Who are the People in Your Neighborhood

When Jeff, Emma, and Hannah arrived in Nicaragua, Aileen was hosting a group from the USA for her work and not able to spend time with us. Instead of meeting up with Aileen in San Ramon we arranged for a home stay and language classes in the nearby city of Matagalpa. Aileen picked us up after a fun-filled and busy week and took us to San Ramon. We then stayed in a hotel until the house we rented was ready. The stay at the hotel was a bit rough, especially when a river flooded and we were stranded on the property until the water receded! Nonetheless we managed to get the kids registered in school, buy their school uniforms, and take a little vacation to Grandada before moving to our new home.

Emma and Hannah at our home stay

Boat ride during a first Nicaraguan vacation

We have finally settled into our new home in San Ramon, Matagalpa. San Ramon is a small town of about 3,000 people in the Nicaraguan state of Matagalpa. Matagalpa is in the highlands of Nicaragua where most of the country’s coffee is grown. From the best we can tell, San Ramon is a farming town with most people directly or indirectly connected to the coffee trade. There are is also some tourism and a large number of nonprofit organizations. The town is in a beautiful valley surrounded by gorgeous emerald green mountains, each with its own story. One hill was used by contra snipers to pick-off the folks from the town, most of whom are Sandinistas. Another hill slid during Hurricane Mitch, taking out part of a village. In any event, for a small town there are many things to do, see and learn about. We have provided a link with some more information about San Ramon.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ram%C3%B3n,_Matagalpa

We live in the center of San Ramon, close to the two main streets where most of the shops and services are located. Though we can buy most of what we need in town, we have been making a weekly thirty minute drive to the city of Matagalpa where there are 3 (yes, 3!) grocery stores. Besides that weekly trip, we pretty much walk everywhere we go (including to nearby villages, trails and waterfalls). Aileen of course uses her truck for work, but most everything else is done on foot.

Since it is the people who really make a place, we will take you on a walk through town and tell you who we see. Walking everywhere gives us the opportunity to interact with folks in town on a regular basis. Whether it is a simple greeting or a protracted gossip session we usually say something to everyone we meet as is the custom here.

Jeff
Off I go to buy some charcoal as I am going to barbeque chicken tonight on our grill (which is a concrete contraption used for cooking beans and other food with firewood). The first person I see is Osnan, one of the five or six children who live in a shack across the street from our house; he is looking for Emma and Hannah who are in school right now. Osnan does not go to school because he would pretty much walk out of class to play whenever he wanted and his Mom just gave up. I will let the kids tell you more about their friends and will instead share some of the neighborhood gossip. Apparently, Osnan’s Uncle (or perhaps Great Uncle) “accidentally” killed a police officer with a machete the week before we moved in. The police officer was trying to take his daughter to the station regarding a cell phone theft and in a fit of drunken stupidity the dad took a swing with his machete and caught the officer in the neck – killing him instantly.  Yikes.

Next, I walk past the home of the mysterious Giff. He is a gringo who lives next door to us and runs the sister city project with Durham, North Carolina. He must be pretty busy as we have yet to meet (but we have emailed a few times). I am thinking about volunteering with his organization when the time is right (and if I ever see him). As I walk past Giff’s house, I see Evaristo biking toward me. He is the first friend I made here and has been a constant presence in our home. We exchange English and Spanish lessons 3-4 times a week. Evaristo is 25, currently unemployed (as are many people in Nicaragua) and studying English at a nearby community college. I feel really lucky to have met him. Evaristo and I decide to have a snack at Neyda’s, the local bakery/coffee shop and Neyda joins us as does Ivanya, Evaristo’s neighbor and the girls’ tutor. Oops, there goes another morning.

I decide to walk over to Emma and Hannah’s school, named for Frey Bartolome de las Casas. Normally the girls walk home themselves but sometimes I like to pick them up. While I am waiting for them, I spot one of the local welders, I guy they call Chele (whitey) due to his light skin. I was shocked to see him as he almost died yesterday!  I met Chele while volunteering to help repair the school’s water tank over the weekend. Chele was hired to manage the project and clearly did not know what he was doing. He climbed inside the tank to paint it and passed out due to the fumes (after being told repeatedly this would happen). The fire department had to come pull him out and he was foaming at the mouth and had turned purple when they finally got to him. Today Chele says he is fine and finishing up the tank, shrugging off his near death experience as nothing more than a slight delay in the project.

Chele the Welder

The school bell rings and Emma and Hannah immediately start playing ladrones y policia (cops and robbers) with their friends. I stand around and talk to Flaca, whose real name is Aura but goes by her nickname which means skinny. Flaca has a daughter in Hannah’s class. She is also the person we hired to help with cleaning and laundry (done by hand). Flaca and her husband Memo (real name Guillermo) are great people.  They are both very smart and talented; it is a shame that the best job Flaca can get is cleaning our home and that Memo (a mason) is unemployed. Flaca actually worked for another North American family who recently left San Ramon and who were the second foreigners to send their children to school here (making us the third). She was smart enough to target us the day we moved to town and we hired her on the spot.

Since I am busy gabbing, the girls decide to walk home themselves and I go looking for charcoal. After visiting three stores I finally find some. During my search I run into various other people– the town boracho (drunk), Don Luca the cobbler and some of the other folk who live and work in our lovely little town. So far, most of the people in our neighborhood are very friendly and kind-hearted. Obviously there are some notable exceptions but fortunately the local cop-killer will be in jail during our year stay in wonderful San Ramon.

Maria

Emma
I am walking to the store to buy some napkins and I see Jose Debir who lives across the street in a little homemade house. He is really nice and today we played quietly together doing puzzles in my new home. His Uncle helped my Daddy clean up our garden and take the garbage to the dump. I am walking home and I see that Maria has followed me from the store. Maria is my friend who lives down the street. We like to play ball in the street. Osnan is another boy who lives across the street. He always comes to our gate and bangs on the latch when he wants to play. Victor is his little brother. He is very funny and always calls my Dad gringo or usted (you). I also like to play with a girl named Adriana who is in third grade. We like to draw.

Hannah
I was walking to school this morning and I saw Cindy who lives across the street. She was going to Managua. Cindy is a girl and her brother is Osnan. I also see lots of dogs and cats in the street. They are very very dirty. I call one dog Mr. Gaga and the other dog I call Lady Gaga. The people in Nicaragua are very nice because they give me marbles, mamones (a fruit) and other stuff. I have another friend named  Adriana who is in my class. She is very very very nice and cute. Her house is made out of paper and cardboard and wood but she has a TV.

On our way to school

Aileen
Yesterday afternoon Hannah and I went for a walk to find a welder. (I needed someone to weld the security bars for the windows on a school we’re building in a community called Santa Isabel.) I had heard there was a welder in the neighborhood across the street from the school, so we headed in that direction. The first thing we ran into was the dead frog in the middle of the road, which really fascinated Hannah. At the corner, we ran into the woman who’s the janitor at the school. She was really friendly and wanted to thank me because I had just given her a ride to Matagalpa the day before. (We usually average about 4 or 5 hitchhikers in the back of the truck every time we go to Matagalpa.) She was talking to a woman who was a housekeeper at the hotel we stayed at when we first got to San Ramon. Turns out they’re cousins. They told me where the welder’s taller (workshop) was, but said that he was probably still at home, because it was still lunchtime (2:00!). They told us where his house was, and we headed that way. We tried clinking the lock on his gate, but he didn’t answer the door. The guy at the hardware store next door said he was home, so we kept on clinking. Finally, I guess the hardware store guy got tired of the clinking and jumped over the fence, went right in, and got him. Anyway, I’m picking the welder up tomorrow to bring him to the community so he can measure the windows.

Current preschool in Santa Isabel which is also someone's front porch

After working that out, I wanted to check out this organization that I had heard gives out scholarships. (Part of my job description is to research what other organizations are doing here in terms of educational support- afterschool programs, scholarships, enrichment activities, providing school supplies, etc., so that the organization I’m working for SOL – Seeds of Learning, can make an informed decision about what kind of presence to establish here in San Ramon.) On the way to their office, we ran into William, who also worked at the hotel we had stayed at. He had been the night watchman at the hotel, but now had gotten a temporary job as a teacher, filling in for someone who was on maternity leave. It turns out that there’s a long waiting list for credentialed teachers here who want teaching jobs. William told us his temporary teaching job is in a rural community of San Ramon. Every morning he takes a bus for about half an hour, and then walks another hour to get to the community by 8. He has 33 kids in grades 1 through 4 in one classroom. He says he’s happy he got the job, even though it’s temporary and pays less than his night watchman job. At least he’s doing what he studied for and getting good work experience.

As we were standing there talking to William, it started pouring. We ran under a fancy new bus shelter that had just been built. It even has concrete benches! I know it seems like a little thing, but a bus shelter that protects people from the sun and the rain is actually quite nice in Nicaragua. Hannah and I were deciding whether to go home, or to go find that organization’s office, when it stopped raining. That happens a lot here. Raining cats and dogs one second, sunny blue skies the next. We went to the office, but it was closed. We decided to go back home the long way, to avoid the dead frog.