Learning to be Nicaraguan....

So I am back. In Nicaragua that is. After four months of living and working in the United States I decided to come back down to Nica and live my life here for a while. I've been here two weeks and it has been great to be back. I feel very comfortable and after some initial bumps in the road I feel like I am starting to get back into life here.

To clarify the title a bit....I am in no way trying to be Nicaraguan, but it is sort of like the saying, "When in Rome....do as the Romans do." I often try to do the best i can to fit into the culture in little ways, by changing the way I dress, by using slang and uniquely Nicaraguan words and phrases and by conducting myself in a manner that I know is culturally appropriate. I in no way am misguided enough to think that anything I could possibly do would make me any less foreign, but it at least makes me feel like I am less invasive somehow in this country.

One of the things I have not attempted in my time here is to cook Nicaraguan food. I have always figured that I could purchase food on the street or at a restaurant and it would be absolutely superior to anything that I could try to concoct with Nicaraguan food items. Well, sometimes you have to change with the times, and now that I am here on a bit more of a permanent basis and I don't have much money and am currently unsure of my job situation I have to find ways to save. Buying food at the supermarket is expensive and often the items that I would cook with in the United States are more expensive still. So last night rather than going to the Supermarket I decided to use what I could find right around me and attempt a very Nicaraguan supper of gallo pinto (beans and rice mixed together, usually with onion and pepper), fried plantains and fried eggs. I was a bit nervous because although it doesn't sound difficult, the right amount of oil, the temperature of the pan, the quantity of beans as compared to rice, are all important aspects of getting truly authentic Nicaraguan food. Luckily both my boyfriend and I were pleasantly surprised at the results of my faux Nicaraguan cooking and I think he won't ban me from cooking his food just quite yet.

Bribing pulbic officials

So, I am in Nicaragua, and it may or may not come as a surprise to some that you CAN successfully bribe people to get your way here. I had never had to do this until yesterday. I decided I needed to go to our clinic to check out a particularly annoying bout of intestinal issues that had been plaguing me for about a week. I asked my friend Sarah to go with me since I am still learning to drive stick shift and am not very confident in my abilities. It was her first time driving in Nicaragua, even though she had been here about seven months already and although she didn't have her license we thought since we were only going a couple of miles down the road it wouldn't be a big deal. I was thinking if worse came to worse I could pass her my license, we are both blonde and sometimes folks get confused here with blonde-headed types. So we were driving down the very bumpy torn up road to our clinic when I saw the police ahead. I told Sarah to just keep driving and not look them in the eye and perhaps we would be okay. No such luck. We are white after all, which was something I had failed to remember when we took off down the road. I told Sarah to be calm as they flagged us down and asked us to pull over. The policeman stopped us and told us that it was his job to stop every car and ask for our license and the papers of the vehicle, that this was a routine stop and we shouldn't be worried. (I knew this was bullshit from the start.) Problem number one arrived when we couldn't find the papers. Neither of us had had to look for papers in any of these vehicles before and I thought I was looking for a manila envelope with 'papers' in it. I had to inform him I couldn't find them, but assured him that we worked close to where we were and were just heading to our clinic, couldn't he just let us go? He then asked Sarah for her name, I told her in English to say Emily, in the case that I was going to have to give her my license. Luckily she knew my last name as well and he quickly wrote it down on his not very official looking piece of white legal paper. Then he began running off the numerous problems we were going to have because we didn't have any documents and how he was going to have to take us down to the station and that it would cost us approximately 800 cordobas, equivalent to about $50 in penalties for our lack of documentation. I was nodding and agreeing that we were in the wrong, no papers and all, but wasn't there something we could do? I was not going to outright ask him how much money it would take to pay him off so he would let us go, but I was trying to hint that this might be a possibility. I very carefully took a bill and pushed it up out of my wallet which was in my hand so he could see it. He made no recognition to me that he had seen anything so I began to get a little worried. Finally I told him that I had been in Nicaragua for a while and knew how things worked here. He raised his eyebrows and repeated in question form what I had just told him. He kind of glanced over his shoulder at his companero who was holding an AK47 across his chest and asked me if the back of our ancient Land Rover 'ambulance' opened and if it did could he please get in. I assured him that by all means he was welcome to get in the back, so he and his friend with the large AK47 climbed into the back of the car. He sat right behind me and kind of laid his arm over the back of his seat with his hand dangling close to my shoulder. He assured me that this procedure was only necessary because people talk, and he didn't want people to know that he was taking a bribe, so coming into the car with us allowed him to stealthily take my money without being seen. I covertly wadded the bill up into my hand and put it in his , he then transferred it to his pocket, no harm done, except I was out about 100 cordobas. We drove down the street a little ways while he chatted us up asking our names, luckily Sarah remembered to say that her name was Emily, so as not to get us in further trouble, and then they got out, their pockets well padded with bribe money to finish their police business for the day.

Sarah and I made it to the clinic and when we told our Nicaraguan friends the story they showed us the documents which were easily accessible in the car and laughed at us for being such stupid gringos. I still say Sarah didn't have her license, which really was a problem, so it wasn't all paid in vain, and now I've got this great story about how I paid off Nicaraguan officials for being white. In a way I think it's their way of sticking it to us just a little bit, kind of saying, yeah, you guys don't belong here, and you're going to pay for it.

The stuff of life

Where to begin. I have been working 5 weeks with delegations and am almost completely exhausted beyond comprehension. One of the interesting parts of these two delegations has been that we have seen and talked with many organizations and individuals that I had not previously been exposed to. Dora Maria Tellez is one of those people. She was an integral part of the Sandanista revolution during the 70's and was the commander that took over the city of Leon before the capital city of Managua fell to Sandanista control. This is only one of her many achievements. When she came to speak a few weeks ago she said a few things that struck me. One thing she said was that the people in the developed north live with certainties, there are many things that you can be sure of if you live that life, while in contrast the people of the poor south with only with uncertainties. Even the food for your next meal may be an uncertainty.

This made me think about the way that we live our lives depending on certainties or uncertanties. From my experience here in Nicaragua I have realized that people do not have many expectations. In fact it is normal to try not to have expectations. There is no certainty that a bus will arrive on time, or that it will arrive at all. So you don't expect it will. You get used to waiting. There may be frustration involved, but at the same time you have to have an attitude of acceptance, because getting annoyed isn't going to get you anywhere. There is no certainty that there will be power or water on any given day. It can go out at any time of night or day, it doesn't matter what important activity may be happening, there is no certainty that you will have these basic services on a daily basis. And in fact most people don't. So you go on, inconvenienced, but you go on. I have noticed in my journeys back to the US and in many of my friends and in myself a kind of expectation that everything should and will go our way. Anything that happens, be it on a personal, international or local level happens directly against us, and it is an injustice. We can't believe that they would cut the power, we can't believe that the bus won't arrive, and we don't know what it would be like to not have our next meal appear. There is a general expectation that things will go our way, and if they don't we have been wronged. We have this attitude because we have lived lives full of expectations that have come to fruition. The uncertainties are so few and far between, there are so many people, services and products that we have come to count upon, that we are certain will and should be there for us, we don't know what to do when they aren't. It is an interesting observation that I hope I will continue to take notice of as I go back to the US to live.

The other person who I have gotten to meet is Lilliam. She is Nicaraguan and is working with our current group of delegates. Today over our lunch of papusas someone started asking her about her childhood in Jinotega, an area in the North of Nicaragua. She began to tell us how at five years old she had begun working with the Sandanista revolution as her mother gave her wrapped packages of bombs to take to a finca about a kilometer away from their house. Her mother would wrap them up as presents and Lilliam would take them to the finca where they went to get the milk for her younger brothers and sisters. At 9 years old she knew what she was doing as she walked in on her mother making the bombs. Then she explained how at 12 she had become commander of a 120 woman military unit and had been forced to shoot her AK47 at the feet of one the women of her unit because the woman had disobeyed her. She talked about how her mother had taken them to Sandanista rallies when they were young and one time the National Guard showed up and her mother pushed her underneath a car to save her from the Guardia. They saw what her mother had done and pulled her out from underneath the car with a rope with a hook attached to the end that they threw into her shin. When she was out in the open her mother told her to run with her siblings and they watched at the Guardia began to beat her mother until the other Sandanistas pulled the National Guard off of her mother and saved her. On the way home Lilliam's mother told the children not to cry, because if their father saw he would be very angry. The final story she told was about her brother who was killed by the National Guard. When they went to bury him the National Guard showed up at the cemetery to take the body from the family. They took the body and began beating it against the coffin, Lilliam explained they had arrived to intimidate the pueblo. The people eventually chased them off and they were left in peace to put the body into the ground.

Many of the students were shocked by the things that Lilliam did at such a young age. I also am continually surprised by the actions of young people who fought in the Sandanista revolution. I told Lilliam that I thought it was because those of us who have never had to be in such a situation cannot imagine ourselves doing such things as the young people did during the revolution. Similarly I find myself in awe by the things that people do here to survive everyday and often wonder if I would be able to carry such a burden. A very close friend of mine once told me that once you are in the situation you just do it, because you have to. I guess I still wonder what my response would be, and how I would react...I have more to say, but am too tired to finish right now.

Immigration and poverty

Many of the folks I know here talk about immigration. I have friends who have told me they tried to go illegally and got caught and sent back. One friend told me it was the worst experience of his life. Recently a friend of a friend decided to try to go illegally to the States. She payed a coyote $7,000 to get safely to the other side, into the United States, only to get caught in Mexico. She has been detained in a correction facility there with other immigrants trying to flee the desperate situation in Nicaragua, I'm not sure if she has gotten back yet.

One of my best Nicaraguan friends here just confessed to me that she is thinking of going to the States. She wanted to know my opinion, what was possible, if I thought she should go. We talked about the possibilities, she said she has family members there that have been living for years without problems, and that they are all set. She has two young kids who she says she would leave with her mother, which means she would only remain as a faint memory to them as the years pass by. I didn't tell her to go or not to go, that's not my decision. But I told her the stories I have heard, the stories that everyone hears, yet despite these stories the risks seem smaller than the toll of continuing to live in abject poverty.

It's hard to know where to put myself in this. Because in reality I am a representation of the oppressor, I am from the United States, I can go back there without having to do hardly anything, I just flash my passport and I'm home free. Literally. But what ARE we doing? If the United States wants to worry about border control and limiting the flow of illegal immigrants into the country we need to do things differently. No matter how many walls or barriers or obstacles you put in the way desperation takes over. What if we tried, rather than closing our borders, to open our hearts and assist in the development of poor countries so that the population would not need to leave their homes and their families and their tierra behind? What if we think about working from the bottom up, starting with those who need help the most and giving them the tools and resources to develop their own land? Instead we continue to build walls to try to protect what we have, hoarding our goods and our resources because we are afraid of what we might lack if we have to share it with others. I believe that it is our fear of sharing what we have that makes us seek more. We crave more because who knows, tommorow it might be gone. But where does that leave those who never had anything to begin with? If we try to throw crumbs to the masses that are collecting around our walls we will soon be overtaken and forced to open our doors and break down our walls because they will not stand if enough pressure is forced upon them.

So why don't we begin by being open to those who are seeking our assistance rather than immediately hiding behind fortified walls?

The reality

Carolina wants to talk. I wonder about what it might be. She tells me that she is having problems with Leo and wants my advice. As I walk out the door I call her to tell her I’m on my way and ask her again for the complicated directions. I repeat them to myself as I walk down the street to get the bus. For once the bus isn’t too crowded, I have to stand but there is no one pressing into my bones as if they are trying to grind me up. I ask the bus driver if I am at the right stop. He tells me to get off, that it is the correct place. As I get off the bus I realize that I am not where I thought I was, and I don’t recognize the streets. I call Carol and she comes to get me. I see her walking down the street in her flowing white pants and tight black shirt. As usual she is well dressed with her hair flowing behind her. She greets me with a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. We walk to the house, the streets are torn up so we have to walk by the side of the houses and avoid the huge holes that are gaping open where the tubes are being put in for the ‘aguas negras.’ The sewage system is having to be re-done because someone bought the wrong size tubes and they were crushed when the streets were put back together the first time. The chevallos see us coming as we walk down the street and run inside giggling. As soon as we walk in Carol shows me Angel’s foot which is red and swollen and has an open wound near his toes. Someone was burning trash down the street she tells me and a plastic bag flew up and landed on Angel’s foot while he was playing. She shows me the ointment they were given for it from a neighbor. It is an eye cream, only to be used for opthomological problems it says on the side.

We drag the rocking chairs outside the house so we can talk. It’s too hot to be inside and there is at least a little bit of shade that offers us respite from the burning sun. I watch as folks walk by. Women walk by with their children’s hands held tightly in theirs as they walk by the huge holes in the street. The children peer down into the hole that is at least three times as tall as they are. Carol’s nieces and nephew run in and out of the house laughing at us sitting outside. Carol rebukes them and threatens them that if they don’t behave she will have to pegar them. Angel comes out to proudly show off the white cream that his grandmother put on his foot that I bought for him at the market. Carol yells at him to get back inside so that the polvo won’t infect his foot more. Then she begins to talk. She talks about the first boyfriend she had and how they were together for three years, then he hit her and she left him and started dating Leo. They have now been together for 12 years and have two children together. She tells me how she has kicked him out of the house before when she found out he was dating other women, but really that seems to be the thing that worries her the least. He is always with other women she tells me. But what is the worst is that he verbally abuses her. He tells her she is fat, she is ugly, she is nothing. She says at least he doesn’t hit her, she wouldn’t stand for that. She tells me that a man at work is in love with her and he says that if she leaves Leo he will take care of her. But she doesn’t know, she says. She doesn’t know the other man very well, and perhaps it is better to stay with the evil you do know than go with the unknown. The bottom line, she tells me, is that she can’t survive financially without Leo. She makes only 300 pesos quincenal, which is about $18 every fifteen days. Half of her pay is taken by the credit card company which comes to her work and takes her money to pay off a debt that she incurred with them. She won’t be able to feed herself and her kids without the money that Leo gives her. Carol is so strong and so smart. She and Leo have at least been talking more lately she explains. It has been better lately, they haven’t been fighting, they have been working things out. But still, she says, it’s not good enough. She doesn’t want to live with him, but she doesn’t have a choice, she doesn’t know what to do.

Similarly, I don’t know what to tell her. I explain that I can’t tell her what to do, I have never been in such a situation. I can’t tell her to leave her husband, but I tell her neither do I think it is a good idea to be with a man she doesn’t know, even if he says he will help her. We end up at an impasse. She has no where to go. No one to go to. Her mother tells her to ‘aguantar,’ to continue with Leo, because things will get better. She knows better than that though. She knows that the women will continue, just as it has with her father and her mother. But perhaps this would not be different with any man. But there is always the possibility for hope.

As the sun gets covered by clouds Carol tells me she wants to paint my toenails. As I look at them they are pretty gross. The silver polish that I had put on more than a month ago has worn off but still holds on in other places. I relent, although I am not entirely comfortable with the idea. As we get situated Carol tells me that she knows belleza and went to school and cuts hair and knows how to do manicures and pedicures. She declares that my feet are much to filthy to paint my toenails so she is going to wash them as well. She gets a basin and puts shampoo in it to wash my feet. She then spends at least an hour scrubbing, cleaning, and beautifying my feet. I have mixed emotions about this process. It is amazing to have someone tend so carefully to my feet, but at the same time I feel embarrassed that she is putting so much energy into my feet. It is better to just leave them unattended. She is appalled at how dirty my feet are, she says she doesn’t have any pumice stone to scrub them but that I should by some for the next time so she can clean them better. She then goes out to the pile of dirt that lays just outside the door and grabs a pumice stone from the pile. As she triumphantly returns to me she shows me that this stone is exactly what she wanted. She dips it in the water to clean it off and then vigorously scrubs my heels until they look clean again. As she finishes I admire how beautiful my feet look. My toenails are a deep burgundy and she grimaces as I slip my feet back into my dirty sandals, they no longer seem to belong there.

Carol and Daniela walk me to the bus as it starts to drizzle. This would be the second rainfall since last October, we are almost in May. Unfortunately it is only threatening, and it doesn’t actually rain at all.

The beach at beautiful San Juan del Sur


A picture of Sandino taped on the door of a bus


Myself and my roomate Leslie on my birthday

A 9 year old Nicaraguan friend said to me the other day:

"Yo creo que los Gringos descubren mas cultura de nosotros."
"I think white people discover more culture than we do."

"Why?" I asked her.

"Porque, siempre estan viajando y viendo otro partes del mundo."
"Because, you're always travelling and seeing other parts of the world."

What do you say to that?