who are all this people?

my spanish teacher spent about a half hour today telling me ghost stories from her life. what could be better? i would like to start off this post by excoriating every friend or family member who hasn`t yet shared their ghost stories with me. please, folks, we`re not kicking around this planet for nothing. put down your inhaler and write me.

anyway, about mildred...she was telling me about the four most famous legends of guatemala, their own versions of the pied piper, the headless horseman, the republican with a heart. they were allegedly terrifying, though not really at all since they´re just about as believable as the hobbit.

for example, you have the woman who visits cheating men, but only when they`re drunk, and she leads them to a remote location where she, naturally, kills them. but they die only when they look directly at her, because this woman has the head of a horse. it`s a fairly credible legend - i've seen women like that, and it's true that they only really take home guys who are very plastered.

then mildred told me about the sombrerón, the little fella (yea-high-abouts) dressed all in black who wears an enormous sombrero and plays a guitar, or some instrument. he sits in a window and attracts women, women with very bad taste, and then - get this - he braids their hair. for nothing! the problem is that he braids it so tightly that it can't be undone. and that's the end of the popular retelling of the sombrerón.

BUT - then mildred tells me about how her grandmother, her abuelita, saw the sombrerón when she was nine years old. the entire story sounds lifted out of a garcia marquez novel, much like this country: her abuelita lived in an enormous house with several different wings, and one day she entered a room and saw a gold figurine on a windowsill. she picked it up and turned to leave the room when she saw the sombrerón, who told her, "it's yours, but don`t tell anyone about it."

naturally, abuelita understood his words to mean the exact opposite, and she immediately told her mother, who wrapped the figurine in a cloth and shoved it in a drawer. when her father showed up later that evening, they opened the drawer and found that the figurine had turned into a piece of charcoal. abuelita's mom asked her to tell the story about the sombrerón, and they found that the little girl could no longer talk.

and so the abuelita spent the rest of her life mute, communicating through sign language. she apparently continued to see the sombrerón up until her death at 92, only when whoever was taking care of her left the room or fell asleep.

personally, my reaction as mildred told me this story was to rifle through my little catalog of mental disorders and diagnose granny before she even lost her voice. which, of course, is not the reaction mildred was waiting for, so instead i gave myself over to the mystery of the story and said "wow" a lot.

mildred went on to tell me several stories of visitations and disturbances she has experienced in her own room over the years - the creepiest possibly being the night that both her television and one of her many mechanized dolls turned on in the middle of the night at the same time. but the loveliest of all the stories was probably the day whe she and her family were having some sort of dinner/holiday. mildred's mother struggled to open the dish cabinet, which had belonged to mildred´s grandfather and had never stuck closed before. at the same time a little girl, not part of the family, pulled aside a relative of mildred's and showed him an old family photo on the wall. "i just saw him here," she said, pointing at mildred`s deceased grandfather. and presto, the cabinet opened.

the ending of that story is kind of lacking...so then they all sat down to eat, and everyone was served rice tamales, for which mildred`s mother was famous. and guess what? they tasted like shit!

Here You Go, Charles

I think I clearly set a bad example by having written anything on this blog in the first place.

Last night I walked into a bar called Ojalá, aiming to fulfill my promise to my newly-professored brother to drink a Gallo for him. The place was empty and a guy played meandering, finger-picked songs on electric guitar from the low stage. The first Gallo I was served was pure ice, so the fellow brought me another, which was only half ice. Xela itself is a cold town in the evening and the open doors let a winter breeze in, so you wear your coat indoors.

I chatted with the owner a while, a Guatemalan, and then a lanky American hauled in a tub of purified water on his shoulder. He swore much much more than I ever do even when I`m trying to offend someone, but it had about as much meaning as a Nicaraguan honking his car horn. We had a conversation that quickly swerved from American geography to American rock, facilitated by the perfect intersection of both, Boston. The tall American apparently saw them play in Texas in 1991 or so, over a decade after the break-up, and they played all three of their albums in their entirety. His description of them opening the show with "Foreplay/Longtime" gave me, if not goosebumps, a powerful reminder of them. He himself, tough guy he is, seemed moved by the recollection.

So naturally I`ve been thinking about Boston, the band, today. Who wouldn`t? I listened to a couple songs on Youtube and was overjoyed to come across this info accompanying "Let Me Take You Home Tonight," as written by the little dribble of DNA who uploaded the video: "a very good song and band but rap is starting tot ake over so im gona try to get rock back." You will probably at this point want to hear the song, unless you`re my newly-professored brother.
Lucky for all of you, we didn`t just talk Boston...the conversation touched on Camper Van Beethoven, Jane`s Addiction, the Minutemen, Sinead O`Connor, all the tops of the tops ever since Roy Orbison kicked it. Btw, I hear that his final album is excellent.

A few friends in the states had asked me to ask around about the Sandinistas and the war that roiled Nicaragua in the 80s - a war made possible only by the the US´ funding of a regime that had been voted out in an attempt to prevent another domino falling to Communism. The Clash were big fans of the Sandinistas and dedicated a brilliant stoned and schizo triple-length album to these guerilla warriors. So naturally I just figured that the Nicaraguans I talked to would have nothing but good things to say about the Sandinistas, who returned to power in recent democratic elections and are now led by the Daniel Ortega, considered by some a Chavez or Castro, jr.

The stories I heard about the Sandinistas and their rule in the 80s didn`t sound like the kind of thing you`d really want to have an album dedicated to. A draft was instituted for all boys of 17 or 18, and the army would come around to each house a total of three times to take the sons. A former language partner told me of her boyfriend attempting to escape into Costa Rica across a river and being shot by the Sandinistas. A teacher told me of her best friend`s father being assassinated for his political views. Children were taken from families up into the mountains for a year to learn to read and write, a program which apparently was successful in raising the literacy rate. My host mother described the terrible rationing that happened nationwide, and how businesses were all told how much to charge for each good.

The amazing thing to me is that each of the countries I`ve spent time in (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala) has its own incredible stories of brutal repression and bloody civil wars that lasted into the 90s. I`ve been in Guatemala for about five days, absolutely love it here, and I can`t reconcile the calm of this town with the widespread massacres that happened so recently to indigenous people like those I pass on the street every few seconds.



Ah, I forgot to mention the great pupuseria I ate at in comically lovely Antigua, Guatemala. I was having drinks with David, a French guy, and Pattie, the Salvadoreña owner. She told us about how her stepfather, a lieutenant colonel in the army, had shielded her and her brother from the war so successfully that she didn`t even know what it meant when a friend used the word "guerrilla" with her. And then she saw her stepfather on TV, signing the peace treaty that ended the war. And then the next day he went to the airport to fly to Taiwan and was assassinated.

I`m sure I had something lighter to tell you here...I think I`ll be starting volunteer work on Monday in the afternoon, after my language class. I don`t know what I`ll be doing yet, but the odds are good it will be in a neighboring Mayan village. Some of them, especially the oldest and youngest, don`t speak Spanish, but sometimes I know how they feel.

I feel like blogging is a bunch of nonsense, but really what isn`t. At least I don`t get paid for it.

The Minutemen were our new Bob Dylan, but funnier - they could have given you all this political jibber-jabber so much better...listen to "Corona," won`t you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQbUEWBmcB4&feature=related

when you drop a guitar in nicaragua, it plays "hotel california."

there´s a pastry shop i go to every other day or so, and i always order a rolled-up sweet bread called the cuerno, named for its resemblance to a horn. for some reason it´s absolutely hilarious to the two women who work there that i always order the same thing, as if i were requesting a soiled-diaper danish. today i was finally given the nickname Señor Cuerno.

there´s a guy on calle atravesado who asks for money, usually just putting a hand out as you pass. he is missing his left eye, and it looks like it was removed with an ice cream scoop. two days ago he was clucking - or howling, screeching - just like a wounded chicken.


aside from my work as a teacher in the school, i volunteer a couple afternoons a week with a family of six children, a mom and dad, and a little old grandma who speaks nearly unintelligble spanish. four of the children are adopted and the other two - or three, depending on the day - are related by blood. recently i was walking back home with a couple of the other volunteers as the sun set (gorgeous silent tomato exploding over nicaragau), and sarah mentioned that the grandma was a spy for the sandinistas during the war in the 80s. she would go from place to place in town, hunched as she walked, complaining that she was sick and in pain, and under her apron she kept a pistol and the letters she was sent to deliver.

should we share our infinite cookies?

you may say to yourself that just because i´ve come to granada that i´m not able to hear the bee gees on a regular basis. you are very wrong! on election night, waiting for my slice to go at telepizza, i stopped cursing the service long enough to catch "i started a joke." just today, cutting through the cluttered passages of the market, the part where nobody seems to sell poker chips, i caught the last few notes of "words" before someone switched the station. one terrible morning weeks back, realizing that the water i had just boiled and poured into my oatmeal had a mouse turd in it, and that the eggs i had hardboiled the night before were missing, and that in my effort to have one less pot to clean i poured my coffee directly down the drain, and that the kitchen was now occupied by my host mother and sister in their flurry of morningtime cooking and chatting, and that the bagel i ordered at the euro cafe as a replacement breakfast would take a whole eternity to toast - it´s just at this moment that "staying alive" came through the speakers. i can´t forget to mention the times i´ve been racing down calle atravesada, trying to get by the money-changers and taxis and fresco sellers and folks with baskets on their heads when i´ve stopped in my tracks to listen to "night fever" playing on a tv in the street (yes, a tv in the street) or even, my personal favorite, "how deep is your love."

"how deep is your love" is from the era of disco bee gees, saturday night fever time (late 70s), but it was written in protest of california´s recent proposition 8, the consitutional ban of gay marriage. in an effort to allegedly preserve the sanctity of the most unsanctimonious, whored-about insitution in our society, Marriage, the California Straights just passed a law made sure that they don´t have to share their cookies with the California Gays. the thing is that these silly bastards don´t realize that there´s enough cookies to go around - an infinity of cookies! in a perfect california the Straights would nibble on their cookie and divorce it two bites in, while the Gays would stroll off to their yard and eat their own cookie without dropping a crumb. the problem is that the Straights just care too much. hence the lyric: "cause we´re living in a world of fools, breaking us down, when they all should let us be, we belong to you and me..."

i don´t personally think that the fact that a song has a political message makes it better. usually it´s the opposite. and it could even be argued that the bee gees lacked the prescience to protest a gay marriage ban 30 years in advance. but the fact is that if you think that you probably haven´t watched the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpRFeJEG6_o

since you all love this topic so much, remind me to tell you sometime about the culture of incredibly flaming gay men in granada. it´s the last thing that me or any of my friends expected to see in such a stereotypically macho country. or, if this topic is making you all uncomfortable, i´ll tell you about the little old lady i know who used to be a sandinista spy. and no, she isn´t gay.

La Epifania

One day during the break between classes at La Epifania I was talking with one of the teachers, a very sweet woman in her 40s. She told me about how much she enjoyed meeting the volunteers from all over the world, and especially those most interesting people of all, the Israelis. Her eyes wide open, she sounded like she was talking about unicorns. "These people," she said in Spanish, "who believe that the Messiah never came!" She spoke without judgement, just pure awe and wonder. She absolutely could not wait for her next opportunity to talk with a Jew. A week later I met a drunk Nicaraguan fellow in a bar who simply did not believe me when I said I wasn´t Jewish. I stopped arguing and started replying to him with "Shalom" and "Baruch atah adonoi." He told me that he was a friend of Jews, and that he came from a very powerful family and would give me protection.



La Parrillada
One morning, exhausted from a late night and coming off several days of a head cold, I tagged along to the house of a friend of a friend for a barbeque. I really just wanted to stay in bed but had already said I would come. We headed over, met the couple who owns the house (Felipe and Margarita), and then up to the market to buy the chicken and frescos (sugary juices in a bag). The parrillada started off slowly, some chairs in the backyard under the fruit trees and a boom box blasting Nicaraguan dance music. Friends and relatives - or possibly all relatives - came by and took seats, and the grilling started a few feet away. The preferred way to start ignite the coals was with a twisted up plastic bag. I watched from my chair as the smoke blew my way.

The food was served fast and everyone started eating. I turned down shots of rum several times, explaining that I was hung-over and had to work on a lesson in the afternoon...this excuse sufficed, but never for more than thirty seconds. At one point Juan leaned over and told me that Felipe said I was now considered family, which made me wildly uncomfortable, and a few minutes later the entire gathering starting egging me on to dance - first with Ivania, then with Maria. Maria was sitting next to her boyfriend, nobody else was dancing, and it didn´t make a difference that I claimed not to know how to dance. "That´s ok," said Juan, "we´ll all be clapping!" I blew my nose and asked if maybe anyone else cared to dance in my place. Eventually they let me be, and Felipe took me on spin around the town and the lakefront on his motorcycle. We stopped at a couple different docks and stared at the lake. I would say things like "wow" and "yup, it sure is beautiful!" and Felipe would say, at the very most, "tranquilo." This either meant that the lake was tranquilo or that I needed to relax.



On the Street
When you pass someone on the street in Nicaragua, you can hello if you like, but you can also say "adios." It makes sense - a chance encounter on the street is equal parts walking toward and walking away, and there really isn´t any logical reason we should choose one or the other. But nobody ever says a Spanish equivalent of "and there you are," which I think would be just great.

Matagalpa

I keep putting off emails to friends and family about my travels because it involves so much retelling of the same stories...and sitting in an internet cafe isn´t like sharing a beer. So, despite the horror it gives me to tell you this, I´ve decided to write a blog. I expect it to be less personal than my emails, but maybe also less rushed and laden with links to excellent Bee Gees videos. But that would be a crime, wouldn´t it?

This weekend I decided to get out of Granada. I had been intending to travel to the volcanic island of Ometepe but didn´t have the four days that the trip requires. Friday morning, exhausted, I forced myself to get out of bed and take the bus to Masaya, to the bus to Tipitapa, to the bus to Matagalpa. Gorgeous ride - you leave the hot lowlands of lakeside Nicaragua and climb up into the green hills, which then become mountains. The trip only took a total of four hours - I would ask people how far each stage was, and they´d always say "far," and then maybe give me a number that seemed like no time at all. I sat next to a soft-spoken fellow who I could not understand, except for when he named a town. We pulled off the highway at one point and I had to rephrase the question three times until I knew if we were in Matagalpa.

I´ve been bored in Granada lately, or rather just not very excited about the city when I finish my workday of volunteering. It´s small, you can get to know people everywhere you go in very little time, but there is also a strange rapport between the moneyed gringos and the Nicaraguans. We foreigners infuse the city with money, and many of the best restaurants, bars, and hotels are owned by and geared toward us. As I walk around day-to-day there is an inescapable association by skin color between me and the rich lazy bastards who move there in their fifties and talk about properties or prostitutes. I generally talk about neither, but always feel a little embarrassed about the wealth I´m presumably spending on both.

Granada is, on the other hand, a safe place and an easy one to get to know. I get very bored talking about the positive points, so I don´t much...but it is a comfortable town and has been a good first step into Latin America. I spend too much time with other volunteers, sweet as they are, reflecting on the 50 cent mojitos and the dollar ice cream cones, and I think to myself - in English - that I oughta never let anyone know about the crass luxuries of my vida diaria ("life of diarrhea").

I have been on the computer too long and haven´t even told you about the part I was excited about...so I´ll make it a highlight reel. Matagalpa - city in the mountains, cloudy and cool, oh and when I say mountains I mean rolling green hills that spill all over each other like a pack of tired dogs on a slippery floor.

I walked around most of the town at least twice last night and caught an astonishing rainbow after walking past the lovely church and buying 2 cordoba bags of grape juice at the grocery store. Great flavor, comes out to about 10 cents each. And the cathedral looks like this.



THEN, today, I got the bus to Selva Negra, a coffee plantation with miles of muddy trails through the woods, way up in the hills. It was absolutely gorgeous and there are several photos of that on the way. Tired of writing, gonna log off and tell you more soon.

Ten days until the election!