My sad new barber

My local barbers have been pushed out of their shop.  The success of the restaurant/bar that took over three-quarters of the space in their building undoubtedly has the landlord dreaming of bigger rent checks.   So, when I needed a haircut today, I couldn't walk over to see my two buddies.  Instead I got in the car and floated downstream with the traffic towards an old familiar spot.

The apartment building in Arlington where we used to live rests above several street-level shops, among them a barbershop run by a bevy of Vietnamese women, ranging from a lady of about 45 who seems to be in charge, to girls who look no more than twenty.  Anywhere from six to ten young women at a time work the two rows of barber chairs against each wall.  The chairs face a central register nestled against a four-foot square structural pillar that sits in the middle of the space.  The shop almost always is packed with military and business men who live in the neighborhood.  When I step through the open doors today I recognize the faces of some of the same women who worked here seven years ago, a bit more stolid and timeworn but still smiling whenever customers enter. 

Today I arrive around 2 p.m. and only three of the ten or so barber chairs are occupied.  One older man in suspenders is just leaving.  "You look handsome now,"  the boss says to him in passing.  His sparse hair is combed straight back from his forehead, and as he leaves he looks at himself in mirror and rubs his hand over his head.  No matter how busy or how many chairs are open, one of the barbers always says, "Have a seat."  And that's what the boss tells me now, even though all but one of the barber stations in unoccupied..  So I head towards the closest waiting chair, next to a stack of men's magazines.  But, before I can sit down, a young lady is standing in front of me asking, "You ready?"  She looks barely adolescent.  The pale flawless skin of her face, arms and shoulders says maybe sixteen, but probably not much more.  She has a round face and like everyone in the shop is smiling, the red bow of her lips drawn back over brilliantly white teeth. 

After I make my request for a trim, she sets to work with electric shears and comb, reducing a mop of my snow white hair to a pile of clippings that settle like milkweed into the indentation in the lap of the maroon barber's cape draped over me and the arms of the barber chair.  She is wearing a scoop neck sleeveless red and white striped pullover knit and tight jeans.  Just a hint of the mounds of her small breasts rise above the scooped neckline when she leans in with the clippers, in an unselfconscious, non-provocative display that I self-consciously avoid ogling.

The haircut, as has been the case with every haircut I have received at this shop, is efficient and a marked improvement over whatever overgrown rat's nest I bring in the door.  Truth be told, for most of the men who patronize these girls, the haircut is simply an excuse for what follows--a dollop of hot shaving cream and straight razor trim, then a hot towel draped over the head and neck, followed by a neck and head and shoulder massage that can last several minutes, depending on the press of waiting customers. 

I have been watching the only other customer in the shop during my haircut succumb to the charms of a massage.  He sits across from me and the young barber who is rubbing his neck and temples, his scalp and shoulders, wears 4-inch heels that should threaten her balance.  Despite her footwear, she works her client over like a lumberjack, kneading and gripping, at times putting her hands together in a prayer-like position and pounding his shoulders and back, from one side to the other and back again, with a loud pop every time the meat of the sides of her hands meets his body.  The client is a sturdy younger man in business attire--white shirt and tie, tan slacks and polished dark brown dress shoes.  His eyes are closed.  He is leaned forward in the chair and moves a bit in whatever direction the pressure of the barber's massage is directed.  The massage lasts all through my haircut.  When he finally rises to pay at the register he says, without being asked, "I'll be back every day."  The young lady barber smiles, in on the joke, although it may not be a joke.  "See you tomorrow,"  she replies.  

The girl in stiletto heels comes over and sits in the empty chair next to my barber.  The two begin to talk in the mesmerizing sing song of Vietnamese.  A hot towel is draped over my head and I close my eyes and allow firm small hands to rub away all tension in my temples and scalp, my neck and shoulders.  The hands are strong, applying just enough pressure to produce a lessening of whatever tension or strain I have stored in my muscles.  The conversation continues, although it takes on a different feel, which I sense in the hands of my barber, as she talks less and pauses in her movements several times before starting again.  Her responses to the monologue from her co-worker become single words.  She seems to get distracted a couple of times, rubbing the spot between my brows over and over and over, a kind of perseveration.  Then she switches to pulling her fingers across the ridges of my eyebrows from inside to out, almost as if she is lost in thought.  

The massage goes on far longer than I expect, what seems at least 10 minutes.  The conversation, which is mostly the sound of her colleague's voice, continues with few pauses.  I finally open my eyes and sit up straighter, and she grabs my shoulders like she is holding on to something that she didn't quite realize was there a second before.  She removes the cape and brushes me off a final time and we both walk the few steps to the register.

"I like hearing you talk together," I say to the young woman who has been holding up most of the conversation.  

"Do you understand us?" she asks.

"No," I say.  "You speak Vietnamese right?"

"Yes," she says.  I hand my credit card to the girl who has cut my hair.  She is still smiling in that distinctly oriental way that others have described as inscrutable.  "We were talking about my younger sister who died two years ago," says her friend.  

"I'm so sorry," I say.  And I am both sorry and feeling a bit like I've intruded into something personal.  "And her father just died two weeks ago," continues the friend.  I look back at the girl, who is focused on the pen and credit slip she hands me to sign.  All I can think to say is, "I'm sorry."  And I sign the slip, but add "Life can be hard."  

The girl looks directly at me, a flicker of something in her gaze.  Assent?  Annoyance?  Offense?  I can't tell.

"How long have you been here in the States?" I ask.

"Six years."

"Was your father here or in Vietnam?"

"In Vietnam," she says, still smiling bravely, but her eyes tear up and she has to reach up to wipe away a tiny stream of her grief that has trailed down one cheek.  

I hand her a tip, bigger than usual, and feel at a loss.  I want to step around the register and give her a granfatherly hug and the same for the other woman who has lost her younger sister.  I want to draw out of them with a human touch what they draw out of all of us who spend a few minutes under the healing strength of their hands.  But I know that no matter how much I am moved this is not possible and would be as much to relieve my own small sorrow as to comfort their great ones.  

Without thinking I bring my hands together in the prayer posture and bow slightly to each of them, like I learned in Nepal, the all-purpose gesture that can signify greeting or well-wishes or thanks and maybe even sympathy --the Namaste.  I leave with a weight of sadness on my shoulders.    

The Chieftans

A tin whistle takes you places.  At least it does me.  When I hear one, it transports me to a rocky island in the Irish Sea.  In the hands of a master, like Paddy Maloney of the Chieftans, the sound turns me into an Irishman.  Not in the cheap way St, Patrick's Day makes Irishmen of anyone looking to spend a few hours pounding Guiness beers and Old Bushmills shots.  It's a tad more spiritual and it comes and leaves without the pounding headache.

We were lucky enough to hear Paddy and the Chieftans at the Kennedy Center on Friday.  They have been around 50 years.  Quite an accomplishment for any band.  Outside it was a muggy east coast spring night.  But the humidity somehow evaporated and an imaginary chill set in--the icy tingle that goes up your spine on hearing the ballad of a lost love--when the first penny whistle notes flowed from Paddy's instrument.  And there we were, safe and warm in the confines of an Irish pub,  After Paddy's tin whistle came Kevin Coneff's brassy Irish tenor, then the husky cooing of Scottish lass Alyth McCormack.  The shouts and cheers after every song were like the encouragement of friends for their favorite village balladeers.  I could almost smell wet tweed and spilled beer by the time brothers Nathan and Jon Pilatzke broke into their Irish dance routine, a few numbers into the evening's festivities.

By the end of the night, people were up and dancing in the aisles.  To add to the homey, pub vibe, the Chieftans had invited local musicians to perform, including astronaut, Cacy Coleman (who took one of Paddy's tin whistles and one of Matt Molloy's flutes for a 95 million mile ride in the space shuttle); the Rockville High School bagpipe band; and a bevy of talented tousel-headed Irish dance school beauties (with two lucky lads in the mix).

Like everyone around me, I clapped and shouted along with the music and dance.  We were in the first balcony, so I resisted the urge to swan dive down to the orchestra level to join the conga line of Irish dancers during the night's final number.  But I didn't resist the urge to be an Irishman for an evening.  Made me want to book a pub tour of the Emerald Isle.

Mozart's Requiem at the National Cathedral

We do not expect to plumb the depths and scale the heights when we buy seats to a performance of Mozart's Requiem at the National Cathedral.  But, a mild version of that sort of adventure is what metaphorically takes place on a night that thankfully ends closer to heaven than hell.

Things start solidly in the benign column.  I decide to drive despite having sworn I would never be behind the wheel of any vehicle in the District, especially when forced to travel an unfamiliar route.  In this case, unfamiliar does not look difficult.  The route that pops up on Mapquest appears to be straightforward.  Seven miles from our front door to the concert venue.  Two major turns.  Long stretches on the same roads.  But the minute I make the first turn onto M Street in Georgetown off the Key Bridge, I remember why I do not drive in DC.

Traffic is moving at a funereal pace.  Appropriate, I concede, for the evening's entertainment.  I can feel my blood pressure rising.  Cars inch forward, crammed bumper to bumper in both directions.  The good citizens of early America did not plan the streets of Georgetown for 21st century Saturday night traffic and hordes of pedestrians on an early March evening.   Dodging oncoming cars and disoriented tourists, we surge through the intersection at Wisconsin Avenue, our second turn, and triumphantly come to a complete stop for what seems like five minutes while the driver of an SUV the size of a battleship learns to parallel park a block ahead.

Of course we arrive late.  Barb gets out to pick up our tickets from Will Call.  I seek a parking place in the Cathedral's underground garage.   The traffic, once I pay and enter, circles slowly down, level after level.  I do not see anyone parking.  Everyone creeps forward, hoping for an open space on the next lower level.   The spiral descent feels like a trip through Dante's hell, an unwelcome thought on the way to a reqiuem.  I expect to find Adolph Hitler playing gin rummy with Torquemada when we reach the bottom.  Instead, just before the dead end on the lowest level the line of cars in front of me comes to a complete stop.  A driver gets out of a car a couple of vehicles in front of mine and shouts out that there are no more spaces.  I somehow manage to turn around and am the first car to return to the entrance, where a security guard on hearing my sad tale directs me to a reserved area to the left and I park 30 feet away from a stairway to the Cathedral entrance.

Barb is waiting on the steps, alone, tickets in hand.  The concert has started.  Every seat in the nave and both outside aisles is occupied.  Our seats are in the south balcony, high above the transept looking down on the choir and orchestra.  Ushers direct us to a passage in the empty baptistry in one arm of the transept and we circle upwards, one dizzying step at a time, ascending a stone stairwell.  A vision of skeletons in a turret prison crosses my mind as we make what seems a fifth or sixth spiral.  When we finally emerge it is into a maze of doors and passageways.  We pick the most likely and thankfully emerge onto the balcony.  Peeking into my program I find the choir is performing Song of Wisdom by Charles Villiers Stanford, a short work for chorus and organ.  When it ends and the audience applauds, we are ushered to our seats.

The concert, we discover from the program, is in two parts.  The first features ten short choral pieces by familiar, unfamiliar (like Stanford), and unexpected composers.  Most appear to be sacred music.  Haydn, Vivaldi, Purcells, Handel and Mozart pieces all bear distinctive elements that a classical music buff could recognize and use to identify the composer.  I enjoy the trumpets in Handel's Let the bright seraphim.  One of the soloists, soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, has an especially clear and sweet voice.  A choral and organ number by Pablo Casals (the unexpected composer), titled Nigra sum, fills the vast cathedral with beautiful minor harmonies.

After intermission, the Requiem begins.  It features choir, orchestra and soloists--soprano Lamoreaux; mezzo soprano Julia Mintzer, a fiery-looking sylph with curly, auburn, waist-length hair; tenor, Eric Barry; and robust bass, Nathan Stark.  Program notes thankfully include librettos for all of the evening's music.  Since my Latin is as insubstantial as great Caesar's ghost, being able to read the English translation of each movement of the Requiem mass--which is in the church Latin of Mozart's day--adds a welcome dimension to my enjoyment of the piece.  Isn't it grand to live in the age of information?

I know, like every pop culture hound who has seen the movie Amadeus, that Mozart was working on the Requiem while on his own deathbed, and that the piece was only about half completed.  The movie version of events, with Salieri lurking in the vestibule, waiting to steal the composition and claim it as its own, I also know to be patently false.  But, I do not know the real, more interesting story until reading the program notes.

Mozart's wife, Constanze, was keenly aware that her husband's death presented complications.  Now he would be unable to finish the Requiem, which had been commissioned by Count Franz von Walsegg (who, like Salieri in the movie, was himself was a notorious thief of other composer's works).  Stanze needed payment from Walsegg to reduce the mountain of debt left her by her beloved.  But he would only pay for a completed piece.  She called on one of her husband's trusted colleagues, Joseph Eybler, to finish it using Mozart's remaining notes and fragments.  But, Eybler backed out quickly, so she instead recruited, Franz Xaver Sussmayr, one of Mozart's students, to finish the task.  Not only did Sussmayr complete the Requiem, he did it in handwriting so like Mozart's that he was able to forge his mentor's name on the final copy.  Constanze was no fool.  Saving a copy for herself, she accepted payment for the completed piece, then arranged for a public performance of the Requiem before Walsegg had a chance to claim it as his own.

I have been to dozens of classical concerts and admit to having slept through a few, especially when the conductor finds it necessary to stop between each movement to adjust his suspenders and polish his baton, while the orchestra retunes and the soloists gargle.  But in tonight's performance guest conductor Norman Scribner not only starts each section of the Requiem mass almost immediately after the previous one finishes, but also paces the music so that it feels, although somber, uplifting and almost joyous in places.

Knowing that Mozart's student had a hand in composing the second half of the Requiem, I listen for differences from the first. Most noticeable to my tin ear is the disparity in the complexity of musical lines intertwining with each other (referred to as contrapuntal by musicians).   Sussmayr's sections fit with the tone of the whole, but they are noticeably less complex.  A melody dominates.  The other musical lines provide a workman-like harmony.  Mozart's music, by contrast, playfully weaves together multiple voices and melodies in interesting harmonies.  That is the overall impression I am left with at the end of the concert--the pleasure of hearing music that, no matter how familiar, sounds fresh and interesting.  That is Mozart's gift.

When the concert ends, we descend a circular stairway and end up at a locked iron gate, peering helplessly out at the disassembling orchestra and choir.  We retrace our steps to the balcony and descend again in the right stairwell.  We find our car quickly in the garage and, since we are so close to the exit, manage to be one of the first to leave the Cathedral grounds.   The traffic moves smoothly.  The evening sky is clear.  It has been a glorious evening.  Despite the night's literal and metaphorical ups and downs and the fact that the Requiem is a musical reminder of our mortality, I feel almost refreshed, completely in harmony with things as they are, not as I wish them to be.

Nicaragua diary: Granada Poetry Festival

The Granada International Festival of Poetry ends with a parade.  It is scheduled to begin at 2:00 in the afternoon, but locals have told me not to plan on anything happening until around 4:00.

That's about the time I step out of the Hotel Granada onto the Calle de Calzada, the pedestrian mall which runs through downtown and ends in front of the hotel.  The large crowd on the hotel steps and across the street around the Iglesia Guadalupe is a mix of young and old, families and tourists, street vendors and shopkeepers.  They are watching a group of mostly younger men in motley dress dragging heavy chains along the cobblestone street.  I have no idea what they represent.  All are masked and wear multi-colored paper hats.  They are dressed in an assortment of shorts and jeans and cloths tied around their waists like skirts, some also in torn nylon stockings.  The clatter of their chains on pavement makes a menacing sound.

Several of the masked revelers wielding chains are lifting and slamming them on the street while leering into the crowd, daring anyone to reign in what suddenly feels to me like a real threat.  One of the masked men fakes a move toward a group of boys, as if he is going to bullwhip them.  They scream and scatter.

Then I notice that many of the chains are connected to a young man in the middle of the pack, who is being dragged and jerked along like a prisoner.  His face is shrouded in a hood, his eyes covered in a yellow blindfold.  He is suddenly yanked so hard his head bounces off the pavement.  He pulls himself limply to a sitting position before his legs are pulled from under him.  I think of the Penitentes, the self-flagellating believers who voluntarily whip themselves in empathy for Christ's suffering on the way to the cross.   Maybe this prisoner is also a volunteer who suffers gladly for some unknown cause.  When I look around I see families and even little children smiling and shouting, but my adrenaline has kicked in and I still am on edge as the chain gang passes.

 

The group comes to a tree at the final intersection of the street across from the Iglesia.  By now it feels like things have slipped out of control, beyond entertainment, as the shouts and chain clanging grow louder and more threatening.  One of the masked men throws his chain over a large branch of the tree and he is joined by a dozen others who begin to heave and pull.  The hooded victim is hoisted into the air, flailing and shouting in what sounds like pain and desperation.   But, no sooner is he lifted high off the ground, than he is set back down, and the group of about two dozen men gather around him to pull him to his feet, remove his hood, and disconnect their chains.

I find a friend and ask what is going on.  She says the chains and hanging are part of a ceremony that ritually brings the poetry festival to a close each year.  The hanging of the metaphorical poet enacts the cycle of the festival--the death of festivities for this year to make way for next year's event.  The Nicaraguans are like many cultures with large numbers of poor.  They do not welcome, but neither do they shy away from death and violence.  Like the Mexican Day of the Dead, the poetry festival deals with the end of things head on.

But not everything here is so ghoulish.  The parade to follow and what I know of Nicaraguans and poetry tell a far broader story of the people and their country.   There is a saying in Nicaragua that everyone is a poet until proven otherwise.  The annual Festival of Poetry in Granada proves, if not that, at least the fact that a wide range of people respect what poetry represents.  The sheer size and variety of people in the crowds who come every night to listen to poets read their works in the plaza shows how universally admired poets are, even by those we would call common folks.  They applaud and talk with each other about the poems and poets, most of whom they are hearing for the first and most likely only time.  This year, I find from a festival flyer, over 110 poets from 62 countries have come to read their work to these large, appreciative crowds.  Poets are in attendance from India, Malaysia, China, Iceland, the United States and every Spanish-speaking country in the hemisphere and beyond.  Nobel prize winning poet, Derek Wolcott, and Pulitzer prize winner, Robert Pinsky, are two of the featured participants.

Every year the festival celebrates a poet connected with Spanish-language poetry, and this year it is Carlos Martinez Riva, a Guatemalan-born writer who spent most of his life in Nicaragua and who is buried in the city of Granada.  One of his poems is titled, "Poesia es insurrección solitaria" (Poetry is solitary insurrection).  That sentiment is echoed by the crowds who line the parade route, when a float that heads the procession stops at every corner of the Calzada to allow a woman to shout it through the public address system.  And the crowd shouts back:  "Poesia es insurrección solitaria," with a vigor that says they totally approve of the sentiment.  I picture a similar event taking place in the U.S. and can see the switchboard at the local police station light up with alarmed calls for someone to "stop this civil disorder" (although in language hardly that calm or polite).

Following the poet's float are groups representing smaller communities in and around Granada, each dressed in elaborate hand-sewn costumes, and all dancing to the accompaniment of small local bands.  Minus the floats, it is like the Rose Bowl Parade of poetry.  A small group, less than a dozen boys, passes by in black face and Grim Reaper capes, a couple carrying homemade scythes.  Another group dressed in everyday clothes carries placards protesting the government's failure to provide school supplies.  But most groups are there to dance and sing and twirl about in beautiful, colorful dresses and costumes.

Many of the dancers are children, primarily girls but also groups of young men; all smile and wave to families as they pass.  Almost no one refuses my request for a photo, something I have experienced every time I visit the country.  There is an innocence and joy in the Nicaraguan people that neither years of civil war and foreign intervention, nor ruthless governments can extinguish.  Despite poverty and the political maneuverings of current President Daniel Ortega, these are people who love poetry, which is far better than loving wealth or power or order, although some may love those as well.

When I see the crowds, the color, the celebration; when I hear the music and words of the poets; when see what grows and thrives from humble roots--then I realize what this festival means.  Where there is poetry there is hope.  Where there is poetry there is humanity.  Where there is poetry there is steely determination to search for and champion what is just and compassionate and right.

¡Viva la poesia!  ¡Viva la insurrección! 

Nicaragua Diary: Empowerment International

"That's my new uncle," Francis, a bundle of bright-eyed energy, tells every kid she knows in the afternoon tutoring program at Empowerment International (EI).  This is news to me, although I know what she means.

Just ten minutes before, Anielka Gutierrez Mesa, EI's country director, introduced me and told the six-year-old first grader that I would be her "padrino."  That's the term EI uses to designate sponsors who help pay for school clothes, backpacks, school supplies and other expenses for children in their program.  My wife and I have sponsored several other children and I am used to being addressed as "padrino."  But, "tio" (uncle) is OK by me.

We are jammed into EI's office, a modest cinderblock building probably intended for a small family, but now housing dozens of rambunctious kids.  The afternoon heat is amplified in the close quarters, although no one seems to mind.  The noise level is high, but not so much that a conversational voice cannot be heard.

First through fifth graders who need extra help with academics come after school to work with older students, themselves graduates of the EI tutoring program.  Small groups sit on reed mats, called petates, in the enclosed dirt yard behind the office.  Others are in chairs or seated on the floor, leaning against walls in the narrow inner courtyard.  Even the porch entry space is in use, a blackboard on one wall full of math problems where one of the older tutors guides four younger students through solution steps.

I recognize many of the staff and tutors from previous visits and from our dinner last night at the home of Kathy Adams, founder of Empowerment.  Angelo is studying to be a pharmacist, but he manages the morning tutoring program as a way to pay back what EI has done for him.  Likewise, Anielka, who is the first of her family to graduate high school, teaches computer classes and leads the girls cycling club.  She is studying for the entrance exam for the top university in Nicaragua.  Melki leads the cycling club and tutors four days a week.  He is proud of finishing first in his class the previous year and proud of the responsibility he has assumed in helping to plan and oversee an annual fund-raising cycling tour around Lake Nicaragua.  All are engaged with kids, who look up to them for help and encouragement.


Margarita, currently a fourth-year psychology student, finished high school with EI's support.  Her family lives in the Barrio Esperanza where EI works with families and children.  She is now a member of the staff, providing counseling for parents, coordinating the women's center appointments,  helping to connect barrio residents with health care.  She also visits teachers in the barrio and in the nearby rural community of Santa Ana, where EI also has programs.

With Margarita as our guide, Francis and I and my friend, Morgan, walk through the barrio to meet her family.  She holds my hand and Margarita's, and we launch her over mud puddles and other obstacles in the rutted dirt lane which bisects the shanties on each side.  The homes are tin and adobe bricks, some nothing more than rudimentary shelters of scrap metal and wood, others of cinder block with carved wooden doors and metal shutters.

I ask Margarita about the newer homes.  She says those who can find work in Costa Rica sometimes can afford better building materials.  But why build here, I ask?  Because it is home, she says.

We stop at one of the rougher homes, enclosed by a three-strand barbed wire fence.  A tall woman stands in the doorway.  Margarita introduces her as Francis' mother, Giselle.   We exchange basic information, I ask a few questions.  How many children do you have?  Four.  The oldest is Francis, who is six.  I know from talking to Margarita earlier that her husband has troubles with drugs and violence.  She sighs as we talk, as if carrying a heavy burden.  After a few photos, we continue down the barrio lane.   I expect that Francis will now stay with her mother, but instead she comes bounding after us.  Her mom looks on in listless resignation.

Our next stop is at the home of Hildebrando Josue.  His mother is a housekeeper and his father a carpenter, and their home at the first intersection in the barrio has an adobe wall and metal gate.  The stuccoed walls are painted an aqua green.  The father is waiting at the gate.  His name is also Hildebrando and he invites us inside.  We find out that his son goes by Josue, to keep them straight.  His oldest daughter and her boyfriend are sitting in rocking chairs watching television.  Hildebrando senior is a lean, nut brown man, probably in his mid-40's.  He wears a white t-shirt and jeans.  He is a talker and I find out that he is unemployed.  What carpentry work there is in Granada is for remodeling, and owners bring in crews from Managua to do the work.

Hildebrando calls his son out of another room, and we sit in plastic chairs side by side trying to make conversation, which is hard for a boy of twelve with a father who likes to talk.  I know from letters we exchange that Josue thinks his two sisters are the smart ones in the family.  He is a good student, but dreams more of futbol than school work, I think.  His father brings out pictures of Josue's graduation from elementary school this past December--a significant event for children in poor families.  And he shows me photos of Josue's first communion.  We share stories about construction and jobs and fathers and church.  I give my little speech about being a teacher and knowing the importance of school in making a better life.  We take a few photos and move on.

Our final stop is at the home of Maria Dolores, who, Margarita informs me, now goes by Dolores.  She is a 6th grader who I have met before.  When I arrived at the EI office earlier in the afternoon, Kathy gave me a Valentine's card from Dolores.  It was a musical card that played a tinny version of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.  Her handwritten message inside makes me teary.  "I care for you and thank you for your great love, a gift to me.  You are like a father to me."  I had learned earlier that her father had been removed from the household by the authorities after several incidents of domestic violence.  Margarita said everyone, including Dolores, seemed much more relaxed and happy since that had occurred some time before Christmas.  The card was elaborate and must have cost a good deal, given the family's circumstances.  Her mother and family make petates, the simple reed mats I had seen in the EI office.  When I asked if her mother was at home, she said, no, that she was in Managua selling mats.


Dolores tells me she wants to be a doctor.  I start to say that any career in the medical field would be wonderful, thinking to temper her expectations, but I hold my comment.  Who am I to limit her dreams?  She has done well in school, she says, in voice that is so quiet and shy it is barely audible.  But, I know from talking to the EI staff that Dolores is emerging from her shell.  She recently joined the Cycling Club at EI and now rides with the group regularly.  Evidently she loves the long distance rides, something I try to tell her I appreciate as a former marathoner.  But, my Spanish is not entirely up to the task and we need to return to the office.  We take some pictures and hug, and I leave with heightened expectations for this fragile little girl with the big dreams who lives in the neighborhood of hope, Barrio Esperanza.

Empowerment International has performed miracles in this neighborhood and in a rural community, Santa Ana, about a half hour from Granada.  Over 90% of students in EI's programs stay in school, far above the national dropout rate that hovers around 50% by the end of secondary school.  By working with families, providing counseling and medical care and encouragement to keep their children in school, EI has achieved what few other programs even attempt.  And their tutoring program, which is now staffed entirely by older students and graduates--young adults who came from and still live in the barrio--provides the enrichment that public schools still often fail to deliver.  A photography club and cycling club have given a significant number of older kids the chance to develop skills and confidence from their participation.  Photos taken by EI students have sold at shows in Canada and the US.  Bike club members have placed among the top 3 in local races.  But no matter the level of skill, all participants stand tall, knowing something about how hard work and practice pay off.

To find out more about Empowerment International visit their [website].
A dollar a day sponsors a child for a year, and can be paid for in monthly installments.  [More info]

Nicaragua diary: Puedo Leer

Carol Rea has the no nonsense presence of an elementary school teacher, which she was in a previous life. Even in flip-flops, shorts, and a collarless shirt you can tell she means business.  She is animated as she talks about the lending library she helps run with local librarian, Ruth Zelaya, in Granada, Nicaragua, called Puedo Leer (I can read).  The group I am traveling with this year stops by the library at the suggestion of a friend, and we learn in a few minutes that accomplishing Puedo Leer's laudable mission--to bring a love of books to the children of Nicaragua--is not as easy as it sounds.

Carol tells us the story of a volunteer at the lending library, who rented a room in one of Granada's barrios during his stay.  He would often sit in his plastic lawn chair in the evening on the dirt porch, engrossed in a book.  One night a woman stopped to ask, "What version of the Bible are you reading?"  That a person would have access to any book other than a Bible was beyond her comprehension.

I understand what she means when she says that the poor people of this country do not see reading as integral to their lives.  In 2005 I spent a week in a remote village in the northern mountains of Nicaragua with the director of a Denver non-profit that had supported the community as it built its first two-room school.  We brought several duffels full of donated books and school supplies to help celebrate the school's inauguration.

When darkness came the first night, it arrived moonless, in inky blackness since the village had no electricity.  After dinner, we decided to  bring out a book to read to the children of the village leader, in whose shanty home we would unroll our sleeping bags each night.  Flashlight beaming, the kids gathered round to listen to us read.  We did what parents and teachers do without thinking in developed countries.   We read and paused to let the words sink in, talked about the pictures, asked kids questions, answered their questions when they weren't sure what was going on in the story, laughed and read the stories two, three, four, five times in a row at the children's squealing requests.

In the pitch darkness of the second night, while we were reading, I heard someone laugh from behind where Don Jose, our host, stood.  Shining the light in that direction and then around us, I saw a group of parents and kids who had come unannounced to listen and watch.  By the end of our visit, we were reading to a crowd every night, showing the pictures in a wide arc, fielding questions.  But, the reality of what would happen to the books after we left sunk in over the course of the week.  Only a few parents knew how to read themselves.  The teacher in the school, when asked to share a book with kids, put her nose in one of the books we brought and mumbled through in a dispassionate monotone, never pausing to show pictures or get the kids engaged.  Halfway through, the class of elementary kids was fidgeting, disinterested themselves.  It was not that these children and this community did not want to read.  It was more a matter of cultural and other long-standing attitudes that made it difficult for them to jump the hurdles to literacy.

As a retired teacher, Carol understands the joy of reading and the power it confers to the reader.  But, she did not settle immediately on books or libraries as her vehicle for doing good in her adopted home.  Like many ex-pats who retire to Nicaragua, she first taught English language learners.  Then, she met Donna Tabor, who runs several charitable enterprises in town, and local illustrator and author Luis Garay.  They had been working informally to put books in the hands of children.  Along with other friends, they had started a reading room in town, a place where children could sit down and hold a book.  But they knew immediately that this was not enough.   Books needed to be used more in schools.  They also needed to go home, so that families could begin to see what it meant to have reading as a part of everyday life.  The local public library in Granada was not the answer.  It served mostly university researchers and advanced students and was not in the business of building libraries in public schools.  It certainly was not a place where a child would go to find something to read.

In response to that need, a lending library was born.  Today Carol is showing us the small, airy, sunlit building into which the library recently moved.  The walls are lined with shelves of children's books.  Posters of people from all walks of life, all pictured with their nose in a book, adorn the walls.   The captions champion the same message.  Children read.  Parents read.  Babies read.  Policemen read.  It's a message that Puedo Leer now brings to an expanding audience.  After starting with a single reading room, their programs now include this lending library, an additional reading room, regular book deliveries to local and rural schools, mobile libraries, teacher training, and a Reading in the Park program.  But much remains to be done, Carol says, if she and her colleagues are to fulfill their mission.

Nicaraguans, for a variety of reasons, have little or no history with reading and libraries.  Although for young people aged 15-24 the literacy rate is around 85%, for the population as a whole it is only about 55%.   Nicaragua is the poorest country in Latin America, and many children do not finish secondary school, since they are needed at home to take on income generating jobs or help with childcare.  Their parents also are likely to have little or no formal schooling beyond the 5th grade.  And because books are expensive, most poor families own none.

Those statistics are slowly improving, but many visits to schools during my four trips to Nicaragua reinforce the notion that literacy does not necessarily equal a love of reading.  Children read and copy what teachers write on blackboards.  They read workbooks and complete lessons.  Having books in schools and training teachers in how to use them remains a persistent need.  Rural schools in particular, but many urban schools as well,  have no access to books of any kind beyond government issued workbooks.  The concept of a lending library in a school, stocked with books that kids might read for pleasure or that teachers might use to reinforce lessons, is as alien to most as to the lady in the barrio marveling that someone would be reading a book beside the Bible.

Puedo Leer is working to create small school libraries.   They have finally accumulated enough titles to be able to stock not only their lending library, but also a portable "bookcase" with 100 books in six local schools and two reading rooms.   The portable bookcases, called bibliotecaulas, are storage carts on wheels, that are specially constructed for six rural schools.  Evidently they seem to be getting used, as teachers report damage to the wheels from being pushed across uneven ground.  Puedo Leer is redesigning the carts and adding smaller bins so that teachers can carry books easily to their classrooms.  

To help teachers learn how to use books as a part of their instruction, Carol and Ruth designed a weekday training session that was initially supported by the Ministry of Education.  But that support was withdrawn and the sessions had to be moved to Saturdays, when teachers were no longer as eager to attend.  Now, thanks to donations,  Puedo Leer pays each attendee a small stipend of 100 cordobas (about $4.50) and more are participating in ongoing training.  Teachers still, though, are uncomfortable using books in the more informal, intimate style that engages kids, so follow-up with encouragement to change is needed, according to Carol.

Carol further explains Puedo Leer's Reading in the Park program, another way they are promoting better reading habits.  A local housemaid whose children are grown became aware of the lending library and volunteered to take a basket of books to the main square on Saturdays to read aloud to whomever was interested.  "At first," says Carol, "only a few kids and rarely an adult would venture over to ask a question or to pick up a book and look it over."  But now, a few months later, crowds gather in anticipation on Saturday.  Cony, the housemaid, now receives a small stipend as a reader and coordinator of the program.  Volunteers often join her to read.

"You know the program is a success," Carol admits, "when the occasional book disappears from the reading basket," although even these are almost always returned.

Much ground remains to be covered.  But Carol is optimistic, especially with support from local author Garay, and local staff in place, including Cony and Ruth, the librarian who runs the lending library.  Seeing a familiar face in charge helps ease people, who might otherwise be uncomfortable with libraries, through the front door for the first time.   Plus, putting programs in the hands of Nicaraguans gives them a better chance of becoming a part of community routine.

Puedo Leer continues to dream big.  They have plans for more bibliotecaulas in schools and reading rooms in additional communities, as well as for continued training of teachers.    To make these dreams come true, they depend on volunteers and the generosity of donors.  Learn more about Puedo Leer and how you can support their work:

• Information on the program at the Building New Hope website [here]
• A short video on Puedo Leer [here]
• Donate through PayPal on the Buildling New Hope [website].  Be sure to indicate that the donation is to be directed to Puedo Leer.

Nicaragua diary: The Sculptor

This is my fourth trip to Nicaragua.  My travel buddy, Morgan Smith, arranges for a driver to take us up into the mountains outside of Estili in the northern part of the country. Our objective:  to meet the reclusive, eccentric sculptor--Alberto Gutierrez--who lives somewhere in the Tisey nature reserve.

At 8:00 am sharp, Dagoberto shows up at our Estili hotel with his king cab Toyota Hi-lux pickup, ready to go.  We drive towards the south end of town and turn onto one of the thousands of dirt roads that link the tiny mountain villages of Nicaragua.  Dagoberto is a short, sturdy man of about 50 in a baseball cap and polo shirt.  He does not possess a volume control.  When he talks it is in full voice, like he is hailing an approaching ship on a foggy night at sea.  We learn soon enough that it is a useful voice on the windy hillsides of fincas, where voices must be heard by campesinos who are often away from the gate to their compounds.  

The road is rutted and rocky, dusty this time of year.  Dagoberto tells us dry is better than wet and slippery, like it becomes during the rainy season.  We pass groups of walkers, young and old.  It is Sunday and some look like they are walking off a late Saturday party, while others are headed into town to shop or attend mass.  We invite an ancient-looking couple to ride in the bed of the pickup.  The dessicated woman is carrying a cardboard square on a pole, with bread loaf-sized bags of cotton candy pinned to it.  Her companion is a short fellow who reminds me of a puppy waiting for someone to kick him.  When we drop them off and ask to take a picture, they are confused by the request.

They head off to a baseball field in a rocky meadow along the roadside.  Two uniformed teams and groups of fans are bunched along the chalked first and third base lines.  I notice an umpire is calling balls and strikes.  There isn't a single truly level place anywhere on the field.  The cotton candy treats will be gone before the day is over.

After some misdirection from a passerby we finally arrive at the gate that leads to the sculptor's property.  We are overlooking a stunning valley of farms and hillsides of oaks and shade tree coffee.  Many people live in the nature preserves, growing coffee and subsistence crops, herding a few cattle or goats, raising chickens and the occasional pig.  We stop at the first (and it turns out only) occupied farm along the road, and Dagoberto booms out a hello to ask if we are on the right path to see Alberto.  A man comes out from behind the main house to say we are.

We first walk downhill through browned grass and oak trees that remind me of California foothills.  Then we begin a steady climb towards a cloud forest.  A sign akin to something posted in a national park in the U. S. announces we have arrived at the Tisey reserve.  Two barking mutts form the welcoming committee.  The loudest and most threatening comes straight for me, stops at my feet, and then jumps up to put his paws on my stomach, nudging my hand for a pat on the head.

A thin older man in jeans and short-sleeved shirt wearing an over-sized ball cap comes down the path to greet us.  He identifies himself as the sculptor's brother.  He leads us up the hill into a complex of plain wooden huts and fenced-in gardens where an older woman greets us and introduces herself as Alberto's sister.  She shakes hands with each of us.  She is tall and thin, large-handed and loose-limbed, much like the man who emerges from a small shed-like building up the trail.  It is the sculptor--Alberto Gutierrez.

His leathery face is encased in a white beard and a bushy swab of white hair that waves about like a pulsating halo.  Deep-set eyes sparkle from behind massive white eyebrows.  He is wearing a threadbare shirt, the top 3 or 4 buttons undone.  His trousers are equally worn and soiled, a size too large, held up by a limp leather belt cinched tight.  His fly is half zipped.  His laceless hightop leather shoes appear softened by years of use.  Poet.  Artist.  Philosopher.  Ascetic.  Saint.  He could pose for a sculpture under any of those labels. 

Alberto introduces himself and motions us to follow him.  He shows us a stone along the pathway bearing a chiseled image he describes as a self-portrait, including his name inscribed below it, which he reads, running his fingers across the letters.   A large boulder bears the etched outline of a snake.  He shows us the chisels he uses to carve his work, made from pieces of rebar, and an elongated stone he employs as a hammer.   By way of demonstration, he chips a perfunctory bit of rock away to add detail to the boa on the boulder.  As we walk along, he points out other stones along the way, including a stele with the twin towers, in memoriam of September 11.  

We follow him up a narrowing path and along the side of a steep hill overlooking the vast valley below.   Here his art is carved out of rock outcroppings embedded in the hillside.   Everywhere there are images of animals--snakes, tigers, elephants, armadillos, eagles, even a camel.   Also prominent are biblical icons, and scenes depicting Nicaragua's history, including a carving of a large helicopter which likely flew above his land during the civil war.   We stop to take pictures and he walks on, reciting what he has shared many times for his thousands of visitors, pointing to symbols and reading the occasional words and dates that are interspersed with the tableau.  My guess is that he is barely literate, as the spellings and letter shapes vary from upper to lower case within words, and he "reads" these chiseled messages by running his fingers over the letters, like a blind man, reciting the content in a singsong voice.  

I begin to notice repeated images.  Crosses are either religious in intent or representative of the ordinal points of a compass.  He stops to assign a value to the four directions--sometimes geographic (accounting for Africa and North and South America in relation to Nicaragua), sometimes historical or chronological.  There are many self-portraits, all stylized versions of himself but with consistent features.  Hearts are placed in biblical and human sculptures.  A triangle outlines all references to Nicaragua.  

He stops part way and shows us rough hewn split logs that have been fashioned into benches.  Motioning for us to rest, he offers to recite a poem.  The whole impression is of a man who has developed, despite being cut off from the larger world for most of his life, a personal iconography--a set of symbols and images and recited poems that explain his understanding of what is important in this life.  He tells us that he has not been to Estili, the nearest town, since 2008.  But over 20 thousand visitors have brought the world to him over the 34 years that he claims to have worked on his sculptures.   

On our return walk he points out the hundreds of orchids and native plants in his "garden."  He is especially proud of his coffee and pineapple crops, and of other trees and shrubs given to him by visitors from abroad.  A small evergreen, a gift from a Japanese visitor, grows alongside native trees.  

We stop and sign his guest book and take a few more photos, and then he walks towards the gate to signal that our tour is over.  I leave feeling that I have met an exceptional man--a man whose disengagement from the broader world has given him the chance to patiently create art and poetry explaining everything, both real and imagined, that has touched his awareness.