Pre-Prelude: Blogger is having some wacky formatting issues so I've tried to fix the paragraph issue about 20 times and add more photos to no avail. Screw it. There's some funky spots that should have paragraphs and did have paragraphs but blogger robbed me of them. And the Toilet Terror photo won't post. I'll have worked this out next time but as most of the people who read this do so for the clinic stuff - and this is not a clinic entry - I'm not going to lose my head over it.
Prelude: Pointless Nothingness.
I am trying to read La Prensa, the Nicaraguan newspaper, in Spanish. Humbling. The only things I can really read are the gory car accident stories. Luckily they love gory car accident articles here - photos of dead bodies and what not. Lesiones gravados means grave injuries. Muerte means dead. These get used a lot in the gory car accident genre. I can't speak enough spanish to buy a shaker of pepper in the grocery store but I know how to describe someone being disemboweled by a steering wheel.
If it wasn't for comics and the unquenchable thirst Central American news agencies have for reporting on overturned buses and dismembered taxi drivers I wouldn't understand a damn thing.
I try to follow the politics but am forced to resort to the Nica Times, the English language newspaper, to follow the whole Ortega/property rights disputes/ASLN vs ALN thing. But I get all of my gory car accident and Far Side from the spanish language paper. Go me.
The Coincidence I Wouldn't Have Believed Had It Not Happened To Me.
Okay, so here is the odd story of the week: Last week I was travelling around with my friend Kristen who visited from the States. We went to Leon where my camera got boosted (see last post re: karma really needs to bite someone in the ass) and hung out there for a night. A lot of people love Leon but we thought it was hot, dusty, and overrated. Lot of cool revolutionary murals, a few left over bullet holes in buildings, some interesting history but hot and charmless.
After a few hours of dragging through the city we decided to do a quiet dinner, go back to our room and then head to the beach in the morning for a few days. The pizza place we were going to go to looked gross so at the last minute we switch gears and go to this restaraunt over by all the hostels and the college. While we're waiting the fifteen years for our food to arrive (Bienvenidos a Nicaragua! Order an hour before you want to eat!) this Nica girl comes over and starts talking to us.
This is a very odd little interlude and one that I'll mostly pass over. Basically she has tattoos which is unheard of here. The idea of tattooed women is akin to the idea of two headed cows or food that comes within an hour of being ordered. Kristen has witnessed the Finn-gets-camera-phone-photo-ed on public transport phenomenon. But she saw my tattoos and came over to speak to us. Next thing we know she and all of her friends are at our table, there's some bad Spanglish going on, they speak a little English, my bad Spanish, my attempting to translate for Kristen. They're with a ton of other university students and our table is now full and we are speaking very loudly.
Out of nowhere I hear an American voice behind me. You are, the voice said, from Olympia, Washington, aren't you?
I turn around to see a face so devastatingly familiar it kills me that it takes me a second to place it. It's my old roommate from Olympia, Kyle. For six months I shared a bathroom with this man, spent hours talking to him, watched him moon, Charlie Brown style, over the cute Chinese girl across the street. I lost track of him about three months before I left Oly. After he moved out I would run into him every now and again and we would hang out but then I left without seeing him and yeah, just sort of fell out of touch.
Until I run into him in a restaraunt in Leon, Nicaragua.
He sits down with us and we reminisce about the old times, he tells Kristen some stories - In Which Finn Assisinates The Kitchen Rat With A Pellet Gun, In Which He Scares The Shit Out Of Me So Badly I Throw A Chair At Him Because I Think He's An Intruder. I tell some Kyle stories - the 'I Didn't Realize It Was That Kind Of Massage Parlor' story, his penchant for coming into my room every night and sitting on the floor next to the radiator with a beer and talking while I was trying to fall asleep.
It's like running into a long lost but endearingly wacky relative.
Somehow it is decided that we will all go to the beach together the next day.
And then there is the interlude that winds up with us being the only white people at this odd disco that our new Nica friends insist we go to, Kyle getting essentially molested by the tattooed Nica girl , my camera going boosted.
And then there is a nice few days at the beach with a good group of friends and lots of good conversation and boogie boarding and me biffing it and eating sand more than a few times while Kristen takes photos. Thanks K.
But honestly, what the hell are the chances?
Zen & The Art of Pali
Wal Mart has been trying to move into Central America. I can understand them wanting Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, but I am sure who ever brokered the deal to buy a couple of chains of stores in Nicaragua never actually set foot in them. Or in Nicaragua, period, for that matter.
Nicaragua does have a few chain stores - La Colonial, La Union and Pali. La Colonials, which I have never been in, are supposedly big and expensive and very Americanized. La Union, which I was in for the first time in Leon, is like a smaller La Colonial - well lit, lots of stuff, very un- Nicaraguan and quite frankly the flurescent lighting, air conditioning and well stocked shelves threw me into spasms of culture shock so badly that I insisted we leave immediately after Kristen purchased her Toilet Terror. *
And then there is Pali. Pali is La Union's ugly little bastard child. We have Pali in Granada - they are small, dark little supermarkets with no air conditioning, surly staff and completely non-sensical product placement. Rat killer is next to spices is next to dog food. Flip flops are next to toilet paper but a good four aisles away from paper towels. The three different kinds of yogurt they sell are so well spread out that it's practically a scavenger hunt. And sometimes they move things so just when you start to remember that granola is with the cookies you become completely disoriented again. **
La Union owns Pali. Wal Mart bought La Union and hence Pali. For all of us who hate Wal Mart, we should all take a moment to chortle with delight over the fact that Wal Mart must be shitting itself over finding itself in possesion of what must be the least appetizing chain stores on the planet. Oh and all the Pali employees now where Wal Mart badges so their oh-so-carefully branded logo is attached to what can only be described as the Crown King of Shitholes.
Tee-hee.
Unfortunately, Pali is unavoidable. Everyone dreads a trip to Pali like the plague but at one time or another we all have to do it. They have some stuff that is near impossible to find any place else. I buy all my produce at the mercado or off the fruit ladies who push their carts through the street. I buy water, soda from the pulperia near my house. But when I need granola, yogurt there is no other choice to suck it up and fall into the black hole that is Pali.
There are certain givens about: Pali it will be packed. Every aisle will be blocked with big carts of stuff they're trying to find random shelf space for. There will be one or two lines open and they will not be staffed by anyone to whom efficiency or speed is a priority. You are going to be in Pali for a while.
When you do get up to the counter you are going to have to wait while the counter person carefully wipes the counter. And you are going to have to bag your own shit. They just toss it into an empty grocery cart next to the register. And you have to buy your bags.
The trick to Pali is either go during the rare slow times - very rare, almost impossible to predict. Or go with someone else and have them immediately get in line while you shop. By the time you fill the cart they might be near the front of the line. And watch out for line cutters.
Line cutting is a goddamn art form in Nicaragua. It's not malicous, it just is what it is. If someone can get in front of you, they're gonna do it. By any means necessary.
I am in Pali by myself yesterday, standing in line. The world's most adorable five year old child comes up and tries to get in front of me. No. I say to her vehemently. She looks up at me sadly with big dinner plate eyes, clutching one roll of toilet paper. No.
There are a few other gringos, tourists, in the store and they are all looking at me like I am the biggest asshole in the history of humanity.
Trust me people. I live here. I know this trick.
She tries once more.
No. Adios. Va.
She shuffles off to the next line looking like I just pistol whipped her. A redhaired German girl motions for the little girl to get in front of her, shooting me a nasty look. You cow-fucker, I can practically hear her thinking, this poor little girl just needs a roll of toilet paper.
Twenty minutes later when we are all still standing in line it happens. The rest of the little girls family shows up with two - two - gigantic carts of groceries. They muscle in front of the german girl who is stuck standing there looking stupified and saying nothing. The family motions another family - probably friends- to get in line behind them. Instead of being third in line the German girl is now fifth behind three overloaded carts.
As I'm walking out she's still standing in line looking stunned. The adorable little girl, now tucked under her mom's arm, is beaming beautifically.
* Toilet Terror is a form of toilet deodorizer you hang on the outside of the bowl. You don't buy it to use it, you buy it because, well, it's called 'Toilet Terror'. And that is very, very funny.
** In all fairness they did just open a Pali in San Juan Del Sur that looks like a La Union. It is nice, clean, well stocked, well staffed. I have been in four other Pali's in Central America, though, and they are all shitholes. The SJDS one is the exception, not the rule. Trust me.
***A few random notes: More animal updates coming shortly. The spell checker on Blogger.com is down and I am too lazy to go back through this or put it in word and check it there. I really need a new camera as I'm sure this is tedious as hell without photos. Hence I stole the lame photo of Kyle, my old college roommate, from Kristen but most of her pics are too large for blogger to download. I typed most of this on a Latin American keyboard so excuse the funky punctuation. And yes, I do like to make excuses for my writing shortcomings***
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