You Would Think...

Any illusions we had about moving to Nicaragua to simplify our lives have now proven themselves just that. Sprout hit its high season (Dec.-Feb.), the English school has opened, we have changed ‘temporary’ residences yet again, and work on the house continues. Often, all of these things manage to occur simultaneously. At least it feels that way. Nevertheless, in spite of finding ourselves living an unexpectedly hectic life, we are happy, and, dare I say it, even fulfilled. Well, I am. Pat’s still working on that one, but in general, he’s content. He has a somewhat lower threshold for life in a country whose motto should be SNAFU. Although he recognizes that we’re not in Kansas anymore, he is reluctant to let go of the idea that things do have the potential to go as planned if the people involved actually gave the matter some conscious thought. If we thought we started too many sentences with “You would think…” when we lived in Japan, we were pathologically ignorant. OK, here are just a couple examples:
1. Building quality. We are now living in the back of the school. The family who owns the building is middle class by Nica standards. But to save money, they ‘hired’ a son-in-law, a 21 year old kid, to do most of the work. They apparently based this decision not only on the fiscal advantages, but on the fact that he once helped his uncle build a shed. Needless to say, his plumbing and electrical skills have not yet reached their apex. Since moving in, we’ve found three leaks inside, and one in the outer wall. Figuring out which light switch (all of which are set slightly askew and covered in lime-coated switch plates) activated which bare bulb was fun, especially as the wee devil delighted in placing each one as far from its partner as possible. No, Pat says, that’s wrong. That implies conscious thought, the very thing lacking from the equation. Well, overall the place is fine, but Pat spent most of last week fixing it. Oh yeah, the back door is just a few boards nailed together, hinged, and held shut by two large nails punched into the door jamb. A security issue? Possibly, although we have the advantage of living next door to the police station, and are assiduously cultivating a friendly relationship with the lieutenant…
2. Informing customers of inventory at any point prior to paying for an item. I can’t tell you how many times we have gone to a shop, indicated to the salesperson which of the samples up on the wall or on the shelf we want, been directed to the person who writes up the bill, trotted to the back to the cashier to pay for the item, returned to the store front to pick up the item, only to be told it’s out of stock. On occasion, there is something else actually in stock we need and an exchange is enacted. But more often, it means retracing our steps, collecting our money, and trying a different shop. Since most places have as many employees as possible, and no one does any one else’s job, and since communication can be a bit dodgy down here at times, no one knows what’s in stock until someone requests it. Even this will often not result in the item being ordered, so that the same customer can find himself having the same experience over the same item week after week.
3. Driving etiquette. Ok, I’ve complained about bad drivers in New York and Florida, and as many readers know, Homer has its share of oblivious menaces (all tourists of course), but Nicaragua takes driving badly to a new level. From what I can gather after sending two friends to driving school (it costs around $150 for the course, test, and license), they are taught useful things like which pedal does what, and even given some pointers on rules of the road, such as the red octagonal sign encourages stopping, and men in light blue waving fluorescent batons should not be run over, but what they are NOT taught are things we take for granted, like using your turn signals (or even having them); not passing on the inside, especially when a large truck is coming and there are small children on bicycles already on the shoulder; giving way to anyone at anytime for any reason (a sign of weakness!), lowering your brights when another car approaches (or at any other time); not stopping suddenly in the middle of the road for what is probably a very good reason, like needing to hop out and take a piss against a nearby tree; tying down your load in order to avoid leaving a Hansel and Gretel-like trail of trash or scrap metal or plantains from Rivas to Managua; and not using your horn for every breath you take.

I’ll stop there. Because really, most of the time, we either no longer notice, or if we notice, don’t dwell on these things. All part of life in Nicaragua and therefore part of the experience. But hey, if you can’t bitch once in a while….to be honest, we probably spend more time moaning about some of the other expats down here than anything local. Like the 61 y.o. Oregonian truck driver who has had three lovely young Nica wives in two years, treated each like shit, left each for the next, and still spends most of his time drinking and looking for more girls. Or the 50+ Canadian who’s been down here for years, encouraged a friend to come down, get some land, build a house, and when the friend arrived, threw him out after a month, just after selling him a crap piece of land for $1500 more than the $3000 asking price, and then barely helped the non-Spanish speaking rube get anything done. Or the other 60+ Canadian who got into a dispute with his Nica neighbors over some rocks he’d painted white and used to edge his property. When some of the rocks turned up on the neighbors’ side, they said it was the wind…he wasn’t amused and went out with a baseball bat and smashed up the concrete wash stands the women use to earn a living taking in laundry. Over some rocks!! They retaliated by attempting to set his car on fire, but made the mistake of trying to ignite the front tire and the smell of burning rubber alerted the guy who then called the cops. Most of them won’t tip waiters so as “not to ruin it for everyone else”; spend 80% of their waking hours bobbing about in bottles of cheap rum (and the other 20% seducing 15 year olds, with unfortunate success rates as the girls look beyond the wrinkled flesh and the red noses and only see the wallets); and refer to the locals as “these people”, as in “You can’t trust these people for anything.” Sigh. It’s so hard being superior to everyone….

What else. Ah, last weekend Buenos Aires (it’s so good to be back!) welcomed an actual singing sensation to the local hall. Gustavo Leyton hales from Managua, and has made a successful career from giving lively concerts of Cumbia and other popular hits on a stage swarming with scantily clad lovelies who spend most of the show hypnotizing the crowd with their undulating backsides. Rancho de Pancho, Edwin’s bar/restaurant now being leased by a real pro, has karaoke every Friday, with a big screen set up and between what passes for singing from customers (the drinkers are almost as bad as the Evangelists), he runs music videos and this guy is a favorite. He is in the process of performing in a couple towns in all 16 departments of Nicaragua, and somehow little Buenos Aires snagged him. The banner said the show began at 8pm. We (Pat, our friend Dave from S.C., Edwin, Abel (Edwin’s older brother from up north), and me arrived at 9. The show had begun, but 90% of the people were standing around outside. Edwin told us confidently that at 9:30, people would begin to enter. He and Pat elected to go next door and play pool, so Dave, Abel and I went in. It was quite a show! There were only three girls, but they compensated by moving around constantly, and kept the males in the audience happy while the women swooned over Gustavo. At one point he invited this little old guy up on stage (there were people there from 4 to 84) and gave him the equivalent of $15 for singing a bit of a song, doing a wee dance (you could tell he had been quite the hoofer in his day), and making everyone laugh with his answers to a few questions. Abel leaned over and told me the man was nearly deaf which made it all the funnier. What was interesting was that although normally when his songs come on in a club or at a party, everyone jumps up to dance, but here, everyone just stood facing the stage, watching the show. Only during the break, when the DJ put on recorded music, did people dance. We stayed for a couple hours, till it got really packed and airless, then wandered home.

Sprout is doing great, and it looks like we’ll be modifying the program a bit for next year. Once word got out in Tolasmaidas, our little beach community, what we were doing, the requests for uniforms and school supplies started coming in fast and furious. We helped around 25 kids, but then announced that was it for this year. What we’ll do now is get organized and be ready to help the majority of the 110 kids in the local school next year. We’ll be emulating a program called 1 Starfish in another town, and should be able to really made a difference. I estimate that to outfit and provide school supplies for everyone who needs it, we’ll need approximately $5000. That would cover all the elementary schools kids and the two dozen or so high schoolers as well. We’ll continue with the university scholarships, ideally by finding individual sponsors for each student. This year we have three sponsors, and it seems to be working out very well. So a few days ago we called for a meeting at the wee school and nearly 100 people showed up, mainly mothers and children (this is a community rife with “madres solteras”, single moms), and we handed out the guidelines to the “SPROUT in the School” program. It’ll be some work coordinating it all, but I’m enthusiastic to finally be able to do something useful that focuses on the kids, helps out the moms, and puts education first. Dave, the S.C. guy I mentioned above, also has property out near us, and he is very interested in helping us with this project. He’ll use the data I collect and do some fundraising for us, and with any luck, between us, we’ll reach our goal.

The next day found Dave and me at another meeting, this one organized by the mayor’s office, to figure out how to improve tourism in Buenos Aires. It was a typical meeting, lots of talk, ideas thrown around, and at the end, a commission was put together of representatives of each community—restaurants, fishing, artists, education, government, and hey—the foreign perspective. That would be me. I’m sure it’ll be interesting…

Damn—nearly forgot! The great iguana rescue! Last Friday Pat was out at the beach and one of the kids grabbed him and pulled him up the street to her house. There, he was shown four iguanas of various sizes, from maybe 2’ to 5’ including tail. The family managed to convey to him they were for sale, most likely to end up on someone’s plate—or worse, just their eggs (two were pregnant, and their eggs are a delicacy here.) He asked how much, and was first told $7 each, but eventually managed to negotiate three for $15—they wouldn’t sell the last one. He shows up back at the last house we were staying in with a large bag, turns it out in the screened in porch, and deposits three very irritated iguanas on the floor. Their front feet had been pulled back along their sides and tied to their back feet, effectively immobilizing them. Their tails, however, were free, and Pat quickly felt the strength of one when he got too close, trying to pick one up. Between him and Dave, they managed to sever the bindings one by one, and finally released the ungrateful beasties outside. One fled immediately, the smallest, but the two larger hung around for at least half an hour before dashing off in different directions (“Lets split up!”) It’s very likely they will just be re-caught and resold, but at least they enjoyed a respite from captivity for a few days. Maybe even learned from the experience and will evade the boys and their slingshots next time.