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.