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| Juan Carlos Viales and his parents when he graduated from college. |
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| 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.
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Nicaragua? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Nicaragua in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez