A Ninetieth Birthday Observed

My Dad's birthday was yesterday. It would have been his ninetieth. His was a powerful presence in the lives of his children, and that power continues to be felt, now six years since his death. I do not know if I think of him daily—I read somewhere that memories "wear out" with use, and each time we recall an event or a face, we are actually remembering the memory, which erodes a little with each reference. How many times may a memory be summoned before it bears no resemblance to its origin? I've become stingy with my deliberations on past times, past people—I do not want to be unable to conjure my father's smile or the sound of his laughter or the rhythm of his lanky manner of walking. Even now, I want to shoo away the images these words evoke, lest they be thoughtlessly recalled to their eventual detriment.

Fortunately,  I have tucked away so many memories of each of my parents that that I no longer fear that I will outlive them, that I will wear them out before I no longer need them. Not all the memories are happy or pleasant, but no matter. They each contribute to my sense of having become myself through those experiences, including those influences and individuals who shaped my worldview and my expectations of this life. Like DNA, the events of one's life, especially in the pre-adult years over which one has no real control, are cards one is dealt. Sussing out the degree to which my personal desires or decisions have affected the playing of those cards is not my preferred activity at this point. It is enough to be out of the game at last. Finally, I feel I can live mindfully in the present, observing birthday anniversaries, not as memorials to departed loved ones, but as ongoing milestones in my own life, in my own heart, where these dear ones will forever reside.

Mission Creep?

All right, I am going to go out on a limb and declare, "Death to all missionaries." Oh, perhaps not all of them. I know that Mother Teresa and her army of helpers placed actual need here in earthly life far above any mission to save souls in the hereafter. But here in Nicaragua, I am baffled by the hordes of earnest do-gooders who believe that this already religious population somehow needs saving of the spiritual kind above and beyond their obvious need for economic assistance.

When Gabe and I came down in May for a two-week visit, we met people in the Florida airport who were flying to Nicaragua for a one-week stay in Masatepe, previously mentioned here as the town where one can find good furniture. These people were not on a mission to help build a school or plant a crop or be otherwise useful. Their purpose was to fly to this country, at great personal expense, and pray for a week. Granted, some agency that arranges these sorts of travel opportunities was making a profit, and perhaps some Masatepe residents might garner a few extra cordobas by providing beds for the prayers. I seem to recall that it mattered not where one prayed; surely, these people could have stayed home and prayed and donated the money they would have spent lining the travel agent's pockets to some worthy project that would have actually benefited the citizens of Masatepe.

I was a proud do-gooder myself when I developed a sport project some 28 years ago in San Isidro, Nicaragua. I did bother asking what would do some good for the town's children. They had no sports equipment, period. They wanted baseball, basketball, soccer, and volleyball gear. They needed some money to repair the town's ball field. And that's what they got. I paid my own expenses, and raised funds to purchase the equipment. My boss's boss at Westinghouse took care of the shipping costs, and San Isidro got its sports programs. It felt good to be helpful. I do understand the impulse.

This afternoon, two fresh-faced norteamericanos appeared at our back wall, having climbed up from the rocky beach below, and asked to pass through our compound to the road. They were neatly dressed in dark trousers, with white shirts and long black ties, not the usual uniform for traipsing up and down the rocky escarpment. Ah, missionaries! Never mind that every bus sports calligraphic adornment of new testament praise for Cristo, or that every tenth structure on the average road is a church of some sort—Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Apostolic Pentecostal Whatevers. Religion is not a crying need here. WTF are these missionaries in their ties and trousers doing in this poor country that faces real economic challenges? The arrogance of the righteous is quite breathtaking!

Voluntourism. This portmanteau term to describe travel opportunities that include participation in projects to benefit local populations is, I hope, falling out of favor now. If, as suggested above, one truly wants to help, the cash for expensive air tickets could be used so much more effectively in direct aid to a sensible, trustworthy organization that knows best how to direct it. By all means, travel to the third world, learn about problems first-hand. But do not deceive yourself that your half-day stacking bricks in the hot sun did anybody any good at all. That road to hell is paved with such aspirations.

For the record, I have not the slightest notion of doing anybody any good at all. I just want to live in peace and do no harm. Amen.

Spain and Rain, Mainly

Friday's sojourn to Managua was a rain-sopped mess of a trip. No sooner did the old Blue Bird pick me up in La Boquita but the heavens opened and the heavy downpour continued most of the way to Diriamba. This meant that the bus's occupants closed all the windows in the interest of staying dry, which locked in the heat and sweaty human aromas. Mile after claustrophobic mile I fought down the urge to scream bloody murder if I didn't get some air. Bring on the wet stuff, just let me breathe!

I grabbed the last seat on a crowded micro-bus to Managua and rode, white-knuckled, as the driver floored the accelerator, braking sporadically to accommodate the rare sensible motorist until we were able to pass and resume hurtling over the mountains of El Crucero, barreling down the ess-curves into Managua. The slick roads merely added to the drama, summoning visions of my mangled corpse, crumpled beneath the wreckage, as the zopilotes gathered to feast on fresh carrion. Where is Fellini with his camera?

Nevertheless, I made it in one piece, and as the rain continued to fall, Erlinda and I and her friend Delfina, visiting from El Salvador, waded through heavy traffic and flooded streets to collect Ivan and drive to the Spanish Cultural Center to see the exhibition of drawings and lithographs of Salvador Dali. We arrived late, just as the empty gallery was about to close, but the three staffers spectacularly offered to accommodate our wet selves for an hour.

Two sets of works were on display. The first, inspired by Rabelais's Pantagruel novels, was suitably bizarre, scatological, and thoroughly surreal! Here, at last, on my blog, are the flatulence, the twisted genitalia, and wildly anthropomorphic imaginings of Senor Dali, to whit:

 Feel free to irritate your more discerning correspondents with repeated postings of bandaged penis people, spoon-billed eagles, erupting pustules, and mushroom caps!

The second collection comprised lithographs created in cooperative inspiration with chefs at famed Parisian eatery Maxim's. 

Lobster, shrimp, served on the backs of short-legged elephants? But of course!

This face? Not so appetizing...

But Dali's synthesis of line, wit, and graphic mettle is irresistible!

Thereafter, we repaired to Taska Kiko for good Spanish cuisine. After Dali, what else?

(It turns out "Kiko," which sounds Japanese, is a diminutive for "Enrique.")

O Trazadone, Where Art Thou?

Photos posted stateside show autumn colors, football, sweaters, pumpkins. Here all is moist, green, bougainvillea-pink. My sense of detachment from the old reality is growing at an accelerated pace now. My sleeping pills ran out a week ago; the ensuing nights of torturous wakefulness may be clouding my perceptions, true, but still I have a sense that I am viewing the life I left behind through the wrong end of the telescope.

My addiction to news remains intact. Though I am persuaded that the NY Times  has morphed into The Onion of late. How else to explain the sheer incomprehensibility of the Republican party's crowded primary field, with barely a whole mind among them? How is it possible that Ben Carson has so little of substance to say about fuck-all ANYTHING? How may we explain the paucity both of Mr. Trump's vocabulary and his grasp of the realities of governance?

I've been prowling farmacias, looking for Trazadone without success. Erlinda called around in Managua. Nobody carries it. Now I drag through the days, catnapping; at night, I devour whole books waiting for morning. The Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf, is my current read. The astonishing account of Alexander von Humboldt's brilliant mind, his world travels in search of knowledge he freely offered to science and laymen alike. I dread finishing it.




I need sleep!

A bright note: brother Bobby is coming for a long weekend at month's end. We plan to make an excursion to Ometepe, a two-volcano island in Lake Nicaragua, in the Rivas department of the country.  And in two days, I will go up to Managua to see an exhibition of drawings by Salvador Dali with Ivan and Erlinda. 13 years ago, Gabriel and I saw a wonderful Dali exhibit in London, and then, in 2012, I visited the fine Dali museum in St. Petersburg, FL with my friend Tom Matrullo. I take my Dali wherever I can find him!

If only I could find Trazadone...

North to Chinandega

This past Thursday found me back on the Managua bus with Brynn in tow for a Friday visit to Migración to renew my tourist visa on Friday morning. This was accomplished with no undue fuss at the satellite office at MetroCentro, a large shopping mall connected to the Intercontinental Hotel, with the help of my hero and avocado abogado, Noel.

Afterwards, my friend Erlinda invited me to go with her to the north to her hometown of Chinandega, to help celebrate her brother's birthday. Erlinda is one of 12 siblings, and I had not yet met her older brother Miguel and his wife Merian. So we boarded a microbus crammed full for a two-hour ride up past Leon to this second oldest city in Nicaragua, a town of about 300K residents. This was no tourist visit, so I did not get a good look at the place.  Miguel's house is on a quiet street, and the plain exterior belies the comfortable home within.The family has lived in this house for 47 years.

Miguel and Erlinda

Miguel has been in the business of raising sugar cane and rice, among other things, and his two sons also work with him. At 75, I imagine he is semi-retired, at least. A lovely, soft-spoken gentleman, whose wife is both hospitable and generous. We had a good meal of soup, chicken, pasta, and a sort of flan with raisins for dessert.

Merian has a few collections on display in her home, including miniature houses that are produced in Masaya, Nicaragua's famed artisan center, not too far from Diriamba. They are arranged in the small open-air courtyard of the home.

In the sala, there is an ancient scales with weights, amidst a collection of old irons on an antique sewing machine table. A breakfront houses various ceramics, and is topped by a son's baseball trophies, and flanked by papal portraits.

The sala, with Merian.






Birthday wishes accomplished, Miguel drove us back to the bus corner, with a brief stop in front of a sweet old church, whose most recent restoration was a century ago. Really lovely, isn't it?

The ride back to Managua in a window seat provided me with a lesson in the volcanic geology of Nicaragua. There is a string of active or dormant volcanoes stretching from the north near Chinandega south as far as Grenada, at the top of Lake Nicaragua. The mountain chain comprising the northernmost eight or nine volcanoes is called the Cordillero de los Marabios; Erlinda pointed out a few that do not appear on this little map, including Chonco, just north of San Cristobal, and just above Cerro Negro, Las Pilas and Casita, so-called because of its gabled roof shape. Nevertheless, as this image shows, there is a very active line extending right into Lake Nicaragua to the island of Ometepe.

      As our bus headed back to Managua, I had only short glimpses through breaks in the roadside greenery of Telica, the volcano near León which erupted this past May when Gabe was here, and smoking Momotambo. These geological formations are so distinctive, rising like pyramids from the inland plains, providing clear evidence that Nicaragua is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. I love the sound of the indigenous names like Momotambo and Mombacho, Chinandega and Chichigalpa.

Here is a internet image of Momotambo in the distance, and Momotambito, a smaller version that rises from Lake Managua.

Below: Volcan Telica.