[Vision2020] Hanging Out, Part 2: At the Atlanta Airport, from Dave Barber

[Louise Barber]

Although this is NOT part of Dave's letter, the Moscow Sister City
Association is in the middle of its biggest fundraiser of the year to
support the kinds of needs and efforts that Dave has been discovering in
Villa El Carmen.  If anyone wants to contribute, send checks to MSCA, Box
8367, Moscow, ID  83843, and we will put every penny to use in Nicaragua.
More information is available about what we have done over the last 21
years; just ask.

And we thank you for your attention to Dave's letters.  The responses from
some of you have been wonderfully supportive.


Wednesday, March 28

Dear All --

This is the last letter from Nicaragua (also known as Atlanta, GA, during a 
12-hour layover, where this was drafted).  Tomorrow, or next week, to fresh 
woods and pastures new (also known as Hawaii, for Steve’s wedding).
***************************************

Airport, Atlanta, 12:30 am.  This is the ultimate hangout. My plane leaves 
for Salt Lake City at 7am; then Spokane and due home around 4pm tomorrow.  
Left Nicaragua at 1pm today.  Today has been an orderly transition day.  
Yesterday, my last full day in Villa El Carmen, was crazy.

I had a calm, orderly day planned, running errands, saying goodbye to a few 
acquaintances like the family that sells newspapers and Natalia who shouts 
Adios Dayveed as I pass by every day.  But all my plans collapsed when Mario

told me, at 7:30am, that we were going to visit some schools starting at 
8:30.  I told him I was planning to go to the school and write emails around

10.  He said we would make quick stops at various places and be done by 
10:30.  He was off by three hours.

I love Mario for all the care he has lavished upon me.  But he's a 
need-to-know kind of guy, and he thinks I need to know things only in time 
to tie my shoes.  Perhaps he's afraid I'll get away if given more time to 
think about it.  In any case, he and Alba had worked out a plot to get a 
photographic record of the various contributions made by the Moscow Sister 
City Association from a water tank, new and repaired classrooms, computers 
and other machines, bathroom repairs, an encyclopedia.  Mario's way of 
calling attention to something is to arrange a ribbon cutting ceremony, and 
I was to be the cutter.  He has a five-year-old roll of blue ribbon saved 
from Aura's first communion.  We went first to the office of the Ministry of

Education, where MSCA has funded a computer and a printer.  Then to the 
school at Santa Rita, to cut a ribbon in front of a glass partition wall and

another in front of the water tower; to Mario’s school, Samaria, snipping in

front of a television and the Servicios Higiénicos (kids’ bathrooms); to Los

Cedros, a computer.  Snip, snip.

Then back to town, and I thought I was free to work on my last class and 
write some emails (this one, for example); but no, Alba had invited us to 
her house for lunch.  This is where Katrina stayed three years ago, and her 
presence is still very much in the house:  photos and Alba’s memories.  And 
not only that:  Alba’s niece was also there, with her four-year-old boy, 
whom Katrina had held when he was one.  He didn’t remember Katrina but he 
knew her from being told so much about her.

When we got back to Gustavo Carrion my class was a chaos because Alba, 
possibly trying to free up my time, had told Ruby my companion English 
teacher that I was busy doing other things and wouldn’t be teaching today.  
But I had a specific plan, and I had to get from the students their letters 
to Leslye and Brendan, and I had individual letters to give to all of them.

It all worked out but it was hardly the dramatic, smoothly executed last 
class of my dreams.  And class was shortened half an hour because they were 
planning something later—no one told me anything about this, but suddenly 
class, which I thought had half an hour yet to go, was over.

After class I discovered that I was not done snipping.  Now it was Alba 
dragging me around, and she had enlisted a photographer, possibly 
professional, for the occasion.  First she herded a group of kids into the 
library where the encyclopedia was that MSCA had bought. Snip.  Then a 
computer and a slide projector.  Then the repaired bathrooms.  Alba herded 
twenty boys, and girls, into the boys’ bathroom; everybody crowded around, 
two kids held the ends of the ribbon, and I snipped in front of an open 
toilet stall.  The highlight of all this snipping occurred when a bunch of 
young kids were crowded around me behind the display of the encyclopedia on 
the table.  When the photos were shot and the kids started to move out, a 
girl, not more than ten, grabbed my hand.  It was one of those Well why not?

moments, and this girl and walked hand in hand out of the classroom. I never

got to see her face clearly and I never saw her again nor will ever.  Still,

the impression of that hand remains, and the mystery of what was going on in

her head, or the heads of so many kids who just wanted to connect with the 
Unfamiliar—hundreds of times—Hello Dayveed, Hello Teacher, Goodbye 
(equivalent of Hello on the model of Adios), Hello Mr. Dayveed.  All these 
greetings out of nowhere, a girl’s hand:  perhaps a friendly Nicaraguan 
version of counting coup.

Finally I got to the computer room, where I had spent so many hours fighting

Hotmail and Yahoo, to check my plane ticket and write emails (like this one)

only to find that the electricity had once again shut down.  So I w as going

to leave the school and run some errands, but Manuel the computer aide told 
me that they were planning some program later so maybe I’d better stick 
around.  No one had bothered to tell me anything—it was the story of my 
day—so I hung around.  And yes, they had another show for me at 4 o’clock, 
for which the students got to miss an hour of school.  It was mostly dances,

on the platform with HASTA LUEGO DAVID BARBER in prominent gold letters on 
the back wall.  There was an interval in which a representative from each 
class (there are 11 plus pre-escholar) and the parent support group handed 
me a gift.  More gifts than would fit in my three traveling bags, I figured.

  More besitos.

When the show was over and the students were leaving, I noticed that my own 
students were still in their classroom, so we had opportunity to talk a 
little, and from what I had learned of the limitations of life for young 
Nicaraguans I tried to give them my pitch in Spanish (they never did get 
much of my English) about how the most valuable thing they could do for 
themselves, and especially the women, was to educate themselves as much as 
they could in order to be independent people, with choices to make about 
their lives and the ability to support themselves without depending on 
others (like husbands, but I didn’t get that specific).  That left them 
looking serious, but I had no way to find out their real reaction.

That was the last I saw of them.  Alba then hauled me off to a meeting of 
the teachers, who had planned to demonstrate the famous Palo de Mayo dance 
for me, but there was no music because the power was still off, so we just 
sat around and ate and did some mutual-appreciation talking.  Then Mario 
appeared.  The alcalde Nestor Gutiérrez had invited us out for dinner, and 
Mario was a little nervous about the time.  Nevertheless, we first went over

to the house of the family where Meghan had stayed four years ago.  Like 
Katrina’s at Alba’s house, Meghan remains a strong presence in this house, 
with pictures of her (and a couple of Mike) in the living room.  Her host 
mother was putting together a package of (heavy) gifts for me to take back, 
and the three children were completing letters to her, for me to take also.

So on my last day I saw the (rather luxurious) living quarters of my most 
recent predecessors.

Finally we were heading out, with Nestor the mayor, to dinner.  It took a 
long time to get there, but he had turned left going out of town so I knew 
we were headed for the Pacific.  And sure enough, we ate dinner, Mario and 
Ana and I with the mayor and his assistant, some 30 yards from the moonlit 
waves, eating the most wonderful whole fish (pescado mediano—but it was 
huge) that I’ve had in living memory.  We got back home around 10 and I 
packed until 2:30 when, for the first time since I’ve been here, I took a 
nighttime shower.  Didn’t sleep, though.

Nor am I sleeping tonight in Atlanta, and it’s almost 2:30 now.  But sitting

here writing is more fun anyway.  Today I bought a CD of Palo de Mayo music,

figuring since I failed to learn the dance in Nicaragua maybe somebody in 
Moscow could teach me.  (It’s just my kind of thing, full of hip-twisting 
and arm-pumping.)  Music has had a strange effect on me lately.  I felt the 
saddest this morning about leaving when Ana put on her favorite CD, from 
Moscow days—classic country western songs.  I beg your pardon, I never 
promised you a rose garden.  I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?  
Occasionally in recent days, between the mariachi bands and the pounding 
dance music I have heard strains of chorale music, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Bach’s 
B-Minor Mass wafting over the rooftops.  Cum sancto spiritu in gloria dei . 
.. . , and the roosters respond.  Or so it seems; I’ve long since given up 
trying to figure out what sets off Chanticleer.  The rising sun seems 
coincidental.

I won’t know for a long time what I’ve learned in Nicaragua, how I might 
have grown.  The easy stuff I know:  I can live without coffee, hot water, 
mirrors, movie theaters.  I know a little about schools here and the pluses 
and minuses of living here.  These are people who have to devote most of 
their energies to life’s basics:  water, food, fuel, a little money for 
necessities.  From the outside it seems like a slow life, because they have 
to minimize the necessities.  This is not a nation of Thoreaus, thinking 
themselves rich in proportion to what they can afford to do without.  In 
Villa El Carmen, at least, they have  enough water (elsewhere in Nicaragua 
there are droughts and no running water).  Most of the time they have 
electricity, and many have TVs on which they see well-off people straining 
after life’s comforts.  Déjà vu.  When the power comes back on, applause and

shouts of relief roll up and down the street.

But the tone, as felt by the visitor, is so wonderful.  Here are people 
living in or close to poverty and adversity, living with grace, dignity, 
enthusiasm, joy.  They seem strong, confident.  They are physically very 
affectionate without much regard to age or sex.  I would not ignore or 
minimize the problems that I know about but don’t see.  Disemployment is a 
core problem.  From that pressure comes alcoholism among men.  Family 
instability is common.  A recent newspaper article claimed that the 
percentage of women subject at some point in their lives to sexual assault 
or harassment is – 100.  Mario says that violence is a particularly 
Nicaraguan problem.  But the country is working on these problems, with a 
lot of governmental initiative.  Private groups, national and international,

like Plan Nicaragua and Instituto Juan XXIII, even the entrepreneurs at Gran

Pacifica's new luxury vacation center for tourists, focus on education, 
poverty, health needs, women, children.  MSCA has played a major role in 
these areas for Villa El Carmen.

It’s almost 3am now and I continue to hang out with myself.  One of the two 
sleepers here at Gate A20 just got up and left.  I’m on Nica time.  We were 
all on Nica time yesterday, and Monday when I was to meet with the 
principals at 8:30, but Mario they might not get to me right away so I 
should come around at 9:30, so I did and was waiting for an hour more.  A 
man who serves as a driver and handyman for the Ministry of Education had 
nothing much to do so he pulled up a chair by me and we hung out.  He said 
this is a new job for him.  He quit his job with Texaco because he always 
had to do things and be places en punto, right on time.  The company told 
him they operate on American time, not Nica time, and it was hard for him.  
He fits right in at MinEd.

There’s more, there’s always more, but the time to stop has long passed.  
Maybe I can sleep a little.  Many nights in Villa El Carmen I couldn’t get 
to sleep right away because I was just so HAPPY, listening to the midnight 
roosters and the dogs (who get more vocal in the cooler night air) as 
thoughts of the day rolled over and over me.  Thank you, Sister Cities.

Love,
Dave

P.S. As of tomorrow my email address will once again be dbarber at uidaho.edu.

_________________________________________________________________
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