How The Monkeys Got Their Name

Juan Carlos Viales and his parents when he graduated from college.

Juan Carlos and Ruth in their home.

Our landlords, Ruth and Juan Carlos Viales, have befriended us and we get together with them socially about once a month. Recently, they invited us to their house on a Sunday afternoon. The week before Juan Carlos had fallen off his motorcycle and broken his ankle, so we wanted to see how he was doing. Deb and I left our house and walked over to La Colonia, the most upscale supermarket in Chinandega, to buy rum, Coke and limes. Then we hailed a taxi. Ruth and Juan Carlos live in a small, recently built, suburb of small houses about three miles outside of Chinandega. It is quiet and suburban and there are great views of the volcanos. I told the taxi driver, “Vamos para Urbanización Monte Bello.” he replied, “Yeah. To visit Vinales. You don’t remember me do you.” I didn’t at all, but Deb thought for a moment and said, “Chancho!”  This guy is a friend of Juan Carlos who goes by the name of “Pig”. He has driven us a couple of times in the past. I offered my standard apology for my bad memory.

At the house we sat around in the front yard drinking rum and eating snacks that Ruth kept supplying. Juan Carlos was hopping around with his foot in a cast, using a walker to keep his balance. He introduced us to the other company; a woman and her teenage son, who spoke good English, and a lawyer who was an old friend of Juan Carlos. 

“His name is Mono,” we were told. 

I said, “So, you have one friend named Pig and one named Monkey.” 

“Yes!” Juan Carlos said. “All my friends are animals!”

“Well, what is your nickname?” Deb asked.

“My nickname was monkey, too, but only during that time when we were studying at the university.”

“Why were you called the monkeys?”

Juan proceeded to tell this story:

We were both students in the 80s. It was a very hard time. We had scholarships so as long as we kept our grades above 85 we could stay in school and we had a place we could live, but there was nothing in the country to eat. The stores were empty. The United States had us blockaded. There were mines in the harbors. We had ration cards so we could line up to buy whatever the government had to sell us, but it wasn’t much. Everyone was skinny in the 80s. What saved us was that there was fruit in the trees and we were good climbers. We lived off mangos and oranges and anything else that was growing on the trees. So that is why they called us the monkeys.

(The history is very recent. Thirty years ago, on May 1, 1985, Ronald Reagan prohibited all trade between the United States and Nicaragua. His justifications were lies and exaggerations. Of course tiny, impoverished Nicaragua was never a threat to the United States, but he couldn’t abide a country that clung to autonomy and self-determination. He was willing to use whatever means necessary to bend Nicaragua to the will of the US. In 1986 the International Court of Law found the blockade and all of the US’s military intrusions in Nicaragua to be in violation of international law. The United States ignored this ruling and continued throughout the 80s to use illegal tactics to undermine the government of Nicaragua.)

One of the many generosities that have been extended to Deb and I by our Nicaraguan friends and neighbours is not holding against us all the hardship our government caused to their country. The welcome we have received here is a wonderful lesson in tolerance and forgiveness. I intend to hold my self to these standards when I’m back living in the US.

Top Dog, Underdog

In the iconography of asymmetrical warfare The United States will always be Goliath and there will always be a multitude of Davids hoping, against all the odds, to throw the rock that knocks our brains out. This will be true until the day that we stop trying to use our military superiority to impose our will on others and start acting like a benevolent neighbor. Since the World Trade Center was brought down, it has become standard practice to indiscriminately label any little guy who stands up to us “a terrorist.” However, historically, many of the little guys have had the moral high ground and are only using whatever they have at hand to keep from being disempowered by a bullying, self-righteous, imperialistic, super power.  Certainly, this is an accurate description of relationships between The US and Nicaragua for the last couple of hundred years. It is no wonder then that the image of David and Goliath is so embedded in Nicaraguan culture.

(In 2014 I had an art show called 100 Ways An Old Artist Can Die. Part of the show was recreations of famous death scenes from art history. I collaborated with the photographer Raymond Beausejour. In this photo my grandson Sammy Devol is playing David and I'm the head of Goliath.)

Of course, all this goes back at least to the bible. There are probably older tales of top dog verses underdog, but lets start with 1 Samuel 17. As is often the case with bible stories, when you read the tale of David and Goliath for secular insights rather than religious revelation, none of the characters come off very well. The giant is, stereotypically, a taunting bully who uses his size to intimidate and then humiliate the Israelites. Who wouldn’t be scared? After all the dude is over nine feet tall! Well, David wouldn’t, because he is cocksure in an annoyingly adolescent way. He is just a kid. What is he, 13, 14 years old? As the youngest son, he has stayed out of the war, tending the sheep at home with his elderly father. He is only on the battlefield to deliver some bread and cheese to his brothers and reassure his father that they are OK. And yet, from the moment he gets it in his head that he is the one who should go up against the giant, he never has a moment of self doubt. Even his own brother says to him, “ I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is…” (My translation: WTF, Dude! Get out of here and go back to your sheep.) However, David hangs around talking smack against the Giant. He seems particularly incensed that the giant is uncircumcised.* He keeps bringing it up. “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” Finally, he gets King Saul’s attention and cons him into letting him take on Goliath. He claims to Saul that he has killed both a lion and a bear to protect his sheep. However, we only have his word for this. You’ve got to wonder what wouldn’t this cocky kid say to realise his vision of himself basking in the glory of victory and the admiration of his people, not to mention the promise of riches and the king’s daughter in marriage. Maybe David is fearless because he knows he has god on his side or maybe he is delusional about his invincibility just like so many teenagers are. 

The final confrontation is anticlimactic. The boy and the giant circle around trash talking each other without much style or creativity. Goliath: “Come here… and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!” David: “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head.” The little guy flings his rock with enough force to embedded it in the giant’s forehead. Goliath face plants and the boy, good for his word, decapitates him with his own sword.

So David gets all the glory and admiration he had sought. But, be careful what you wish for. Over the following years and decades, King Saul alternately sends him out to command armies and plots to have him killed. Every victory won increases David’s popularity and makes Saul more paranoid and determined to eliminate the younger man as a rival for the thrown.

(*This whole part of the bible is preoccupied with foreskins. Take this passage for example from 1 Samuel 18:  “David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.” I, for one, would like some details. What are the logistics of collecting 200 foreskins from corpses on the battlefield? Isn’t it sort of a delicate procedure? Did they use mohels in training? Were they delivered in a sack or strung on a cord like a calamari necklace?)

The image of David and Goliath is present very early in Nicaraguan culture, at a time when the underdogs were indigenous people and the top dogs were from Spain. There is a folk  dance and street performance piece that dates from the colonial era called El Gigante. It is performed annually in Diriamba. All the characters from the bible story are represented by music, movement, masks and costumes. The narrative isn’t very linear or explicit, but the mask that represents Goliath is vivid and disturbing. He has a bloody hole in the center of his forehead.

One of the most reproduced images from Nicaragua’s history is a painting depicting the battle of San Jancito. In 1855, a group of US mercenaries led by the maniacal William Walker had invaded Nicaragua. There were complicated political shenanigans within Nicaragua leading up to this invasion, but once on the ground Walker went rogue and declared himself president of the country. He was so out of control and belligerent that the other countries of Central America organised to get rid of him. Battles ebbed and flowed, but the one that caught the popular imagination occurred at a farm not far from Managua, hacienda San Jancito. The local forces were out numbered by Walker’s men and it looked like they would be defeated. However, when his rifle jammed, a local farmer named Andrés Castro picked up a rock and threw it with such force at the head of one of Walker’s lieutenants that he fell dead in his tracks. This so unsettled the rest of the attackers that they retreated and the local guys were victorious. Walker didn’t last much longer. He ended up in front of a firing squad in Honduras and he is buried in the beach town of Trujillo, a much prettier final resting ground than he deserved.

There are many versions, in murals, paintings, and sculptures of Andrés Castro knocking the brains out of the mercenary. All of them clearly reference David and Goliath.

David and Goliath imagery was an integral part of the Nicaraguan revolution and the proxy war that the US sponsored to undermine the triumph of the Sandinistas. In statues and murals across the country you can still see  rocks and Molotov cocktails being used against a more powerful enemy. These works of revolutionary art are not about terrorism, but about people raising up and using whatever means they have at hand to defeat tyranny and imperialism. It is a credit to this spirit of independence and autonomy that Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America.

I knew from the beginning of starting to write about David and Goliath in Nicaraguan culture that baseball was a part of it. However, I didn’t know this in any linear, cognitive way. I only knew it intuitively. Baseball is everywhere in Nicaragua and the image of a pitcher throwing a fastball can be superimposed precisely over Andrés Castro hurling the rock at hacienda San Jancito or any revolutionary hurling a Molotov cocktail.

Every great sports story recounts some version of the little guy, the underdog, coming out on top, beating the odds, improbably emerging victorious.

So I wrote to my friend Bob Cohen who is my source for all sports information. 

“Hey Bob,” I wrote. “I need a baseball consult for something I'm writing. Here is a list of Nicaraguans who have pitched in the majors… Do any of them stand out for you? Who is the best player? Any of them have a real impact? Know any stories about them?” He wrote back, “ Dennis Martinez sticks out the most; real old school- one of the greats in my mind- has done a fair amount of coaching. A character.” The conversation continued, me: “Holy shit! Dennis Martinez and I have the same birthday! May 14th... I'm ten years older than him. He's gotta be the one. Anything you can dig up on him or anything you want to say about him would be most appreciated. Tell me more about him being old school and a character.” Bob: “He was the first Nicaraguan baseball player in the majors. Pitched the first perfect game for the Montreal team in '91.  Only the 13th of all time up to then. His nickname is el Presidente. Probably the best ever… That you were born on the same day! Wow! That should do it for similarities!!!” 

So Martinez pitched his way out of poverty in Granada, Nicaragua, into the major leagues and a stellar baseball career. The national stadium in Managua is named after him and his name has come up more than once as a potential presidential candidate. When he was with Montreal they sold a hot dog with cheese and bacon in the stadium. It was named the Denny Dog in his honor.

A great sports story and a good way to end this post.