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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText align=right style='text-align:right;line-height:150%'><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:
Arial'>Letter 16 (March 26, 2007)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>Dear All --<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
This is the last letter from here. I head out Wednesday and arrive home
Thursday. Recently we´ve been to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Leon</st1:country-region>,
the only main tourist center in the Pacific zone that I hadn´t seen, and toured
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Managua</st1:City></st1:place>, but
this letter is about other stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
In <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Nicaragua</st1:country-region></st1:place>
I have developed one vice and one virtue. The vice is winding down in the
late afternoon with a beer. Three times in the past week after walks I
have sauntered over to the Kiosko Chinchilla, which serves <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">Victoria</st1:State></st1:place> <i><span style='font-style:italic'>cerveza</span></i>.
It´s good I´m leaving soon. The virtue is that in Nicaragua I´ve
perfected the art of hanging out. Hanging out has always seemed a suspect
activity to me; it lacks purpose and focus, and it seems to be usually
practiced by the very young in front of TV sets. But here it s especially
a part of life´s rhythm.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
The first time I had a beer at Chinchilla the woman who runs the place was not
communicative, so I hung with myself. The second time she was friendly,
having discovered that her daughter Meyling is my student. The third time
she was not there but her niece was. The <i><span style='font-style:italic'>sobrina</span></i>
had nothing much to do, and she came to my table and sat. I had been
walking for two hours and had come to see the sun go down, something I can´t do
at Mario and Ana´s for the trees. I had an hour and a half to wait.
We hung out. Lots of silence, intermittent talk.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Her name is Italia, she is in her mid-20s, and like many women here she is a
bit overweight. She has a seven-year-old son but she is not
married. She does not go to the schools on Saturday and Sunday which are
open to adults. Schooling is not her thing, she says. What hopes
and plans does Italia have for her son? Many, she says, but she can´t
name any. Would she work somewhere else if she had the chance? Yes,
but she doesn´t see that happening, with her lack of education and training.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Mario says that most young women in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Nicaragua</st1:country-region></st1:place> are married with a child
before the age of 20. Premarital sex is enthusiastically discouraged
here, so when kids do it anyway and the girl ends up pregnant, a swift wedding
can be relied on. In <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Nicaragua</st1:country-region></st1:place>
even therapeutic abortion is illegal. Italia sounds like the norm, except
she doesn´t even have a husband. (Mario says that irresponsible fathers
and husbands are a big problem here. Neither Roberto nor Aura have a
relationship with their fathers, though both are living and Aura´s lives near
Villa El Carmen.) Italia has a job, sort of, but it doesn´t look very
challenging. She has nowhere to go in her life except through raising her
son. This may be fine and good, may be all she expects out of life, but
it seems like altogether too much hanging out.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
A few nights ago the electricity went out shortly after sunset. Ana and
Mario were still out, and Aura was watering the dust. I went out to sit
on the front step, feet in the street. Evenings without electricity are a
bother indoors, but outdoors it´s lovely because all the house lights are off,
and most houses have glaring light bulbs outside, perhaps to keep the bugs from
coming inside through the always open doors. In the total dark you can
see the stars really well where the trees let you. Orion was almost
straight up, and from this angle I could see the Big Dipper reclining toward
the north; I could even see the North Star, just above the horizon.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Two kids came by kicking balls. We tossed the half-flat balls back and
forth. Other kids wandered by. Eventually there were 8 or 9 of
them, all between the ages of 4 and 8. They had nothing to do either.
They sat down; we hung out. They wanted to see if I really could speak
English. One girl asked if I could say UNO in English, and I could.
Then she and a younger boy counted off one through ten. (That surprised
me--they must be starting them earlier with English now.) Then we got
into serious stuff: where I´m from, when I´m going home, how I´m getting
there, animals, food, siblings, weather. It was peaceful and odd: a
bunch of children, fascinated by the strange--and I, the strange--sitting
surrounded in the dark, straining to understand their Spanish, and suddenly
hearing two of them reel off one through ten.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Afternoon, walking by a park on the east side of town, I see six little girls
playing. I´ve never seen them before, but they know me. I am the
Gringo, the one who <i><span style='font-style:italic'>'habla ingles</span></i>.'
They don´t seem threatening or hostile so I approach them, and we talk a
little. They are 5-6-7 years old. I say goodbye and walk away, but
half a block later they come running after me. They want to introduce
themselves, want me to know their names. The ringleader says 'I´m
Rosalia, this one´s <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Carolina</st1:City></st1:place>,
this one . . . 'They jump around and giggle. <i><span style='font-style:
italic'>'Soy David</span></i>,' I say, and all six repeat it
together. <i><span style='font-style:italic'>DAAYveed</span></i>.
Something about this is very touching, little Nicaraguan girls announcing
themselves to the gringo world.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Most of the children here seem to know Hello and Goodbye, but they´re fuzzy on
the difference. I am often greeted with Goodbye. Probably a
confusion with Adios, which works at either end coming or going. It
reminds me of Latino Night last fall at UI, when several of the speakers began
their remarks with Goodnight everyone. <i><span style='font-style:italic'>Buenas
noches a todos</span></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Many--most--of my mistakes in Spanish I never realize. Often people are
kind enough to correct me. But sometimes it seems like my progress in
learning Spanish is that the time gap between saying something wrong and
realizing that I´ve said it wrong is narrowing. Learning a language is so
slow. Verbs are impossible. Spanish gender differences are a bitch.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
It would seem it would help in learning another language to be able to forget
your own. Spanish keeps trapping my students into English errors. <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>PADRE</span></i> means FATHER and <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>MADRE</span></i> means MOTHER but <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>PADRES</span></i> means PARENTS (and <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>PARIENTES</span></i> means RELATIVES). They
think that in English PARENTS are FATHERS. <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>HERMANOS</span></i> means not brothers but SIBLINGS,
so they´ll write I HAVE FIVE BROTHERS, THREE <i><span style='font-style:italic'>VARONES</span></i>
(or <i><span style='font-style:italic'>MACHOS</span></i>) AND TWO <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>MUJERES</span></i> (or <i><span style='font-style:
italic'>HEMBRAS</span></i>). Somehow, in <i><span style='font-style:italic'>ME
GUSTA BAILAR</span></i> (I like to dance) they got the idea that <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>GUSTA</span></i> means TASTE in English, so it comes
out, ME TASTE DANCE. (They´re also weak on sticking in the TO for
infinitives.) Slow going for us all.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
I have an appointment to hang out with the <i><span style='font-style:italic'>alcalde</span></i>,
Nestor Gutierrez soon. This letter may have a Part 2. Some time,
anyway, there´s a part 2 in your future, like it or not.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Love,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>
Dave<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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