My daily life here has
become ingrained; I’ve grown less observant as I’ve become more comfortable. As
is the case no matter where you are or what you are doing in life, you can
easily become wrapped into, and somehow lost in the daily routine—slowly or suddenly
losing perspective on all that is good, beautiful and to be grateful for.
Perspective regained, I am
newly aware of what a neat opportunity it is to live among these people (and
animals); in the coming year, I resolve, among other things, to remain a keen
observer. Here I attempt to take a step back and describe some of the finer,
forgotten details of everyday life here in El Riito.
By 5 a.m. women are in
motion. Their steps on the rock and dirt road can be heard heading to the molino (mill).
The old molino grinds in
the distance. As women return to their homes, daylight has graced us; awake and
out of my room, I see them pass with plastic buckets of ground corn upon their
heads. We greet one another. I begin to walk down the road, and what sounds like
a drumbeat emerges from each home I pass—women’s hands hitting and shaping
pieces of corn dough against the wooden table. Every woman has a particular
rhythm, and her style strikes me as instinctual: daughter does not palmear (palm) like mother. The sound of the drum-like
beat precedes the grainy smell of fresh tortillas. (In the afternoon, the smell
of toasting or roasting coffee beans fills the air.) Men by this hour are
marching off to the fields to work—machetes in hand, plastic fumigation tanks strapped
to their backs.
Women artfully use their
hands from dawn to dusk. Tortillas crafted, their hands move on, busily and nimbly skimming the milk and handling the rennet to form the cheese; de-graining frijoles or
selecting coffee beans; cooking on an open flame, their skin immune to minor
burns; or washing dishes and clothes. As they cook, my eyes are drawn
not to their hands but, hypnotically, to the flame. The smoke creates a
beautiful visual effect when caught by sunlight.
When they remove the
burning pot from the flames with their bare hands, my attention returns. It’s
incredible to watch: hands so productive and callused, yet so remarkably
graceful. A feature of every home, the lavadero (stone washing board where all dishes and clothes are cleaned), seems the appropriate
symbol of Nicaraguan women’s dexterity.
Herds of cows and the
occasional oxen cart carrying firewood constitute the bulk of the traffic
passing through. Neighbors pass, too. It’s an event when a truck or taxi
drives by, and when it does, people hear it coming and stare at it from entry to
exit, heads swiveling. The traffic of the homestead is busier than that of the
road: dogs roam, as chickens, ducks, roosters, and children waddle across the
porch and yard as if lost.
The slow pace of life and
lack of attention to time, date, and material objects; strange beliefs
accompanying somewhat pagan executions of Catholic prayer; the awesome
generosity; the simplicity—to me these embody the hallmarks of life here, and
all are challenging to fully appreciate. More broadly, I find it impossible to
imagine these people’s lives as their lives, and instead can only understand this life as a chapter in my
own.
For amas de casa (housewives), the kitchen is their temple. Women
of the older generation sit in their temples, spend the day there, watching the
world pass by (when they are not busy cooking, sweeping, or otherwise handling
their household). Just as some women rarely leave their kitchens, most people
rarely leave the limits of this very small community. And I sometimes wonder if
these limits are confines? The campo is the freest place you can be: physical and spatial freedom abound,
but social and geographical mobility are not easily accessible, and in some
cases not desired. I then question the morality of a world in which what to me
are confines, to many of El Riito’s
inhabitants are simply the extraordinarily narrow parameters of their everyday
lives.
Away from the lights of
any major city, the night sky here is crystal clear; stars overwhelm the black,
and the moon somehow seems bigger. I often find myself wishing I had a
telescope. I sometimes talk to my abuelo about the sky, the stars, outer space, men on the moon—mostly joint
speculation amid a shared sense of wonder, as I am no astronomer. At these
moments I am inspired by the perhaps dangerous, romantic idea that the worldly
parameters only divide us if I allow them to.
Does dwelling on divisions
separate us further? Does not paying
attention to boundaries help us transcend them? We must confront the
socioeconomic and historical structures that divide us, and respecting cultural
differences is vital. But to the extent that relating to local people is my
goal, ignoring boundaries seems a suitable strategy, at least to experiment
with.
Letting go of the
preoccupation with Riiteños’
limited map, at least momentarily, allows me to observe and appreciate a wealth
of small details that animate and enrich everyday life here,
which brings me to where I began: the mama hen, sitting in the open-air, campo kitchen, quietly and humbly protecting her eggs.
