Broken Eggs and Goodbyes

Leaving La Prusia

I am officially homeward bound. This past Friday I said goodbye to La Prusia and I have begun my travels back to Guatemala and then back to Jersey, hopefully in time to catch one last snow storm.

Originally, I was going to stay in La Prusia for an additional week. When I first showed up there I thought that I would have a hard time packing up and leaving that place, but my honeymoon phase was short lived. At first, I loved it. I was helping out with the kids for a couple hours before a few more of hard and honest manual labor. There were only twelve of us volunteering, few enough to feel like an intimate community but enough to keep the conversations fresh. And the balance between English speakers and Spaniards was even.

That lasted a couple weeks, but suddenly there were four more of us. Then six more. Then nine more. Our quick meetings at night turned into Spanish shouting matches. Those who didn’t speak Spanish natively were at a serious disadvantage as topics were rarely translated and our opinions were asked for even less. As Mitch and his half-finished dreadlocks would say, “You speak English. You don’t matter.” Even when we went out, we English speakers would just pathetically follow along as we all went to the same two bars, complaining over and over again how lame they both were. Many would say that we were all a family, but I certainly did not feel part of it.

My one room house shrunk dramatically as six men and one unfortunate Catalonian girl competed for bathroom and kitchen use each morning. At night, I would wake up with my nose running or my stomach hurting and I would be sweating, always sweating. Sometimes I’d find Rufia, our stray kitten, sleeping above my face on my mosquito net. Other times, I’d wake up from her attacking my feet. The Spanish guys always picked on Chris, the South Carolinian, for… well… just about everything he did – hanging his clothes outside for too long, putting a bit of water in the garbage with his coffee grinds, breaking the washer, the way he’d say “What the fuck?” or “Nice” all the time, or just because he was American. The discomfort of it all started getting to me.

Mostly, though, I just found myself unsure of whether my volunteer work was actually doing good for the community. Casas de La Esperanza’s idea with the houses was to give the Prusians a chance to own their own property, to help build something that was their own, and to instill them with a sense of pride and dignity. It sounds good. But the way they live in La Prusia is different than how we live in the States, or in Spain. In “the first world,” we have ideas of security, of the future, of saving and investing. For a lot of us, today and tomorrow are safe, but we have to worry about the day after tomorrow, and the day after. Here, life is more day to day, maybe even meal to meal. It sounds horrible to us, living without security, and I thought it would seem so desperate. It doesn’t. The people here have their own way of survival, their own way of making life work. Their way, however, is much more present-oriented. That’s why they buy things – chips, TVs, speakers – that we think they don’t need; there isn’t a guarantee for tomorrow. These people, though they don’t have well-rounded, healthy diet, aren’t going to starve to death. They can afford rice and beans, they have clean drinking water, and they live in an area rich with fruits and veggies, which the local kids can aptly identify and pick. They’re also good ad catching the occasional iguana. By building the houses, we’re hoping to give them some security and have them not worry about losing the land they occupy but do not own. If they lost their land, they’d literally pack up their house and move it somewhere else. Once again, sounds bad to us… worse than bad, unimaginable. But my gut feeling with these people is that they’d find a way and life would go on. To me, it just didn’t seem like the houses were the best thing we could be doing. In the first project, Casas just finished building a soldering school where between about 15 young men are enrolled in a 10 month course that, when they finish, will leave them certified and with a skill to sell. They are working for themselves and the NGO made it possible – this is how it should be.

So for those reasons, I’ve decided that I’d be better off spending the last few weeks I have in Central America on the road toward Guatemala and then my last days with the good friends I made in Xela, Guatemala. Saying goodbye to the volunteers was a lot easier than I thought it'd be, and also much harder to the Nicaraguans.

I am glad to say that I am ready to come home. I’m ready for the next step, whatever that may be. I’m ready for my transition back to everyday life in Suburbia, NJ. I’m looking forward to looking at the mundane with new eyes. I’m anxious to see if I can maintain the clarity I have right now of my values and my drive to live them when life isn’t so exciting. And mostly, I’m just really looking forward to some chocolate chip pancakes.

Eggs, Birthdays, and Crashing Cultures

There’s a messy tradition in Nicaragua. On someone’s birthday, that person’s friends and family get to smash eggs on his/her head. The more eggs, the more luck for the coming year/ the more you are loved, or so they say.

This past week, two of us had birthdays – myself, and the new Australian guy, Derrick. Since I’ve been here, only Aleman, a Prusian guy, has had a birthday and a few of the girls got him twice. None of the volunteers had celebrated and I didn’t know what to expect. Since it was a Nicaraguan tradition, I was mostly worried about the Nica guys waiting for me, hiding in trees or behind rocks, waiting to slam dunk an egg on my skull. On the morning of my birthday, I woke up to Fernando, one of my Spanish roommates, telling me he had made me eggs. Lo and behold, there were scrambled eggs waiting for me on the table outside. Wow. That was unexpected, I said to myself, thinking that the only eggs I’d be getting would be on my head. Halfway through my plate, Laticia made her way down from the yellow house to wish me happy birthday. She did a horrible job hiding the egg, but I thought it’d be best to get the volunteer attack out of the way. Instead of the top of my head, she landed an eggy left-hood across my right temple and the egg splattered all over my face, the table and the bench. “Felicidades, Tom!” she shouted as I walked over to the tap and washed myself. At least that’s over with. Just gotta watch out of the damn Nica guys now.

When it’s our turn to cook dinner, we get the day off from volunteering to go shopping in town and do what we have to do to the meal ready. I signed up for my birthday thinking 1) I’d prepare an awesome meal with a dessert that would make La Prusia dessert history 2) I’d get to call home and to talk to Julie as well and 3) I’d spend as little time with the Nicaraguans that day to avoid an all-day egg assault.

I decided to make veggie chili with milkshakes and crepes stuffed full of melted chocolate and bananas for dessert. I started cooking at 2. Kim, Derrick’s girlfriend, and Christina, the Canadian who jokes that I’m her only friend at the project helped me dice up my tomatoes and veggies. The tomatoes stewed for about three hours, the other veggies and soy meat substitute joined in after they were fried up. I decided to be merciful on the Spaniards and made it mild (they don’t like spicy food, apparently). As three huge pots of chili were simmering, I rushed to cook about 50 crepes, melt down the chocolate, mix it with the bananas, and then get the milkshakes ready. Dinner was ready early for the first time in a long time.

Since I cooked, it was my job to dish out the food. I noticed Julio, another Spaniard, recording with his camera, but I just figured it was his last week and he was just trying to take in the remaining moments that he could. I didn’t think anything of it. There was chili to be served. Then out of no where, I was ambushed from behind with three eggs, which dripped over my chest, back, and ears and quickly started drying. I found myself frustrated and, unexpectedly, hurt by it. I yelled at them in Spanish, half-joking, that they were all assholes and that they weren’t Nicaraguans, but they didn’t care. Most of them told me the food was delicious, but complained to each other that it was inedibly spicy. I was glad. I stuffed myself full of chili, crepes, and milkshakes and didn’t talk much to anyone. I had asked that we play poker that night for my birthday, but since it was one girl’s last night, everyone followed her down to “The Rocks” to have one last Coke. I stayed back, partly not wanting to get egged again but more because I was in a fuck-all-of-them mood. Alone, I restrung the guitar, and sat there and thinking about home.

Derrick and Kim came back early and Derrick said he would get very, very angry if he got egged and said he hoped it didn’t happen. Derrick, now 28, has been traveling for seven months now with Kim. He’s already an experienced architect and, since coming to La Prusia, has worked tirelessly analyzing the house designs, looking for ways to make them sturdier and easier to build. He is a good worker, experienced and competent, but because of his diligence and lack of Spanish abilities, has made almost no effort to get to know the Spanish volunteers nor the Nicaraguans. I assured him the attack wouldn’t happen, assuming/hoping that being egged was a sign of some kind of friendship, something that I hoped I actually had.

Thursday, the day he feared, came. He made it until dinner time without being egged. Then, Laticia decided to send her felicidades again. He took it in stride, washing off and not getting angry. He thought that would be it. He was wrong.

That night, we went out to send off Fernando, Julio, James, and myself. Mitch and I were sitting at the bar inside when we heard glass break in the street. The waiters ran toward the door, but we just sat there, assuming someone at our table knocked over a bottle. Minutes later, Annah and Fernando came inside, visibly upset and rambling on and on. Apparently, Mula – encouraged by a buzzed Julio – snuck around behind Derrick and cracked another egg on his head. Derrick, enraged, stood up, turned around, and threw a glass “at Mula’s face,” according to Annah. Video evidence shows it hitting the ground at his feet. Immediately after, Derrick was so embarrassed that he grabbed a cab home by himself, leaving Kim behind. Mitch and I tried telling them they were wrong for breaking the egg on him when they didn’t know him well. We said you never know how someone’s going to react to something, especially when you don’t actually know them. They said it was out of friendship and tradition, because we’re all a family. We said it wasn’t their tradition. We said that they weren’t his friend and that they just wanted a laugh. They said it was the tradition here and that when you’re in a country you should abide by their traditions and practice them too. The conversation didn’t get anywhere.

I thought back to my birthday and thought, I probably would’ve thrown a glass too.

Teaching Troubles

I was torn about whether I'd teach in La Prusia or not before I showed up on January 11. I quickly made up my mind when I learned that classes wouldn't start for another three or four weeks, nearly halfway through my time here. In Guatemala, sometimes it seemed like we were doing more harm than good by having new teachers coming and going, usually without inexperience in front of a classroom and choosing to stick to the "How are you?"-"I am fine" routine for the 45th time. I always wondered whether they'd be better off working on a different subject. I believe that a teacher has the responsibility not just to teach the required material, but to get his or her students to believe that they have it in them to do whatever it is they put their minds to doing. This kind of relationship takes time to build. With only four weeks of one class a week, I thought the English teaching job would be better filled by someone who planned to be hear longer than me.

This past Friday, however, Christina, a Canadian volunteer, asked me if I could help out with her 2nd grade class and, with "fuckall" (that's British for "nothing") to do in construction this week, I thought "What the hell." I met her at a picnic table on the playground/courtyard/soccer field/broken down basketball court to help her with some last minute preps. We were going to revew a bit of numbers and teach the kids some animals words, and then maybe a few "I have..." phrases with numbers and animals.

We walked and interrupted a class, unsure of whether we were actually supposed to be teaching. The teacher eagerly ushered us in and assured us it was ok. A couple seconds later, he was out the door. There were four boys whose desks were literally touching the teachers desk. The rest of the class was plastered against the wall, positioning themselves as far away from the board as possible.

It was Christina's class so I wanted to let her run the show. Having only been here for a couple weeks and with only a brief relationship with the Spanish language, she struggled to communicate with the class. My classroom Spanish got pretty good in Guatemala, so I tried to step in a bit more than I anticipated. We played a numbers game. The rules were simple: two students alternate counting numbers until one says a wrong answer. In Guatemala, it was a hit. Here, only three kids volunteered.

The lack of enthusiasm carried over into the rest of the period. Only a handful actually repeated the animal names out loud with us, and I think two actually copied them all down. After 12 minutes of trying to help them/write names down for them, we ceded the defeat and moved onto the simple phrases. We wrote a couple "I have one (insert animal)" phrases and asked them to copy them and then write there own. They looked petrified, and the ones that didn't looked bored.

I noticed one little guy, with spiked up hair sitting by himself along the back wall. I tried explaining to him what we were doing, and he told me he couldn't do it. I told him he could and walked away trying to get the others to work too. A couple minutes later, I went back to the loner in the back and saw nothing on his paper. I helped him write the first sentence and told him write another one in Spanish. His words were smushed together and he mispelled enough words that I almost didn't recognize them. I let him try to write it in English, pointing when necessary to the example sentence, his template to follow. When he finished, I asked him to put it on the board. His eyes grew in fear and he shook his head.

We had another student at the board, but I could see my buddy from the back. He was looking at me with eager eyes half sitting, half standing. He changed his mind. He ran up with his paper and put his sentence on the board and ran back to his seat. The bell rang before he could read it out loud, but he looked at me with a slight grin on his face and I could tell he felt proud of himself.

After the class, I felt torn. It felt great being with the kids, especially with the one I helped do what he didn't think he could do; it reminded me why, one day, I know I will spend my days in front of a classroom. On the other hand, these English classes were only on Fridays, and I only had three left. Would it be fair to the kids to show up for a few days and just skip town? What would they think? On the other hand, whatever encouragement and help I could give them would be better than nothing. No?

I don't have answers to these questions, but I will be showing up for class next Friday.



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Day at Volcan Masaya

This past Saturday, I decided it was time for me to check out a bit of the natural beauty that Nicaragua has to offer so I tagged along with my housemates – Pablo, Nacho, Fernando, James, and Chris (I’ll let you guess who is from Spain and who’s not) – as they went off to Volcano Masaya.

Being the crazy party animal that I’ve become, I didn’t go to bed until 12:30 the night before because of an intense game of Settlers of Catan. I woke up with my head hurting at 6, but I dragged myself out of bed anyway and fried up a couple eggs before our one functional stove burner got claimed by someone else. The plan was to leave at 7. We left at 8.

We made the 45 minute trek into town and caught a bus from the central park. I felt a bunch of sharp stings in my shins as we were waiting and I looked down to find a mini-swarm of red ants chowing down on my ankle. The bus pulled up as I was battling the little shits, but we were hurried on and the fight continued on board in my seat. The little ones bite harder.

We cruised west on the highway, weaving in and out of the two lanes, the top of the bus always feeling a bit behind the bottom. After a good forty minutes of head bobbing sleep, I got stirred awake as my compadres for the day were hustled off the bus on the side of the road. We played Frogger as we scurried across the four lanes to the entrance of the park.

Inside, we paid our c$80 entrance fee and decided that the 5km walk up to the craters would not be so bad. Wrong. Though the entrance gate was shaded, the trek up was nothing but black, unshaded asphalt winding through barren land covered in dry wild grass and old volcanic rocks. Luckily, we hitched a ride from a couple in a nice pickup and we spent the next four minutes hanging onto the sides of the bed as the wind cooled us down. Looking out over the land below as we climbed the hill, I realized Nicaragua is flat – very flat – with a volcano sprouting up here and there.

In the parking lot, we were dropped off literally at the edge of the crater. The smoke that seeped from the crater choked me when the winds weren’t going the right way. It was beautiful, but I wished we had the satisfaction of walking up a trail beforehand. Oh well. I’m not going to complain.

After walking up and around to the couple lookout points that were opened up and taking a few pictures for the German tourists sharing the view, we decided to pay the extra c$50 and take the cave tour. We were loaded into the back of a pickup and were dragged around to the backside of the crater. At a little wooden stand plagued with black hornets, they equipped us with funny plastic helmets and dollar-store flashlights.

In the cave, daylight only reached a few meters deep (oh no I’m starting to use the metric system!). My I kept my flashlight focused on the floor, which was fickle and enwrapped with sprawling tree roots. And then, THUD! I walked into a low hanging chunk of rock, but my cheap, plastic helmet did its job and protected me. I’ll never doubt it again. On the way out, bats fluttered back and forth, in and out of the few penetrating rays of daylight.

We were dropped off by the side of the third and largest (though dormant) crater. We hiked up, and my head was pounding. I had eaten my second… or third… packet of cookies, which definitely did not help my aching skull. The view was impressive, but my companions wanted to hike around the ridge. There was a “Danger: Do not pass sign” with a park guide a hundred meters behind it, uphill, whistling his head off and doing the robot, his signal that we should come up. From the top, we could see back to Granada. The Spaniards wanted to hike around the ridge to a vulture colony. My head said no, but I followed along anyway, not wanting to ruin anyone’s afternoon. I’m glad I did. After following a half-foot wide path through weeds and brush up and down mini hills, we came to the colony. At first we could only see a few hiding in the trees. We got closer and we saw several more on the path in front of us. Their black, fleshy heads blended in with the black feathers of their bodies and made them look more like hawks than your class vulture. One took flight. Then another. Then three more. Before we knew it, the sky was populated with several dozen vultures while many more debated in the trees whether we were threats meriting an unexpected mid-afternoon flight. My head felt better watching them.

Afterwards, we followed the path back down to the parking lot and arranged a pickup to bring us back down. There was no way we were going to walk down in the Nicaraguan sun. In the back of the truck, as I sat on the edge, I thought back to my first pickup truck ride – how uncomfortable I was as I slid around in the bed. Now I sat confidently – foolhardily perhaps – on the edge, solely relying on my feet to keep me balanced as I left my hands free to take pictures, or even just to dangle and enjoy the breeze. There are some things I know I will miss terribly in a month.

Halfway Mark in Nicaragua

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates. My time in Nicaragua shoveling cement, dodging street dogs, and hiding from the brutal sun has flown by and I just realized that I'm 4 weeks into my 8 week stint here. With my trip almost at the 5 month mark, I've been a bit more reflective lately and I thought I'd share a couple things I've been thinking about. Here goes...

Cultural Fat-ass-ness?

In my first or second week here, I was sitting at our communal table outside the house shooting the shit with Chris, a 25 year old guy from South Carolina who is both southern and anti-southern in many regards. We were talking about food and I made a comment about how I liked that I ate a lot less in Guatemala than I would have at home. He said something along the lines of “Well it’s just our culture,” and that we can’t really help it. Some people would say that we are products of our environments, but I can’t stomach that idea. There’s no hiding that at home in the States we chronically eat A LOT more than we ever need to. Here, most of the Nicaraguans I’ve met typically eat beans and rice with a cup of coffee for their meals. Us volunteers are usually given a generous helping of rice, beans, sometimes fried or boiled plantains, and a variable third dish that is either a saucy meat and veggie dish or some kind of potato puree. After six hours of shoveling cement and sweating my chest hair off, I usually down seconds or thirds before I’ve realized that I’ve eaten anything at all. For dinners, we cook for each other four nights a week. Spaniards like good food, and since most of the people I live with are from Spain, I consistently eat delicious dinners that leave me impregnated with a food baby. In Guatemala I lost 20 lbs eating less but still a healthy amount; here, they’re quickly being put back on. I eat when I’m not hungry and I eat more than I need to when I am hungry. I believe that overconsumption of, well, everything I guess is not only a personal problem, but a societal one as well. Since early on in my trip, I’ve told myself that I’d come home conscious of how much I really need to eat and try my best to resist stuffing my face with spaghetti and meatballs, Chinese food, and half-conscious late-night cookie binges. But I really wonder if Chris is right. Am I destined to be an overeating fatty?

“La Mula” – Danny “The Mule”

They call him “Mula,” mule, because 1) he’s as strong as a damn mule and 2) because he’s as stubborn as one too. The first time I met him I was trying to dig a ditch by striking the ground with my cast iron rod. He silently relieved me of my duty, slamming the rod into the ditch and quadrupling my production speed without breaking a sweat. He was no taller than 5’4” wearing a backwards baseball cap over a bandana, long denim shorts, and sandals. Later on, I was sent to sift sand with him and I decided to let myself sound stupid and try to talk to him. We didn’t talk about much: what we were doing, baseball, and how other English speaking volunteers usually can’t/don’t try enough to speak Spanish.

I learned that Mula was one of the few La Prusia guys to hang out with the volunteers and, before long, I was subject to the same jokes as the other volunteers, which usually involved him calling me a “puta maricon,” more or less a fucking fag, telling me “a la verga,” literally to the dick (they love the word “verga” here), and flipping me off, all the while smiling. I’d hear my name called at the construction site, I’d look, and there he’d be with the middle finger standing proudly by itself and directed at me. It didn’t take me long to realize we’d have the same conversation every day.

A couple times, when we were all walking down into Granada to go out for a few drinks, Danny and I would be separated enough from the group to have our own conversation… or as much of a conversation as I could have. We went from talking about his volunteer girlfriend leaving from Granada and him being sad to him talking about how he liked Sandra – one of the Spanish volunteers – in a matter of sentences. The next week, he couldn’t decide between Sandra and our new Canadian volunteer. Now our conversations would cover three topics: baseball, Sandra, and me being a “puta maricon.”

Sometimes I feel bad because there is so much to learn, see and experience outside of La Prusia that he has not and most likely will not get to experience. Other times, I look at him with envy. Maybe ignorance is bliss and he’s better off not knowing some things. Maybe he’s better off keeping things simple, flipping off his friends and talking big about his next female conquest.

Construction

My first week with Casas de Esperanza, I decided to mix things up and take a couple hours of tutoring followed by three hours of construction. On those first few days, I thought the second halves of the day would never end. My hands got cut and torn open by shovels, pick axes, hatchets, and cast iron picks as dug, picked, chopped and stabbed dirt, rocks and roots to make the foundation trenches for the first houses of the new project. Putting sunscreen on in the morning was the worst as the cream seeped into the little cuts and torn blisters covering my hands. The muscles in my arms gave out before my will did as I dropped cinderblocks and couldn’t pick the ground anymore. I had thought that I was in decent shape, but my body told me otherwise.

Surprisingly – or not surprisingly at all – I quickly caught up to speed. Each day that I dragged myself out to the construction site at 7 am, I found myself less and less uncomfortable. My blisters hardened, my cuts ceased to sting, and my body began lasting the entire six hour work day. Now, I’m a cement mixing, cinder block carrying, root chopping champion… well, not really… but I’m a hell of a lot better than I was a few short weeks ago.

But really though, when you think about it, that’s how anything in life is. I hear people say “I wish I could dance,” “I wish I could play guitar,” or “I’m just not good with languages.” That’s really all just bullshit. We’re each capable of doing whatever we want to do; it’s only a matter of putting ourselves out there day after day through discomfort, failure and limited results. You just have to sacrifice pride with a confidence that you’ll be successful when all is said and done.

A Call with the ‘Rents

A call home is always a potentially traumatic experience. No matter how old you get, how independent you feel, there is always a part of you that wants to say “Mommy! Daddy! Look how good I did!” and to have them say, “Great job, son/daughter!”

I called my parents last weekend for the first time since I left Guatemala nearly a month before. I don’t know what I expected from home – maybe just a little excitement to hear from me. It was about 3 o’clock there. Angie, my 10 year old sister, answered, shyly mumbling into the receiver. “Huhlo? Hi,” is all she said, followed by some mumbled words as she went to get my dad the phone. He gave me the usual, “Helloooo? Sonny Boy!” followed by a big hybrid yawn-snort. There was so much I wanted to talk about: a week in El Salvador, my new volunteer site, my work, the people I was meeting, the weather, Nicaragua, how it compared to Guatemala, how much I missed Guatemala, and home for that matter. I don’t think any of that came up. He tried to wake himself up but I could tell he was still half-asleep as my phone call meter racked up Córdobas. I asked to talk to Gina, my 15 year old sister. She blurted out a couple sentences at supersonic speeds before she ran from the phone, leaving me mid-question. Luckily, my mom got home as my Dad was heading out the door with Gina for some basketball practice. She asked me a few questions about how I was doing, where I was, etc., but all that turned into talks of potential jobs I could get when I came home, not exactly the happy conversation I was looking for.

We hung up, and I walked out of the glass phone booth with a weird feeling in my stomach. Why weren’t they happier to hear from me? Why couldn’t any of them just talk to me? I was hoping to surprise them, but even a phone call from Sonny Boy couldn’t snap the routine.

Down here, I feel like I have my head on straight; everything seems in perspective. Friends and family are most important. Always pushing myself to grow and learn new things, a close second. Right now, I know I’m not in “the real world,” but the ideals I have right now feel more real than anything I’ve felt before. Here, it’s easy for me to keep them in sight: I like the work I’m doing, I’m with cool people, I feel myself growing every day. At home I know it will be a different story, and probably a more boring one… which is not a bad thing as much as it is a matter of fact. It’ll be mundane, familiar, and more routine. The big question for me will be whether I can keep these values in mind and my spirit fired up when I have to make the effort.

Picture Galleries!

I've finally started uploading all my pics from Guatemala and will be caught up (hopefully) with where I'm at now by next weekend.

Check'em out at picasaweb.google.com/Tom.F.Barrett