by Brad the Bike Messenger

Woke up at 3:30 am, I’ll be in Managua this afternoon. The backpack I spent hours packing was ready to go at the back door. My plan to ride to work, park my bike, shed a layer, and catch the train to the airport went well. The streets were empty this morning, snow emergency last night, all strays got towed. The weight of the backpack was somehow reassuring, holding my hands to the bars, the tires to the road.

On the train all the gentle but persistent doubts and anxieties I had about this trip subsided. I began the journey right when I walked out the door this morning.

Turns out Beth and I were on the same train so we met up right away, then met Anneka and Mary near the ticket counter. Once through security and at our gate, we endured CNN’s inane babble for too long. It turns out that 20% of Americans think Ronald Reagan was the best president. Lincoln and George W. tied, each with 5%.

Next stop, Tennessee.

*

I’m presuming we’re flying above Nicaragua by now. We’ve been over land for about twenty minutes: a lot of ground has rolled by but I’ve seen little sign of human activity. There was a broad coastal plain where remote plumes of smoke incline me to speculate that some one’s out there though no roads or buildings betray this outright. Currently the landscape is a rumpled, carved waterways are everywhere. There are roads now, sparse and unpaved. Farms are conspicuous too. All that is manmade below me is shaped according to the land.

*

From the plane, Managua seemed dense, but peaceably so. From the back of a taxi driving down a main thoroughfare it was a spectacle of humanity. Managuans were heading home from work however they could: walking, riding bicycles, driving motorcycles, hanging from buses and diesel-belching semis, standing in the back of pick-ups. Vendors at busy intersections hawked everything from porno mags to little blue bags of water. The city was a cacophony of car horns and exhaust pipes and friends meeting friends.

*

Dinner tonight was at a small restaurant around the corner from the Hotel San Felippe. There was an assortment of prepared food behind glass up front: rice and beans, meat enchiladas, meats, baseball-size wads of potato and cheese, cheese crepes, fried bananas, salad. We made our choices (the potato dumplings were popular) and took a table in the restaurant’s main room. The room was stuffy but we were happy to be eating real food. Up front several women were preparing food: chopping vegetables with a huge blade, cooking in a huge, oily cast-iron pan over a wood fire. At a table just off the sidewalk a cat patiently waited for some one to drop a scrap of chicken. Style: totally unpretentious, authentic style.

I’m on my second Tona, everyone’s asleep or back in their rooms. There’s been a lot to absorb today. Looking out on Nicaragua so far, I see a country whose people are proud and resolute. Poverty feels different. There’s no welfare here that I’ve heard of; the country has no money. But there are enterprising individuals selling whatever they can offer, some fruit, a swatch of fabric. They are doing what they can for themselves, and that’s always empowering.

*

The five of us had a long day: breakfast at seven, taxi ride, conversation at Witness for Peace, taxi ride, bus ride to Matagalpa, taxi, coffee break, taxi, a meeting with a Free Trade opponent, dinner, taxi, and now the Hotel San Thomas, high above the city. There are dozens of teenage missionaries here from Philadelphia, I don’t know how they ended up here nor do I care. I’ve retreated to the outdoors. I’m sitting on a disused patio on the side of the building to get away from the noise. There is a small flowering plant here to remind me that all is good.

I heard a lot today about how horrible America is to Nicaragua. Imagine if 49 states teamed up to screw Indiana out of its dignity, money, and political status. Indiana at least would have the benefit of capital, infrastructure, and education. We’re picking on the cripple trough foreign policy and no one can step back and say “dude, not cool!”

*

Anneka and I are sharing a room in the humble home Fransesco & Maria Riza and family. The room is a makeshift cubicle built into their home’s main room. Inside there are two small beds, a small table, and a clock on the wall with an image of Jesus on its face. The Rizas built this room for guests like us, as they are paid for our room and board. Anneka is my only link linguistically to these people. They are very friendly, very generous, and we share the utmost respect through our actions and body language. I’ve been confused several times so far though, and Anneka’s been there to translate.

*

Tonight the moon is full, illuminating the trees and the gravel road in front of the house. Anneka is in the bedroom writing in her journal and I tell her about my decision to go for a walk further up the road. There are a group of men playing a game in the front yard, flipping a coin towards a hole in the dirt. They nod as I walk past them.

The road has a steep grade but it felt good to use my legs and lungs. The air is still, all around is so quiet except for the occasional stirring of livestock. I can’t believe I’m in Nicaragua! I feel as though I belong here, to forever live a simple life among these fine people.

A young man, about my age had followed me up the hill for about a half-mile, startling me at first until I recognized him from the Riza’s. He began to explain something to me while pointing up the road. Staring blankly I said “No comprende Espanol” and he sighed exasperatedly. I caught the word “peligroso” in his next sentence and exclaimed “Si! Si! Peligroso! Solo es stupido.”

Anneka was still writing when we returned and I asked her to ask Xavier (we had introduced ourselves) why it was dangerous. The reply she translated was that it was safer with a local and that he would have walked me to the point in the road where it wasn’t safer to go further into the jungle. I didn’t think to ask what was in the jungles around here. I gracias’d profusely as he left that night. What a friendly guy, too bad I couldn’t have taken his offer to explore a bit.

*

This morning I woke up to the call of a real, live rooster. What I took to be the early creepings of sunlight into the rafters turned out to be the full moon, just setting.

Last night Anneka and I ate with Francesco, an amicable and gregarious fellow. Our meal was rice & beans, a salty hank of cheese, corn tortillas that we reverentially watched Maria make, fried crispy discs, and deeply sweetened coffee.

Fransesco told us about his farm over dinner. He grows maize, red beans, chyote, and cabbage. We are surrounded by coffee and banana trees but Francesco claims these are not his. There’s a durian tree pumping out several still unripe spiky fruits.

*

The family’s kitchen is a small shack built off the side of the house. A wood-burning stove made of concrete takes up one corner and smoke billows through gaps under the tin roof. Their sink is filled from a cistern and drains directly onto the ground outside.

In the evening Maria continues to work and make food in the kitchen even when it’s dark enough that I cannot see her hands. At night, she lights a small candle and works by that.

*

Wilfredo’s land has coffee, red beans, lemongrass, citrus, fish, chicken, cattle, and a spectacular view of Nicaragua. He showed us his pile of organic compost that he makes from animal waste, ash, and the skins of coffee berries.

We also saw is worm farm, a trough filled with cow poop and a colony of African worms. Once digested by the worms the “organic matter” is something I didn’t hesitate grab a handful and raise to my nose. The smell was rich, earthy, and microbial: not the least offensive.

*

We returned to Matagalpa in the back of a pick-up truck. Easily one of the most exhilarating rides of my life.

The good-byes with our hosts followed a filling breakfast of rice & beans, eggs, cheese, Maria’s artful tortillas, and sweet coffee. Anneka left the Rizos with a Spanish/ English dictionary that they seemed very pleased with.

Fransesco made sure to show us his farm on the way back to the village. He pointed out all his crops and all the other various trees, crops, and birds along the way.

*

This afternoon we’re heading back to Managua to catch our early flight home tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it as we’ve spent the last two days shopping along crowded streets and in cabs. It’s pretty warm and my stomach is making me flimsy. I feel like napping a lot but I didn’t want to miss anything.

I gave six cordobas to a man whose legs were wrecked by polio or palsy or something. He boarded our bus and pulled himself along with the tops of the seats, practically dragging his legs behind. Six cordobas is about forty cents, but his face beamed a brilliant smile and he said something that sounded reverential. In Nicaragua it might be the only means some one in his condition can make money.

*

It’s set to become a hot, stuffy day in Managua. A dense haze had set over the city as early as eight o’clock when we were in the cab on the way to the airport. I’m glad to be heading home.

But now I’m traveling by means unimaginable to much of the nation I just left. The disparity between their life and mine will be on my mind forever. Why does some putz kid who drops off beans at stores in an affluent nation live better than those that nurture and coax the plants into producing those beans?

Their faces and the humanity I saw in them I will never forget either. I hope to visit Nicaragua again.

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