Nice People

Sometimes I get so used to the real decency of people here when it comes to strangers I forget to note it.  But recently, traveling around some, I was reminded. I showed up at the bus stop to find the usual gathering of people with their boxes of chickens and baskets of rosquillas.  It’s always a good sign when there are people waiting for a bus.  It means one is coming.  The only question is to where.  So I always ask which bus people are waiting for.  That prompts the universal question here: “A donde va?”  Where are you going?  I remember being a little put out when I first got here—what business is it of yours where I am going?  But the question is ubiquitous—everyone asks everyone.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s because to go somewhere is an uncommon event, worthy of note.  The answers are never that fascinating and no one really comments on your destination but they nod their heads, a little more enlightened: “Ah, Somoto.”   The bus I wanted was the bus to Somoto and that was the bus everyone was waiting for, too.  But a few older people were worried that I should wait for a bus. There is another alternative, a taxi, but it costs more and I like the bus just fine. I explained all that but that didn’t stop these concerned folks from signaling a taxi for me, anxious that I take the luxury transport, get there more directly, avoid the bus. I’m guessing they figured a gringa like me should take a taxi.  There was an awkward moment while I waved off the taxi driver.

Another day, another bus. Another nice man standing up to give me his seat, something that doesn’t surprise me anymore but it still delights me. Kids don’t do it.  It takes a man of a certain age, say 35 to 60, to remember his manners and give la señora mayor a seat. When I got to my destination I was walking around looking for my bank which is not with the other banks in town.  I asked a gentleman standing on the corner.  He though a moment and then said that I was going to have to take a taxi to get there.  Meanwhile I spied the bank halfway down the block.  I thanked him and took off for the bank.  What was he thinking? The truth is that he didn’t know where the bank was.  But he didn’t want to be unhelpful.  So he advised the taxi (surely the taxi driver would know where the bank was). This happens in one form or another all the time.  If you ask people for information, they want to help you.  They seem constitutionally unable to say they don’t know.  That isn’t helpful.  So they sometimes make stuff up.  In the value system it’s better to give wrong information (maybe it turns out right after all.  Who knows?) than no information at all.  For this reason you can’t really rely on what people tell you.  They aren’t lying; they are just trying to help.  Still, you have to double check all the time, ask multiple people.  If you get the same answer multiple times, maybe you can rely on it. 

Interesting how in this culture you can't always know.  More interesting is how used you get to living without being sure.

Massage

It’s hard to believe I know but I enjoyed a real massage up here in my little town in the north of Nicaragua. This is how it happened.  I know a young man named Jorge who is a serious and responsible and modern 19 year old .  He is studying on Saturdays to be a nurse.  Studying on Saturdays is the norm here, the fortunate and unusually well-off students being the only ones who can afford to go to the university daily. Part of the problem is the cost of transportation, but I get the impression that studying on Saturdays feels to people like just the right amount of studying.  Anyway, Jorge’s course of study is 3 years after which he will be a nurse.  Part of his training was a course on alternative medicine including massage, which he took during a month or two of weekly trips to Managua.  

 But Jorge is also an entrepreneur.  There is a Swiss government initiative here to try to encourage new businesses.  It already has 2 projects operational, one a dressmaking workshop which is fitted out with some very nice machines and cutting tables, and the other is a bamboo workshop which has a building on the highway and employs a number of workers who make bamboo baskets for sale.  They come in 2 sizes, big ones for transporting rosquillas and smaller ones for gathering coffee beans. I think they also make a few novelty baskets for sale.  Every few years the Swiss government “partners” with the mayor’s office to identify other possible projects and then gives the new entrepreneurs business training, after which the Swiss put some serious money into the various projects.

 Jorge not only wants to be nurse, he wants to own a pharmacy and give professional massages.  He was chosen to be in the class of 3 would-be entrepreneurs given the chance to learn about business.  And at the end of the course, damned if the Swiss didn’t come through.  They built a big addition on the front of the house of Jorge’s family, fitted it out with floors, a ceiling, glass cases and inventory.  They also got him a massage table. (More below on the two other projects that got Swiss funding.) I heard about the possibility of a real massage while visiting La Farmacia del Angel to congratulate Jorge on his new enterprise.  He showed me the massage room, a tiny former bedroom in the house, dirt floored, adobe-walled with the usual tin (actually zinc) roof open to the sky at the eaves.  Jammed into the room, besides the enormous table, was the ubiquitous plastic chair and a tiny table (notable because tables are rare here) with a wooden incense holder and 2 types of incense. Jorge was ready to go.  So I booked an hour massage for the price of 100 cordobas, about $4.—a bargain by US standards but not something the average person here could do or would do.  I got the feeling I was the first paying customer.

I showed up on a Sunday afternoon with few misgivings and a lot of happy anticipation.  We navigated the potentially difficult issue of how much clothes removal was optimal and, encouraged by Jorge to disrobe as I was comfortable, I opted for naked on the theory that you get a better massage that way and besides there are no other issues when you are 68 and the masseuse is 19.  Besides in the States the therapists are expert at preserving one’s modesty as they manage sheets.  The only problem was that although Jorge had a table he had no sheets, but rather a bath size towel. Managing the towel worked out más o menos.  And at the first touch on my back I knew this was the real deal.  Jorge was tentative, but he knew what he was doing (unlike the sad little massage I had one day from some street vendors in Peru who had no training and thought of massage as sort of like a friendly back rub.) The massage moved as it should from back to legs to arms, chest and face with a successful turn over half way through.  Finally, there was a blissful head and face massage and, an hour and twenty minutes start to finish, we were done. Jorge gave me a minute to collect myself.  I opened my eyes to gaze out through the roof at the trees in the yard.  I was covered in a mixture of sweat and body oil, my hair a snarled mess.  I got up from the table and used the towel to mop up my body and the table.  I started to get dressed when I noticed that Jorge had left his several pages long massage instructions on top of my bag.  Glad to see he was paying attention. Dressed and left, wrapping my head in a scarf, and said good bye and muchas gracias to Jorge, promising to return again which I will. I have 5 months remaining in Nicaragua, enough time for 5 nice massages at my US rate of one per month. How lucky can a person be?

Note on the other 2 entrpreneurs in the Swiss program.  One is a partnership of two guys in town, both of whom I know for their interest in learning English.  They own Nuevas Segovias Tours and have a Swiss provided office right on the highway with, get this, conference table, computers, display case for artenesias, business cards and brochures, which I helped translate so that they are in two languages.  This is a lot of stuff for a start-up and I really hope these guys can make it.  It’s a little hard to imagine because my part of Nicaragua is not on the usual tourist route. The third business is called Yalavisa and is a video service/cable channel. The owner has Swiss-supplied video cameras and he films the goings on in town and then puts them up on a cable channel. It’s kind of cool to watch the Miss Instituto contest—all 3 hours of it-- on TV. Time will tell if the guy can make a buck.

Winter of my Discontent

Yes, it finally is winter here in Nicaragua.  As I write the rain in hammering the tin roof of the house again, hard and loud and long.  This is the third time in as many days.  The only question is how long it will go on.  Sometimes a couple of hours, sometimes eight. The effect could not be more dramatic.  The world is a cool damp place now, even when it isn’t raining.  The skies are often cloudy.  There’s a break from the sun.  Things are clean and weedy.  The hills around here are greening up and the river that passes by my town is actually flowing with water. Mosquitoes are down while it rains; they show up again when there hasn’t been rain for a few days.

  I’m still trying to figure out the complex relationship people see between health and rain.  Rain isn’t considered too healthy—it brings bad germs down on your head.  Last night Candida’s granddaughter, infant great granddaughter, the child’s father and the child’s niñera (baby-sitter) were visiting at about 5 o’clock when it started to rain.  They live 2 blocks away.  They didn’t leave while it was raining.  Next thing I knew Candida was making dinner for everyone.  “Don’t they have an umbrella?” I asked, knowing that of course they did or could borrow one of ours. “They don’t want to bring the baby out in the rain,” she explained, even if she won’t be touched by a drop of water. So the rain continued and they stayed till Candida was making evening snacks for everyone.  Still here at 9 p.m. when I went to bed, and again at 7 a.m. when I got up—Sleep-over.

Just as the rains started a week or so ago, I got sick—and I for one see no causal connection.  It just was my turn to be sick, I having dodged any illness except a cold since I got here. What I had was a urinary tract infection that showed up on the same day as a case of dengue, the notorious tropical scourge of volunteers and Nicas alike, or at least that is the working diagnosis. The combination of symptoms from the two left me pretty knocked out for 9 days or so.  I am almost completely recovered now. But even though my usual positive outlook has returned, thank God, I feel compelled to say that being sick in another country is as bad as I feared it would be. What I always suspected is that emotional reserves would be shot while I suffered through the body aches, fevers, etc.  This was true. I not only wanted someone to take care of me, preferably my mother, but in my weakened state, I was visited by all the worst demons of self-doubt, second-thoughts and self criticism. What a miserable state of affairs that is, and why it should be so I don’t know, but it is, and there is not much to do about it but exclaim in wonder when you are better and the confidence returns with the-más o menos-pink cheeks.

Bright lights during convalescence: Candida peering shyly into my dark room holding out a golden glass of fresh melon fresco; the super sensitive care of Peace Corps doctor Marta who long distance listened to symptoms, decided on lab tests needed, prescribed and told me how to get everything done without having to get on a bus and always wanted to know if the plan we made sounded OK to me; my Kindle and its 3G connection.

So that’s all.  For some reason I needed to say it and I did.