Have I done a good job describing Nicaragua? Have I done a good job describing my job? My life here? How have I portrayed it? Will it meet, fall short, or exceed expectations?
What will they take away from this visit? Is a long weekend even enough time to take away something? If so, will they see what I see?
When I first heard that my family would be coming to visit me in Nicaragua I immediately had flashbacks to 6 years ago. I was a freshly turned 21-year old living in Madrid, studying at a well-respected university and staying with a host family about five metro stops from the magnificent plaza in Sol. I remember my Dad stirring the fire-burning alcohol, quemada, after a hearty authentic Spanish meal in my host family´s apartment. I remember my Mom commenting over and over about the generous hospitality and caring nature of my host mother, Maribel. Really...I remember just being excited and proud of my surroundings and the beauty of my host country.
I´d say that flashback became a distant memory the moment I picked up my parents and sister by Taxi on Thursday afternoon. I never thought about it until that moment, but Taxi rides serve as quite the fine introduction to Nicaragua. Think about this: a small beat up 1993 Hyundai with no air conditioning, no handles to adjust the windows, and seat belts not to be found. So let´s see, we´ve summed up the air conditioning problem, the lack of technological advancement problem, and the safety and security problem all in one ride. Once you add in the burning trash on the side of the road, and the brutal heat that never lets up you have summed up the environmental and climatic challenges as well.
Needless to say the 1 hour taxi journey to Granada made me and the Fam even more thankful as we stepped foot into a beautiful hotel overlooking the Central Plaza. Until that moment, I wasn't even sure hotels like this existed in Nicaragua. I mean the whole staff spoke comprehensible English, the customer service was beyond satisfactory, and there was a beautiful swimming pool with a mini-fountain in the central courtyard. That false sense of reality that struck me at Selva Negra a few weeks back started creeping into my mind again, but this was clearly much different. You see, my family didn't come down as tourists to Nicaragua to vacation - they came down to spend time with family. Plus, typical me, I had an itinerary planned that would surely give them a taste of the life.
Even though I started feeling a little bit under the weather, the next day ran exactly as planned. We started Friday morning with a private boat tour of the Granada Isletas, a nice touristy activity to capture the lifestyle of the country's elite as well as to interact with some randomly stranded monkeys. We followed that up with a visit to Masaya, my hometown, when my host family had us over for lunch, and where the language barrier couldn't be any more evident. I always find it a shame, really, that two nice families cannot even get to know each other because a simple language barrier. They could have everything in common - share the same values, share the same dreams - and still never know it. I did my best to play translator, but let's face it, I'm not a professional translator and I already know both families as well as I can, so my own curiosity is not really at stake here. The only thing at stake was our health, for the afternoon sun started creeping in, and we had about 4 more hours of serious heat to cope with.
After a short tour of the city and a brief stint in the air-conditioned internet cafe, the hour I had been waiting for had finally arrived. Nobody in my family knew it at the time, but as much as the heat was wearing them down and as much as they wanted to go back to the hotel, I would allow no such action to take place. Instead, our taxi took us out to the nearby suburb that lies 5 kilometers Southwest of Masaya’s
As our taxi rolled over piles of dirt and pulled up to the porch we call our meeting place, I could sense a shift of emotions. It was the same shift that I experience virtually every time I step foot in the Villa, the shift from sympathy to outright disbelief. Per usual, only one person arrived on time, which left my family not only a little antsy, but also wondering, is this thing going to actually happen? Indeed it did. We had a turnout of eight kids, showing up in Nica fashion between 20 minutes - 40 minutes late, with my family looking on and my Dad even taking a few minutes to play some "catch" with the kids in the neighborhood.
Without a doubt our meeting in the Villa Betania was our finest hour together. For that hour we cared nothing about the excessive heat that had beaten us down all day, the excessive amounts of dust that had stained our bodies, or the excessive grease that had filled our bowels for lunch. We cared nothing about all of the little tiny pieces that make one wonder why exactly am I here? We cared nothing about anything, because in the Villa, there is only one thing that really matters: trying to make a difference in the community.
If you know my family, you know that conversation and chatter is never a lagging concept. But for some reason, as we left the village and headed back to our nice hotel in Granada, the need for conversation was simply not there. Amongst the four of us, I think we all clearly understood what the other was feeling. And, for the first time, someone else witnessed and understood why my time in the Villa Betania always seems to make up the finest hour of my day.
Epilogue (recorded on April 14):
"This place is like living in the 1930's with internet," my Dad commented.
More correct he probably couldn't be (I can't be sure because I was born in the 80's). Regardless, the comment carries water. For no matter how well I describe it, or how many pictures I splash on the screen, no matter how many times I rant or preach, renounce or profess, clarify or confuse, or write in outright disbelief, there is truly no conceivable way to understand any single bit of it unless you actually step foot into the atmosphere.
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