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Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
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Ok, so the meeting ends and in the chaos of poorly planned triaings (sorry guys, you know it's true) I've found myself in the group labled "ready to go into the field tonight" "ready" is an extreme exageration. I'm given a map, three companions, and enough non-perishable food to feed . . to feed . . . to feed people who are not skilled in camp cooking.
We all load into my truck. the brother and sister pair from central new york tangle their long legs into the only slightly extended cab of my truck, sitting next to me in the passenger seat is Dan. Later I will learn that Dan is 69 and has traveled the world, aid work is his hobby and addiction (it seems).
But, upon first seeing Dan, I was transfixed. I'm still rather disturbed. His jeans, his hair, and his humor quickly call Tom to mind. In fact it takes me untill thursday to remember that his name is not Tom. I think I've probably just been looking for Tom since November and this lanky guy with CPT experience is too easily transformed. The whole drive to "the ark" I had to keep asking Dan questions, I was trying desperatly to create him as his own person make him "not tom." I didn't cry.
The four of us drive south, despite being dark it's still hot so all the windows are open and conversation is difficult. Off the highway and toward the town of Arivaca we see a Deportation Bus, waiting to be filled up, I wonder how long the passengers have been sitting.
In four wheel drive, up and down bumpy hills in the dark we make our way to the ark. I really have no idea what "the ark" is. Arriving in the night, I determine it is a canopy, some trucks, a camping trailer or two, few cots, and people. The people mostly exist as flashlights.
An aging hippy, way to reminiscent of a contradance nightmare, tells us how to use the toilet, where the water is, and that we'll be getting up at 5.
I still have no clue what's going on.
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It's Sunday and I've just made the (mapquest calculated) 1 hour and 44 minute drive to Tucson. Of course, Mr. Truck felt more than two hours was nessecary. My tailbone hurts, I'm sweaty and smelly, and I'm in a church. I'm at a volunteer training for No Mas Muertos (www.nomoredeaths.org).
First observations:
1- I have no idea what I've gotten into.
2- air conditioning is nice
3- I can now visually differentiate between three types of "hippies" (sorry mom) not including the nearly inter changagble consumer hippies, yippies, and trustafarians.
Airy,new agey hippies (derogetorily: hippydipies)- wear hemp and linen and insignia jewlrey, long hair, shower, and talk alot, often follow a specific dogma or guru. think sufis, some earth mother pagans, and of course the anthropops that keep trying to dominate my waldorf world. It is very hard to hold a converstation with these people.
aid workers- these can be divided into old an young. old tend to eat at McDonalds when nessecary, have fully stamped passports that have somehow managed to stay clean, they wear jeans, sneakers, tee shirts that say things, and often have multiple hats. There water "bottles" are either thermous brand complete with glass interior, or disposable so as not to harbor germies. the young breed of aid workers is usually dressed in dirt and bodily greasyness. clothing ranges from tanktops cutoffs, goodwill, to columbia and chaco. young aid workers are often strong-willed, right-minded (in my judegement) christians, or the children of activists. They are most easily identifed by their musical insturment, journal, and beat to shit sandals and therefore are easily confused with "forieng backpacker in central america."
activist- these are my most treasured. these are the church ladies of my childhood. comfy pants, socks, and berkinstocks to formal meetings, in the feild they wear whatever will make it thorugh the day. They can be marked by their political and community connections, vehemence toward the patriot act and their insistance on bringin food for whatever the journey. These women (and the few men that share their ranks) can be polite and sweet to police officers for the sake of infomation,will bully young aidworks into social concsiouness, and gently nudge inactivists out of their shells. I can only aspire to someday join their ranks.
I have reasons for linquistically differentiating between "activists" and "aid workers" it has to do with age, life work, and violence, but I'm not going to tell you.
Walking into the training I am quickly comforted to find myself comforted. This could be a UU social justice commitee, and that nurse asking questions of La Migra could be my mother . . . wait! . . . no, it's not her (hair's not frizzy enough)
*mom, reminder- when in the desert: USE CONDITIONER!*
So, I still have no idea what I'm in for, but at least I'm in familiar company.
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I've been back in the states for over three months now. Tonight is the first time I've been brave enough to sit down and write about being back.
It's something about facing the fact that I'm not in Nicaragua anymore and going back would be no small matter.
I was greeted at the airport in Boston by my mom and Boy we drove to the train station to pick up Christy, despite the wonderful supportive welcom commitee I still felt shocky. Like the feeling after dropping somthing big and painful on my foot, or cutting myself very badly. Nothing seemed like I should try and be involved in it, i could watch it happen and I didn't really know how I was supposed to act anyway, had I wanted to.
The second day home I was very very sick, my stomach cramped up in a horrible paralysing way, it hurt to move,it hurt to lie still. (I laugh to think that maybe I was having a hard tie adjustig to the food, the traveller's sickness I never got in Nica)
Maybe I'm jsut coming out of that shock tonight(and waking into the shock of raining 40 degrees end of may winter will not let go).
I've gotten a job, a job I'm really passionate about and feel so honored to have, I visited all the people I missed while I was so far away. and i've tried to thank all the people who supported me.
But I haven't been able to update this journal, give it a last entry. Nor have I been able to write to Maria Jose or send adriana pictures, i haven't even e-mailed my american friends who are still there. Something about it is very hard and very big.
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Monday, February 17th, 2003
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It's getting really hot here (so take off all your clothes?).
I spent a good hour of my last day at casa de la mujer sitting in the office fanning myself with a magazine, sitting next to a tiny electric fan listening to my co-workers whine about how hot it was.
It was very very hot.
We decided it was too hot to stay in the office so we went to do home visits. Lu said she had an idea, we could go to one of the communities closer to the mountain that would most certainly be cooler. So, we got on the bus and she had the driver stop near a cluster of houses neither I not Martita had ever visited.
We walked down from the highway a litte and to a yard. We were greeted with loud happy hellos. It was Lu's mother's house. Hey, it counts as a home visit, we were visiting a home of woman who uses the services of our oranganization weren't we?
So what, if we spent the rest of the afternoon picking fruit from an orcahrd full of plantanos, oranges, bananas.
I ate myself sick on Madarins.
My lips still feel sticky.
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Sunday, February 16th, 2003
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Right so my amazing inablity to find anything online means that I can't seem to locate anykind of info or numbers on yesterdays protest in NY, I've heard ALL about the UK. Can someone please tell the girl stuck in central america how it went up there?
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Today was the day I ran around trying to buy gifts to bring home with me (AHHHH I'm leaving sooooo soon!). It actaully went pretty well, a crazed sunday spent in the market much like the one christy and I had a few months back. Except I managed to do it with out getting trapped like a rat behind locked gates in a maze of stalls.
It was hard trying to figure out what kind of things I wanted people at home to have as phisical evidence that Nicaragua exists.
I ended up getting mostly toursity things, shirts, candy, hammocks, and so on. I tried to rember that cultural significance of the things that I bought. Hopeing that the hail mary mashmallows would bring there recipeinets some understanding of life here. But, the things I really want to bring back are all the sentimental sappy things that are impossible to carry. Dusty feeling skin, the super strong smells of the market, the not as strong but often just as offensive smells of the streets, the sounds of the vendors carrying baskets on their heads, and the egrets flying back to the lake right before sunset everyday.
Oh well, I'll just have to settle for showing people photos and giving them packets of oddly flavored ketchup.
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In learning to speak spanish I've noticed somethings about language that years of Lingusitic Anthro classes never taught me.
My first of two major revalations is that prepostions are totally random. Where something is or isn't and if that location is in realtion to something else or not, is totally arbitrary. On, on top of, en, of, through, de. Total spectrum of places that get names and somehow the people who speak the languae know what's where, when in reality it's all very confusing and intricate. Thank god for sesame street.
The second lesson in language has been really fun to notice and one that I can ask other people about and leanr all sorts of stuff from. This lesson is verbs. Yup, verbs. I'm amazed at the things we have a single word for that take a whole sentence to express in another lanugague and vice versa. (ok, the fact that in spanish there's a single word for -to slit the throat of- is kind of disturbing) It's really pretty neat to leanr the differences.
I think in a past life I was a member of the southern chilean Yagah who had a verb for "to come unexpectedly across a hard substance when eating somthing soft." It would be great to have one word for this is a fairly wordy description for something I have always just thought of as "I'm not hungry anymore."
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Saturday, February 15th, 2003
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Pantera is my favortie place to go dancing here. It's near the lake (as almost all the clubs are) on the second floor of a building that also houses another dance club and a hotel (not the place to stay for a quiet night's sleep). It like Pantera because it's well-lit:so you can watch everyone dancing, a family place: it's the norm for a whole family grandma to 8 year olds to be out on the dance floor, and they have the juciest sourest limes of any club I've been to in Nicaragua. Also, the club doesn't have walls on three sides, only banisters to keep you from falling to your death. The wall-less-ness of Pantera makes it the only club I've ever been cold in. IT's nice to dance hard, hard, hard and then be cooled off by the wind (yes "wind" not "breeze") from the lake.
I may have already mentioned this but it's worth emphasizing, the men in this country dance better than the women. I had thought that this was because the women are imobolized by their glued on jeans, but this weekend I noticed that even the fine art of chair dancing (you know, teh act of continuing to dance even tho you've sat down for a rest) is alos relegated to the men. I have never seen a single Nicaraguense woman wiggle her head to the music while she sipped her drink. They just sit still, sip, and talk loudly about other people.
That's another thing I havne't figured out about club culture here or in the states: how does one prevent setting oneself on fire?!? The presence and ingestion of lots and lots of alchol combined with the nessecity to light ones cigarette seems to be a fatal combination to me. Drinking and smokeing and dancing all in close proximety is a recipe for incineration to me. Maybe there's some secret to pulling off all three that I don't know.
Last night (valentine's day) I had a very special experience at Pantera. We (myself and two freinds) had just sat down from a good long bit of dancing when we saw the waiters pull a table onto the dance floor, not the middle, along one of the sides but on the dance floor none the less. They spread a red table cloth over the plastic card table and pulled up three chairs. I was very very curious to see who the table was for.
At about 11 oclock I found out. The tables occupants came up the stairs to the club everyone's heads turned. First came two burly-ish looking men, there was nothing special about them, but behind them was the queen.
Christy and I first encountered the queen of Granada. She was walking down the street. She carries herself in such a way that we were certaion she must be going somewhere interesting. So, we followed her. But in the time we had to follow her, she barely made any progress. She had to stop and get kissed and hugged by every shop girl and vendor onthe street not to mention everyone passing by who knew her well enough to shreik with delight at getting to see her.
Since that day I've seen her a few times. Once, I even (inadvertantly) got a photo of her (she was walking in front of the buliding I was pohtographing). When ever I see her, she off walking by herself, her very determined stride, but never getting anywhere as she has to constantly greet her adoring public.
Anyway, last night, she stayed at the club for just a little while, odring a very classy drink (ok I have no idea what it was but it looked classy), talking a bit to few select people, watching the dancers for a bit, and then sceremonionusly gathering her two companions for her exit.
I spent the rest of the night (as long as I could keep my eyes open) dancing and sucking on yummy yummy limes, feeling very lucky to have been graced with the presence of such royalty :) Took a cab-of-death home, got ready for bed, and wished I had a sandwich in the fridge for an after-boogie snack.
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Sunday, February 9th, 2003
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Maybe I have seen depecitions of The Father (of father, son, and holy spirit fame) but I think today was the first time. Actually it never occured to me that anyone would try to represent that part of god. But, apparently devine genettics work a lot like human.
The Cathederal de Asuncion in Leon is a HUGE beautiful church (one of many). Inside there are many shrines, paintings, carvings, and all other sorts of religous catholic thingies. (this inclued big big wall painting of the stations of the cross which provide a nice counter point to a particulary pack of paper mache wolves(
One of the pieces of statuary I noticed becasue it was on top of a tall dark wood pilar with a single candle lit at it's base, is of that famous threesome.
The scene is a run of the mill jesus -dark hair, sandals, beard- seated on a nice throne, a dove flying behind him, and to his left (making him the right hand man) is the father of the son of god.
He looks alot like jesus. In fact i think the only major difference may have been the hair color. God has grey hair.
So, in case you were wonderfing what exactly god looks like it's like what jesus would have had he made it to 60.
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Tuesday, February 4th, 2003
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*There is a place just south of Esteli with a big sign declaring
it a 'chicken depositry.' And I think that it actaully is
what the sign implies.
*My toungue still hurts from the burn I mentioned a few entries
ago.
*There is a barber shop in this town called -Socrates the Barber-
Wasn't socrates blind?
*I typed 3 other entries today you should read them.
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Yesterday I wrote in my journal that I was smarter than to hitch hike while traveling on my own. I lied.
I left Esteli at about 9:40 this morning heading south on the panamerican highway. My destination was a guidebook spot. A resturant called la Casita which purportedly sold homemade yogurt and whole wheat bread. This was a major draw for me as I was suffereing from what I've heard other american travelers call 'cravin the brown cow.' (one can get yogurt here but its all sucky sweet stuff)
The guidebook I have is written for people with cars and just says to drive south of the city for a bit and youll be there. That didn't really help me any. But another book I had looked in said the resturant was about 2 km south of the city.
I had decided that, not trusting my own observation kills or estimation of distance, I would walk till I saw the resrutant or 2 o clock whichever came first.
The walk was wonderful despite being timed for the sunniest part of the day (up here in the north its not so terribly hot).
The panamerican highway south of esteli is curvy, windy, and in spanish sinuoso as it goes over a small mountain range. It is dotted with little places to grab a bite to eat and only an occasional house but enough traffic that i knew I was safe walking on my own.
At about quarter to noon my lefs were a little tired and there happend to be a good sitting rock which was miraculously in the shade. I sat down to read my spanish vocabulary sheet, which is filled with importnat words like -to bit- and -sleepyhead-. About a third of the way thru my list a pick up pulled up and it was from this truck that I eventurally got my ride to the resturant.
It may not seem suprinsing that I broke my rule about girls never hitchhinking on their own(some may say I'm genetically predisposed to this :) But the part that sould supties anyone who has seen me around such men, would be that the driver and passenger of the pickup were policemen. They had pulled thenavey blue four door official pick up into the turnout in order to ive a trucker a citation.
While one repereimanded the guy hauling cattle, the other came over to me talk to me.
We had the usually -where are you from?- -how long are you in nicaragua for?- converations and somewhere in there I learned that I had overshot my goal by 2km.
So, I did the obvious and asked the cops for a ride back downt he hill (yes, I thought about the risks I was taking first).
Yes, I trust the 19year-old, machine gun toting, national police in nicaruaga more than I trust massachusetts states troopers.
SO I got in the truck and down we went. A short bit later I was desposited at a driveway I had noticed on my way up but ignored for it's lack of signage.
Now, I've just finished about 2 and a half cups of yogurt, a bit of musieli, and am working on a little baby loaf of wheat bread that was served to me with a huge slice of brie and some fresh toamtoes. The best treat of all was that the glass of lemonade I ordered came to the table a galss of limeade!! (people here don't differentiate between the two fruits).
Good thing I bummed a ride, right mom?
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This mornign I went to visit the gallery of martrys and heroes. I am under the impression that there are quite a few of these small muesums, run by the mothers of the martyrs and heroes, throughout the country. But, as Esteli was hit particularly hard by the revolution (the revolution, the battles with hondaurus, hurrican mitch . . .), the gallery i visited today is fairly well known and full.
It is full of photographs and memorabilia, shirts, books, shoes of the women and men who were killed in the three major battles around esteli.
the emotions I felt walking through the room reading the time line of the the war, were very simialr to those I felt in gettysburg, fear, saddness, and something physical that made me want to vomit. But, looking at the dates under the photos did make me gag and tears slid down my face and onto my lips before i had noticed.
All of the people in the photos which for the most part portrayed them as my age, would have been school mates of my uncles, aunt, and mother. And the way the pictures were lined up in neat rows with there typed labels, the walls did look like some sort of year book.
Most of the people died between the years 1978 and 1984. Most of my freinds were born within those years. I can remeber what those years were like in the US. They involved tricycles, scorpions, and old pickup trucks.
But I have no way of understanding what life was like here in nicaragua for those years, except to relate it to the arcane battles of the american civil war.
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Monday, February 3rd, 2003
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Today was the first day of the new school year. THe past weeks have been a blut of notebook and uniform sales.
The three year old in my house was dressed up in a diminu tive white shirt and a navey blue jumper with the letter APC embroidered across the chest (I still think think it was supposed to say ABC). We all got up early enough to see him off to school and when his mom and little borther returned from the maiden voyage they each told their version of the parting scene.
Maria Jose: He wasn{t sad. He said -am i staying here?- I said -yes- he said -why?- -because this is school- this is school?-
Winston (jersis two year old little brother): bye jersi, i have a backpack too, by jersi, hahaha. (yes the laugh was maniacal)
The streets were filled with every combination of navey blue jumper,pinafore, slacks, plaeted skirt, and school dressed all paired with a white shirt.
At work the first day of the school year means the first day of enrichment and certificate programs offered by the center. Typing, computers, sewing, secretorial training, english, and cosmetology are offered for a very low price to the general community by Casa de La Mujer.
It would seem that this is a great act toward development and progress in the city. But, no I have figured out the truth.
It{s not a combined efforts of teachers and community organizers to offer useful skills. No, it{s a very very clever scheme created by the health program at Casa de la Mujer and it happens to be the best outreach program I{ve ever encountered.
It very effectivly brings a section of the community we would never otherwise see right to our door (literarlly, like they have to stand in front of the health education office before class).
Gay men in nicaragua don{t have any role models for gay behavior besides the absolutly flaming queens on the daily telenovelas (always a supporting role as the main female character{s dear freind). Therefore all the queer boys in the city(and perhaps the country) want to be beauticians.
That{s how we get them. They enroll to be beuaty parlor greats, come tot he first day of classes, sit down,we come in and tell them their teacher will be a little bit late, and then start a -casual- converstaion about what we do as health educators . . . and they never suspect a thing . . . heh heh heh.
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Sunday, February 2nd, 2003
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WHAT THE HELL IS BUSH TALKING ABOUT?
Why exactly will "the cause in which they died will continue."?
I really really don't like statements that beigin with "All Americans today are . . ."
and what is this:
"The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today."
how on earth do the greeks and romans who named the stars know the names of the citizens we spent millions of dollars to kill?
Yes, little kids still want to astruanauts when they grow up, but I know little kids who want to be inanimate objects when they grow up.
Come on the cold wars over and people down here are starving to death. Stop it alredy.
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Let's get some things straight:
I am not:
from Spain, I'm lisping because I burnt my toungue very
very badly
from Germany, just becasue everyone else seems to be
doesn't mean I am
from Canada, it's not the only country that turns out
women who are willing to travel on their own.
from Mexico, come on now, how many Mexican Tourists have
you actaully met? any? I didn't think so.
I _am_ American.
And I think I might be pround of it. Tho I'd never say I was "proud to be an American." Because I don't think it's good people died "for" me.
I really like the US, it's a big friggin' country with lots of different people and all sort of different landscapes. We have protest rallies and deccent potato chips.
Yes, some of them (in fact a lot of them) are exactly like that loud guy at the bar calling the bartender -Paco- and saying "oh I'm just kiddin' with him, he knows me, we're buddies" as if everyone in the servant status loves those they serve. But the vast majority of americans I know, are awesome(even the jerks are fun to laugh at). My mom, most of my friends, my family, even my dad in his own way, are all americans and I have to say I really like them and try my hardest to be as cool as they are.
Yeah, lots of things about the US suck, but that doesn't mean being american makes you suck. And sucking as a tourist doesn't mean you are american. Just like being wierd about public toliets doesn't make you Dutch.
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Wednesday, January 29th, 2003
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There were seven of us and being that 3 of us were of substanital size, one car would not hold us all. So, we had called for 2 cabs. Waited for an hour and asked the driver of a pick-up for a ride.
We all piled into the pack of the truck, as we did our cab pulled up. One singular cab. We asked the driver where the other was. He said this was it get in let's go.
We all looked at eacthother "we don't all fit."
"OK then jus some of you, come on, let's go."
"Ummm . . . no" We all got back in the pick-up.
This made the pick up driver a little miffed. (OK probably really miffed). You see part of the local culture about the beach we were at is for everyone to pretend it's a long hard journey from town to get there. Including a big huge hill that nothing but the toughest of vehicals can overcome. And so many potholes and such a long distance that it's a major sacrifice for any driver to being willing to give you a lift at any cost.
And our poor, rejected, cab driver had just travesred all of this for us. And we ungreatful gringos were ditching him.
Nevermind that the great big hill doesn't exist, and the ride only take like 20 minutes.
The driver and passenger of the pickup proved to be a carmea crew and reporter from Canal 10 news. They said that they had to visit another beach first and then were feading back to town, and if we didn't mind the little detour we would be back to town soon.
Of course this is nicaragua and soon means never, but we did get a wonderful tour of the other beaches in the area, and one of us got interveiwed and appeared on the news.
When they did finally drop us off in town, at a gringo bar, we thanked them profusely and sat down on the curb outside the bar. Up pulls the man who became known as _our driver_.
Yep, the cab driver we had pissed off, pulled up to give us dirty looks and tell us to pay him for the ride. When we said no, he said fine, where are you going, I'll take you there and you can pay me for that.
He didn't seem to understand that comeing back from the beach hadn't made us any smaller and therefore we still didn't all fit in his one cab.
For the next three days we were in town, EVERY single time we stepped outside of a building and headed down the street to walk from one place to another in the 4 block square town. Our driver was there. He harrased the guys about the missed ride and payment. He called out to the girls that the guys were horrible to make us ride in a pick up and then walk everywhere in town (damn it guys controling what I do again!) And sometimes he'd jsut cruise along slowly next to us as we walked.
So, our driver himself was obviously a little crazy and creepy, but his constant compaionship meant none of us ever felt in danger of being robbed(in a town where tourst's things are often swiped) or even harrassed by anyon but him who had kindly committed his whole weekend to us, our own personal driver.
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Thursday, January 23rd, 2003
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The most vile liquid in the world is sold in Nicaragua in huge quantities every day (yes this is another rant about what people here are willing to injest).
Rojita is a soft drink sold in every store here. Not only is the color red but hte flavor is red as well. Yes, it just tastes red. It's amazingly foul. So much so that I can't imagine why anyone would drink it williingly.
I have heard a few theories on why one might and therefor how the company stays in bussiness
1-you know just basic S&M some people like to be tortured
2-Nica's tend to give you a bottle of it when you visit their house (ice tea in the south, tea at my mom's house) therefore I think that only foriegners drink it and they only do so so as not to be impolite. and the locals all think it's really funny to make the gringos drink the stuff.
3- the only nicaraguenses I've seen drink the stuff are younger peole when placed in a group of gringos, I think they drink it to assert their Nica-ness, torture for national identity
I've known this stuff was gross since my 1st day here when it was served with my dinner. But today the rojita has sunk even lower in my eyes.
I was sitting on a bench in front of a small store way out in a barrio called pancasan. The store sold cotton balls, cabbage, vegtable oil, notebooks, and soda. You know, the nessesities. Anway, my amazing lack of language had me sitting very bored trying to make myself look intent on the converstaion. Laughing at teh right times, making ocasional eye contact witht he speaker, and clicking my toungue when nessecary.
In the moment when my eyes could wander I amused myself by reading the signs on the wall. After a line of offers from pepsi for a hat, coke for a plasitc christmas tree, sprite for a backpack, I came upon a Rojita offer. Save three bottle caps and be entered to win a bicycle. IN the middle of the poster was the rojita slogan, i had never seen this before and maybe it woudln't have been so shocking if I had been smart enough to really consider the rojita symbol.
The slogan translates to Like the little indian. and the companies symbol is a little very stereotypical native american drawn in red ink!
LITTLE RED! RED LIKE REDSKIN!
(some how this suprised me even after seeing a million "eskimo" ice cream shops with a charicarture of an indian with whiter skin than mine)
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Sunday, January 19th, 2003
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like in english phrases in spanish can have more than one meaning. I would like to illustrate an example that comes up often:
"?Tiene hambre?"
possible meanings:
1-"Are you hungry?"
2-"If I put three plates full of food in front of you, can I be offened when you don't finish them all?"
3-"Do you want coke and birthday cake for breakfast?"
4-"do you want coke and birthday cake for lunch?"
5-"Will you eat cow tongue?"
6-"eat!" this one's the best as it's not even a question.
Here's another translation that I didn't do anything to just a direct word for word account of what Jersi came into my room and said to me this morning
"Here I am and I brought a christmas tree and chicken!"
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Wednesday, January 15th, 2003
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Logic and common sense work different in different communities. This seems to be an obvious/unessecary statement but sometimes the differences can be so stark.
Some examples:
1
at home - don't play ball in the house you might break something
here- play ball, ride your bike, skate board in the house, then you can only break our stuff.
2
at home- if a kid gets hurt you kiss it and make it better
here- a kid gets hurt you take the heel of your hand and rub the "owie" vigourously really really hard (this somehow works the same way as a kiss)
to me these are wierd logic.
but some of the connections made here I like. Like the fact that the word for creatur (little monster, crawly thing, slimey thing) is the same as the word for little baby. This makes sense to me.
Reccently I was wittness to a converstaion in which the twists in logic made me question my comprehension of the words, so much so I asked to see if what I thought had been said was what had been actaully said. It was.
I was at a meeting for work. I was suprised at how much of it I had followed with my wonderful language inpetiment and all. As we closed up we disscussed when to have the next meeting. NO one else seem to think that the conversation that followed was odd. It went something like this:
-when should we meet next?
-what are our choices?
-the 21st, 22nd, or 23rd
-21st
-yeah 21st
-no no 23rd
-how bout the 22nd instead?
(a bit of chicken squaking for each of these dates)
-the 23rd, the 23rd(everyone comes to an agreement)
-OK, then that sounds good, we'll meet next month on the 12th.
and everyone left happy with plans to return on the 12th.
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I did it!
Today I switched sides (ok I never had any political affiliation in theis country just a boring job that at an organization, like all organizations here, is policitally funded). Yesterday morning after decided I didn't want to face another week of sitting in the office typing and transcribing, work that seemed to come from fictional clients, I walked to Casa De La Mujer (la mujer being Claudia Chomorro) and told them I would like to work there. So, now I work with a sandanista funded group. (I can show off to all those bearded grungy types at protests)
I was greeted with "why didn't you come sooner?"
I was placed in an office with two women of the four who do education(yes, four). We didn't stay there long, we went out to deliver invitaions to a meeting on wednesday. All three of us went becasue if one person had to stay behind they would be alone and it's more fun not to be when you're working. I like the logic of this place alot.
We walked through the market. Spent our daily tranportaion money on oranges and pan dulce (little baby ones, christy!). Then took the cheapest bus out to one of the barrios. This was explained not by the fact we had eaten all our money but rather that our clients take the cheapest buses and it would be very hard for us to run into them if we didn't do the same. Like I said, good logic, smart people.
When I returned from lunch we were very busy wiating. We did this for about and hour and a half, and then piled into a pick-up truck and headed to a meeting in a communtiy at the foot of the volcano.
The meeting was a gathering of everyone in the small community. We all stood around and talked about what the community needed and what Casa De La Mujer could do about it and how we could say that it was to help the communities women.
The guys we were traveling with, kidnapped me from the disscussion to show me the solar panel and the water supply it somehow powers.
The 20 or so families in this community get their water from a tank uphill from two big cement cisterns. The people can contronol how much water is fed into each of these. The men talked about how sweet the water was and how clear the air is away from the cars of the city. It made me miss savoy. I spaced out, day dreaming watching the fish swim around in the well.
Wait! how'd the fish get in the well?
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