Workin Man

So here I am in Managua. I have now spent more time here than any place on this trip. Well, except for Mexico City, but that will change in just a day or two I think. It is interesting to be settled down for a minute, and I am enjoying the routine I have gotten in (I know that doesn't sound like me, but it is really fun to find your niche in a foreign country.) I must say though, that I have been disappointed in Managua. I was looking forward to staying in a big scary central American City. But despite the million person population, it does not feel like a big city. It feels more like a huge expanse of neighborhood. There is no city center since they did not rebuild it after the 72 earthquake. Therefore, it is very spread out and there is not as much centralized street vending. I made the mistake today at work by being truthful about how I feel about Managua. I basically said just what I said right here, and that I liked the city center of Guatemala City, and how it felt a bit more edgy and dangerous. There aren't really gangs here, and it feels perfectly safe to me (though every single local, like everywhere, warns of how dangerous it is for foreigners. I usually just blow that off, not because I am naiive, but because if I live in fear, the experience is lost.) I have found some food around where I am living that is pretty good, but nothing all that new that has blown me away. I think my favorite thing about Managua, and it won't sound like much, but it is rad to me, is that there are mango trees everywhere. Locals seem to knock them down and collect them in masses before they fully ripen, but if I keep my ears peeled I hear them drop and quickly go and grab them. Or I will keep my eyes out in the morning for the stray that fell during the night. The mangos are also frequently passed around at work. I think this would be a good place to be homeless because you will never go hungry if you don't mind eating mangos for every meal. I mean, seriously what other city has fruit just growing everywhere. Cool.

Yeah, I had a pretty lazy weekend getting ready for my internship. I wanted to get out of town to see some of the nearby attractions, but I really just felt like loafing around, doing nothing. I don't regret it. Saturday, I went to the market and got a shirt so I had more than one for work. The biggest market is pretty cool. Saw some new stuff there, like a plate of iguanas (live, just chilling there) for sale. This means that I might be able to sample some reptilian cuisine before I go. There was also a surprisingly large area of crafts and tourist junk. If anyone wants a cool shirt, I am thinking of buying a bunch and making a small profit selling them when I get back. After getting ripped off by the guy subletting my room, I will be short on dough when I get back, so I need to do whatever I can to recoup funds. I will sell the shirts for $10, or other tourist junk, like Cubans, hammocks and stuff.

On Saturday night I wanted to go to the place a few blocks away that supposedly has some live music. I went to a seedy bar across the street for a cheap liter of beer first though. Well, when I got there they said the minimum purchase was 50 Cordoba (about $2.50), which means I would have to get 2 liters. Jeez, 2 liters of beer for $3. That is not a bad deal, so I went for it. Don't worry Ma, I can handle it. So this bar is not really a bar, it is just a sidewalk outside a family's living area. Just inside the main door there is a small area with two tables and a slot machine (casinos and gambling are randomly huge in Nicaragua). And past that, through the second door is their house, so I had to pass through there when I had to use the bathroom. On the way back I stopped to talk to the owner who was watching the city's carnival parade on TV. This was a huge mistake, because we inevitably started talking politics. He insisted on showing me a movie that he had. It was a documentary about their war. It followed a young 14 year old girl fighting for the FSLN, the leftist rebel group. In the '80's the US government was pouring money into the country to fight the rebels, like in the rest of Central America. This has made America, and mostly just Ronald Reagan, insanely unpopular among many Nicaraguans. In the movie one of the families showed a picture of the father of the family. He died in the war, and the owner told me that it was his friend. Yeah, this guy I was talking to had been involved in the conflict. He showed me two gunshot wounds on his shoulders, and one on his side. Throughout the movie, he kept asking why America had done what it had to his country. I tried to explain that I was not in agreement with what had happened, and that I was born in the middle of the conflict. But the way he was asking was not out of anger. It was in sadness. He was in pain while watching this movie, and he seemed to just want to educate me. To make me relate to what he and his people had been through. His voice was so stressed, he sounded on the verge of tears. He just could not understand how or why such a rich, powerful country would bother a small impoverished developing nation that had nothing to begin with. I could not either. At least with El Salvador, America has unintentionally helped by letting all the immigrants come in to work and send money back. Nicaragua does not have as many citizens living in states, as more of the population goes to Costa Rica to work. But either way, what do I do with this? What do I do when I meet people's lives have been so deeply affected in a negative way by the country I am representing? How do I deal with this? And I know that this situation will not end here in Central America. I will encounter this when I go to South America some day. Southeast Asia even more so. And we can all imagine what it will be like in the Middle East. Who knows where else. Most people under the age of 30 (and I am sure plenty over that age as well) are not even aware of what kind of involvement the states had in Central America. I did not know until I started educating myself in the 6 months before coming here. What will I find out if I go to Africa? Eastern Europe? Did the states have a war on communism/terrorism in Mongolia? Australia? Well, at least I know that Belize is pretty safe. That country's ridiculous.

Sorry for that rant. So yeah, Sunday, I walked to the bus stop to go to some hotsprings, and boiling mud baths a couple hours outside of town. I was also going to go to the Flor de Cana rum distillery if I had time. But then I got to the bus stop and realized I didn't feel like it. I just wanted to relax for a minute, so I bought a juice at the grocery store and went back and lazed. Uncharacteristic. But again, I have no regrets.

Monday was my first day of work with La Prensa, the biggest and best newspaper in Nicaragua. OK, so it is one of two, but come on. It's something. They have a pretty big photo staff, I would say about 10 in all. There is also another intern here from Canada. His name's Andrew, and he seems aiight. He is doing a 4 week internship, and speaks as good of Spanish as me (not very good) so it is good to not be alone in this overwhelming environment. Tomas, the photo editor, said I need to get some real shoes (I am still wearing my Keane's, just with socks on so they don't seem as sandally) and that I "need to do something with" my hair. OK. I mostly hung out all day with Tomas for the day at the desk, then at 1:30, I was called away on assignment. The city's baseball team was having their first practice. Baseball is the biggest sport here, thanks to 50 years of US occupation. This, to me, is the real downside of America's influence. Baseballs is so boring, even compared to soccer. So yeah, I got my first photo printed in the paper the next morning.

On Tuesday, my single assignment was a press conference at a library. It was super boring, but Andrew said that is what most of our assignments are like. Sweet. Both days, I got off a little after six. I start at about 8:30. Long days. I don't know what Tomas does, but he gets in around 9:00 and is still there when I leave. I never see him do anything except read photography websites and the news. Oh well. Maybe I'll do that some day.

After work on Tuesday I figured I would figure out the bus system, because a $2 taxi each way to work was not going to do. It turned out to be about a 45-60 minute ride on two buses. But at least I am saving money. When I got back to my hotel at about 7:30 I decided I need to do something with my hair, and fix my pants that had re-ripped pretty wide on the seat. This would be tricky this late, so I started asking around. Everything barbershop seemed closed, but a teenager with tattoos and a bad limp hanging out by a food stand decided to help me find someone to fix my pants. We walked for a few blocks, peeking into various homes, asking the matriarch if she could fix the pants. Eventually we found one. Because they were so badly ripped, the woman said she would put a huge patch inside that would hold very strong. The only brown fabric she had was silky, and very shiny. Whatever. I didn't really have any other options. I also asked if she knew of any place to get my hair cut. Well luckily, her sister who lives there could. So for the next 45 minutes, I sat while these two sisters solved both of my day's problems. My hair is sexy and my pants are no longer holy. All for about $4. The women said I looked like Tom Cruise. I would like to take this as a compliment, but I know that it is just that all white people look the same. I should have told them they looked like Penelope Cruz and Shakira.

I don't know how I am going to solve the other problems. I need at least one more shirt and one more pair of pants and a pair of shoes. This will run my budget, but what's worse is that I go to work before markets open, and get done after they are closed. And the weekend, well, I was planning to go surfing (there's a surf comp too!) and get those errands done on the way, but Tomas told Andrew and I today that we were working. No days off.

Wednesday, today, I spent most of it waiting for a press conference to start. The vice president of the country and some other politicians talking about development and junk. Super boring. All I can say for all this, though, is it will be good on a resume (definitely not in a portfolio). I really hope I get my second weekend off. I really need to go to Lake Nicaragua. There's two freaking volcanoes that form an island in it! And one of them erupted in November!

Oh and the other thing I like about is that horse carriages are pretty common. Not for people, but to carry stuff.