Nicaragua Dispatch 2/20/2012-2 or Street Music, Street Animals, and Stuff

Somebody is having a birthday tonight.  It is 8:30 P.M. and what sounds from a distance like a Mariachi Band has been playing the Central American version of "Happy Birthday to You" endlessly.  Most of what I can hear are the trumpets, snare drums, and bass drums, which are more than sufficient. There have been no firemust go. The kids are ruworks,  but I am assured they will happen.  It just isn't an event in Nicaragua without fireworks.

Living in Nicaragua is living very close to your environment.  I've written about the bats and the cats and some of the birds but it goes further. The houses in Nicaragua are open to the air and the elements, so there is no escape from the realities of the neighborhood, both for good and for bad.

There are at least two roosters in the neighborhood somewhere behind our house who, before the crack of dawn, enjoin in intense crowing competitions. These must awaken the ghosts of hens long laid to rest. There is no end to this competition. it goes on for hours.  I fell back to sleep at about dawn and was awakened again at 7 am by them still going at it with unreserved abandon.  There is also a burro, somewhere, who frequently protests his plight to the donkey gods and an endless number of dogs protecting their property from potential invaders,  both real and imaginary.

During the day. street vendors ply their wares, loudly, not always taking no for an answer. They stop at each open gate, or seemingly so, and sing the seller's songs of "frutas," "pan," "dulces," and I am told even "vino."  Restaurants post guards or keep their front gates locked so as to keep the street vendors at more than arm's length from the clients.

The smells of the street are also always with you in Nicaragua.  Though the streets of Granada are clean by Central American standards there are still families who illegally burn garbage out-of-doors and there are still open sewers and street drains. To be fair, this is also the case in most parts of Latin America where I have been.  We, in the Estados Unidos, use our homes as a way to isolate ourselves from the reality of our neighbors and our environment.  I suspect that's something we inherited from our Dutch and German ancestors . Latin homes seem to embrace and become a part of their environment, their neighborhoods and their neighbors. This has both its good and bad sides.  The neighborhood is your barrio.   Your neighbors are vecinos.  You learn to know them well, sometimes better than you'd like. 

I need to leave. The kids are running up and down the street outside, setting off fireworks.

¡Feliz cumpleaños!, whoever you are.