Nicaraguan Rodeo

Nicaraguans are some of the most inclusion minded people I have come across, especially when it comes to sharing important parts of their culture. I am ashamed to say that I have been a bad guest here and a few too many times this week I have refused to accept their invitation to integrate.

On Sunday at noon as Elliot and I were just getting back to Masaya after finishing up some paperwork in the neighboring town we noticed a horde of people that were getting off of other buses at the same spot as us. Usually a bus passes every 10 minutes so to see 3 stopping at one time made me a bit curious. We decided to follow a group of the folks that were headed to the outskirts of town to see what we were missing out on. I don't really know a good name to call the place we arrived at. The most accurate description I can give is that it was a wooden two story structure made of uneven planks, all of which looked like they had been nailed together when dirt was first being made. You could see between each plank and if you stepped on the wrong spot on any given plank then it would bow about 2 to 4 inches toward the ground. In the center of this wooden coliseum was the arena. We took a walk around the top floor and on one side we saw a number of bulls lined up waiting to go into the arena. We were at a Nicaraguan Rodeo and the event of the day was bull riding! If you have been to one in the states then you have a general idea of what this looks like. There were a couple of points where the Nicaraguan version varied though.

1. Instead of 2 or 3 rodeo-clowns in the arena there were about 40 men inside the arena waiting their turn to ride the bulls.

2. Instead of using one hand to hold on to the bull they tied a rope from one foot to the other underneath the belly of the bull. The dismounts were amazing!

3. Sobriety was not a requirement to get on the bull or be in the ring with it.

4. nor was a helmet

5. the winner of the 25 dollar purse was not determined by the best 8 seconds of good form but rather by who could stay on the bull longest

6. the single best rider of the day was a sober female who wore a helmet.

We stayed for 4 hours and for every bit of it and I was either laughing or wincing. At some point during our stay I was approached about getting on one of the bulls. I think it is because they saw my swagger and it was obvious to them that I was a Texan. I had to explain to him that although I am from Texas and indeed we do ride bulls there, we only do it with boots on and unfortunately I was wearing tennis shoes.

That refusal compounded with a few others that I made have been weighing on me all week long. Fortunately today I at least got to rectify a little bit of the situation. As we were walking to lunch we saw another great commotion and decided to investigate. Great commotions seem to be the norm here. There was a single street lined with guys and girls of all ages. In the middle for the quarter mile that the street stretched were what looked like the entirety of Nicaragua's 15 to 25 year male population. I asked what was going on and I was told that it was the running of the bulls. For those of you that haven't seen this before the basic premise is that at one end of a long street you have a corral full of bulls. In front of those bulls are a mass of people that for various reasons decide it is a good idea to run in front of those bulls after the bulls' corral has been opened for 1. the duration of the street 2. until they can find way out or

3. until the bull catches up with them.

I knew where I belonged before anyone said "you should go run!" I made a bee line to the corral. This run was a little different than previous ones I have done. Usually all of the bulls are let out at one time. This time they were let out one at a time. Having a scared/angry bull on either side of the crowd you are in with the first one occasionally doubling back on the crowd made me more than a bit nervous. At one point Elliot and I found ourselves with a charging bull on one side of a light post and us on the other. It made a few guesses as to how to get to us before he left for easier targets. There was an unidentifiable puddle on one side of that light post after the bull retreated.

We quickly found out that it was not actually the bulls that we had to fear though. They were predictable and for most of us avoidable as well. The problem was the mob. They were unpredictable and the cause of almost all of the injuries.

After a half hour of running we retired for lunch.

Those bulls didn' t suffer the same fate as most. They were tied up after reaching their destination and eventually carted back out to their pastures.

"Go big or go home!" - Saint Jeronimo

For about a week now the town we are in has been getting geared up for the celebration of their town's patron saint. A week ago the first signs we saw of the preparation involved about 50 men carrying a 40+ foot tall tree through the streets of town. (I am looking forward to sharing some pictures and a story just as soon as i figure out what it is about.)

A few days later as we were walking towards Saint Jeronimo's church we heard a loud rumbling of engines. As we got closer I noticed that one of the main streets leading up to the church was lined with spectators and packed with motorcycles. All I could make out was a pack of guys on bikes that were riding for about 200 yards as fast as their bikes would let them while occasionally standing up to wave at the crowd. I had to chat with one of the police officers to figure out what was actually going on. He explained to me that it was a game. The guys on bikes had pencils in their hands and when they stood up they weren't waving at the crowd but they were trying to get stick their pen through a small ring about the size of a silver dollar. It was a modern version of the equestrian game called sword lancing- except the horses, swords, and trained riders were traded out for motorcylces, pencils, and any joe with a bike.

Yesterday was Saint Jeronimo's official day. Elliot and I wanted to see the statue of the saint so we made our way back to the church. He was supposed to get taken out at 2:00 so we made our way there about a quarter after. It was shocking to find out that we had missed the exit of the saint by a 15 full minutes. We attempted to give chase but it was a little slow going. There were several thousand people in the streets- some dancing, some some selling beer, some consuming beer, some selling ice cream, some wandering aimlessly, but all celebrating Saint Jeronomio. Every person we asked gave us a different route that the saint had been taken down. It didn't help matters that there were a half dozen 10 piece marching bands all marching down different streets and playing simultaneously. After a half hour of searching we finally found Saint Jeronimo. He was whiter than...me!

Instead of following him the rest of the way through the streets we decided to go back to the church and wait for them to return him. After an hour of waiting we got a little restless and decided to make our way out of the square back to the place we were staying. I saw a lady setting up what looked like a manger on our way out of the square and decided it was worth a conversation over. When I asked her about her about it, she informed me that her chosa was not a manger but rather where she was intending to sell street meat for the next three months of Saint Jeronimo's celebration.

More often than not I tend to misunderstand things in spanish so i said "you mean the next three days" and she said "no, i mean the next three months"

A three month fiesta!? I would have gotten even more excited than i did if there weren't explosions/fireworks going off at 5 in the morning every day to remind me of the fiesta.

Viva San Jeronimo... y que mueran los fuegos artificiales!

The Golden Road

Before I start I just wanted to let you know that although I am not a civil engineer my basic arithmetic skills are nothing short of first class and I am going to attempt to prove that in the next few paragraphs.

A few days ago Elliot and I took a bus from Leon to Poneloya. From there we hopped off the bus and proceeded to walk for the next three hours. We walked from the "bus station" to the end of the road in Poneloya. It might be better called "Port Poneloya" because at the end of the road there was a boat ramp with three dugout canoes anchored. We then turned around and walked to the other town that was also an end of the road. When we neared the end of the road I saw the sign that I have posted a picture of on this blog. I am not sure that it is common practice in the US to post these signs after the construction of a public work has taken place, but it is common in many parts of latin america. In general these signs tell what public work has taken place, how much was spent for it, and the person-group-or institution that made it possible. In this case it was a road that had been built from Leon to the bustling coastal towns of Poneloya and Las Penitas. (Bustling might be a bit of an overstatement do to the fact that during the few hours I was on that road I was passed by only two different cars, 1 pig, 3 kids on bikes, 1 bus, and a handful of college aged students.) It cost 16.5 million dollars and it was paid for by Millenium Challenge Corporation i.e. US tax dollars.

It seemed to be quite a sum of money, so I was curious as to how many miles had been paved. I tried using google maps but I was only left guessing as to the exact amount that had been paved in this particular section, so I went back to google and found the Millenium Challange Corporations website and the specific part talking about this stretch of road. Here is the link if you care to take a look for yourself.

http://www.mcc.gov/mcc/bm.doc/cn-062205-nicaragua.pdf

They paved 58 kilometers of road for 16.5 million U.S. dollars.

We generally don't do metric in the U.S. so I will take the time to put this into imperial measurements - but not yet.

A few days later I was at another bus stop in the mountains. It was yet another multi hour ride on a top of the line chicken bus through what I would call relatively rugged terrain. I hopped off the bus to give a wander around as quickly as I could before the bus started up again and I came upon a sign not much different than the one in this post. The key differences were

1. the amount of road paved/re-done only totaled 8.5 kilometers

2. the people paying for it belonged to the local municipality

3. it cost 75,000 dollars.

Now for the math!

1 kilometer = .62 miles

so 58 kilometers = 35.96 miles

dollars per mile = $16,500,000/35.96 or about 458,843 american tax dollars per mile paved on a flat coastal highway

--------------------------

8.5 kilometers = 5.27 miles

dollars per mile = $75,000 /5.27miles or about $14,231 local dollars per mile paved on a curvy water soaked road high in the mountains

The following is a direct quote from the Millenium Challenge Corporation website.

"MCC is a prime example of smart U.S. Government assistance in action...monitoring of funds is rigorous and transparent..."

"los tejanos son mas campechanos!" - Iris

there are many almost last frontiers in spanish, but one of them that seems to change almost entirely in every country is the slang.

it is almost entirely impossible to get on a bus and not find someone worth talking to. The road between San Pedro and Tegucigalpa was no exception. When Elliot and I went to buy our bus tickets we assumed that they had given us two consecutive seats. When it came time board it turned out I was in for a surprise - two in fact. As I made my way to my seat I found a young lady that was maybe in her mid twenties in the seat next to mine. From the way she looked it is very possible that she was on her way to compete in the annual Miss Latin America pagent and if intelligence has a face then she was doing a fantastic job of wearing that as well -maybe it was the book in her hand and the stylish glasses she was wearing. Elliot at this point was still looking for his seat. Before sitting down I pulled out "The heart that bleeds" its a readers digest of sorts that talks about latin america in the 80´s and 90´s - I was obviously going to need something to entertain myself for the long 3+ hour bus ride.
As I sat down I hadn´t even pretended to open my book before I heard "disculpe, ummm, es mi asiento" My dear friend Elliot realized that she had made a mistake in her seating, that she was indeed in his spot and he was busy trying to do the appropriate thing and let her know. I cant even begin to tell you the flood of mixed emotions that shot through me at that moment. I tried to be the voice of reason and told them both that it would probably be best to wait till we get going to sort this out, and that it was very possible that the bus wasn´t going to fill up and whoever could sit wherever they pleased. Strangely enough i was ignored and the "problem" was taken to the conductor. The conductor quickly ushered the señorita to the front of the bus to sit next to an older gentleman and i had my faithful companion with me once again. SAVED!!! nearly had a close call on that one. for a good remainder of the trip i could not stop telling elliot how absolutely grateful i was for that intervention.

the trip wasnt over though. about 10 miles outside of tegucigalpa the rains turned the gutters into small rivers and the traffic started backing up considerably. It was about that time that the agitator showed up again. There is an agitator in absolutey every crowd. They are the ones that get people riled up over something that they would normally shirk off as just a minor annoyance. She was a middle aged woman that was traveling by herself. She started off by getting the music on the bus turned off half way through the trip because it was too loud, but it was not her that made the complaint to the conductor, it was someone that heard her complaint and agreed who took that step. At this point when we were nearly to Tegucigalpa she was on her phone talking with her family telling them how slow the bus was going, how bad the rains were, how bad the driving was and a bucket list more of complaints. After hanging up the phone she continued talking to the air about the problems and pretty soon the front half of the bust was in loud verbal agreement with her. I was zoning out on the rivers that had formed on either side of our bus tires at that point and she interruped my trance with a tap on the shoulder and "you speaky spaneeesh"
I knew a conversation was waiting with someone I just hadn´t expected or hoped it to be the bus agitator. We talked for the duration of our 30 minutes on the bus about everything from her family to her country to her travels. It was great?
Two things of note happened when we got to the terminal and got our suitcases.
1. As she was leaving with suitcase in hand the future Miss Latin America went out of her way to make eyecontact with me and then shot me a wink, one of those winks that say "it would have been an absolute pleasure to sit by you and i hope that our paths cross in the future so that we can have the conversation that we were robbed of by your traveling amigo." it was quite the wink.
2. The agitator asked me where we were staying and after i told her she called a taxi for us and told him where to take us followed by a stern lecture on what was going to happen to him if he didn´t do exactly that. Agitator or not, I absolutely love how responsible latins feel towards a stranger who they have taken into their confidence.

The story continues. Elliot and I have similar travel tendencies. Get a room somewhere as quick as you get to a new place and then put your walking shoes on and take a self guided tour of the town. After our first full day in Tegucigalpa I had a strange experience on arriving at the hotel. The concierge handed me a paper and let me know that there was a woman that had been phoning for me. "MISS LATIN AMERICA IS STALKING ME". That was the logical conclusion that my mind jumped to when i heard that. Then I read the paper and it had a number with the name Iris (the agitator) on it.
I called and we chatted for a good long while, once again she guided the conversation toward her husband, kids, and some insect museum that i should go to to see some beetle that is only found in honduras.
the conversation ended with me inquiring about the word campechano - a word that is not in my pocket dictionary. she had used it in describing texans during our conversation. she said it with a genuine smile in her voice so i was not about to refuse what seemed to be a compliment towards my state.
los tejanos, somos mas campechanos!