Friday, March 8, 2013

Coffee Hour


Coffee Hour


Coffee hour on the porch has become one my many favorite parts of the day.  I have several favorites and can’t choose among them for top favorite.  In contention are getting up at five and hearing the mad jungle bird calls joining with the roosters outside, buying tortillas and cuajada cheese from people who make them in town, making dinner, reading and listening to music at night.  How coffee hour works is this: at around 5 o’clock I stop working and start the water boiling, rustling around for bread- -masapan or sweet picos-- while Candida, who already  had her coffee earlier gets two plastic chairs to the porch. We sit there companionably, reading (she, her Bible and me something in Spanish, right now an autobiography of Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal) or talking about whatever comes up like the mental development of a girl who passes in the street or the family relations of folks who live close by or the degree of poverty experienced by someone who earns 1000 cordobas per month for a family of three, all topics that came up this past week.  It’s still hot at five o’clock but by six or six thirty it has cooled appreciably.  Other people sit out, too, or stroll past, or, if they are kids, play in the street. It’s as pleasant a way to spend an hour and a half as I can have up here in my site.
Today we were joined by Celia, Candida’s younger sister who is, I’d guess, 65 or so.  She is a tall dignified woman, a retired school teacher and a pillar of the Catholic Church, a kind of lay assistant who speaks from the pulpit and does the gospel readings. Today she come over to sit, wearing a longish straight skirt and a T shirt that says on the front “I like good boys” and on the back “But I love bad boys”. The shirt does not do damage to Celia’s dignity because neither she nor anyone else knows what it means.  To her credit, if she did, she would laugh.  But she might not wear the shirt again.  She doesn’t ask and I don’t tell.
Candida and Celia have something new in common.  Candida’s beloved granddaughter, a fat unattractive woman of 25, is pregnant and her baby is due this week.  The new mom has three months maternity leave, but then must return to work. Who will watch the baby? Her own mother, Candida’s daughter, works and it’s certain that no men in the family are going to babysit, although the granddaughter’s own father doesn’t work. You guessed it.  Candida, the great grandmother, will take care of the baby. Similarly, Celia, who used to live alone, now cares for a six year old grandchild.  Celia’s daughter lives with her husband and the boy’s sister in a small community where it is believed the elementary school is inferior.  So the boy stays with Celia so that he can attend the town school and be tutored by his well educated grandmother.
I asked the two of them tonight how they felt about the changes, actual and anticipated, that having children in the house made. I anticipated some dissatisfaction because both are retired after long, hard work lives and appear to enjoy the lives they lead. Celia said she like having little Freder in the house.  He goes back to his parents on weekends and she thinks that works out well.  Candida has second thoughts.  She is looking forward to cuddling a baby (I’m hoping to get some cuddle time, too), but she hopes the child won’t cry all the time.  She is worried about the impact a baby will have on the business which she relies on for a good part of her income.
But neither said no. That’s the way family works here in Nicaragua.  People pitch in.  It’s not heroic; it’s what you do, always do, at least if you are a woman-- take care of family.  It’s also a part of the individual vs. the community theme—you are defined by family and community.  Your individual self isn’t that important.  Or rather it’s very important, but not in the self assertive way we norteamericanos are used to.  Rather, in the supporting others way.
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