Noise!!!

It’s hard to say which noise will force you out of bed in the morning but it’s safe to say that sound will get you before sun.  And everyone who has come to visit me in my site has made roughly the same pre-dawn assessment: it’s really goddamn loud here in the morning.

             The ancient diesel engine on the bus to San Carlos starts rumbling around 5am.  Within 30 minutes it has left its parking spot a half block from my house and starts bellowing to inform the town of its presence.  The sound of the horn is so loud and horrible that in an instant it can turn my dream into a nightmare.  Every time it wakes me up I plot my revenge.  I envision sneaking over there in middle of the night, dressed in all black, to sabotage the thing by removing and destroying whatever part can’t easily be replaced.  I imagine myself being an anonymous town hero.  But for now the racket continues.  And just in case I pretend to ignore it with a pillow over my head or fingers stuffed in my ears, it takes advantage of the prevailing winds and fills my house with thick smoke.  I’m still not used to it all.  I wonder if anyone is.  I’ve taken this bus to San Carlos on occasion.  During the two hour trip the driver blares his evil horn outside of literally every single house we pass along the way.  There is no discrimination between homes already teeming with life and those that are still obviously closed up from the previous night.  Sometimes people are waiting on the side of the road, clearly signaling for the bus to pull over, and he honks at them, too.  But this affords me the opportunity to practice all the swear words I’ve learned in Spanish because as we bounce along I like to imagine all the things that the people in the houses must be saying about us as we make sure they really don’t want to come with to San Carlos.

            But I’m probably not used to this wakeup call because it’s usually not the bus that gets me.  Birds, aside from doing other useful things such as shitting on my drying laundry and eating my herbs before I get to, serve as particularly effective alarm clocks.  They announce the coming of the sun by screaming at each other from the limbs of the avocado and mango trees out back.  The sound of a few birds chirping can be pleasant and relaxing music; but if you mix too many species in too small a space it ends up sounding more like a cramped pet store than a harmony of wildlife.  And because they are competing for physical space as well as aural space, many of them make their way onto the zinc roof of my house.  They awkwardly hop around on the corrugated metal, scratching and clawing away with their talons and beaks.  They have about as much grace and coordination as a small toddler trying to walk across a moon-jump.  The whole scene gives me the impression that they’re just out there trying to annoy each other, or me.  But in the end I can’t really complain because I suppose it’s actually me who is on their turf.

            As early as the birds start, this generally isn’t the first time I’m woken up during the night.  The birds’ pre-dawn anthem seems like it should be the job of the roosters that strut around nearly every patio in town.  But the roosters here, for whatever reason, tend to be overzealous in their work and announce the coming of the new day around 2 or 3am, long before anyone really cares.  One starts, the rest follow, and by the time actual dawn rolls around they’re just too exhausted to do the job right.

            But the sounds about town aren’t restricted to the early hours of the day.  The Evangelicals screech and cackle their way through the evening hours the same way the birds do through the morning hours.  After giving a quick listen, one can surmise that they’re all attempting to make more or less identical noises and are doing so for the same reasons, but the similarities end there.  The solos are potent enough to rouse a strong headache but when done in unison the final product will make even the most devout individual question their God’s existence.  The birds I give a pass because they’re birds, but these are humans we’re talking about and they ought to know better.  I don’t know much about The Bible but I would guess there’s something in there about not making God angry.

            The Catholics don’t allow the Evangelicals to be the only religious noisemakers in town.  Better equipped vocally and with a stronger following, they take to the streets to belt it out.  Sometimes they parade around at 5pm on a Tuesday, sometimes it’s 4am on Saturday, sometimes it’s noon on a Thursday.  There’s no real pattern to it.  I guess they just go when they’re feeling particularly pious.  And, interestingly enough, the Catholic Church here in Nicaragua has more firepower than a small army.  Not only do their parades feature loud singing and giant painted statues of religious figures with lifelike hair, they also come with explosives.  Extremely powerful bottle rockets are the standard, but they also fire blanks out of crude metal contraptions that sort of resemble potato guns.  There’s no beautiful fireworks display, it’s just really loud explosions.

            The sounds of the day certainly don’t end there.  I could go on and on about how my ears are constantly bombarded throughout the day and night.  There’s so much more I could mention, like how I’d be breaking no social norms by blasting music out my windows at 3am.  I know this because my neighbors often do it.  They fire up the stereo, play a song or two, and then give it a rest until morning.  Or how during the fiestas patronales a huge mass of people take to the streets from 4am until 6am every day of the week, cheering, drinking, lighting off fireworks, playing music, and dancing.  They do it to ward off the evil spirits and bring good luck for the coming day.  I suppose if you’re woken up by fireworks outside your window at 4:30am while nursing a hangover there’s really no place to go but up.  So the system works.  And on top of all this you have the street vendors.  People walk up and down the streets yelling to each house to drum up business.  Generally each product is at least slightly different and everyone has his or her own style when it comes to the sales pitch.  I can usually tell what’s coming from two blocks away not because I can hear the words coming out of their mouths but because I can hear the pitch and tone of their individual calls.  I always know who’s coming long before they get here.  And there’s so much more I left out.  And sometimes, even though it’s all going on, I can’t hear any of it because the rain is hitting the roof with such ferocity.

I obviously think about this a lot, and I complain about it in a nearly equal amount.  But all this is a testament to how closely intertwined everything is here.  I can’t help but continually ask myself if I’ll miss it a year from now.  I wonder if the transition between such opposing lifestyles will be a difficult one.   Here I live in an environment where the private life is essentially non-existent.  Everyone’s life is public information and there is no hiding.  Everyone’s story is heard and told, no matter how mundane it may be.  This opposed to a place where isolation really knows no bounds.  In America you can be as removed from society as you please.  At times I wonder if I’ll find the extreme stillness there to be as distracting as the extreme intensity here.  Time will tell.  I’ve never been much of a believer in reverse culture shock but attitudes can certainly change.  I have one year done and one year to go; I’m as far from my past as I am from my future.

What's There to Eat?

 Food in Nicaragua is different.  Which means attempting to be a vegetarian in Nicaragua is different.  Depending on with whom you’re talking, the word “vegetarian” can take on a variety of meanings.  Anything from “you don’t eat beef but you’ll eat chicken” to “ok so you eat your meat with vegetables” seems to be an acceptable definition.  Originally I had decided to forgo being a vegetarian for fear of insulting anyone or appearing as more of an outsider than I already was.  I wanted to be accepted so I decided I would eat what was given to me and be grateful for it.  In fact, this was brought up during the interview process for Peace Corps.  After divulging that I was indeed a vegetarian I had to respond to a number of “likely” scenarios as a way to evaluate how offensive I might actually be in a given community.  Now I’m only paraphrasing here and I went through this process about two years ago, but I believe some of these “likely” scenarios involved situations such as having the entire village scrape together what little they had to buy and slaughter an enormous animal for my arrival, a group of elders directing me to the front of an expectant crowd of hundreds, being served a large portion of this beast, and having everyone looking on disappointedly as I slowly nudge the plate away and twist my face in disgust.  “How would I react to this situation?” I was asked.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I immediately begged for forgiveness.  “I didn’t mean to be so offensive (sniffle) I’ll eat the meat (sniffle sniffle).”  So that’s pretty much how it went…I think.  Anyway, that’s where it all started.  That’s when I first caved.

Well there never was any big welcome feast.  But during one of my first few weeks in Nicaragua, I was asked if I would like to go shopping for food at the market in Masaya with a friend I had made from my town.  I had already been to the market with others from Peace Corps but I went in hopes of seeing it from the perspective of someone who had made a weekly habit out of the trip and thus knew the market inside and out.  And he did.  He snaked his way without pause or hesitation through the maze (and I mean maze) of tiny shops and stores packed together as tightly as the people on the buses they took to get there.  I struggled to follow him through the throng of shoppers occupying the network of narrow alleys connecting the different sections hidden behind the entrances.  The market is a collection of individual stores, with individual owners, under individual zinc roofs, but somehow they’re all intertwined and connected so that each roof covering each store supports the others around it to make one enormous life form.  It can be hot and crowded but it’s all quite manageable…that is until you find yourself in the butchers’ alley.  The step between slaughter and supermarket that exists in the United States is noticeably absent here…or should I say noticeably apparent?  There’s no refrigeration for the meat and on hot days the odor, to put it gently, can make your knees buckle.  The proprietors keep the flies off the freshly stripped carcasses with thin towels or feathers tied to sticks.  All parts of the animals are present because they are all in demand.  The bits and pieces that may seem worthless are perfect for making into soups.  Chicken heads and feet are readily available because they’re cheaper to buy for your dog than a bag of Alpo.  And I’m still unsure what the purpose is of the pig heads with the tongues hanging out.  I paint this picture not to persuade or dissuade anyone from anything, but I think it’s important to realize that certain things are much bloodier messes than they may first appear, literally.

But I must have successfully stifled my gasps of horror and held myself together pretty well because my friend said with a completely straight face, “This is where Hooper goes when he wants to get meat.”

And I said, “Ummm...”

And I find the presentation of meat in my town to be no more appetizing.  There is a family in my community that raises pigs and sells the meat.  It’s not a large-scale operation so you can’t just show up at their home whenever you’re looking for some ribs.  Rather, when they’re ready, they bring the meat to you.  And tons of stuff, almost everything, is sold door to door here.  All kinds of food, kitchen supplies, movies, mattresses, produce, just about anything can be bought from the comfort of your own home.  I guess it’s sort of like the Internet.  So there’s no reason to be surprised that raw pork makes the list as well.  And it’s wheeled down the street in a wooden wagon big enough for an entire butchered pig.  I’ve peered into the cart pretending to be an interested customer, but I really just wanted to see.  All parts seemed to be present; they were just out of order.  And all the while, as I cringed at the carnage, I imagined a giant “Eat Local” sticker pasted to the side of the cart and splattered with blood.  And I imagined this because I knew where this pig came from.  And I am also quite sure this pig was fattened up on watermelon rinds, cornhusks, old beans and rice, and anything else that would otherwise end up in the garbage.  And I believe this because pigs, like chickens, eat absolutely anything.  Waste goes unwasted, people get food, and a family has a business.

           And these are just a couple of examples of a collection of experiences I’ve had and observations I’ve made that have shaped my views regarding vegetarianism in Nicaragua.  Though through it all I’ve largely confused myself.  These experiences have grayed the line between right and wrong.  I still struggle with how I should resolve these conflicting thoughts.  And what adds to the difficulty is that I still enjoy the taste of meat.  Even after seeing a chicken that was tied to a stake in the ground and plucked from the waist down, then later split down the middle and hung over my fence to dry.  Or seeing a dog lick blood off the inside of a wheelbarrow used to sell pieces of a pig from door to door.  Or still being able to recall the stench of that market with alarming clarity.  And I tell myself that if I eat chicken this one time at my neighbor’s house, I may as well not worry about eating beef at a birthday party or pork at my old host family’s house.  Because it’s just the way it goes here.  And the cycle never stops.  So I have decided the only way to reconcile my feelings and find peace of mind is to take a stance and hold firm.  Cold turkey…errrr carrot.
(thanks for letting me use your photos without asking, Pops!)

Chickens Keep Fallin’ On My Head

Even a decent seat on a relatively uncrowded bus can make for a droll ride from time to time.  As I boarded a bus bound for site I took the last available spot underneath two wide, flat boxes punched with air holes.   Very suspect.  But the cargo was nothing more than a bunch of tiny yellow chicks fresh from their shells.  It’s not uncommon to place your bag on the overhead rack and see a chicken raise its beak over the edge of some nearby cardboard box, give a few clucks, and duck back in; so I didn’t pay much attention to the boxes above me.  The odor of bird dander was a little over-bearing at times but when the bus was in motion the rushing wind from the open windows dissipated it to a point where it was hardly noticeable.  Of course the constant chirping of a hundred hungry chicks was enough to remind me that they were still right there over my head.

As we traveled along and the sun beat down and the bus filled up I could feel the temperature rising a bit.  Well it must have been mighty hot being crammed into those tiny boxes near the roof of the bus, and any living and breathing creature would probably be overcome by paralyzing claustrophobia at some point.  So, rather than waiting for freedom that may never come, some of the chicks started to take advantage of the poor construction of their temporary cages.  They desperately began looking for a way out.  And within a few minutes something plopped onto my head and landed in the lap of the man to my left.  It was obvious that one of the birds had found an escape route that led directly to our seat.  And whenever something living unexpectedly lands on you, no matter how harmless and adorable, there’s always that one instant of surprise and terror that manages to manifest itself in a very physical way.  I believe I flapped my hands and said something like, “Hooweeahahhwww!”

The man held onto it for three or four minutes, stroked its head, commented on how pretty it was, and then handed it to me.  Not knowing what else to do, I placed it flat on my palm and raised it above my head with the hope that someone would come to claim it.  Really, nobody wants it?  I understood; I didn’t really want it either.  So I stood up, bent back a flap on the box, and dropped it in.  Within 10 minutes another bird looking for some fresh air followed his friend out the hole, onto my head, and into the man’s lap.  The man repeated his actions then handed it off to me.  Well this time I followed suit and did as he did: I held it, stroked it, and the thing pooped on my shirt.  It wasn’t ideal but how can you get mad at an Easter peep?  It was, however, enough to earn him a trip back to lockup.  It had already become quite clear that these weren’t isolated incidents.  A pattern was forming.  I was soon proven to be right.  Rumor must have spread quickly about the road to the other side.  Birds were plunging onto us at regular intervals.  All attempts to block the escape route failed.  The bouncing of the bus was enough to create a little separation and leave the breach wide open.  So for the next two hours I rode along with baby chickens bouncing off my head and always into the lap of the man seated next to me.

For the entirety of the remaining trip I carried a smile I couldn’t contain.  And it wasn’t the kind of bitter smirk that finds itself paired with narrowed eyes used to mask ire or frustration.  It was an expression rooted in absolute joy.  I smiled because baby chickens had fallen on me and I smiled at the idea that they would probably continue to fall on me.  I smiled at the thought that this was simply part of the daily occurrences of my life, something perhaps to be repeated, rather than being an amusing anecdote brought back from some fleeting vacation.  And I smiled when thinking that the environment that surrounds my life is so entirely different from what I imagined it would be just a few short years ago.  What an interesting place I have found myself in.
(Thanks for the great photos, Dad!)

Travel Options

 Use only what you need, then be prepared to give up half.  It would be a fair and accurate motto regarding the personal space allotment on a public bus in Nicaragua.  The safest bet is to arrive early, push towards the front of the line, then race for a window seat on the shady side.  I make a quick calculation of the general direction the bus will be heading with regards to the rising or setting sun and use that to put me on the right path.  The window seats are small enough that I’m likely to be squished with my knees nearly up under my chin and pinned to my chest.  But hey, at least they’re my knees.  An aisle seat on a full bus means I’m now competing for space with the body parts of others, and I can forget about knees at that point.  A creeping hand and forearm takes over my headrest to support its owner.  A sweat-soaked t-shirt unsticks itself from a man’s back and gently flaps in the breeze, brushing against my exposed arm and cheek.  A large breast of an old woman bounces uncomfortably between my shoulder and my head.  I usually take this as a sign that the universe is attempting to correct some imbalance.  Give up your seat to this old woman, you bastard, is how I interpret it.  I succumb.

“Please, take it.  I don’t even want to sit, really.”  I say this sweetly but loud enough to force the other able-bodied (yet still seated) passengers into deep shame.  If I feel my message hasn’t been fully internalized I’ll shoot glances in several directions while shaking my head ever so slightly to convey my disappointment.  But in the end, all the dramatics are for naught.  I’m now in the least desirable position, scrunched into the 40 foot long by 2-½ foot wide “standing room only” section.  Capacity: ??
 

 
 But luckily for me I have travel options.  All this can be avoided by taking the 12-hour ferry ride from Granada, which arrives to my site at 3am.  There are two ticket choices: you can ride for half-price on the bare-bones lower deck or spring for the full-price upper deck and take advantage of all its amenities.  I always opt for the latter.  There’s an indoor cabin with A/C and cushy seats, hooks outside to hang your hammock so you can swing and sway in rhythm with the waves, and plenty of dirty backpackers for people-watching.  And the roominess!

Unfortunately, the recent influx of troops into the Rio San Juan has forced the ferry operators to use the lower deck strictly for army personnel and the once luxuriously unpopulated upper deck for all other civilian passengers.  This turn of events has really detracted from the enjoyment the trip once provided.  There was a certain simplistic beauty in being able to travel long distances while stretched out on a hammock.  But that was then and this is now.  So I’ve been forced to change my perspective during the journey.  I take solace and find inner peace while pondering the emptiness between the clouds and the lake.  And as I’m crossing Lake Nicaragua and looking out at the vast horizon and taking in the views of Ometepe just as the sun is setting, I can almost ignore the dense crowd of people behind me with whom I’ll soon be sharing the limited space of the concrete floor…that is until my gaze is drawn downward by the faint sound of splashing water, and I see the uncircumcised penis of a man in army fatigues leaning over the railing of the lower deck and whizzing off the side of the boat.

Summer Rains: A Nicaraguan Oxymoron

 It rains here nearly every day.  Not the useless drizzle common to this time of year, but heavy, drowning, downpours normally reserved for the wet season.  The sun is so terrified some days that he refuses to show his face.  On occasion he’ll sheepishly peer out from behind the clouds and send a rainbow in his stead, but that’s just about all the courage he can muster.

The summer months of December through May are supposed to allow us to raise a fist to the sky, shake it vigorously, and curse the sun and his repulsive, unwavering spirit.  He leaves us sightless from his unnecessarily intense shine and delirious from dehydration.  He’s like a narcissistic king, demanding that everyone recognize his divine authority and supreme greatness but always with eyes averted.  Then he makes up for his behavior by dimming his blinding light as he settles behind the horizon.  He picks the most brilliant reds, oranges, and purples he’s got.  He fires them high into the sky and in such great quantities that they have no choice but to take over everything.  The sun lets them slowly drift down towards the horizon long after he himself has already moved on.  In the later months of summer, when we can’t take it much longer, he picks the spot exactly between the two volcanoes rising out of Lake Nicaragua, Volcán Maderas and Volcán Concepción, and performs his same trick there.  He makes it appear as if both volcanoes are in full eruption.  “How could you stay mad at me?” he seems to ask.  And for a few short hours we forget what a pain in the ass he’s been.

 Well, that’s what’s supposed to happen, anyway.  But as I said, the rains never left.  Thunder and lightning respected the natural order of things.  One grand finale with zero encores and they were gone.  But the rain, that stubborn bastard, refused.  The rain isn’t capable of the same shocking explosions that thunder and lightning are known for so it turns the zinc roofs into deafening instruments.  It bangs on them wildly but with fantastic rhythm.  It’s hard to imagine that such a common occurrence can seem so out of place when stuck in the middle of March, but it is.  In fact it seems so out of place that every time it happens it’s worthy of intense discussion with whoever’s nearest.  It’s a summer like none before.  Sprinting from clothesline to clothesline to shelter the drying laundry from an approaching storm isn’t supposed to be a year-round chore.  The students should have one less excuse to skip class therefore leaving them with only 15 or 20 good ones.  And I shouldn’t be able to say, “God damn it I forgot my umbrella again,” with such a great Nicaraguan accent and accompanying dramatic body language.  But it’s not all grim.  The passing buses don’t leave clouds of suffocating dust in their wake as they travel along the gravel highway.  What would otherwise be an agonizingly hot day bearing down on us is kept at bay behind a thick layer of clouds.  And the rooster’s 4am performance is all but inaudible when competing with the white noise of rain pounding on metal.

It’s undeniable that things are different this year and you can see it in the expressions on the faces of those who have called this town their home for their entire lives.  There’s often comfort in familiarity and it can be a frightening thing to lose, especially when so many things are already out of our control.  But regardless of one’s personal opinion regarding climate change and human impact on an already unpredictable and powerful phenomenon, all this certainly begs the question: why haven’t the rains left as they have, without fail, every year before?

Much Too Much

The cockroaches don’t scurry at the sight of an unexpected light.  They remain, undisturbed, clinging to the walls of the shower at 2am.  They may briefly move an antenna towards the source of the light, almost as if it were a shrug of the shoulders; but they do this only for an instant and only to pay it due notice.  The only way to get a cockroach moving is to seriously provoke it with an outstretched toe or the handle-side of a broom.  They are survivors and they know this.  They’ve been known to carry on, headless, for as long as a month, reveling in their fortune of not losing something more important.  The majority of the cockroaches, with heads still firmly attached, laugh at the decapitated chicken and the 15 chaotic seconds it’s determined to live on this earth before collapsing in the dust.  Soak it up, think the chickens.  Amateurs, think the cockroaches.  They are said to live in groups of thousands, tens of thousands even.  A strength in numbers to match their strength of body.  But these numbers are pitiful compared to those of another insect that briefly makes this small, lakeside town their home.

They are known locally as chayules.  Their name exists only in the plural because there is very little reason to refer to them individually.  The locals, who have seen wave after wave of them come and go with the years, acknowledge their presence by stating the simple yet obvious truth, “Tonight we eat chayules.”  Although I am unsure of where they hatch or how they come into existence, I posit they are spit out from the bowels of an angry lake and set forth to take vengeance on anyone who dares to look upon her shores.  They are merciless but make one concession by offering ample warning before making landfall.  They do this in the form immense, black clouds, visible miles off shore, which could easily be mistaken for a thunderhead that lost its wings and fell from the sky.  They taunt us with their slow yet persistent progress, moving ever closer.  Then, suddenly, they’re upon us.  They seem to be attracted to everything and nothing all at once.  They take over all unoccupied space.  They die away mid-air and coat every surface in an ash-colored snow.  Their weak bodies are no match for the slippery layer of sweat covering ones arms, legs, and face.  They collide, they stick, and they die.  In fact, they die everywhere.  Perhaps they die of exhaustion from the arduous journey.  Or maybe they sacrifice themselves, swayed by the promise of glorious privacy that they will know only in death.  It’s a fate they’ll all come to realize in little time.  Even the most enduring of their kind won’t make it past four days.

And so, for the three or four days that they gray the sky, they’re merely tolerated.  During the day it’s not uncommon to see someone going about their business with a handkerchief clutched firmly to their face to guard their eyes, nose, and mouth from invasion.  In the evening, the only defense against them is to keep the lights off.  Total darkness.  They hold raves underneath the lit streetlamps, swirling in hypnotic patterns and totally mesmerized by the flaming bulb.  In the morning, their tiny, indistinguishable bodies are swept into piles like so many bits of dust.  Clutching the broom and with a quick flick of the wrists they’re cast out the front door and into the gutters to be carried away by the coming rain; they sail down the slightly sloping streets of the town and into the lake from which they came.  It seems as though they’re swallowed by the murky waters only to be belched out again in the coming days or weeks.  But as I marvel at their sheer numbers and proclivity to reproduce, I can’t help but think, as one of seven billion helping to slowly consume this planet, amateurs.

Welcome...

I suppose I’ll just jump right into it.  When I first came to Nicaragua I set a goal to start writing at my one-year mark.  The time frame had no real significance other than that it took into account my inevitable procrastination.  I knew I would never start on day one.  But here I am, ten months in and already going.  Anyway, I have no idea where this will go but I promise to write exactly as often as I please and about whatever I choose.  With that said, the majority of it will more than likely be inspired, at least in some small way, by my time lived here.  Sometimes I feel as if so much happens here that I could never remember it all to write everything down.  Other times I spend hours on end swinging like a pendulum in my hammock; I read a book, I talk to the avocado tree, I avoid the flea-ridden dog.  I’ll mostly be writing about the non-hammock experiences.  Finally, before getting started, I would like to add that this is just a working title for the blog.  I started with the straightforward title of “Nica Hoop” but was forced to change direction due to its uncanny similarity to the word “nincompoop”.  It was a difficult realization for me.  Morale was low.  So for the time being, I lazily decided on some simple adjectives that describe the place where most of my writing takes place.  Enjoy!