Dispatch from the Old Folks Compund: Culture Shock while Waiting for God

Six months ago Ms. B. and I became tired of home and personal maintenance, and so moved from Carrboro, North Carolina to Twin Lakes Community in Burlington, North Carolina.  (Technically we live and vote in Elon, North Carolina but the mailing address is Burlington, North Carolina.) 

We are a modern couple.  The cats and I live in a villa -- essentially one-third of a triplex with exits to the outside -- and she lives in a large apartment building.  We live less than a quarter mile apart.  She can come to visit Cedar and Birch but does not have to live with their mess.  They, in turn, have a lovely sunroom to bask in, their own private escape upstairs, and a cat tree that looks directly out onto the bird feeder.

For those who remember, some years ago there was a British sitcom that played on Public Television in the United States that was called "Waiting for God."  It was about retirees living in a retirement home and I found it very funny.  I never thought I would be living in it.  We are living in it.

Our friends, neighbors, and colleagues form an interesting, humorous, and sometimes annoying cast of characters.  The administration can be largely faceless and moves upon the face of the earth to its own rhythms.  The residents wave to each other, sometimes mindlessly.  We have the usual set, and more, of senior activities to keep us from becoming bored in our golden years.

The only real problem is Burlington, itself.  I don't think we realized what a culture shock it would be to move from progressive Chapel Hill/Carrboro to regressive Alamance County.  The nearest organic food stores are Weaver Street Market in Carrboro and Hillsboro, Whole Foods Market in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, or Whole Foods Market and Deep Roots Market in Greensboro.

Restaurants, too,  are a problem.  Twin Lakes Community has two restaurants and a pub.  Mediterranean Deli, which we liked in Chapel Hill, happily has a branch in Elon.  There's also a Thai restaurant of indeterminate quality and about three Vietnamese restaurants that I actually like.  For those less picky about their food, the Piedmont Ale House serves big greasy hamburgers and fries with good ale.

Beyond those, there are an uncountable number of strip malls on Church Street in Burlington which host endless Tex-Mex and Italian restaurants.  Every Chain restaurant in the country seems to have an outpost along I/40-I/85.  The final horror is the local purveyor of barbecue, Hursey's, that I will not even attempt to evaluate. They failed dismally in their Colorado taste test.

The good news, or at least the better news, has been medical care.  In Carrboro, I was completely dependent on UNC.  UNC Family Medicine, UNC Vascular and Heart Care, UNC Ophthalmology, etc.  I did have a private dentist.  Parking was difficult and sometimes expensive, there were long distances to walk, there were long waits to get doctor appointments, and the kind of confusion that surrounded a really large hospital complex and organization.

In Burlington, we have Alamance Regional Medical Center which is a 15-minute drive from Twin Lakes Community.  Parking is ample and free. Walking to the hospital is shorter,  and the whole medical complex is more compact (my urologist, cardiologists, and pulmonologist are in the same building.  I use the same elevator to get to them all.)  Waits for appointments are still long, but not as long as at UNC Hospitals.  ...and, of course, there's not the thirty-mile drive to Chapel Hill.  That has proved to be very important given my health situation since moving.

  

Historical Dispatch 03/13/2012 or Stalking Byron Cole

Since I came back from Nicaragua I have developed a kind of an obsession over Byron Cole.  If you remember, my middle name is Cole and Byron Cole, purportedly a San Francisco newspaperman, was the right-hand man of William Walker, a filibuster from Tennessee, who tried to take over Nicaragua and most of Central America.  A Nicaraguan immigration official saw my name and jokingly threatened to deport me.

I came home, curious to find if William Walker's Byron Cole was, in fact, a distant cousin of mine.  I have done some genealogy and am aware that I did have at least one relative by that name of approximately the correct age.

By all accounts, William Walker met Byron Cole in San Francisco in 1854 after he was tried (and acquitted)  of violating The Neutrality Act of 1794. In 1853 Walker had attempted to conquer the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California for the purpose of establishing the Republic of Sonora as a U.S. slave state.  After this failed expedition Walker, who had some newspaper experience, went to work for the San Francisco Commercial Advertiser, a short-lived newspaper (it ceased publication in 1854) of which Byron Cole was purportedly editor.

San Francisco -- 1852

Truth can be elusive.  Byron Cole is variously described in a number of places as a "New Englander" or a "wealthy San Francisco newspaperman" or "publisher" who had spent "some time" in Nicaragua and who convinced Walker that Nicaragua, then in a state of civil war, was ripe to be plucked as a U.S. slave state.  Attempting to track through records I get a somewhat less grand picture.

The California State Census of 1852 lists a Byron Cole in San Francisco.  He was a 23-year-old from Maine working as a "printer."  His last residence prior to this census is listed as Boston.   Assuming this is the correct person (there are two others) this establishes his nominal birthplace and sets his birth year at about 1829.   The 1850 Census has a B.F. Cole of the right age, also born in Maine, working the gold fields.   He is, at that point, only 21 years old.  I also found an entry in the Passenger Lists debarking in San Francisco in 1852 of a Byron Cole.

Route of the Nicaraguan Canal

I have a theory.  Prior to the construction of the Panama Canal the least expensive way from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast was across the Nicaraguan isthmus.  Ships would sail from New York City down the east coast, then up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua.  They would then unload at Rivas. Cargo and passengers would be taken by stagecoach across the rest of the isthmus to San Juan del Sur, loaded onto ships which would sail to San Francisco.  This trade route was exclusively contracted to the Accessory Trade Company owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt by the Nicaragua government in 1849.  Vanderbilt was also given the option to build a canal within 12 years.

I am inclined to believe that Byron Cole came to California as part of the California Gold Rush in 1849.   I suspect, like so many people who came west to "strike it rich," that he did not.  If he spent time in Nicaragua as a young man it may have been because he was working to earn his passage and went back after his gold dreams failed to pan out.  I see him as more opportunist than intelligence.  Surely he saw what Vanderbilt was doing, understood the instability of Nicaragua, and realized this was a way to become wealthy.

Gratefully, Walker's Byron Cole is not my ancestor.  My Cole line comes from New York, so I can still joke about it. The Nicaraguan canal was never built, partially because of the intervention of William Walker into Nicaraguan affairs.  Colonel Byron Cole was killed in the Battle of Hacienda San Jacinto on September 14, 1856 at age 27.

Painting of the Battle of Hacienda San Jacinto

Nicaragua Dispatch 2/24/2012 or Final Thoughts: In the Village the Mono Sleeps Tonight

I am in the Ecolodge pool overlooking Lake Nicaragua and the Volcan Concepciòn. The vultures are riding the updrafts from the Caribbean winds that sweep to the west across the lake, no doubt hoping for "Sopa de Turista." There is a gecko sunning itself on the rocks next to the pool, beneath the notice of the vultures but eying me warily as a potential predator. A couple of small parrots fly overhead chattering to each other about what is, no doubt, a domestic problem. It is, in a word, idyllic.

Actually, this happened about half an hour ago. I'm now by the side of the pool writing in the late afternoon sun as there is no way I would take the iPad into the pool. It was bad enough that I forgot and left my "water-resistant" watch on, though it is now drying out and seems to have survived the experience.

Nevertheless, it is idyllic. This part of Nicaragua is unspoiled, in both the good and bad senses of the word. To the good is that it is quiet, with not many people, and with a sense of not having yet been discovered, or having discovered itself. The people are friendly and tourists are not quite yet seen as the necessary evil they have come to be seen as in other parts of Latin America.

This morning Elia and I walked down the mile of bad road to the nearest village, which is little more than a crossing in the road with a few hand-made homes. On the way, we encountered a tribe of monocongos (howler monkeys) crossing the road. Their alpha male watched over them carefully and regarded me with some trepidation as if I could be a potential rival for his wives. I assured him I had enough difficulty with women in my life so that his mates weren't of interest to me but he chuckled a warning to me as if he weren't buying it. This is what Nicaragua can offer as a pure and innocent gift to the visitor.


On the other hand, the country is hard, and sometimes very depressing. Nicaragua is the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. It's a long way from the disaster of Haiti, but poverty is everywhere here and will not be hidden. These are people who, like the Palestinians, have been overrun by so many cultures that they no longer have a cultural identity clearly their own. There certainly is a national identity and national pride, but it isn't backed strongly by the continuity of history.

On the same stretch of bad road where Elia and I encountered the howler monkeys there were partially built houses and homes that seemed to be constructed from the flotsam of central American life. Atop many of these houses was the red satellite dish of Claro, the big Nicaraguan communications company. 

This is most likely my last post from Nicaragua. Tomorrow we head back to Granada and on Sunday I come back to North Carolina. Do I want to come back? Maybe. There's lots of the world to see and, at least for me, a dwindling number of years to see it. I would like to see what the Nicaraguans do with their country, whether they succumb to the wants of foreigners like me or chart their own future.

Nicaragua Dispatch 2/23/2012 or Ecoliving Means Living With the Ecology

This morning as I was about to take my shower (always a challenging experience in a facility run by solar power with a gas-fueled on-demand water heater designed to run as economically as possible) I picked up my backpack to find a very unhappy little scorpion. I was as unhappy to see him as he was to see me but we both kept our cool, and he kept his tail folded down, no doubt to save any wrath for a later and more serious encounter.

In truth, we were told that the scorpions here are not poisonous.  That doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt to be stung, however.  That looked to be a pretty serious stinger had he decided to deploy it.  Worse, the encounter would not only have hurt me but would probably have been fatal to the little scorpion.  He fled.  I put my backpack down elsewhere and we both hopefully went on with our daily activities.

There is flora and fauna aplenty here on the slopes of Maderas. I can hear the howler monkeys constantly. Sometimes they are close, though I haven't seen one yet.  We have been told that there are Capuchin monkeys further up the slopes of the volcano, but that it takes more than a bit of hiking to see them. The Urrucas are a constant -- chattering, carrying on, and showing off in the way of corvids.  While I do, in fact, miss the rustling and calling of the Grenadine bats and, in a way, the caterwauling of the feral cats there, I am not without nightly companionship.  There is a little Gecko in the room chirping sweetly for its mate (and not once has it talked to me with an Australian accent or tried to sell me insurance.)

At about 4:30am this morning, though, things really began to get serious. I heard, close to the cabin, "The thing that goes Wow! In the night." I have no idea what it might be, though my best is a frog of some kind. Its call started out with a low bass murmur which most of the time built up to a loud "wow!"   that sounded as if it were made by a breath intake.  After some exceptionally long buildup the "wow!" was followed by something that sounded like an arrow being released from a bow. Whatever made those sounds, I hope it attracted her.

This afternoon I found a spider the size of my hand behind the bathroom door. Again, I left it to its own devices, most likely to eat something that I'm sure I'd like much less than I liked the spider.  At lunch, thousands of tiny, tiny ants found their way onto the restaurant menu, no doubt to see what they could expect from the kitchen.  As yet, however, we have yet found the need to deploy the mosquito netting provided for our beds.

Vultures are riding the breezes that come from the Caribbean and sweep up the eastern windward slopes of the volcano. Whatever you think of vultures, they are amazing gliders and soarers. Several came into eye me while I was sitting out by the pool this morning.  I assured them, as loudly as possible,  that not only was I not dead, I had no intention of expiring any time in the near future and most certainly not before lunch.

Nicaragua Dispatch 02/22/2012 or At the End of This Part of the World

The sun is setting next to the Concepción Volcano and Howler Monkeys are calling further up the slopes of Maderas, the inactive volcano that hosts this part of Ometepe Island in Lake Colcibolca. Breezes rustle in trees inhabited by the local Urruca (spelling approximate) or Magpie Jay, a bird that looks like a cross between a blue jay and a magpie which wears a hat designed by Dr. Seuss just as a finishing touch. The "normal" 60-cycle hum of electronic life is absent, and its lack is vaguely disorienting.

We are at Topoco Ecolodge, an environmentally self-sustaining tourist facility about a third the way up the slope of Maderas. Power here is generated by solar cells, and all the toilets are composting toilets, or  the high-tech descendants of outhouses. Still, there is Internet service here, albeit slow, and even Wi-Fi. There is a bar where I can get Victoria or the dreaded Toña beer and there is a restaurant that serves meals which may be more healthy than good. We shall see, as any ohe high-tech descendants of outhouses. Still, there is Internet service here, albeit slow, and even Wi-Fi. There is a bar where I can get Victher eating establishment is a long way away starting by going down a mile or so of amazingly bad brick road.

We arrived here after a long ride from Granada to San Jorge along the Pan American Highway which despite the name is a two-lane paved road. San Jorge announced itself with a statue of San Jorge slaying the dragon at the city gates. Gustavo drove us to the port where several "launcitas" we're waiting to pick up passengers for the trip to Ometepe Island. It was a good thing we were waiting for the Ometepe Ferry because some of these boats looked barely capable of making the crossing without breaking up into the scrap lumber from which they were seemingly constructed.

After a time the Ometepe Ferry came into sight, lurching around in the heavy waves on the lake and I frankly worried about its seaworthiness. We made the crossing successfully while watching the Nicaraguan equivalent of MTV or VH1, but I was somewhat relieved to be picked up by Luis, our driver from the Ecolodge. Topoco was yet an hour away.

It's an interesting drive, sometimes beautiful and sometimes depressing -- a combination I've found to be typical of Nicaragua. Small horses, descendants of those the Spanish brought in colonial times, run free on the streets. There are also large goats on the streets that could vie for the jobs of the horses. Finally we turned off the main road, paved with flat cobblestones, and unto a road heading up the mountain that was built from cobblestones that were now strewn in impossible ways. Was it rough? If I needed a massage I don't now.

So now I'm at the end of the world, or at least this part of the world. The sun has set and I'm contemplating a Victoria at the restaurant about 200 feet away. The Urracas have gone to sleep but I hear unfamiliar calls from the trees. I think I'll miss my bats tonight.

Nicaragua Dispatch 2/21/2012 or ¿Where am I? -- bits and pieces

This morning Elia and I took off to see the Volcan Mombache that looms over Granada.  A bus from the tour company came to pick us up.  It was, surprisingly, full of ecotourists from Raleigh and Cary, North Carolina who had been to the finca in San Ramon (a sister city of Durham, NC.)  One of them even wore a cap with the insignia of the source of much evil in the universe -- Dook!  Did I come to Nicaragua to meet a Blue Debbil? I don't think so.

After the tour of the amazing cloud rain forest on Mombacho we came back to Granada and went shopping for dinner groceries.  It was my turn to cook dinner and my menu was chicken chipotle paprika, broccoli con sillion y pimientos negros and arroz con pimientos verdes. It all came out well in the end but shopping in a supermarket in an unfamiliar country can be a bit of a challenge.

The chicken broth Elia brought turned out to be a powder, so a Toña beer gave its life as liquid for the braised chicken. The pimientos verdes turned out to be pimientos verdes muy picante (as I found out unpleasantly when I bit into one) and so had to be seeded and demembraned before being cut up and put into the arroz integral before cooking.

Before going to the supermarket I needed to go to the cajero automatico (ATM) to get cash.  It offered me transactions in cordobas (the local currency) or dollars.  I chose dollars because I didn't want to have to do the exchange math in my head and I figured it would give me cordobas anyway. No such. I inserted my SunTrust card, asked for $200, and got 10 $20 bills from the cajero automatico.

As some know, the cats in Carrboro I live with are invisible cats. I'm the only one who sees them and even then only on the run. Last night as I was finishing up here and going to bed I walked through the kitchen and flushed a cat prowling through the garbage who ran in panic up the stairs and out across the roof.  I figured it had heard through the feline grapevine that I missed Charity, Joey, and Gedda and was just trying to make me feel at home!

We're off to Ometope tomorrow for three days at an Eco lodge I don't know what my connectivity will be so I may only be here on the flip side.

Nicaragua Dispatch 2/20/2012-1 or What's In and What's Out

One of the more curious aspects of Nicaraguan homes, at least to me, is the blurred distinction between what is inside and what is outside. Homes here, and in all of mezzoAmerica I suspect, are patterned on the Mediterranean model of an atria, or patio, with the home built around the central pool and garden.  Entry to the home is directly off the (often noisy and dirty) street through a gate into a more-or-less enclosed foyer. This room serves as a formal receiving room and also as a buffer from the noise and dirt.  It, I would say, is officially "inside."

Things become more blurred as one moves further into the house. The "living room," "dining room," "kitchen," pool and other common areas tend to be under an overhanging ceiling or eave and are partially open to the sky ("outside," though at least in this house it doesn't feel like it.)  Each of the guest bedrooms is enclosed ("inside") and a partially covered stairway that feels like "outside" leads up to an enclosed master bedroom suite ("inside.")

All of this is charming for us humans, and is an efficient design for houses in the tropics where heat and rain are real climatic factors.  It is, however, less clear to the normal denizens of the out-of-doors like bats, birds or cats. Sometimes this is charming as the sweet bird calls of the local Sonates enter the house unimpeded. There is also a mating pair of turtledoves that can be heard in the morning one of whom we found nesting in the back of the house.

This morning, too early however, I was awakened by the ferocious sounds of an all-out cat fight. On arising, we found cat fur on the stairs. Well, at least the mean time to failure for mice here is probably very short. I wonder how the bats in the ceiling regard these things.