Tuesday January 16, 2007

Photos: Restaurants naturally extend from family kitchens (left), and dudes like their carts brightly colored.

Running water and towels are luxuries – not necessities – and I should probably grow accustomed to washing myself with water scooped from a 50-gallon plastic garbage can and drying myself with a t-shirt. The lack of conveniences makes every street sight prime photo opportunities – fathers push sons in wheelbarrows on roads shared by rickety buses and mule-drawn carts. The sensational to me is mundane to locals and hopefully my photo-inquisitiveness won’t draw their ire. Which leads me to my happy moment of the day. When I returned from lab, the household boys, upon encouragement from their mother, escorted me around the neighborhood to provide accompaniment from ladrones as I took photos. The boys saw the commonplace as I marveled and tried to photograph, without their notice, the barefoot street soccer games and women carrying baskets on their heads.

The line between restaurants and living rooms is thin and at lunchtime a lab member lead me down an alleyway and into a family’s living room where they set up tables and dished out food. I pointed at different pots, selecting a full helping of rice, pork, and plantains (madura) to go for less than two dollars. I ate in the lab building, and chatted with Christiano in half English half Spanish about my studies, his country and mine. Fifteen minutes after meeting him I was invited to Granada with him and a friend on Saturday. It’s a warmth and openness only seen in a country where you’re not taught to prematurely fear your neighbor. Apparently though, according to Christiano, Nicaraguans are taught to prematurely hate the Costa Ricans, though he doesn’t really remember why.

A 68% literacy rate doesn’t leave much chance for bilingualism. People who know absolutely zero English include every member of my household and almost every person of the lab. Fortunately, I spent most of my first day with Matute, a young, long-haired Nicaraguan who knows enough English to run me through the serology procedures and answer most of my English-Spanish hybrid questions. Luckily, much can be communicated without words.

My biggest difficulty so far – greater than the whole language barrier thing - is finding a bathroom with running water, soap, and towels with which to wash my hands. Water and electricity are unreliable, even in the National Lab. Combined with the 85 degree heat I always feel just a little dirty.