by Jeanne Winer
Two young men in khaki uniforms were painstakingly searching every piece of luggage for contraband and weapons. Bienvenidos a Nicaragua, Welcome to Nicaragua, a country the size of Connecticut, at war with the United States. With the barest of sighs, I shouldered my duffel bag and joined the line.
After a couple of minutes, the man standing in front of me asked, “Did you know it would be this hot?” He’d arrived on the same plane as me but hadn’t been part of the Seattle group.
I shook my head. “Lucifer mentioned it, but I didn’t believe him.”
The man stared at me uncomprehending, then burst out laughing. “Me neither.” He pulled out a red handkerchief from his bag and wiped the back of his neck. “Oh well, I suppose we’ll get used to it.” He looked about my age and was wearing brand-new tan-colored pants and a matching vest with dozens of pockets. A week ago, I’d resisted buying the exact same tropical outfit from a yuppie boutique called Travel Incorporated, opting righteously for cheap cotton clothes at K-Mart.
“I’m David Kramer,” he said, offering me his hand.
I shook it. “Rachel Stein.”
“Where are you from, Rachel?”
“Boulder, Colorado. What about you?”
“Des Moines.” He paused. “Are you a sandalista or a journalist? You don’t look like the CIA, but maybe they’re getting sneakier.”
I smiled. “What’s a sandalista?”
He looked pleased to know anything in a foreign country that someone else—even if it was only another North American—didn’t. “It’s what the people here call the internationals who come to support the Sandinistas.”
“It sounds faintly derogatory,” I said, ever the cautious lawyer.
He looked surprised. “I—I don’t think so. I think it’s affectionate.” But now that I’d planted the seed, he looked a little confused. Here for only ten minutes and already I was making a difference.
“Well,” I said, “in any event, since I’m not a journalist and I’m not the CIA in disguise, I must be a sandalista.” I lifted one of my feet and showed him my new leather sandal.
He laughed again, deciding to trust me after all. “Me too,” he confided. “I’m headed to Esteli to join a coffee harvesting brigade. My wife is very worried. She’s a kindergarten teacher. She thinks I’ll get shot or kidnapped but I had to come. It makes me so mad what we’re doing to this country.”
I nodded, wondered again if I’d made a terrible mistake coming here. I was feeling guilty. It wasn’t the Nicaraguan people’s fault I needed a cause—they had enough problems—why take it out on them? But I didn’t really believe that I couldn’t be of use, even if my heart was a little opaque around the edges. I could still lift a hammer.
“What about you?” David asked.
I shrugged. “A few weeks ago, I upped and joined the Boulder-Jalapa friendship brigade.” Boy did that sound weird. For twelve years, I’d been a stable, middle-class attorney and now I was someone who’d suddenly joined a “brigade.”
“Jalapa? Wow, my wife would have had a heart attack if she thought I was going up there. What’s your group going to do?”
Christ, was it that dangerous? “Help rebuild a clinic that the Contras burned down last summer.”
“That’s great.” He hesitated. “You’re not going up there by yourself, are you?”
I shook my head. His concern was genuine, but it wasn’t helpful. “No, I’m supposed to meet everyone here in the next few hours.”
He glanced at his watch. “Well I hope they get here soon. I’ve heard it’s dangerous to travel at night up near the border.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said, “but we’re spending the next two weeks attending a language school in Managua before we leave.”
“Oh, then you’ll be fine.” He smiled reassuringly. The line inched forward. “So,” he said, “are you ready to answer the one question every Nicaraguan is going to ask you?”
I hated quizzes and was growing tired of my companion, but what the hell. I had a lot to learn here, and not much time. “What’s the question?”
Again, that pleased look. “Will the United States invade or not?”
Thank God I’d studied up as much as I had. But even if I hadn’t, as a criminal defense attorney I’d been trained to express an opinion whether I knew anything about a subject or not. Standing silent in a courtroom was something you did rarely and always as a tactic, not because you didn’t know the answer.
“Well, for what it’s worth,” I said, “I don’t think so. An invasion here wouldn’t be as easy as invading Grenada. The people would actually fight back. We might as well just keep squeezing the country economically with the embargo and let the Contras do the rest.”
He nodded. “I totally agree.”
“On the other hand, I wouldn’t put it past us either.”
He nodded in agreement with that as well. So there we were, two sandalistas having just arrived in the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport discussing the political situation in Nicaragua. I was doing fine, I told myself, everything would be okay. All I needed was a fan, a good night’s sleep and a bathroom. I looked around until I spotted the women’s baño. David promised to save my place while I hurried over to it.
Thanks to the United States embargo, there was no toilet paper. Instead, I had to use little squares of newspaper that were stacked next to the toilet. Did newsprint run? I stood up, flushed the toilet, and buttoned my shorts. Suddenly, I felt dizzy and had to sit down again. I put my head between my knees and stared intently at the pink and white tiled floor. It was actually pretty clean for a public bathroom in a third world country.
What the hell was I doing here? For a couple of inglorious seconds, I entertained the idea of catching the next plane out. Julius Caesar’s ineffectual cousin: I came, I saw, I left. But I wouldn’t, because I had glimpsed the possibility of feeling useful here, of getting high, and I was a junkie whose sources had dried up back home.
***
Three and a half hours later, I was boarding an old-fashioned yellow school bus with the rest of my brigade. Our group consisted of six women and four men. Except for two kids who were college students, and a handsome older man who looked extremely fit, everyone was about my age. Not surprisingly, we seemed to be a homogeneous group of white, middle-class Coloradoans; after all, who else could afford to come? I assumed everyone except Tim and Estelle, the two organizers who were obviously fluent, knew enough Spanish to get by, but like me would all benefit from two weeks of intensive language instruction.
As we headed out of the airport, Tim and Estelle remained standing at the front of the bus chatting with the driver and nodding encouragingly at the rest of us. They seemed completely at ease. Both wore white kerchiefs around their necks as if anticipating the possibility of a noxious cloud of smog suddenly engulfing us.
“Well everyone,” Estelle said, smiling, “we’re on our way. Some of you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed, but that’s perfectly normal. There’ll be plenty of time for questions later. Right now, just try to get used to the heat and your new surroundings.” She checked her watch. “It’s a quarter to ten. The barrio is only fifteen miles away. So it won’t be long.”
We were headed for the community center in Barrio Maximo Jerez to meet the various families who would put us up during our two-week stay in Managua. Personally, I would have preferred spending the night in a quiet hotel room and meeting our families the next day, but this was a group enterprise, not a solo journey. I’d traded my independence for something equally precious: the chance to make a difference. Although my judgment was admittedly impaired, it seemed like a reasonable trade with a potentially huge payoff. As I contemplated this, one of our tires blew out and we almost collided with a taxi. It happened so fast no one had time to react. Miraculously, we came to a halt on the shoulder of the road where we wouldn’t be impeding traffic. White-faced, everyone quickly filed out of the bus. After swearing and kicking at the tire, our driver apologized fo
r the inconvenience, and then started walking down the highway. He promised to return as soon as possible.
It was much too hot to wait inside the bus. As we stood by the side of the road, everyone tried their best to remain good-natured and philosophical. This was an adventure after all, not a vacation. No one complained, although one of the women—sporting a recent perm that made her look like a poodle—mentioned she was feeling faint. Immediately, Tim and Estelle hurried over and began urging her to drink more water.
“Listen, everyone,” Estelle said, “we’re going to have to watch out for heat exhaustion.” Despite our recent mishap, she and Tim seemed calm and matter-of-fact as if everything were going exactly according to schedule.
Although it was night, the traffic (which was less than three feet away) was bumper to bumper. None of the cars seemed to have working mufflers, but they all had horns. Trucks and buses routinely backfired as they negotiated their way down the street, which was pitted with huge potholes. The smell of burning garbage permeated the air. And something else too, something sickeningly sweet, like overripe melons or gardenias past their prime. Whatever it was, it was all too much, contributing to a feeling that we were under siege and about to be overrun.
After about forty minutes, most of us ended up sprawling in the weeds behind the bus. The light from the full moon was as bright as a prison searchlight. If we’d been convicts attempting to escape, we would have been caught immediately. There was still no sign of the driver. The poodle lady’s face was redder than a beet, and I wondered if she would end up needing medical attention. Almost every group has at least one weak link and one pain in the ass. The poodle lady was clearly vying for the weak link and I thought I knew who might turn out to be the pain in the ass, a sharp-faced woman who seemed to have no sense of humor, always a bad sign especially in stressful situations.
After a long period of silence, one of the college students asked if anyone had any more water. The student was at least six feet tall with brown frizzy hair and a sweet mischievous grin. He reminded me of my cousin Robbie, who I’d always liked.
“You should have brought more,” the sharp-faced woman replied. “This is a third world country. You can’t depend on others to take care of you.”
“It’s okay,” Tim told the student. “I think there’s one last bottle on the bus, although it’s probably boiling hot.” He shrugged. “But that’s Nicaragua for you, everything’s boiling hot.”
The student nodded. “I was thinking maybe we should pour some over her head.” He was pointing at the poodle lady who was now lying on the ground and beginning to snore.
“I’m a nurse,” the woman sprawled next to me announced. “I think she’s okay, but I’m keeping an eye on her.” The nurse had a square pleasant face and like most members of her profession, seemed calm and unflappable. Her presence was good news to a brigade headed for a war zone. She had a huge cloth bag in her lap, from which she pulled out a bottle of pills. “Just in case,” she added.
The older man in our group, who’d been squatting next to the flat tire, straightened up and said, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tire this bald. It’s actually amazing.”
“Maybe we ought to take a picture,” I said. “Our first flat tire.”
My cousin Robbie laughed, the nurse smiled, the sharp-faced woman frowned, and the poodle lady snored on.
Eventually, the driver returned with another tire that looked just as bald as the one that had blown. He must have noticed the looks on our faces.
“Está bien,” he told us, chuckling. It’s okay.
After helping him change the tire, we were herded back onto the bus and driven through a maze of rubble-strewn streets to the barrio.
***
The community center was a large shell with gray cement walls and a dirt floor. Two sets of old-fashioned metal bleachers faced each other on opposite sides of the room. The pale-faced brigade members sat on one side, the coffee-colored prospective families on the other. Zombies vs. Home Team. During the next half hour, a stout Nicaraguan woman holding a clipboard welcomed us and explained something about local neighborhood committees working with the government to foster friendship between the United States and Nicaragua. She was either a teacher, the head of a local neighborhood committee, or had something to do with the government’s literacy campaign. My Spanish wasn’t good enough to follow much of what she said, and frankly I was too tired to care.
After the clapping ended, each of us was paired with a family. When my name was called, I was surprised to see a lone woman in her late forties or early fifties stand up to claim me. As we approached each other, she smiled shyly and introduced herself as Sonia. She was a few inches taller than me, about five feet seven, plump, with short black curly hair and a round impish face. I thought I would like her.
It was much noisier now with everyone milling around, shaking hands, and inspecting luggage. Two teenage boys in wheelchairs were offering everyone bottles of Coca-Cola and a woman wearing tight red stretchy pants and a matching blouse was handing out homemade tamales. I was starving but the food smelled vaguely like pork and I was afraid to chance it; the last time I’d eaten strange smelling meat (at a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta), I was sick for a week. Although it was past midnight, at least thirty children were running around the room, buzzed on the sugary soda, shouting and squealing with laughter. Every three or four years, I had a moment when I remembered why I never wanted children. This was one of them.
I did my best to keep smiling, but I was beginning to dissociate. Who cared about friendship? I just wanted to lie down. Finally, Sonia motioned me to follow her outside. Gratefully, I picked up my duffel bag and we walked about three blocks in the dark past an empty field and a number of modest one-story homes to a pleasant-looking red brick house with a broken metal gate in front. My shelter for the next two weeks.
Sonia’s living room was sparsely furnished, but immaculate. There was a faded pink love seat in one corner that looked as if no one ever sat on it, a small plastic table displaying her favorite knickknacks, a photograph on the wall of two young women laughing and holding hands at the beach, and a plain wooden chair.
That was it. There were no curtains. The floor was covered in smooth red tile. In rapid Spanish, my host welcomed me and then gave me the grand tour. First, her bedroom, then the bathroom, then my bedroom (which didn’t have a door, but at least had a sheet tacked over the entrance), then a quaint open-air kitchen and a backyard patio bordered by high cement walls. So far, I thought I understood at least half of what she was saying. Not bad for someone with only four years of high school Spanish.
Out on the patio, the air smelled like a lush decaying jungle dense with too many trees, plants, flowers and bugs, everything multiplying much too fast for its own good. I felt dizzy again and tried to look casual as I leaned against the nearest wall. I’d be fine as soon as I got some sleep.
“Does anyone else live here?” I asked in my halting Spanish, praying for a negative answer.
“No,” she replied sadly, “just me.”
I tried hard to conceal my delight. I’d worried about living in a one-room shack with a dozen children, hoping only for a private little corner, but this...was paradise. My shoulders dropped a foot. I had clearly lucked out. Decent shelter, my own room, no kids, private patio and a charming open-air kitchen. What more could a privileged North American princess ask for? Only a good night’s sleep.
But since I couldn’t think of any polite way to go to my room, I followed Sonia into the kitchen where she offered me another bottle of Coca-Cola. We sat down at a table under a makeshift metal awning and between sickeningly sweet gulps, I told her I was a lawyer (no point trying to explain that I had recently quit my job) and that I defended people who broke the law. Sonia nodded and told me she did many things to make a living, including providing room and board for visitors like myself. Then, for the next fifteen minutes, while I forced myself to pay close attention, she told me all a
bout her family. Despite my exhaustion, I was fairly confident I understood the gist of her narrative.
If so, she had either been married and divorced twice, or married only once, but her husband now lived with his second family elsewhere. I was pretty sure she’d had two children who died in infancy and had a nephew who was either in the army or was a participant in the literacy campaign. She also had one sister who lived in Managua and another in Florida, or maybe just one sister who used to live here, but now lived in Florida. Under the circumstances, I thought I was doing well, especially since I hadn’t studied the language for almost two decades and in the interim had used it only occasionally to converse with clients before the interpreter arrived, and to order food and ask for directions when Vickie and I traveled in Mexico.
I finished my bottle of Coca-Cola and was about to excuse myself when a visitor arrived, a tall gaunt man in his forties who looked as if he’d drunk too much rum earlier in the evening. Sonia introduced him as Tomas, but I couldn’t understand whether he was her neighbor, a relative, or her boyfriend. Tomas took my hand, held it for too long, and then chuckled as if I’d told him a good joke. I wanted to leave, but it seemed that Tomas had specifically come to welcome me. As we sat down to chat, I noticed his shirt was buttoned incorrectly and that he had a spot of dried blood under his nose. All I wanted to do was lie down in my room and close my eyes. Sonia, meanwhile, seemed to have disappeared.
“How are you?” Tomas asked in English.
“I’m fine,” I said, also in English, “but I’m very tired.”
“Sí, sí,” he replied, and then launched into a long rambling story in Spanish about his brother who had either recently died in the war or participated in the national vaccination program. He kept pointing to a dog tag that I assumed was his brother’s, but he also kept pinching himself on the arm as if he was vaccinating himself. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but it wouldn’t have made sense if his brother was fine.