The Checklist and the Hammock

Since arriving home, I’ve been oh-so-effective-and-efficient:

• Unpack van. Check.
• Listen to phone messages. Respond. Check.
• Start laundry. Check.
• Assess food supplies. Start a pot of soup. Check.
• Buy groceries. Check.
• Sort an 18-inch stack of mail. Check. . .

It’s mid-afternoon Satuday. The suitcases are stowed, the groceries shelved, the laundry hung. Each room is in order, except my office. It is cluttered with trip memorabilia, receipts, sorted mail, and 10 book manuscripts asking for evaluation.

Poised above the clutter sits the shelf I blogged about yesterday with its owls, serenity prayer, and Nicaragua fabric.

I enter, prepared to attack.

I pause.

I remember.

And instead, I turn my back. . . 

Notebook in hand, I’m lounging in a hammock in our backyard gazebo. The winter sun has warmed it to a cozy 70 degrees.

And when I put down this pen, I shall pick up a book from the dropleaf table next to me, and I shall read. Perhaps I’ll fall asleep.

Born a North American Calvinist, I have long known the value of a list.

A recently adopted Nicaraguan, I am still learning the value of a hammock.

-----

PS while uploading: I didn’t fall asleep. But when I stopped reading,  the burr oak branches and blue winter sky rained down peace.

On Stuff

Last year, returning from Nicaragua, I thought I owned too much stuff—and valued it too highly. My role models were Daniel and Darling Aragon who had given to their church and school the land they’d purchased to build a home.

This first morning after returning home, I’m looking at the stuff above my office work station.

And remembering.

I purchased the brass owls one by one from my father. After retiring, he rescued brass items from Goodwill stores and garage sales across the country, polished them, and resold them—mostly to his children—after a long ritual bargaining about the price. When he learned I liked owls, he looked especially for them—and tried, unsuccessfully, to raise the price. At 86, he’s stopped collecting brass—and plays computer games instead.

This morning as I view the owls, I remember and I smile.

The book with is my own garage sale find—an ancient book rescued and repurposed, with the Serenity Prayer added on an open page: God grant me the Serenity to accept those things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.

Wise words, this morning and always.

The mauve, embroidered fabric was added just last night. Hotel owner Iliana presented it to me when we left. “A gift,” she said. In our week’s stay, we had become more than customers; we now were friends. Touched, I gave her an autographed copy of On Mended Wings.

This morning, as a backdrop for the owls and the book, it widens my world.

This morning, returning from Nicaragua, I think this stuff lives out its rightful place.

For Five Weeks . . .

This morning, for the first time, I donned a long-sleeved shirt.

For more than a month, I have worn only short-sleeved clothing—selected from a suitcase

Except for my ancient Timex, I have worn no jewelry, not even my wedding ring.

I have awakened to the sound of roosters, dogs, or traffic.

I have stepped outdoors into warm air, bright sun, and cloudless skies.

I have walked under nine-foot poinsettias, bright with blooms.

I have traveled by foot, bus, and taxi, while our van sat motionless in a Miami parking lot.

On the roads along with cars were walkers, bikers, motorcyclists, and horse-drawn carts.

Daily I have eaten beans or rice or fried plantains.

And also pineapple, bananas, and mangoes, fresh from the tree.

I have used hand-sanitizer before each meal.

I have disposed of bathroom tissue in a wastebasket.

I have been a member of a Caucasian minority.

I have spoken Spanish.

This morning I donned long-sleeves and a ski jacket, ordered oatmeal, in English, at McDonald’s, and departed in our mini-van.

West Virginia I-64, flanked hills of evergreens, has only cars and trucks.

Yesterday we drove in snow. This morning, the sky is grey.

Tonight, for the first time in a month, I shall take pajamas from a dresser drawer.

For better and for worse, I shall be home.

McDonald’s, 7 a.m.

In Charleston, West Virginia, our Red Roof Inn charged $20 less than the nearby Super 8, but did not provide breakfast.

So we stop at McDonalds, order oatmeal, yogurt, and orange juice

We’re waiting for our order when a morbidly obese man waddles in. The wind has blown his shirt above his belly, exposing an eight-inch triangle of flesh. as he tugs it back in place, I watch.

Then, remembering how I noticed people notice me on the streets of Chinandega, I look at the floor instead.

He gets in the order line, pauses, and then turns and approaches me.

I gulp.

He did notice! I’ve been outed—my judgmental ego exposed in McDonalds while waiting for oatmeal. I have no choice, though. I raise my eyes to meet his.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he says. “Your shoelace is undone—I wouldn’t want you to trip on it.”

Welcomed Home

In the Miami airport, waiting our turn in the line of returning U.S. citizens, I look around. Marlo and I are the only Caucasians among the 200 returning citizens.

And each of us hears the same words from the immigration officer when he checks our passports and lets us in: “Welcome home.”

It is good to be home.

But home looks strange. The houses are huge and far apart and sealed with glass. All dirt is covered by grass, shrubs, mulch or cement.

When we arrive in Raleigh, our granddaughter Elise smiles and grabs our fingers—two brand new skills.

Her mother looks tired. It’s been a tough week for her as her school’s vice principal, she says.

Yesterday a knife with a six-inch blade fell from one student’s backpack. He had told a classmate the day before he planned to stab his teacher. He was suspended.

Last week she evacuated a classroom when a student threw a chair. Before he’d been controlled he had trashed the classroom, hurling lunches, books, and more chairs before he was restrained.

Our daughter-in-law is vice principal for an elementary school.

And the grade level of these two students is (brace yourself):

 Kindergarten.

Taxi Preacher

Miguel

For three years now, Miguel has been our Managua taxi driver. The first year we knew just three words in his language—hola, adios, and baño. We communicated with hand signals and translators.

Last year, he listened to our description of Dallas the day of our takeoff: helado del cielo. He didn’t laugh or even correct us. It was not until the next day Marlo discovered he had described the sleet in Dallas, not as ice (hielo) but as as ice cream (helado) falling from the sky.

On a trip to Chinandega, we all both laughed as he taught us to roll our r’s for words liked carraterra (highway).  The double r’s need much more trilling of the tongue than the single r’s, he told us.

This year, on that same two-hour trip, he took his wife along. She doesn’t often leave Managua, and she could provide him company on the trip back. I showed her photos of our family (including of course our infant granddaughter). We learned that they, too, have three sons and just one granddaughter, age 12. They worship in an evangelical church. “Pentecostal”—they said.

When we bought ice cream bars for all, he chose a bottle of water instead.  “Diabetico (diabetic),” he explained.

Each trip he has been patient, friendly, and genial.

He 8s the same this morning. He tells us that, at 7 a.m., we are his second clients. His cell phone rang at 4 a.m.—some North Americans needed to catch a bus to Honduras and had forgotten to arrange a ride the day before. They are new clients, he says. After this trip, he plans to shower, shave, and get ready for worship.

We tell him about our visit last week to the basilica in El Viejo—the beauty of the cathedral and the flowers for the wedding scheduled for that evening.

“Jesus es el unico sendero al Señor” (Jesus is the only path to God),” he says, as if from a pulpit.

His tone and words befuddle me. Where on God’s good earth did that come from?

And then I guess. “Nunca Maria? (Never Mary?).

“Si!” he says.  He also crosses himself, touching forehead, chests, and shoulders and shaking his head no. He repeats with even more emphasis “Jesus es el unico sendero al Señor.”

Apparently, this genial Managua taxi driver has his hot buttons.

And we have just pushed one of them.

In Search of a Bottle

This morning there was no electricity at the Hernandez residence. It was no big deal. This most often happens before mid-afternoon, Leyda told us. We made do.

Marlo and I had our daily dose of gin—he’s now ahead by 30 games.

Except for a few items, we packed our suitcases for tomorrow’s return flight. Miguel, our taxi driver, wil stop for us at 7 a.m.

Then, we head for the outdoor swing and sway in silence among the trees and breeze and flowers and sky. In this moment,  I want to say with Goethe, “Linger on. You are so fair!”

Pastor John Lee, who coordinated team trips to Nicaragua for several years, once told me that displacement to another culture is prime learning time. Life appears in clear capital letters. Cultural rubs can be transfiguring.

I don’t want to remain longer in this country of transfiguration. I am ready to head home.

However, I do want to take it with me. And I’m afraid it can’t be packed or bottled.

Or can it?

Ignatius advises savoring these moments of consolation. Then, when desolation looms, he suggests recreating them in memory.

So  I linger, savoring the sun and breeze.

As Marlo calls from the Hernandez doorway that electricity—and Internet—are back, I head indoors. But first I place this moment carefully within my heart.

From time to time, I shall return in secret to this garden—and be consoled.

Reaching My Limit

Granada maids annihilate mouse

Nicaraguans have a peaceful relationship with birds. Doves have flown in above us several times during worship services. During one, a dove rested on the altar before departing. Each bird flight was ignored by everyone, except for us.

Here, in the open-to-the outdoors kitchen of the Hernandez guest house, and occasional pigeon perches on the floor, pecks a few crumbs, and then waddles toward the door, without any sudden shooshing by the cook.

Not so with mice. 

When Marlo spotted a mouse on tiled floor of our Granada hotel, the maids were ruthless. Each grabbed a broom, and they attacked. They killed it handily, swept it up, and disposed of it. There were no girlish screams or climbing on chairs, just a few chuckles and an efficient disposal.

Tonight, Josiel Hernandez was on the stairs, phoning in a reservation for us at a Carlos and Luis Mejia Godoy performance, when I saw something flit past him. He glanced up and kept on talking. Reservation complete, Marlo told him something had flown by.  “Oh, that,” he said dismissively, “that was a . . . a. . .” 

He couldn’t think of the English word.

So I supplied it.

“A bat?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

He put his cell phone in his pocket and nonchalantly headed toward his room.

In Nicaraguan taxonomy, this winged rodent is, apparently, a bird.

Hmmm.

I know that these winged creatures have their role in God’s great world.

And I’m willing to be cross-culturally sensitive.

But I have limits.

As I sit in our bedroom with the door hermetically sealed against invasion,I hold this truth to be self evident:

It matters not what Nicaraguans think about a bat

It was, is, and forever shall remain . . . a rat.

Bathrooms Around the World

I’m in the Nehemiah Center kiosko (gazebo) chatting with a North American woman who has spent several years on a farm in a jungle. I tell her that my strongest impression of a jungle comes from The Poisonwood Bible.

A fellow book-lover, she lights up. “And my strongest memory of that book is of the African husband who is soooooo glad to leave the U.S. after a few years because he HATES indoor bathrooms. He knows that inside a house is NOT a proper place to do your ‘business.’”

And with that, our conversation becomes a runaway freight train.

I remember the Nigerian who asked Marlo at a European conference if it would be appropriate for him to “make water” among the trees in the adjacent yard. Marlo replied that he didn’t think so.

She tells me that people from countries which have only hole-in-the-floor squat toilets are horrified by the idea of sitting on a toilet previously occupied by someone else.

I remember the British traveler grossed out by  the bathtub and the toilet in our hotel being in the same room. 

And I remember my friend Rose Daining telling me that Nigerians greet others only with one hand (I think the left) because the other hand is used for toilet duties.

We laugh together, but not in judgment.

The laugh is on all of us—What fools we mortals be!

-----

P.S. Last year’s bathroom blog [ http://nicaraguajourney.blogspot.com/2011/02/to-flush-or-not-to-flush.html] set a Nicaragua Journey blog record for hits. I’ll be curious to see if this year’s blog readers have the same impeccable tastes.

On the Other Hand. . .

Yesterday, I received a wistful email from a North American friend in response to this blog. He wrote that he longed for worship under the stars, was searching for the beautiful questions, and then concluded, “So today I pray for the light air of Nicaragua to reach the stuffy confines of my study here in Iowa.”

Yes, for me, Nicaragua, does provide fresh air. On the other hand. . .

Yesterday at the Nehemiah Center, a North American who coordinates assistance for Nicaraguan Christian schools, schools that need to meet many criteria to qualify for aid. He told me of schoolrooms he helped build that now stand empty, despite his organization’s careful process. The school’s scholarship program from a siter church in Nicaragua died, and so did the enrollment. “Things are not always what they seem,” he said.

Another North American couple is considering moving to Nicaragua after six years in Bolivia where they have been working with rain forest farmers. They had success there—sort of. In those six years, the local farmers prospered, and two years ago, with North American help, a church was built. But as the farms prospered, the farm families moved to the nearest city—two hours away. “You can’t blame them,” the couple said.  “The city has electricity, and running water, and high schools.” So the families live in the city and the farmer fathers join them on weekends. Sundays the church is almost empty.

Mario, a Nicaraguan aristocrat in Chinandega was warm and friendly, but skeptical. “Give money to a beggar—who have you helped? No one.  It will be used for alcohol or drugs.” We nodded. Sometimes helping hurts.*

We told him a bit about the Nehemiah Center philosophy—systemic change on many fronts—in hearts, churches, families, business, government. . .

Mario, who lost 2,500 acres in the Sandinista revolution chuckled. “Good luck!” he said. He told us of foreigners who bought Nicaraguan land and build houses with thick walls, aluminum roofs, and tiny windows. In this hot country, they were uninhabitable ovens.

I once read that there is nothing so obnoxious as a recently converted anything. I remember those over-the-top gringos at TipTop our first day in Chinandega [http://nicaraguajourney.blogspot.com/2012/01/today-rant.html}. With them I may be part of a God’s monumental story, but today I know again that I don’t want to mirror them.

So, for the record and for my wistful friends, here it is: working in Nicaragua, too, has its fair share of stale and stifling air.

-----

*An excellent book on this subject: When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Yourself  http://www.whenhelpinghurts.org/