[Vision2020] The latest from Dave Barber in Nicaragua

Louise Barber louiseb at moscow.com
Wed Feb 28 13:11:44 PST 2007


Letter 9 (Feb. 23 – 28)

 

Dear All, 

 

            Feb 23.  Mario took me south on the bus to the city of San
Rafael del Sur, near the Pacific coast, a larger city than Villa El Carmen
by a lot, and much richer.  There are roof-tile-making factories, cement
factories, etc., and this is something of a tourist city, looks like.  Apart
from the regular taxis you can get bike-taxis, which are bikes welded on to
a two-person coach.  We almost had occasion to take one.

            Mario had appointments at various places including the police
station and MiFamilia (stands for Ministerio de la Family -- kind of an
equivalent of HEW, maybe).  These visits had to do with a problem that Mario
said he was in the middle of.  A day or two before a girl of 13 at his
school had told him that her father was sexually assaulting her, and he had
told her that he would kill her if she told anyone.  She told Mario anyway,
and now he is a little concerned that HE may end up being killed, but he
said not to take action would be to become an accomplice to the crime.  I
asked how the girl would be protected; he said she would be examined and
interviewed and if there are grounds the father would be put in jail.  It
doesn´t sound like a foolproof system.  I don´t know what the outcome so far
has been.

            Then we bused to Managua and visited the Nica social security
office, where Mario had to take care of lots of forms for his English
teacher, Henry Fonseca, who fractured his wrist playing volleyball at school
-- they play on a concrete court.  Then we went to two bookstores, one of
which had tons of paper products but almost no books; the other had lots of
books but nothing in English and no guides to Nica plants.  Finally we went
to the PALI store, Nica´s Winco, where I bought materials for making
spaghetti dinner.  

Interesting day.  Managua sprawls all over the place.  I´d come here alone
if I knew where to go, where not to go, and how the bus system works.

            23 Feb, Friday, went to the fourth school:  Instituto Maria de
la Providencia.  This is the most out-of-the-way school so far, some 12-15
miles on the highway and then 4-5 more on a very uneven dirt road.  It is
one of three schools of the seven -- the first such one I’ve seen that holds
both primary and secondary classes at the same time, 7:30 to noonish.  They
have sufficiently few students and enough classrooms to do both at once.  It
made for a shorter, less exhausting day; I visited all the secondary classes
but none of the primary classes.  Until I hit the quintos (seniors), which
had 48 students, the classes were all small, 20-25 students each.  That was
pretty delightful, and they all had questions.  Most were predictable, about
my family, how long I am here, do I like Nicaragua and the people, what is
my favorite food - sports - hobbies?  In two of the classes students were
interested in my flight here:  how long did the trip take?  Do I like
airplanes?  One wanted to know whether, if he went to the U. S., he would
get sick.  Twice I was asked to describe life in the United States -- that´s
kind of a tough one, actually.  Are there good people in America?  (Yes,
once you get the government out of the way).  Do I go to church? (No).
Following that:  What is my religion?

            One student asked if I would work with them on English.  I
thought she meant would I return another day, but no, the English teacher
Maria Isabel Cruz said the girl meant right now.  There was almost half an
hour left in the class.  Maria Isabel said, could you teach them a song?
Well, I don´t DO teaching songs to children, for several good reasons, but
maybe the next best thing -- so I slapped down on the whiteboard:

                        The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

                        But I have promises to keep,

                        And miles to go before I sleep.

Maria Isabel said they needed help most with pronunciation.  So we went over
sounds, and then got into meaning a little:  what is 'woods'? not madera
[wood] but bosque [forest].

            Having exhausted the depths of Robert Frost, we turned to THE
QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG and went over English letter sounds:
some letters still give them fits, e and i, g and j.  Time ran out, probably
a good thing.  But very fun cool kids, off in a rural backwater school in an
impoverished country, who come to school on foot or on bikes.  No school bus
ventures onto these dirt roads.  Mario´s car is challenged  (End of part 1)

          

(Still at Maria de la Providencia)  

            I met with the teachers and principal, Julio.  Also present was
the former alcalde [mayor] who came to Moscow in the early 90s; I think is
name is Don Inocente Castro.  He is getting on, an elder statesman, but
evidently in good health (unlike the other ex-alcalde, who has cancer of the
throat).  He recalled his visit to Moscow and the visit here of Mary Voxman
and someone they remembered as MAX.  I had no clue about Max, but Ana later
said she was sure that was Mardi Baron.

            This meeting was highlighted by 2-3 individuals telling me what
the school´s needs were:  what I picked up was water and computers.  I told
them that I will be meeting, after I have visited all the seven schools,
with all the principals to discuss how the Moscow Sister City Association
might best serve their needs, and then I would take that information back to
MSCA.  Mario chimed in and said much the same thing.  This was the first
school where they lined up to ask for things.  I had a sense that principal
Julio was not totally tuned in to this situation, and maybe generally.

            More physical facts of the town.  Mario and Ana have a septic
system for their indoor toilet, so recent that there is a large mound of
dirt beside where the hole was dug for the tank -- and the field, I guess.
There´s certainly no room for a septic field Idaho style.  In back of Doña
Amanda´s house in the center of town is a large rectangular hole, about 8 x
5 and 6 - 7 feet deep, where HER septic apparatus will go.  She´s been in
this house at least 15 years and has never had an indoor toilet.  Times are
changing.  Neither M&As area nor hers has a common sewage system, so it´s
each house for itself.

            I was wrong about VEC having only one paved street.  Several of
the intersecting streets though not all are also paved for a block or two in
either direction.  Driving down the main street is a bit slow not only
because of the pedestrians, cyclists, and horses, but because every few
blocks is the speed-bump from Hell.  It´s a very good move, because some
drivers around here do like to drive fast.  There are also pretty good
sidewalks on both sides of the street.  However, this place is a minefield
for ankle-spraining.  So far I´ve been lucky.

            Water.  This part of the colonia [development] has a weak though
reliable flow of water.  

Flow is weak because the main pipe installed is narrow.  An adjoining area
has a big pipe and a strong flow.  To the east of here, a newer section with
few trees, there is no water at all.  So you see people, usually children,
pushing wooden 2-wheeled wagons with big kegs in them; they come to the area
where there is water, and they fill up at someone´s house.  Mario says water
will come to this section sometime soon, and a wider pipe to his own area.

            Dinner conversations.  Although at Mario and Ana´s house we
normally sit down to eat together (usually just Mario, Aura, and I because
Ana eats super with her mother every day except Sunday), the first rule of
Nica eating is that you don´t wait for anyone else.  When food is in front
of you, you start eating (with your napkin, if there is one, on the table).
And Nicas eat fast; I´m usually the last one done.  They wait for me.  When
everyone is done, often we just pick up the dishes and that´s that.  Other
times we talk for a while.

            Saturday morning we had the most lovely and purely American
breakfast:  Ana made French toast, with hot honey.  Roberto was there and
was on his favorite subject of the mysteries of English word sounds.  He
wanted to know if I could understand American Southerners. I said yes, but
it could be difficult because they talk funny.  (This was probably not
helpful.)  Mario observed that Americanos negros have their own way of
talking, and the he launched into prominent differences among Spanish
speakers.  In Cuba, he said, they don´t pronounce R and RR; instead they say
L.  A Cuban doesn´t make an ERROR but an ELOL.  (Cubans drink LON.)  Mario
says the Cuban educational system diligently teaches R and RR but the Cubans
don´t care and continue to use L.  Then he and Ana expounded on the lazy
Nicas who are always omitting final S from words.  In Costa Rica, however,
they meticulously pronounce all the sounds.

            That reminded me of a comment I´d read:  a traveler to Nicaragua
wrote that he liked learning Spanish in that country because the people only
spoke half of each word so it was twice as easy to learn the language.  They
thought that was pretty funny.  I said really the best way to learn Spanish
would be to visit Nicaragua to learn the front ends of words and then go to
Costa Rica to learn the back ends.  They thought that was pretty funny.
Then I asked about the special use in Nica of VOS for TU and the different
verb forms in the 2nd-person singular:  TENES not TIENES, PODES not PUEDES.
They said these forms were imports from Argentina and used for informal
effect here.  That made sense of a joke I´d read that morning in the
newspaper, in a section for teenagers:

            A man from Argentina said to his wife, 'Tonigh I am going to
make love 'afonico.' (without sound or voice:  VOZ).  His wife said, 'Oh?
Afonico?'  'Si,' dijo.  'Sin vos.'  (End of part 2 [just in time].)

 

            Dave

 

 


 


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