I just did my hour of volunteer work for the month. I sat under the awning in the middle of the parque central to read books with kids in homage to Eduardo Baez, the charismatic director of Libros para Niños who died suddenly nine days ago. It is a big loss to the community. Libros is a terrific organization that is based in Jinotepe and puts a lot of books in the hands of kids. The library in Granada that partners with LPN thought the most fitting memorial would be to read books to kids.
Plopping down a basket of books and some cushions in the middle of town brings out a different group of kids than come to the reading corners. Several children where left all day. Their moms were out selling refrescos. I sat with one girl about 9 years old who worked hard to cover up the fact that she couldn’t read. Her brother, about 10 was sounding out words on a more difficult story book and she made fun of his laborious process. At least I can read! He shot back.
Another boy who was older, maybe 12, kept his bottle of glue hidden in his shirt. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was. Am I supposed to ask him not to sniff over the books. Anyway, I figured he could use some exposure to good reading material too. He listened to the story reader for a while and then I handed him a book about snakes to read. Another little boy covered me with a wet cough while we read about elephants. He was very intent on counting all of the animals in the book. He might not have been able to read, but he was enjoying his book!
We have exactly three weeks left. The kids are coasting to the end of school. Jules only has 5 more days to go in with two not so major exams because he is done with the grueling AP tests. Noah has to hang out in middle school through exam week, but we are thinking of calling him in sick.
Previous to this year, three weeks was the longest time I had ever spent in Nicaragua. If I were starting at this point, with three weeks to spend in Nicaragua, I would think it is enough time to perfect my Spanish, do a volunteer project and see the entire country. But because it is my last three weeks of an entire year, it feels like I haven’t managed to accomplish those things the whole enormous time I have been here; I might as well pack my bags now and just wait for the airplane to take off. Perspective is everything.
Noah said the other day it has been the fastest year of his life. Mine too. But isn’t every year?
I am starting to think a little longingly about going back to Seattle. I can almost feel the cool air off the Sound and smell the yellow azaleas in Volunteer Park. I can’t wait to walk to a movie at the Harvard Exit. Visit Elliot Bay Books newly relocated close to my house. Run through Interlaken and the Arboretum. Vivace. Vietnamese sandwiches for a beach picnic. Columbia City farmers market.
I am so lucky to be able to be part of both here and there. What an incredible luxury to have the money and the passport to go back and forth.
I didn’t volunteer much here. I had every intention of responding to a community identified need and filling a gap but I just . . .didn’t. I expressed my willingness to several projects, but I did very little follow up. Because I didn’t really want to do anything. This is a pattern I have seen in myself at home where I also hate to volunteer. It is hard to admit, but it is the awful truth. I will undertake good work for low pay and give it my all, but I have a consistent aversion to volunteer work.
It isn’t just that I am selfish although that is the main reason; it’s that I over think it and bring myself to the point of paralysis. There is a lot of truth in the old no-good-deed-goes-unpunished adage. Having spent my working life in the non-profit sector, I am hyper aware of the crimes of good intention committed by volunteers eager to visit their expertise on the unsuspecting populace. So I thought I was going to be able to work through this here, but it will just be one more thing for the list of what I thought I was going to do but I didn't.
But why do I feel so guilty? I wouldn't feel guilty about spending the year in Provence or Italy and not having a 20 hour a week volunteer job.
We live in an open house in a tropical country and haven’t sprayed or fumigated for the last 10 months. Presently, ants sweep across the counter when anything is left out and swarm on the dishes I always leave for the maid to do in the morning. We have mourning doves in the rafters, bats living in the roof ridge and unidentified flying animals in our bedroom wall. At first I tried to get rid of them all, but now we have a peaceful coexistence. Except for the mice. When I notice they have been around, I set a trap. Mice multiply too rapidly and the cats that wander through the house to pee don’t seem to want to be bothered with doing any work.
The other night Moni told us she had seen a mouse scurry out of the oven so we set a trap and caught one teeny tiny mouse. Then the next night at dinner, another one popped up out of the burner hole. Then another one. Clearly an infestation of very bold or stupid rodents. We put a little peanut butter on the trap and tried to be quiet, which wasn’t actually necessary because as we ate our dinner, the tiny mouse licked the trap clean. It was apparently set for larger prey. We reapplied and readjusted. Waited a few moments and three mice were coming up to see what was for dinner. SNAP. One caught. The rest run away. Empty trap, reset, watch, snap. Next victim. Repeat. Total for the night – 4. I only felt fleetingly squeamish.
The rainy season, winter, has begun. It came several weeks early this year with thunderstorms and driving rain throughout last week. It is always a surprise when the rain returns to Seattle after the glorious months of July and August and you realize with a start that the weather can hamper your plans. Same here, but the six months of absolutely no rain were terminated with huge amounts of water falling from the sky instead of the gentle mist of the Northwest. I have never seen rain drops so big.
Back in December we had been so thrilled with the locally made opening skylights we installed in the kids room for ventilation. With the rain, it became obvious that each seam of glass and metal leaked, there is no seal and somehow large holes were torn into the roof in the installation. Miguel had to come again and again after each rain to problem solve and patch. The kids had a puddle in their room each morning and it was dripping on Ellen’s bed.
The rain coincided with Ellen’s week long visit. It was so fabulous to walk down the streets of Granada with her again! She loves it here for all the same quirky reasons I do. Good thing she is completely self sufficient in Spanish because despite my best intentions, I ended up working most of the time.
On Friday we hired a car to drive to San Juan del Sur and go to the beach. It was astonishing that in the course of just one week, the landscape has gone from brown to green. The dust isn’t blowing around anymore, but there is increased humidity making the heat, well, hotter.
We got Rene to drive us out to my favorite beach, Mahajual, which is down a dirt road. When we got there, the cooking fire in the beach shack was cold and there were a bunch of bored youth hanging around. We perused the menu, but only ordered cokes and hurried down to the beach. Ellen’s coke exploded all over her dress and as we stepped foot on the beach, the rain began to fall hard. We stood under a beach towel for awhile, but it rained harder and harder so we made a break for the cooking shack where they politely wiped some chairs off and positioned them so as not to be in any leaks. We waited. More rain.
How long does the rain usually last, I asked. Sometimes all day.
Rene, are you worried about getting out? I inquired.
No, no don’t worry we’ll be fine.
With no let up in sight Ellen proposed returning to San Juan del Sur for lunch. We ran to the car and made it up from the beach no problem. But the road to San Juan del Sur was turning into a river. We couldn’t tell how deep the water was in the low spots so we were waiting for someone coming the other way to see if we could make it. Rene kept asking me, should we wait or go ahead. I didn’t want to make that decision since it was his car. He went cautiously ahead.
Finally we made it back to the paved road. As we drove back into town, some of the steep side roads were like waterfalls. We ate lunch in a beach restaurant on the driest table we could find while rain pounded through the thatch roof and wooden shades. It did stop and we had about ten minutes to walk around in the mud before we headed to Managua to pick Jules up from school. We had mud up to our knees but I noticed a Nicaraguan woman in front of us was also walking in flip flops, but she was spotless. How do they do that?
I cannot believe that my son is seventeen. He had to take the SAT in Managua on Saturday so his birthday on Sunday was meant to be a day of relaxation and recovery. Thelma invited us to go with them to her uncle’s isletas. The isletas are a group of many tiny islands in Lake Colcibolca near Granada. They were spewed out by the Mombacho Volcano sometime in the distant past. Now they are the playground of the prominent families of Nicaragua who maintain houses there among the very close -knit families of the isletas. In their natural state, the isletas look like small piles of rock and grass sticking out of the water. Some have elaborate houses on them and some of them have shacks with pigs and chickens, something cooking on the wood fire stove and lots of little kids jumping in the water. Each tiny island has a name and someone who grew up there knows the name of hundreds of different islands.Transport is by boat. We met the lancha to take us to the island at Marina Colcibolca. As usual, we were travelling lightly with only beach towels to sit on, pasta salad to eat and water to drink, all carried in a market basket. And as usual, the Ginsbergs brought a cooler on wheels full of a variety of delicious lunch food, ice, soft drinks, rum, hammocks to lounge in and folding chairs to sit on. Loaded up and off we went. This was the last day of Ellen’s visit and I was glad to have the opportunity to get out on the water. Mombacho was beautiful in the distance. Everything is green again. When we pulled up to the dock at the isleta, the wizened caretaker came to help us unload. He had wild curly hair, a cadaverous face, lots of gold teeth and pronounced limp. He is nicknamed the pirate and spends his life living on a less than 200 square meter island covered in mangoes. The island had a commodious palapa with a picnic table where the pirate set up the hammocks. There was an empty swimming pool that is pumped full of lake water only when Thelma’s aunt from Canada visits. We spent the day in the hammocks, in the water, eating ripe mangoes eating green mangoes and drinking rum. The lancha came back around 5 to take us back to land. By that time, the boys had become restless and reverted back to their much younger selves. The were pelting the mangoes with stones to bring them down and finally running around the island.
Some of you might remember my first Nicaraguan Salon Experience across the street at the Lesman Studio back in the fall. After that I started going to Doña Letty who has a nice place down the street. She has a corner building with a strong breeze that helps mitigate the chemical smells of the dye and nail products. I stopped by today to finally cover the encroaching gray. I was spending a really long time in the morning with brown eye shadow and a mascara brush. (Thank you so much Cheri for that absolutely priceless tip!) There is really no reason to put off going since it costs all of twenty dollars to have my hair dyed and cut, but still there is very little that tries my patience more than sitting and waiting for the dye to soak in. Which when I got there, Doña Letty informed me would take an extra long time because my roots are so very gray and stubborn. I didn’t have an appointment, but there was no wait. She was in the back, probably making lunch and her daughter and the rest of the staff were doing each other’s hair.
Instead of getting annoyed at the time stretching ahead of me, I decided to try to return to that place of wonder and delight I had lived in when I first came to Nicaragua and everything was so different and charming. This could be my last time at Doña Letty’s. Although for 20 bucks, I might as well get a touch up before I go to New York. I put on my smock and opened my book and sat down in the washing station which is just on the other side of the courtyard from Doña Letty’s kitchen. After a while her daughter called out from her lunch – “Hey mom, are you going to take care of this lady that’s waiting here?” Coming, coming she said. Same as last time, right? She looked at my hair and went to mix up the dye. I was glad she didn’t hand me the book of hair swatches that stylists here seem to always use. If I knew which color to pick, I would just get it at the drugstore.
A very old lady comes in and sits down to wait while she gossips with Letty about grandchildren and children. I can follow most of the conversation, but I am still disappointed to find that I can’t quite keep up. Whose baby is it exactly and has the four year old stopped nursing or the baby or the mother?
A Swedish girl comes in to get more blonde streaks in her hair. Funny, I always thought Swedish girls had those naturally. Her Norwegian boyfriend gets a cut and shave in the barber section.
Doña Letty scrubbed the dye into the roots, set the timer and then went to the kitchen to fry some beans. I read my book. Several small parakeets were chattering in a cage behind me. The timer rang and she returned to comb the dye through. It hurt a lot. She must have been using a very fine toothed comb. Honestly, I almost cried. Sat some more. Finally Jessica the clean up girl washes and combs my hair and sends me to the front. I mention in passing that I wouldn’t mind a bit of a cut too, so Letty sits me down and deftly wields the scissors and huge chunks fall before my eyes.
But this doesn’t bother me because in the last year, I have been cured. I can now walk off the street into a beauty parlor almost anywhere and ask them to dye or cut my hair. It is a great feeling of freedom. I asked Jonathan how he likes my new latin haircut. He says it is very Shakira.
