prepared- with a canteloupe, ritz crackers, peanuts, and our sandwiches sitting out on the counter...and left the back door open (which i rarely, if ever, do)...went to put our shoes on in my bedroom...and came back out two minutes later to find the ritz crackers all over the floor (a thought to myself "that's strange") and i realized with a sinking feeling... that our sandwiches had disappeared. it's a funny thing having an eagerly awaited item of food (such as my cheese sandwich) taken from beneath my nose... it actually made me mad at myself how upset i was over the situation. i don't think it was REALLY just losing the sandwiches that pissed me off- it was more the feeling of 1) being watched, and 2) being watched and someone taking the time to wait for a moment of guard let-down to take full advantage of the gringa and 3) here i am, actually really pissed off about someone taking a sandwich from me in the middle of a freaking third world country, and the person who took it was probably STARVING. the fact that i knew the person who took them was probably starving, honestly, didn't make me feel much better about it in that moment. it just made me sad at the amount of despiration that exists right under my nose. and even more sad that in my own selfishness i couldn't look beyond that 'being taken advantage of' feeling to a greater feeling of 'well i hope they like mustard...' we ended up just having to laugh about the whole thing, and how ridiculous and typical it was... guess you have to laugh at things like that, cause (in the words of the indigo girls) 'you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't'.
the hike to the top of the mountain was eventful, to say the least. i had no idea how to get up there- and there wasn't a trail... so we followed a dirt road (past the school) up along the side of the mountain, past a handful of houses marked with hole-laden clothing hanging listlessly on rusted barbed wire fences, drying in the morning sunshine. we hit a point on the road where it was more of a riverbed than a road (ie: all rocks and boulders), then around the next corner i found myself breathing deeply and suddenly aware that i smelled montana... in the dry lifeless crunch of layers of pine needles beneath my feet on a dusty path, in the filtering warm sunlight through the whispering pine trees, the floating breeze smelled of summertime up the rattlesnake, of folfing up patee canyon, and of adventures.... it was the closest to home i've felt the entire time i've been here. i dragged steph off the "road" onto a horse trodden path that looked promising, and soon we found ourselves crossing over fences and climbing on our hands-and-knees up further and further. i felt the rich, dry, espresso colored soil slip between my fingertips and smiled eagerly while steph kept asking... "do you know where we're going?" and telling me "i can't believe you talked me into this." around one bend i stumbled into the shadow of a pine tree and disturbed a family full of creamy butterflies from their mid-morning siesta- they floated around my head, lifting with the breeze, and i felt light-headed with giddiness. here's what i'd been missing the past 6 weeks- trekking through the mountains and paying homage to the breathtaking miracles of nature. we finally reached the top and were rewarded with a 360 degree view of the surrounding valleys and peaks (all the way to the volcano looming in the distance of honduras), caught our breath, and marvelled at the vista... accompanyed by two beautiful chestnut-colored horses who regarded us with a curiosity mixed with an air of obvious ownership over their mountaintop domain. i laid out a sheet i'd brought with us under the shade of a few magnificent pines, and we laid and chatted for an hour or two, soaking up the quietness (unbroken by reggaeton music or roosters), and enjoying our picnic lunch.
we spent the rest of the afternoon making our way back down the mountain (a much more difficult feat than getting up), napping, showering, playing chess and uno, and watching the sun set. we went to dinner at panchita's house and were treated like queens there (as always) with french fries, pork, gallo pinto, and a tomato salad for dinner. we'd planned on drinking a few beers but neither of us felt up to it after such a lovely dinner, so we ended up watching 'kingdom of god' instead and finishing up our glorious chocolate bar. i was about to drift off when...
i heard that dreaded gnawing noise through my pillow. the sound i know all too well these days, that can only mean one thing. there was a mouse nearby. i was planning on ignoring the creature until WHOOSH i felt it rush across my feet and i jumped up and screamed bloody murder... ran to turn the lights on, rifled through my bedsheets... and silently waged war on the little suckers. it was all fun and games until one of them had the nerve to climb into bed with me. normally i'm pretty pro-life when it comes to the little creatures of the world, but these bastards had gone too far. i got out the mousetraps my mom sent in her last carepackage and read the impossible to understand instructions, then promptly put a little bit of salmonella-induced peanut butter on the bait stand (which i'd saved simply in case i needed to do any real war-waging on the mouse population in my house) and set up the trap in the bathroom... turned off the lights... and waited. about ten minutes later i heard a lound SNAP, and reluctantly turned on lights to find... not one, but TWO dead mice, heads snapped in the trap... never to run across my bare feet again. lord knows now i probably just pissed off their mouse family members and they're going to get me right back by gnawing through my thick tupperware food container and pooping on my toothbrush... but until then the scorecard remains, CALIZ: 2... RATONES: 0.
i've had a nice relaxing day today, reading and writing... and listening to the constant conversations taking place outside my bedroom window by the handfuls of guys who seem to have deemed my houses' corner to be 'the place to hang' in town. anyelka and her little sister visited for a bit and i gave them a frisbee and some crackers... talked about going to the local laguna with them next weekend, and tried to calm myself about their hands being constantly all over everything... they brought me some more of the cool little seed/beads found in the river here which i'll try to make some jewelry out of if i can find some good string down here. suppose that's about it for now... just wanted to write about un-necessary food, the stolen sandwich mystery, finding my home in the mountains, and my first real experience with mice. now back to making dinner in the toaster oven... toast? ramen? or more toast? the possibilities are endless........ love, caliz
now, in the still heat of sunday afternoon a quiet breeze blows through the heavy, normally dead-bolted back door and i gaze across the yard (well, more of a dirt pit than a yard) and pretend to watch the chickens and pigs roam around in search of scraps in my backyard... while actually, and more importantly, i await the culprit who stole my cheddar cheese and mustard sandwich off my kitchen counter yesterday morning to return for round two... and i don't think it was the pig (although the thing's literally the size of a small cow)...
i owe an explanation. steph came to visit for the weekend (hitchiked on an ambulance...which in iteslf is one of the miracles of this trip so far) and we spent friday night having dinner at my boss' house (scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, and games of peek-a-boo which i've found to induce universal belly laughter in the toddler sector), watching 'school of rock', and eating a bar of dark chocolate her parents sent to me in their last care package. we woke on saturday to the lovely and incessant pounding of a hammer and what sounded like a weed whacker outside my bedroom window at 7 AM. after lazing around in bed for a while, we ate breakfast and packed a picnic lunch- with plans to hike to the peak of the mountain that cusmapa rests beneath. when the group of donors visited earlier in the week, peter brought me a hunk of cheddar cheese (as i regularly joke that i miss cheese more than my family...which is sometimes the truth...) and i'd been saving the rest of it for making sandwiches saturday for our hike. we got all prepared- with a canteloupe, ritz crackers, peanuts, and our sandwiches sitting out on the counter...and left the back door open (which i rarely, if ever, do)...went to put our shoes on in my bedroom...and came back out two minutes later to find the ritz crackers all over the floor (a thought to myself "that's strange") and i realized with a sinking feeling... that our sandwiches had disappeared. it's a funny thing having an eagerly awaited item of food (such as my cheese sandwich) taken from beneath my nose... it actually made me mad at myself how upset i was over the situation. i don't think it was REALLY just losing the sandwiches that pissed me off- it was more the feeling of 1) being watched, and 2) being watched and someone taking the time to wait for a moment of guard let-down to take full advantage of the gringa and 3) here i am, actually really pissed off about someone taking a sandwich from me in the middle of a freaking third world country, and the person who took it was probably STARVING. the fact that i knew the person who took them was probably starving, honestly, didn't make me feel much better about it in that moment. it just made me sad at the amount of despiration that exists right under my nose. and even more sad that in my own selfishness i couldn't look beyond that 'being taken advantage of' feeling to a greater feeling of 'well i hope they like mustard...' we ended up just having to laugh about the whole thing, and how ridiculous and typical it was... guess you have to laugh at things like that, cause (in the words of the indigo girls) 'you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't'.
the hike to the top of the mountain was eventful, to say the least. i had no idea how to get up there- and there wasn't a trail... so we followed a dirt road (past the school) up along the side of the mountain, past a handful of houses marked with hole-laden clothing hanging listlessly on rusted barbed wire fences, drying in the morning sunshine. we hit a point on the road where it was more of a riverbed than a road (ie: all rocks and boulders), then around the next corner i found myself breathing deeply and suddenly aware that i smelled montana... in the dry lifeless crunch of layers of pine needles beneath my feet on a dusty path, in the filtering warm sunlight through the whispering pine trees, the floating breeze smelled of summertime up the rattlesnake, of folfing up patee canyon, and of adventures.... it was the closest to home i've felt the entire time i've been here. i dragged steph off the "road" onto a horse trodden path that looked promising, and soon we found ourselves crossing over fences and climbing on our hands-and-knees up further and further. i felt the rich, dry, espresso colored soil slip between my fingertips and smiled eagerly while steph kept asking... "do you know where we're going?" and telling me "i can't believe you talked me into this." around one bend i stumbled into the shadow of a pine tree and disturbed a family full of creamy butterflies from their mid-morning siesta- they floated around my head, lifting with the breeze, and i felt light-headed with giddiness. here's what i'd been missing the past 6 weeks- trekking through the mountains and paying homage to the breathtaking miracles of nature. we finally reached the top and were rewarded with a 360 degree view of the surrounding valleys and peaks (all the way to the volcano looming in the distance of honduras), caught our breath, and marvelled at the vista... accompanyed by two beautiful chestnut-colored horses who regarded us with a curiosity mixed with an air of obvious ownership over their mountaintop domain. i laid out a sheet i'd brought with us under the shade of a few magnificent pines, and we laid and chatted for an hour or two, soaking up the quietness (unbroken by reggaeton music or roosters), and enjoying our picnic lunch.
we spent the rest of the afternoon making our way back down the mountain (a much more difficult feat than getting up), napping, showering, playing chess and uno, and watching the sun set. we went to dinner at panchita's house and were treated like queens there (as always) with french fries, pork, gallo pinto, and a tomato salad for dinner. we'd planned on drinking a few beers but neither of us felt up to it after such a lovely dinner, so we ended up watching 'kingdom of god' instead and finishing up our glorious chocolate bar. i was about to drift off when...
i heard that dreaded gnawing noise through my pillow. the sound i know all too well these days, that can only mean one thing. there was a mouse nearby. i was planning on ignoring the creature until WHOOSH i felt it rush across my feet and i jumped up and screamed bloody murder... ran to turn the lights on, rifled through my bedsheets... and silently waged war on the little suckers. it was all fun and games until one of them had the nerve to climb into bed with me. normally i'm pretty pro-life when it comes to the little creatures of the world, but these bastards had gone too far. i got out the mousetraps my mom sent in her last carepackage and read the impossible to understand instructions, then promptly put a little bit of salmonella-induced peanut butter on the bait stand (which i'd saved simply in case i needed to do any real war-waging on the mouse population in my house) and set up the trap in the bathroom... turned off the lights... and waited. about ten minutes later i heard a lound SNAP, and reluctantly turned on lights to find... not one, but TWO dead mice, heads snapped in the trap... never to run across my bare feet again. lord knows now i probably just pissed off their mouse family members and they're going to get me right back by gnawing through my thick tupperware food container and pooping on my toothbrush... but until then the scorecard remains, CALIZ: 2... RATONES: 0.
i've had a nice relaxing day today, reading and writing... and listening to the constant conversations taking place outside my bedroom window by the handfuls of guys who seem to have deemed my houses' corner to be 'the place to hang' in town. anyelka and her little sister visited for a bit and i gave them a frisbee and some crackers... talked about going to the local laguna with them next weekend, and tried to calm myself about their hands being constantly all over everything... they brought me some more of the cool little seed/beads found in the river here which i'll try to make some jewelry out of if i can find some good string down here. suppose that's about it for now... just wanted to write about un-necessary food, the stolen sandwich mystery, finding my home in the mountains, and my first real experience with mice. now back to making dinner in the toaster oven... toast? ramen? or more toast? the possibilities are endless........ love, caliz
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