A few brief observations and reflections from recent days…Personal space in Nicaragua has such a different meaning than it does in the States. Traveling in buses, it’s not uncommon for me to have a sweaty body pushed up against my back, an elbow digging into my side. On the more frequented routes, people often rush up to the door to try to get a seat on the already overly crowded bus, pushing others out of the way in a contest of the survival of the fittest. It’s not only on buses though. In our barrio, and throughout Managua, houses are generally built close together, generally sharing walls with the neighboring house. The result in our case is that in the back section of the house, the “bodega” where Thomas and I have our rooms, there is a chicken coop directly across the brick wall from Thomas’ room! This, naturally, means I get to hear roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night and chickens clucking away as I turn up my fan or put in a set of earplugs in an often vain effort to drown out the background noise. On the other side of the bodega, directly across from my wall, our neighbors have a squawking green parrot. The family has a young baby in the house, and like many Nicaraguans they call him by his first and second names: Derick Joao. In fact, they seem to like the name so much, that they often repeat it over and over again just to hear it out loud. Living right across the wall, we can’t help hearing it. Neither can the parrot. Several weeks ago I heard the parrot distinctly repeating over and over again, “Derick JOAO, Derick JOAO, Derick JOAO.” So on weekend mornings when I’m trying to sleep in a bit, I’m often rudely awakened with the neighborly parrot calling out to the poor baby who by this point must be thoroughly confused about his name and the speaking abilities of various birds.
On an altogether different note, I should give a little work update. Yesterday I found myself reflecting on work and life in Nicaragua as I walked through the barrio accompanied by a group of youth heading toward our soccer practice. I’ve started working with a team here, running practices, doing some actual drills, and hopefully getting into a league or at least some friendly games soon. We had met at the Cantera center in the barrio, and all walked together to a nearby field where we hold our practices. Since we met in the morning, some guys where still rubbing sleep from their eyes as we slowly walked the dusty dirt road through their neighborhood. Anxious to get the practice going, I tried walking ahead a little to speed up the pace but that didn’t seem to do much good. I decided to be content to take our sweet time. I knew after getting to the field and taking a few warm-up shots, they would all be wide-awake and ready to roll. Surrounded by one of Managua’s poorer barrios-with garbage filling drainages, crime rates giving residents a bad name, and little hope of employment for the youth-I found myself in an odd moment of sheer contentment. I was hanging out with a group of guys who had nothing better to do on a Wednesday morning than go play soccer, and I loved it.
