Popoyo, Nicaragua
I have a long day of busses ahead of me so I got up early to write down what happened last night.
I found out pretty last minute that I could sign off power of attorney for my land tomorrow (today) at 930am. I then started booking my journey to El Salvador. I don’t think I’d have minded, under different circumstances, the local busses, but I am on a tight schedule and need to get there quickly. I guess that fact is what bothers me. So instead of many busses over many days, I’m going to Leon today and then taking a 12 hour direct shuttle from the hostel at 330am on Wednesday. For some reason the shuttle needs a copy of my passport and three of my vaccine card. Long story short it was a lot of thinking and decision making and when it was over I did my breathing exercises. On my way back I saw a thunderstorm moving up the beach. The clouds were black but because it was sunset everything else was golden, and there were some insane purple lightning strikes coming down. As I got in front of The Barrel the storm was on us. I realized it was my last night here for some time. I jumped in the ocean and swam out to the breakers as the sky went black and the cold rain put what looked like a layer of frost on the surface of the warm ocean. I could barely see, but I could hear the thunder and feel the contrast in the rain and ocean temperatures. I felt like I was being swallowed by something, touched by several different forces with the strength to crush me that were for some reason deciding not to.
When I got out I started on some ding repair until the rain stopped, then left to go make copies of my documents. The guy giving me the ride is a local surfer who, to be honest, I’ve never really talked to and always kind of intimidated me, but for 200 Cordoba he took me to el barrio to get my copies made. The deluge paused for a bit, and we took a turn down a road I realized I had never been down before. It was indeed the village. It must have been where all of the locals lived. We were driving by a lot of houses and shops I knew I wasn’t supposed to see, not because of danger or anything, but just because there should’t really be a reason for me to be back here. Obviously I did have a reason, but it’s a distinct feeling to know you’re somewhere that is in no way designed for or prepared to accommodate you. People notice.
He made a joke that we were going to see my novia, and who should be standing in the intersection but Escarlet. “Stupid fucking gringo you don’t even have clothes.” I’d left in a rush and didn’t realize there would be formalities underway. We went to the copying store, which was a household with a printer, and I had my copies made. Afterwards Escarlet and my new friend tried to explain to me something in Spanish regarding food that I was having a really hard time understanding. It felt like a final exam; I knew there was something very cool on the other side of this interaction, a unique experience I could unlock if I played my cards right, but I couldn’t understand anything. I started asking questions and eventually I figured out that we were getting food, and chico was going to get it and bring it back to Escarlet’s house where he would meet us, and he needed my money to do so. Sounds simple, but to explain that in Spanish requires a lot of vocab I don’t have.
Escarlet showed me her house and her brother and sister and nieces. I talked about my families. She showed me their chickens and pig. The pig, she said, was to barbecue in about six or seven months time, en la terra. Nicaragua, for perspective, is the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, only behind Haiti and, recently, Honduras (for a long time Nicaragua was the second poorest). I was staring that fact in the face. In a face I knew. A face I talked to every day and saw away from this fact. A person I cared about who lived in some of the worst conditions one could imagine in this age, and the only side I saw of her was the one that joked with her and befriended her. Would I have ever known if I didn’t see this? I could have inferred, but that’s different. There was mud everywhere. Little electricity. Everything made from concrete. Remember a good job here is $700USD a month. Do you think you could live on that? Raise a family on that? They can, and they do. And they find a way to make it work. I wouldn’t go as far as to say they are “happy” in that bullshit sense of “they’re happy with so little.” But I do know they are happy and fulfilled in ways we are not.
I was sitting in a plastic chair looking up at Escarlet’s brother and talking to him. Behind him I saw the most divine lightning strike I’ve ever seen. It was more purple than white, had more kinks in it than you’d allow yourself to draw in a notebook. I was the only one who had that much of a warning, and even it wasn’t enough to prepare; I could only think, “Damn, that was-” before God himself smacked the Earth. Escarlet’s brother literally ducked for cover. Chickens took flight. The nieces were screaming. My heart was racing like I’d just kicked out of a life-threatening tube. Chico pulled up with the food just then saying he almost crashed his bike from it.
We ate barbecued pork strips, plantain chips, and salad, which was delicious (the pork and chips anyway, I’m not keen on the salads here but I never have been a greens guy, and that’s the salads in general, not this one, but obviously I didn’t say that). I was instructed to mix everything together and eat it out of the plastic bag with my hands, este es Nica. I told them I’d spent a year in a Muslim country and was no stranger to eating this way. I was afraid then, for a moment, that they would be embarrassed to show me all of this, think things like “Oh my god these uncivilized people eat with their hands in the mud.” But then I realized they trusted me; they don’t just bring anyone back to places like this, only if they know they’ll understand and not judge, only if they know that I understand this is all circumstance. In fact, it’s incredible that they survive on what they have, and they are proud of that fact, know they are tough and capable in ways my plastic Westernized self is not. They wanted to show me that because they knew I’d understand, had proved it to them through the underlying messages woven into the spaces between the words I’d spoken to them all this time. Earning that trust is my biggest accomplishment in a long time.
I’ve traveled the canals of Venice
And aroused crowds in Sao Pao with a single sentence
I penetrate the language barriers with positive vibes
And bridge gaps with raps keeping my spirit alive
And I thrive as I roam through zones
Collecting my paper with these poems and songs -Hieroglyphics