images:
in the morning, many women sweep the yard around their houses absolutely clear of all leaves and weeds, so that out in the countryside, there is a lovely sense of cleanness and neatness. Our friend Imelda who we met here, who grew up in Esteli and left as a 17 year old right as the revolution was happening ("luckily my grandmother had worked to get me my passport and luckily it was not in her house which was blown up") uses a woman's yard as the measure of whether or not she will eat in the restaurant. It's a pretty contrast, between the lush rainforest and the flat clean yard.
Aprons. women selling food to you on buses, prefer a style of apron I've never seen before. it is only from the waist down, and it has three or four scalloppy rows of scallopy ruffles forming 3 deep scallopy pockets. usually white but sometimes all kinds of colors. I suggested to Craig I get one, and greet him at the front door when he comes home exhausted. has a very 1950s kind of feel.
Fabrics: I never saw such nice fabric choices as in the costumes that the dancers wore in Dariamba. velvets and brocades, silky scarves at the wrists. nice complement to the hats made of peacock feathers.
carts: oxcarts, pony carts, single and double, bicycle carts, motorized carts. pedicabs with one cycler pulling a family of four. Two huge oxen yoked to a cart. One single pony dragging along a huge log out of the rainforest, just like we watched elephants do in south India.
Rich and poor: I have learned a lot more about what has happened to Nicaragua in the last 30 years. My mom went down to help the sandinistas who our government was blockading by smuggling in school supplies and many friends of mine have volunteered here. but what I guess is not too surprising is that at this time, the successful businesses are started and run (quite well) by people from the educated upper classes who left Nicaragua when the sandinistas started redistributing the lands of those who opposed them. As a tourist I've now met quite a few of these people and as a middle aged person how could I not be understanding about why they felt they had to leave, for their own safety and wellbeing. And they are nice folks who acted the same way I'd act if the US government suddenly seized my property. Revolutions are not pretty. and sadly the revolutionaries here who got in power reacted as others seem to: once you are in power and have a chance to make your own family's life more secure you seize the chance. yet I am sad that Nicaragua's experiment didn't seem to accomplish much.
At least in the places we have been,there is not much visible sign of much of a middle class.... the restaurants and hotels here in Granada are very busy but other towns we have been in don't have much in the way ff formal restaurants, people just don't have money to eat out. the snacks that are sold seem utterly basic and not looking that nutritious, compared with foods that poorer folks buy in mexico. Craig and I are quite comfortable with the clean 'comedors' in most Mexican food markets but the food markets we have seen here are chaotic and much more filthy. The bus stations in Mexico and Peru are tidy and organized, the bus stations we've been in here are like those in the poorer villages of south india, just a huge gravelly area with buses randomly scattered. So there is a lot of infrastructure when a country has been stable for a while, that is not here at this time. And that's a bit sad.
Other memories
There is a sound of many small bells ringing which I associate with this point in a catholic mass when the priest lifts up the wafer. Well in Nicaragua that's the sound of the Eskimo ice cream vendor wheeling his cart towards you. One time I kept hearing it on the bus and could not figure out why Santa Was still around.... Well that must have been loading an ice cream truck up on top of the school is
Rocking chairs: in the cool of evening, the oldsters of Granada come out on the front stoop in their rockers and rock the night away. Their quiet city hs become a tourist stop with street cafes and hawkers and loud bands and stereos. What's come over us, they probably say. In the good old days.....
Lake beaches. In granada, we have finally found out where ordinary folks hang out on a Sunday afternoon
Which is far away from the touristic downtown. Instead people are out at bar/restaurants on the black sandy beaches or cooking out with their families with lots of loud music and dancing. We walked quite a ways, with no other gringos in sight. What a nice change!
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