Dad - August 6, Night

Monday August 6, 2007
Best Western La Mercedes, Managua Airport

The power is out and so we are running on generator. Not much of hardship for us, but it was a start when all the lights went out while we were sitting in the restaurant. I think we have had 2 days out of 8 in Nica when the power has not gone out at least once. Now we can afford to stay at places that have their own generators.

This is the kind of hotel that qualifies as high class in developing countries – two pools, a restaurant with western food, tended yards. But it feels out of place because it is trying so hard to be American – so the furnishings are out of date and the smartly dressed front desk staff have too many papers to fill out.

The clientele is mostly Americans with flights out in the am – most prevalent are the medical students, many of whom feel compelled to walk around in their scrubs and some even with stethoscopes hanging from their necks; presumably so we do not block their important way. I think of brother steve, my surrogate for latin American business travelers, and their nights spent in not quite exotic places like this.

Scenes from the last couple of days. Early morning Mass at La Merced yesterday am where the average age was 50 and women out numbered men 3 – 1 and the singing was awful. The sweet voiced kid with the slicked back hair who sold me a bulletin for a Cordoba early in the morning was still there at the 5 pm (much louder and more musical) mass.

Last night, the Parque was very quiet, with the vendors packed up, and drunks, lovers and young boys were the only ones lounging round. I walked through it and up Consulado, underneath the Chomorro shield, past the house with the open doors that allowed you to peer in past the living room to the court yard, and past the laundry where the woman worked behind the counter and fluorescent light spilled out into the street, shining on the people hanging out in plastic lawn chairs.

This morning, in our high end Casa La Merced, with the high beds, high ceilings and dark room with a decidedly non colonial air conditioner, we had a refined courtyard breakfast, looking past the bougainvillea up to the bell tower La Merced, which clanged tinnily. Outside the gates, the sounds people walking, horses clopping and cars engines whining all rattled off the walls.

Later, under our first bright sun in 2 days, we took in the museum at the bright blue Franciscan Convent – a quick tour of a millennia and a half around Granada. The kids liked the diorama – Ben pointed out to Rachel where we walked down to the lake the previous day (in the neighborhoods where two tall gringos can still create quite a stir), I liked the pavilion with the pre Columbian statues harvested off nearby Zapatera Island. The animal/human statues were not too far from home – the Island and Mombachu volcano were still their backdrop.

Women. Some of the old wrinkled ones sit on the steps and beg. The stylish ones walk around in impractical heels – how do they cut between cars in the dash at the intersections? A surprising number zip around on bikes and motorcycles – both here and in the country. Ometepe guide Johan said Latin American Machismo is exaggerated and women run the marriages. Is that why Colette got the come on from stray old men when she went out by herself?

The scenes today with our driver Shegher (a fortunate Granada kid and Red Sox fan who hightailed it to Miami when the going got tough in the 80s – “my Dad went to Libya and came back with the name”. When it was safe they came back to run the family chicken farm and now he supervises construction crews and trades on his excellent English)) were more stock in nature. I am glad we splurged and did not go for the direct taxi ride but went to see the beautiful pottery at San Juan Oriente, the mirador overlooking Laguna Apoya (yet another volcano crater), into the way too civilized Masaya market and up to the barren lip of the still-smoking Volcan Masaya (nice exhibit in the visitor center about all the volcanoes in Nicaragua). But the most provocative thing came after that when we passed several “free trade zones” – factories where consumer good are assembled duty free with ridiculously low wages so we can buy them cheap in wal mart. The buses and bikes were lined up just inside the chain linked fences for the workers, to take them to their dingy, dirty homes just down the road that made the shanties in San Jose look almost posh.

Free trade zones and tourism. The path to economic advancement is a rocky one. “El Pobre del Mundo Arriba” exclaims the Ortega campaign poster. The same sentiment that makes foreign capital nervous, our zip line lawyer would say – he should stop hanging out with those crazy South American liberal leaders. And Shegher points out that statement could mean their numbers, not their power, are rising

Tonight Colette and I bobbed in the pool and talked – inexorably – of what needed to be done when we arrived home. Afterwards at dinner the family traded comparisons of best meals and best days on the trip, and then asked for the 4:30 am wake up to begin the journey home.