CINCO DE JULIO

 

Cinco de Julio

No electricity, yet again.

Sometimes having no power feels romantic and prehistoric, reducing me to my essence in a most welcome way. 

Other times, when the romance of the situation fades, having no power feels downright irksome.

Currently, I feel a bit of romantic irk.

A bit in between, I suppose; for right now our room is nearly dark as the last bit of dusk settles away and the hum and twang of Adam’s guitar is the only sound filling this space. Nico the kitten lies with a full belly in the crook of his arm as they both sit on the bed with no expectations for the rest of the evening.

If only our whole day was this tender.

Only a few blocks away from our house, at Café Chavalos, chaos abounds. Frantically, a disorganized, unequipped group of people are getting ready for a big, big weekend with no lights and no running water.

A crew from LA has been filming a documentary about the Café Chavalos venture, which they will be entering in the renowned Sundance Film Festival. Tomorrow and the next day the crew will be filming a mock opening of the restaurant.

The irksome part: without running water, the floors cannot be mopped, the paintbrushes cannot be rinsed out, the dishes cannot be washed, the toilets won’t flush, the cement-removing acid on the bathroom floors cannot be soaked away, the hands preparing the food cannot be sanitary, and of course the food itself cannot be prepared and cooked.
Without electricity, the power drills won’t work to bore cavities for the stove’s gas hoses, the kitchen appliances won’t function, the bathroom cannot be painted in the dark, the menus cannot be printed, the refrigerators cannot preserve the food and, of course, none of the lights or fans will switch on, not to mention the power needed for the film crew’s lighting and recording equipment.

In 24 hours the building needs to look like a fully functioning restaurant and it still looks like a construction site.

Beyond the ”outages”, numerous exasperating issues have thwarted the opening of this café. As I’ve mentioned, theft is a colossal problem in this country, and the café is no stranger to the slide of hand. As soon as something is scratched off the “to-get” list (a coffee maker, cleaning supplies, a hammer, table cloths, ladders, etc.) it disappears. Even Adam and I wasted an entire afternoon searching for and lugging around a ton of cleaning supplies (the right supplies are very hard to find here) only to discover a day later that they were stolen during a late-night robbery. 

Also, months ago Lilly ordered a $1000 worth of kitchen equipment from a company in Managua and, when she hadn’t heard from them, she called only to find out that the salesman had run off with her check and never put the order in.

To the theft and the power outages, add the Nicaraguan concept of time, and you’ve got an absolute mess that is literally out of control.

If a delivery man says he will bring the dinner tables today, he really means he will bring the dinner tables sometime this month (we still have no tables). If the repair man says he will fix the stove this morning, he really means he will stop by randomly sometime this week until someone is there to unlock restaurant. If Lilly tells the Chavalos Boys (the cooks-in-training and the sole purpose of this cafe) to meet at the restaurant by 7am to begin prepping the food, they will think that she really means to straggle in sometime before dinner time. No one owns a watch and no one wishes they did.

Training the Chavalos boys is a complicated matter all together. Lilly is a brave woman to be schooling a bunch of psycho-delinquent teenaged boys how to run an upscale restaurant. The most difficult part is remembering where they came from. They grew up in the barrios (neighborhoods where the poorest families reside) with houses made of tarp and aluminum and little access to clean water and food. For example, in their homes there are no refrigerators. Because they do not know the difference between a freezer and a cooler, they have been known to put loads of fruit needed for the next morning into the freezer overnight! Also, in their homes there are dirt floors. Because they dump buckets of water to clean everything there, they have been known to clean the entire kitchen by spraying it from top to bottom with a powerful blast from the nearest garden hose. Also, in their homes the family owns only one knife. Because that one knife is used for everything from killing the dinner chicken to cleaning under fingernails, the boys have seen no problem with using the restaurant’s fancy $80 Global cooking knives as ice picks. Also, in their families, the main goal is the big picture of survival. Because the goals of food and shelter require an immediate day-to-day mentality, concepts such as detail work, future consequence, planning ahead, and aesthetics are beyond their understanding. Adam and I spent the entire morning crouched on the floor of the café’s bathroom painstakingly chipping hardened cement from elegant stone work (using butter knives!) because the boys were so sloppy in their attempt to cement the bathroom walls. This afternoon even, the boys wanted to test out the new stove after the gas was hooked up, so they put a pot on the burner, a little food in the pot and stirred away – with the stove’s delivery plastic still wrapped all around it! Needless to say it melted the blue plastic right to the stainless steel. No common sense, I tell you!

They also completely lack business sense and have no concept of profit. For instance, when Lilly was teaching them basic food cost mathematics, the boys were absolutely appalled to find out that the menu was charging the customer a whole 10 cordobas more than they spent on the materials to make the meals. “How do you expect me to pay your salaries?” she would ask them. I think they understand now.


Adam and I have adopted the frustrations because it has become our project too, but when it is exactly out of our hands, we can really only grin, bear it, toss our watches over our shoulders and pick up a butter knife.

CUATRO DE JULIO

 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 2007

Cuatro de Julio

There exists in this country nearly no moral conscience when it comes to stealing something that doesn’t belong to you.

I asked Lilly today, “How do you know who you can trust in this country?” I wanted to know when she hired guards and cleaning ladies is her gut reaction a good enough judge of character?

“No.” came her quick reply. “ You can’t trust anybody,” she said and proceeded to tell us a few stories of very close friends and companions of her who have robbed her blind.

We are exceptionally careful and aware when we have our laptop or camera out of the house, but when even the grandmas steal, its exhausting keeping an eye on everyone.

Here there are no laws.

Infants even ride on motorcycles, something you would never, ever see in the United States. When Dad’s gotta steer and Mom’s holding on to a giant fruit basket and maybe another kid, Baby’s just gotta hold on tight. It’s insane, but definitely nothing that would make headline news, like Britney Spears and her SUV baby-on-lap fiasco.

Here the only law seems to be: Do whatcha gotta do to make do.

DOS DE JULIO

 

MONDAY, JULY 2, 2007

Dos de Julio

“Well, she’s finally been baptized,” said a friend of ours when he ran into Adam at the Mercado today. “And they always send the men to get the meds.” 

It was true. I had sent Adam to market and I had been baptized - in my own vomit. 

I still haven’t pinpointed what I ate or why it had to return, regurgitated before my eyes, but at this point it doesn’t matter because even thinking hurts all over.

We spent the weekend in San Juan del Sur, a glorious Pacific-side beach a few hours south of our town. Our own little inlet, seemingly private and surrounded on three sides by giant rock mountains was straight out of Island of the Blue Dolphins. It was absolutely imaginary and well worth the 2 hour bus ride there.

HOWeVER. It was NOT worth the crazy 3-hour jarring, potholed, jam-packed, sweltering bus ride/hitch hike through town/cramped five-people-in-the-back-seat cab ride BACK.

As soon as I got home, I ate a hard boiled egg (don’t ask what possessed me), took a short nap and woke up hanging on to the toilet, moaning like a monkey.

Over the next hour, I told Adam to “listen to some music or something” and I barfed 12 times. 

When I was sure I’d barfed up my soul, I collapsed on the bathroom floor and made Adam bring the bed to ME, since I sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to drag myself the entire 7 feet across the room. So there I slept, on a mattress on the floor by the bathroom through the whole night without moving.

This morning, I wake up and attempt to drag myself to the bathroom and can’t even pull myself to sit on the pot. I’m so lightheaded I nearly pass out – so back to the mattress where I stay put for the entire day, muscles aching like I’ve never felt before, fever of 103 degrees, a twisted up stomach, and an amazing boyfriend by my side the whole time. – well except when I sent him for Gatorade and soda crackers.

Long story, short: I survived by putting some ice in my armpits and some kittens in my lap. 

VEINTIOCHO DE JUNIO

 

THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2007

Veintiocho de Junio

This morning Adam, our housemate Teddy, and I walked a half an hour to one of the schools where Adam teaches music. The small 3-room school tucked down a dirt road is painted light blue and white and has a single swing set which is also painted light blue. As we round the corner we hear reggaeton, a popular type of music that sounds like Latin rap, attempting to project through the speakers of a very small boom box. On the sidewalk four young girls dancing clearly in ways they had seen on television. The small audience sits in miniature chairs around the performance and is very attentive for young elementary children. They are having a Maestro Felizidad (Happy Teacher Day) celebration All of the kids are dressed nicely. Some of the girls are even in frilly purple and yellow dresses.

Here, many aspects of life are nice on the outside; the clothing, the homes. But as we get to know the locals, the poverty becomes more apparent. In the main neighborhoods of Granada, the colonial homes, rows and rows of them, with their beautiful ironwork and colorful facades are just that – facades. Behind the giant double doors, bright red, blue, yellow, green, one enters into a meek cinderblock room with a dirt floor and a few wooden rocking chairs for furniture. Though the children are dressed nicely, they are seen in the same outfit nearly every day.

Off of the main paved roads are several dirt roads where the majority of the poor Nicaraguans live. One of Adam’s schools is located down one of these dirt roads near our home. This afternoon we walked down this road to visit the students (who weren’t there due to a short winter vacation) and got to see several of the shacks and the families who occupy them. The homes on the dirt road haven’t the colonial facades. Some have no facades at all.

Every day, as Adam puts it, is Take Your Kids to Work Day.

VEINTISIETE DE JUNIO

 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2007

Veintisiete de Junio

Today Adan and I were not home much. We went on several errands and worked on the Café until dark. Lilly and Donna (project coordinators for Building New Hope) stopped by the café to see that we were still sanding and painting and cleaning. Pleased at our initiative, they invited us to dinner. We went to my least favorite street in the whole town, Calle Calzada which, frequented by foreigners and large groups of dopey white teenagers, feels like church camp in Europe or something. It definitely doesn’t feel like Nicaragua. 

As we sit at our outdoor table amidst a swarm of irritating foreigner kids buzzing in twangy English, a young Nica catches my eye. He sits across the narrow road and silently with his hazy red eyes, begs for leftovers. I notice him as I swallow my last bite. As the swarms buzz away, the young man inches slowly and humbly across the road. The waiter is clearing plates and refuses to look up at the young man who is kindly requesting the half-eaten pizza crusts that are buried under oily napkins. As the young man meekly extends his arm toward abandoned scraps, the waiter zips in and snatches the plate, adding it to the pile in his arms and shaking his head at the pitiful beggar. I sense his embarrassment and though I’ve always felt more compassion for those who ask for food over money, I know there is nothing I can do for him at this time. I intend to buy him a plate of his own but realize that we haven’t a centavo on us, and I cannot bring myself to ask Donna to buy him some food. At that moment, I feel choked because I cannot help this very hungry person and I am certain that, back at home, my kitten has just died.

When we get home, Adam looks me in the eyes and says quietly, “Do you want me to go upstairs and check?” I stand in the kitchen and wait for him to return, already knowing what he will find between the toilet and the adobe wall. When he came back downstairs, he made a ‘nada’ gesture with his hands and a single click sound with his mouth; he reached for a plastic bag, and disappeared back upstairs.

I don’t feel as much relief as I thought I would. I feel, instead, a hallow frustration and a dull ache of failure.

We went from 4 cats to 2 cats in one day. Aries is missing in action and we fear she may have fallen off the balcony and gotten swept away with the trash on the curb. We cannot think of any other explanation, for she was in our room the entire night and when we woke up, she was no longer in our room. She was no where to be found.

VEINTISIES DE JUNIO

 

TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2007

Veintiseis de Junio

Between the toilet and the adobe wall of our bathroom, barricaded into the corner by various jugs filled with water, lies Salvadora. Every 30 seconds, I peer around the wall, hoping to see her lying perfectly still.

I hope to find her dead.

Several hours ago, my lean was very slow and calculated, preparing my emotions for what I might find. I would wince my eyes and let one see before the other as I would tilt myself into the view of her.

Yet as the hours, twenty-four of them, have passed with her lying on this blue tiled floor, I’ve had time to consider the alternative to her living through this hell. With that in mind, I now habitually and obsessively bend around the corner in the middle of every minute, hoping to witness her during or after her final breath.

At first it only happened once an hour. She would be bundled in a cooking pot next to my side of the bed, swaddled in dishrags to keep her bones warm, sleeping deeply, when slowly her eyes would open. Her cedar brown eyes would widen and widen, making way for her enlarging pupils and the devil behind them. Next, her tiny pink nose would turn white and begin to confirm the rapidly increasing breaths, in and out, in.out.in.out faster and faster. Next, all of her tiny limbs would become unnervingly stiff and force her to coil awkwardly right out of her pot and onto the cement floor. She would twist and writhe in silence, often folding as if there we an invisible string tied around her neck, tying her skinny body into knots. After a few seconds she would begin a growl that grew and grew until it was a piercing shriek of tremendous agony, many moments long. She would seize and tremble, contort and wail until, after 3 minutes, the devil would leave her. She would take a tiny gasp, release a petite meow and fall right back asleep, exhausted.

First, this took place once an hour and lasted a short time. But over the past two nights, these fits began occurring every 10 minutes…. on the dot. The volume of her wail now amplifies through the house and through the night. Ruling out demonic possession, we have decided she has either been trying to pass an awful infection or has been dying for the past two days.

Observing this suffering, I come upon a dismal dilemma: Shall I continue feeding her? For a short time, she was looking very much alive and healthy, sucking eagerly from the syringe, but as she deteriorates, as the disease takes over, she is recently only in two conditions: seizing or sleeping. I wonder if, by feeding her, I am keeping her alive only so she can suffer. I decide to keep feeding her, but do so less and less frequently, as it gets difficult to get a sleeping kitten to swallow.

Most terrible is the fact that there is absolutely nothing that we can do. There is only one animal clinic in this entire town and the veterinarians are volunteers who come to Nicaragua only for sporadic weekend trips. There is no veterinarian this week and no one cares about dying kittens because there are too many mouths to feed as it is. I fight a few disturbing ideas to help terminate her distress. I think of lifting her frail body and setting her gently into the depths of the toilet water, knowing she would be too weak to argue. I think of swaddling her in plastic, or simply holding my finger over her tiny nostrils.

I obsess mentally over her condition and what to do about it, concluding only that, at this time, I am as helpless as she is. I am left to battle against my attachment to this wee being. I do not simply give her permission…

but I command her to die.

VIENTIQUATRO DE JUNIO

 

Veintiquatro de Junio

(This is Adam's account of our day, he captured it better than I could, so I re-posted his entry here):



I went over to our manager’s house yesterday…

“Hey, Adam, can I ask you a favor? The vet found this black cat in the street. It looks pretty sick and malnourished. Could you ask Sydney if she could take care of it tonight and then tomorrow you can take it back to the vet.”

“Sure..”

I peered into this small water tin and inside three little dish towels lay the skin and bones of a small black alien with white boots and a white nose. Its ochre green eyes filling half of its comparable oversized skull.

Sydney showed up at her house and we took it home. She fed the little soul some baby food mixed with soy milk through a syringe only to get about half of it into its tiny little mouth.

We all slept.

6:00 am another feeding.

8:00 am one more feeding. We take her/him to the vet. The gatito is not looking good, barely able to keep its head up, it can’t even stand up, its feet sprawling like a black spider web.

The vet looked at the little kitten with the hardened eyes of a doctor who had seen a million animals come and go, in and out of the hospital in more ways than one.

You see in Nicaragua, the cats have their own city, built on the rooftops of tattered houses they play, breed, eat and shit. Nature’s way…cats on top, people inside, dogs on the streets. Cats have a gestation period of 64 days which means that they can become pregnant, give birth, raise their young and get pregnant again all within three months. Usually a liter is comprised of about 3-8 little ones for a maximum of 24 cats a year or a minimum of 9. Either way, the cat population is a double edge sword for those with weak hearts. A liter half passed is both a blessing and a problem depending on how many cats you are already caring for.

For our little one, our care is only part of the solution because we are going to find it a home in the United States. For other little ones, it is to the rooftops to fight for their bony little bodies.

The vet emptied its bladder manually, he gave it a few CC’s of antibiotics, and sent us on our way. We returned home with the knowledge that it was a little girl with stomach worms, fleas, cuts and bruises, and a small chance to live.

As we approached the door to our guest house, she began to yelp incessantly. We took her inside and laid her on a table and the most incredible thing happened
She started to convulse, legs twitching, head throbbing, eyes blinking, all of it with sudden yelps, cries rising from the fight with el ladron de la vida. Sydney broke down instantly, the suffering of something so small, helpless, scared, unresponsive tearing at a heart so large, unconditional, sensitive and bursting with hope.

“Adan, Adan we have to take it back to the vet. Maybe he can do something.”
The walk back was tormenting, “I don’t think it is a good idea, baby,” I replied, only to realize that doing something was better than sitting there watching the whole thing happen.

We put her in the water tin, left our guest house and returned to the vet as quickly as possible.

I swear the cat died.

We arrived disturbed and uncertain. The towels were still pulsing, warm to the touch…all good signs of life.

The doctor administered some saline solution and some cortisol. The cures at the vet were hydration, electrolytes and adrenalin. The cures at home are swaddling, syringe feeding baby food each hour, and promising her love if she would only live.

Right now it is 12:32 pm and Salvadora is alive. She is aware, fed, pooped, played and full of life. I think she saw the light, got scared and ran the other way. We saved her and she saved us from witnessing the passing from life to death. I have seen rocks get crushed, I have seen insects flip over and cease from moving, I even seen aquarium fish fight for their dorsal balance only to lose their brilliant color. I have never witnessed a mammal lose that which it has gained over a million years…the warmth of its blood. 

Sydney is getting ready for bed. Nico is sleeping in his box. Aries is trying to eat some beads. Salvadora is breathing steady