Cedro's perfect dream

A Splash of Granadadine

   

Granada is a sweet, stylish colonial town whose rich history was nearly lost when the city  was burned to the ground by the retreating fillibusters in the late 1860's.  Now a major tourist hub, there are good restaurants, cheap hotels and boat tours.  That's the summary that numerous guide books offer up about this eclectic city.  They go on to speak of the reconstruction, the Sandanistas, Ollie North and cafes that feature free ping pong. 
    It was never my intention to spend more than one day in Granada.  I had my sights set on taking the snapshot tour of the city, and then crossing the surprisingly cantankerous waters of lake Nicaragua to the island of Ometepe, where the volcanos are still growing and are free for the climbing, the beaches are clean, and the bull sharks regularly migrate to enjoy a little fresh water sushi.
    The trip began as most mountain escapes do, hours before dawn.  My traveling companion Lisa and I arrived in Santa Elena just after four am and sleep-walked onto the Puntarenas bus, falling into a waking dreamscape stupor as we bounced along the dirt road, wordless but pensive.  Ours were the faces that cannot hide, no matter how dark the circles around our eyes.  We were the splash of pink paint on a dark canvas of day laborers and worried mothers, hugging their bundles to them as the predawn migration took shape.  Still, the canvas welcomed the company, and as friendly smiles were exchanged, colors blended and commonality leveled the horizon.  Besides all of our bones rattled with the same aching ferocity as wheels helplessly battled rock and pothole, losing every time. 
    We stumbled off the bus at the corner of state road ajeno and highway desconocido, locally known as La Irma.  There's a restaurant and a taxi stand, and as far as I can tell, that's La Irma.  Despite all the drama surrounding our reservations on the TransNica bus, I must say that it arrived right on time, and was the most comfortable bus I've been on, possibly ever.  There were footrests, wide bucket seats and plenty of room between each one.   
    At the border, the bus parked by a concrete island in anonymous waters between invisible borders.  We were led as helpless sheep from one line to another, none of which seemed to get us any closer to the other side.  Half of the time I wasn't sure who we were all following and why.  No one seemed official enough to trust, yet everyone acted as though we were stupid for not doing exactly as they said.  In the end, we wound up in a comedy of bearers, dancing in place for three hours, feeling like the naked emperor in his moment of realization. 
    We filled out forms about luggage and intentions which never changed hands.  They ended up thrown to the wind, a ritual of endurance and zen clarity.  We put ourselves into lines that disintegrated around us, only to take shape again near another darkened window.  We stood around until a man with a badge and California Highway Patrol sunglasses came by and nodded.  Apparently we had passed the test of endurance.  That was when our passports were taken and we were told to put eight US dollars inside.  I think it was some sort of tax.  Then the bus moved to another spot on the island, apparently just for a change in scenery, or perhaps to ensure that the engine still worked.  What little sense of security and identity had stayed with us was now disintegrating rapidly.  Such an ominous feeling to be between two lands and to have your only identification taken from you while your transportation pulls away.  A momentary panic followed by some sort of imposed trust in the benevolence of a system designed by those my country spent the better part of a decade trying to kill. 
    I looked for coconuts on the island and found only salt and landless vendors, pushing a surprisingly wide array of sandals and fried bread.  The temperature soared, dragging with it the tempers of the dispossessed.  Faces turned red, adding another hue to the tired canvas of our journey.  Dust rose and settled on our skin, in our eyes, and on the cement crack lines that blurred and jumped like waves of desert sand in the excessive heat.  This coating was our first souvenir from the land of where you can order your Ortega with a healthy side of Sandanista chips.                  

The first thing that hits a person on entering Granada (after the wall of heat I should say), is the style and color of the buildings.  Churches compete with hotels, restaurants, and delicately adorned villas for dominance.  Everything looks as though it was dropped onto Lake Nicaragua's Western shores at the same time, and save for the bell towers of the city's two main cathedrals, no building stands over three stories high.  The churches themselves are grey-green with age, and boast towering buttresses and intricate crosses that reflect the telephone and electric poles to a "t".

    The city is modern, without having sold out to US and European business interests like so much of Central America has.  There is a conspicuous lack of the KFC's, Burger Kings and their Pepsi family cousins that line so many of San Jose's streets (not to mention nearly every inch of the soil our forefather's fought and died for - go forefathers!  Thanks for Pizza Hut!).  Instead, local entrepreneurs pour their hearts and souls into a wide variety of individually and family owned cafes and restaurants that have at least double in flair, quality, and heart what fast food could ever offer in efficiency.   Not only that, but many people still choose to take the horse cart to work. 

    Starkly contrasting the richness of the food and architecture is the staggering poverty.  I wrote of Gilberto Salazar's story in the previous post, but his is merely the tip of an iceburg that seems immune to the ninety plus January temps that people here refer to as "winter", without the slightest hint of irony.    Tourists pour out of fancy hotels to take advantage of two-for-one happy hour deals, and have to wind their way through an ocean of sad eyed Gilbertos offering to shine shoes and pedaling everything from animal shaped monotone whistles to gum and cigarettes.  I soon found out that like Gilberto these kids were working as much for food as they were for school supplies.  That of course pulled my teacher's heart strings, and the plaza saw a huge notebook, pencil, sharpener and fruit giveaway that Sunday.  This did little to settle my conscience, and had the unintended consequence of making me an immediate target every time I hit the streets.  Still, I enjoyed the brief conversations exchanged with Granada's street youth, and wound up getting invited to check out the other side of the facade, where the city looked much like any urban area in any country, filled with people creating stories and moving pictures with every movement.  Homes, homelessness, innocence, and innocence lost in equal measures.  And, of course, street ball and mural clad buses.

    Lake Nicaragua is one of the seventeen wonders of my life.  Home to migratory bull sharks, over sixty species of fish, countless water birds, and large populations of shore dwelling monkeys, it is diverse and wild.  It is the largest body of fresh water in Central America by far, and includes a huge volcanic island (Ometepe, which some of you may remember as my intended destination).  The monkeys are quite accustomed to the presence of humans, and I repeatedly shook my head as tourist after tourist threw crackers at them.  Still, I took advantage of the moment for a couple of snapshots.  This was, after all, the closest I'd managed to get to spider monkeys. 
    In all, Granada is a magnificent place to spend a few days, and like most tourist destinations, it has a double face that only shows itself to those that let their eyes relax and guide themselves.  It's kind of like those magic eye pictures that way.  The reality is a hard one, but one that holds itself in three colorful dimensions, afloat in a painted flesh/water ocean.  It is a reality  that most of the brush stroke people know only as all they have ever known.        

 

dreamlets of a determined mind

Gilberto Salazar was brought into our world of sun and dust in a tiny village in Southern Nicaragua, on June 4th, 1965.  It was the kind of place that doesn't even get the smallest of black dots on the map.  A place where cows far outnumber people and tourists pass through in their fancy busses, stopping only long enough for a bottle of purified water and a brief, pointless bout of sympathy, soon to be forgotten. 

Gilberto's father was already a fading memory by the time the boy started remembering.  He'd left like so many men leave, when his tiny mirror image cried for the first time, and the reality of what lay ahead hit him full force.  Men seem to somehow imagine themselves that option all too often. 

For her part, Gilberto's mother held her breath and let autonomy slide away from her, sinking all she had to give into her children.  He remembers her collapsing onto the house's one tiny bed beside he and his sister, late most nights.  They did their best to leave food ready for her when she got home, and she did her part to remain conscious just long enough to tell him she loved him.  Her tired, empty eyes told him as she said the words how little she had to give, and how none of it extended past the creaking boards beneath them. Gilberto's sister couldn't finish school and instead had to start working when she was 12 years old.  She worked at a factory, sewing "the macaroni shirts for gringas" (I figured out later that he meant spaghetti straps..)

The ramshackle family relocated to the south side of Managua, and began renting a room on the bottom floor of a building that would have driven even the hardest of New York squatters into the cold.  Gilberto went to school, but only brought half a heart with him, as guilt weighed down the ventricles that would eventually drive him to carry his own load.    During the months when school was out, Gilberto went to stay with his mother's sister in Granada, where he shined shoes from 5am until 7pm daily, trying to save enough for school supplies and a new pair of sneakers, sewed undoubtedly by his sister's soul double in Malaysia or El Salvador.     In eighth grade the money ran out and Gilberto had to leave school.  He told me that the hardest part of this was that he'd just weeks before saved enough money to buy his very own slide rule.  He was one of only three people in his class that had one.  But a slide rule doesn't fill a crying belly, so he begin working full time like his sister and mother. 

There was never enough to eat at home, and the sound of his empty belly in those days was the only lullaby delivered him at night.  The only peace Gilberto found was through going to the beach at the lake front in Granada for a swim every evening.  It made him feel whole.  It taught him about freedom and letting go.  Gilberto lives on an island with his mother, sister, wife and two sons.  He swims every morning and evening.  He sells fish dinners to tourists.  He tells me that he has all he could ever ask for in life.  On my last day in Granada I rented a kayak and paddled out to visit him again.  After hours of great conversation and some excellent fish, I got up to leave, placing the small bag I'd hidden inside my shirt on the table.  As I pulled away from the island, I heard an excited shout and turned to see this middle aged man waving his calloused hands and jumping up and down like a school boy, the new purple slide rule slicing the air, painting the lines of dreams past regained and a future certainly unknown.   

Central American Farcical Tirade Adjustment

    There is little doubt in the minds of anyone familiar with the ways of the United States that Central America is mere inches from rounding a corner straight into a huge bucket of ice water to the face, once the final hurdles keeping us from CAFTA (here known ironically as the TLC) are rear viewed, and US interests descend full force.  Let's face it, the majority of Ticos know very little about running a business, and efficiency is hardly an ingrained priority in the local mindset.  The dogs are too nice to even think about eating other dogs.  They mostly just sniff at each other plaintively and bark on occasion.  Innocence and honesty are a given, and fast food is a curiosity that most people just shake their heads at.  When one stops by a cafe, hardware store, grocery store or any other business for that matter, it is almost always impossible to tell who actually works there, and who is just hanging out.  Everyone attends customers and ignores them when the town gossip is juicy enough.  If you want something done, a half hour conversation about everything from the weather to all the neighbor's dirty secrets is a natural part of the transaction, and the clock could just as well be a long forgotten hunting trophy for all the attention it receives. 
    Personally, I love this about Costa Rica.  That a meal is made from scratch, often involving a short walk to collect fresh herbs, veggies or eggs before the cooking begins, simply cancels out any frustration I might feel when it takes forty-five minutes to appear.  This teaches me to relax and appreciate all that goes into the process.  A chef friend of mine recently said to a customer who was complaining about the delay  "You want MacDonald's? I'll give you directions... go about one thousand Kilometers that way" (pointing North).  Then there are the times when I find myself running out to the store to buy a heating coil for my shower head, which involves a forty five minute walk, thirty minutes of "how's your family?" and "wow, the Saprissa team sure kicked butt yesterday!" and an eventual "Oh, yeah, we don't have that in stock right now.  Pura Vida, mae!"  This would frustrate most people coming from the Unbending Schedules of Ambitionland.  However, what happens next is pure magic.  The "sorry, it's not in stock" is followed by "here, hop on my motorcycle and we'll go to the other store to see if they have one."  or "let me call my brother and we'll see if we have one lying around the house."
    Now, if you don't give yourself over to the half hour gossip time, or if you are an unknown person, don't expect anything from anyone.  This is where the locals are going to get their asses kicked by North American corporations.  The giant multinationals tend to sell their wares to anyone regardless of how nice they are, or how much time they spend shooting the breeze.  They have official policies, guarantees, and other such shiny incentives.  Here, we have one universal policy: convince me.
    I recently went to Nicaragua via Trans Nica bus lines.  The seats were pre-assigned, and the ride up went smoothly.  However, upon arrival in Grenada, I went to confirm the return trip (for which we already had tickets) and was told casually that they'd over booked the bus and we simply didn't have seats.  Sorry.  The lady behind the desk was barely awake, chin in hand, and I had a hard time believing that she even knew she was talking to someone real.  That was it.  Sorry, we can't honor this ticket, though we sold it to you and, by the way, we cannot refund your money because we have no cash here in the office.  Goodbye.  I was left with three options: 1) Go ballistic and chew her out for her company's ineptitude.  2) leave with my tail between my legs and try to find another way back to Costa Rica or 3) hang out and talk for awhile about Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, tourism and socialism.  Sure enough, after fifteen minutes or so of option 3, she made a phone call and miraculously found me the last seats on one of the busses for the day I wanted to return.  I left with a "have a nice day", and a new, albeit chronically bored friend, Cynthia.  When giant tour groups owned by a subsidiary of the Ramjack corp.  are green lighted, they will bring computer reservation systems, money back guarantees, and all the red tape that ties the hands and makes our march to the grave smooth and efficient.   I fear the day when anyone calls me "sir" and asks how they can be of assistance, instead of whether I've heard what one of my students was doing last night.  I mean, why would I even go out to eat unless I wanted to be drowned in all the latest town news, and go for a walk to procure the beans for my own Gallo Pinto?  If I wanted MacDonald's I'd have already started heading North, wouldn't I?   

whings of change

    As the Tibetan art calendar that marched me through a year of blank square days was carefully turned into wrapping paper, Monteverde slipped toes first into the formidable annual ritual of drying itself out.  The rainy season has not breathed its last, by any means.  The nights and evenings still provide cover for the clandestine agents of transpiration, and the winds that surmount the Tilaran peaks convert each of the countless tiny cascading droplets into missiles that openly mock the futility of umbrellas, finding any and every crease in even the toughest gore tex exterior with smart bomb precision.  Still, the sun asserts itself more and more each time it rises, and some days even allow entry into buildings without removing one's footware. 
    This is the season of change, of renewal.  Somewhere in the spaces between the rains and the winds, we find ourselves bathed in rainbows, moon-bows, warm, emotive afternoons, wild angiospermadic eruptions of color, and a rush of ineffable positivity.    The air itself is alive, moving with purpose, bringing us the very sands of the Sahara to fill our hourglass visions.  the quetzals are nearly out of food and will be moving down the mountain soon, allowing the prevailing winds to guide their way to continued subsistence. 
    Tomorrow, the students of the CEC will once again complete their biannual migration from the torpid jungles of vacation to the swift flowing rivers of the upper cerebral plains, and I, with the spirit of the season nipping at my nose, will be there to greet them.  And so it goes.