¿Que Pasa?
SShhhhhhhhhhh: Lately, I find myself in hiding from unwanted visitors aka creepy guys. They will yell into my house “Americana, Americana, Americana” and I will remain silent.
El dia de la mujer: I was awakened at 4am this morning to celebrate “Day of the Woman.” Now, if they really wanted to pay homage to the mujer (woman), they should let her sleep-in instead of waking her up at 4 with an annoying message of: “Attention, Attention, Much Attention: Happy Day of the Woman.” This is the message I heard blasting out of 4 large stereo speakers piled high in the back of a pickup truck that was playing and replaying the message up and down the streets (and I must reiterate at 4 IN THE MORNING).
More pancakes please: People just love pancakes! I had a pancake party last weekend and another one this morning. My neighbors are even talking about potentially selling pancakes in the central market (don’t worry, it won’t really happen).
The power of the cell phone: I see a lot of expensive cell phones around town, which always surprises me. Anyway, people own the MP3-player-cell-phone-combo, and insist on playing their music out of their cell phones so that everyone can hear. I question, why make everyone on the bus listen to music from really bad cell phone speakers…just buy some headphones…please!
My bike is the source of joy and pain: Because, while it enables me to get around town quickly it also breaks down a whole heck of a lot. And of course, last Wednesday was no different. My bike broke in the middle of no-man’s-land and I was forced to walk at high noon. I felt like Laurence, from Laurence of Arabia, walking through the desert wasteland (of course, minus the make-up that he wears in the movie…and why is he wearing mascara in the desert anyway?). The sun beat down hard and the air was thick with heat. I went through 2 nalgene bottles worth of water within an hour’s time. I finally arrived at a village where a kid named Nelson helped me repair my bike. Then I road on and taught class.
Making a quick getaway: I went out for a bike ride to get some exercise/escape, and was joined by a group of people. They were asking me all sorts of questions about American baseball teams (and I don’t know anything about baseball). So the conversation went like this, “Do you know where the “insert baseball team name here” are from?” My reply, “Nope.” This conversation went on for about 12k or mas o menos una hora (or more or less 1 hour).
Mini conversation excerpt: “My name is Carlos, you know that is Charlie in English” “Hey what is your name in Spanish?” “What do you mean; Brie doesn’t have a Spanish equivalent?” “My sister’s name is Darling, what is that in English” “Hey speak some English”…….My response (in English) “Hey”
In search of Brigs Jhonson (even the spell checker on my computer recognizes this spelling of my name as incorrect and therefore has accordingly underlined it in red squiggly line): I believe it was Shakespeare that said “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But I feel it’s rather apparent that Shakespeare never tried to assimilate into a new culture, learn a new language and simultaneously live with the pseudo name Brigs. What’s in a name? A lot. Maybe I could suggest that the local folk start calling me Lolita (but this opens a whole other Pandora ’s Box). So for now, and for the remainder of my service, I will be known as Brigs.
Running down the side of cerro negro
Well I guess there is a first time for everything, and I should have seen this one coming, but I didn’t. So what happened exactly? I went on a date, not knowing it was a “date.” In fact, I thought I was going dancing with a big group of people, but it seems like they had something else in mind. I ended up, awkwardly, going to a local restaurant with only 1 other person…”my date?” Of course, my students work at this local restaurant, and therefore within 2 minutes it was all around town…that I was out with this guy who lives down the street from my house. Now, 10 minutes into the impromptu date, the guy asked if I would be his girlfriend…this is a guy I JUST met…heck, I don’t even know his last 4 names yet . Then I quickly learned that he had been stalking me. That’s right, he starts talking about the time when I was riding on my bike with this person or that person…it seemed like he had been watching me for some time (from afar)…which I suppose isn’t that hard to do because I do stick out. Well, I put up with his questions …then…we went to the local dance club (aka outdoor cement covered courtyard and pronounced “CLOOB,” also rhymes with boob). Finally, we met up with the rest of the group (the same group that ditched me earlier). We danced the night away and of course I was caught on camera doing some kind of gawky robot/trance dance. The disco was then shut down early due to “lena” or fighting (turns out some guy was caught looking at someone else’s girlfriend and so that guy had to punch the first guy to defend his girlfriends honor…or something like that). Oh yeah, I told the guy I couldn’t be his girlfriend because I don’t know him well enough…but I am thinking it’s about time the American “boyfriend” comes back into the picture…otherwise things just seem to get too hectic.Ever stand in line at the ATM for 1 hour and 30 minutes? I have. It’s not too fun. What causes such a line at the ATM…well, it’s a combo of things: first, people don’t know how to use an ATM quickly (because they are not familiar with the technology), also the ATMs run out of money, which forces everyone to wait for a money refill. I was on my last 10 cords…aka 50 cents…so I needed some cash fast, and therefore I was forced to wait in an insanely long line.
On the bus again (the story of my life), some guy sat next to me and insisted on reading over my shoulder. I had my book out and was enjoying passing the time reading until the man next to me started reading random English words that were printed on the page. He said such things as, “Fish, Man, Mountain, Dog.” He couldn’t read a complete sentence but had no problem reading single words. I tried to reposition my book, so that he couldn’t read out loud from it, but I finally just gave up and decided to take a nap instead. That didn’t detour him at all because the “Hot Stuff” song came on and in a high off pitched tenor…he decided to sing to me…and all I thought was: GET ME OFF THIS BUS!
Proof that my students call me Brigs...
Last night I learned a valuable lesson…always ask “how long is this going to last” (and always remember Nicaragua has different traditions and customs). I got myself roped into a commitment. The commitment in question: I agreed to go pay my respects to the dearly departed grandmother of one of my friends. We (my neighbors and I) were all going to leave around 7pm as a group. I didn’t question how long we were going to be, because I thought that might be rude (Mistake numbero uno, I should have asked). I was sitting in the back of a low riding Toyota pick-up, dust kicked up all around us, rolling through mud, over rocks, through rivers…and finally we arrived. That’s when I realized something was amiss; because people were all seated in white plastic chairs outside of the departed’s house…it was a wake. A WAKE! That meant we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. These people had been sitting in their chairs for hours and I was soon to join them. I walk into a small room jammed with chairs and people sipping coffee (coffee at 8pm…that was another sign I was going to be hanging out for a while). Then in a corner, I spot grandma, she is laid out in a coffin, and our group decides to sit 3 feet away. What, I would think, should be a solemn moment of commemoration turned into an all out gossip fest…here are a few excerpts from the conversation throughout the night:“Brie has really nice fingernails, it’s because she wears gloves when she cleans her plates or does her laundry”
“There should be more food here, I’m hungry”
“Brie is very tall, much taller than the last volunteer we had”
“I could really go for some fried chicken right now”
“Brie’s hair is naturally that color, she doesn’t dye it”
“Let’s go look for food” -by this time it’s about 11pm
“Brie isn’t wearing any makeup and look at how blue her eyes are”
“I could really go for some fried plantains”
Six hours later, we finally left. I was exhausted (by the conversation and the sitting). My conclusion, wakes aren’t fun (and yes, I realize they probably shouldn’t be “fun”), but sitting and waiting for hours and hours while the deceased person is in a coffin only several feet while we converse about fashion, food, and pretty much every topic imaginable except for the deceased. It was tiring (the person being remembered should be glad that they’ve passed on and don’t have to sit and be bored).
Way out in the middle of nowhere, I was riding home from a long day of teaching, with my music blasting, I was riding determinedly towards home. I heard some guys shouting at me, which is normal, and I was resolute to ignoring them, but for some reason I looked up and made eye contact. And who did I see, it was non-other than my neighbor with 4 of his chavalo friends and they were all hanging out of trees, just like monkeys. I skidded my bike to a halt, out of surprise and curiosity. What were these guys doing way out here? Well, they were ahuntin’ iguana. They were hunting with rocks, that were thrown at the poor helpless animals and knocking them out of their trees onto the ground (about 30 feet below). The boys (all in their 20’s) were hanging out of trees, that were twisting and turning every which way, and to my keen eye did not look very sturdy or steady. No matter, because the boys wanted to make iguana soup. They killed 2 large iguanas (1 luckily escaped). I almost got hit in the head by one of the rocks that the boys were throwing haphazardly into the trees at their targets, the iguanas. Later we were all picked up in a truck, which was the only reason I decided to stay with the boys…a ride home (it was really hot that day)! The boys told me the iguanas have all sorts of vitamins in them, but when I asked what kind of vitamins they replied “Quién sabe” (who knows). Apparently, iguana is really good for kids too. The next day, the boys were cooking up their iguana soup and asked if I wanted a taste…I replied NO WAY! End of story.
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