Where are My Interludes? (And Other Comparisons with India)
Yesterday afternoon I was walking down the street and decided to purchase a bunch of bananas. I got a dozen bananas for six cordobas, which comes out to like 2.5 cents per banana. Yeah, this is awesome.
So I began peeling my first one while I was walking home. And then misfortune befell me: my banana fell into a puddle. ¡Que rollo! I started laughing at myself and when I looked up again at the street I saw a lady chuckling along with me. This makes sense since dropping something, like falling down, is a universally comedic act. The lady was sitting on the crossbar of her husband´s bicycle and had witnessed the whole episode as he was peddling along. I immediately began to peel a second banana, and having this time completed the manuever successfully, I extended my arm, offering it to her. She gave me a broad smile and began laughing so hard that her husband had trouble stabilizing the bike.
It occurred to me later that this was the type of episode -- the small but infinitely pleasing encounters with strangers -- that made my 15 months in India so enjoyable. It is also the type of thing that I find has happened relatively infrequently here in Nicaragua so far.
I´ve found myself thinking a lot about India recently, and about how my experience here is different. I´ve been in Nicaragua less than a month, and I usually try to avoid making sweeping generalizations. But one of the biggest changes I´ve noticed, if I may be so bold, is that Indians are for the most part an uncommonly gregarious and curious people. For example, in the afternoons here I often like to go and sit in the park opposite the iglesia San Juan. I can sit on a bench and read undisturbed for an hour. If I tried to do that in India, I would last maybe four minutes before a group of 20 schoolchildren swarmed around me, jabbering away with a hundred questions. (I mentioned this to a friend here and she suggested that perhaps it´s because Nicaraguans are so used to Americans visiting, but really I must say that I´ve considered that and the response is just so completely different that doesn´t account for it.)
The truth is that while I rather enjoy having my privacy and being able to go out in public without being bothered, I miss the extreme sociability of India: A simple walk down the street (thrust into the midst of a masive procession to a temple), or ride on the bus (seranaded with Hindi love songs), or sitting in a restaurant (invited over to dinner at a family´s house) could bring me delightfully close to the people I was around. I suppose I needed India to crash through my reserved demeanor, and it just came through repeatedly on that score. It was just easier for me to meet people and make friends there. And it provided me with a wealth of small anecdotes -- I called them interludes -- which I suspect you enjoyed reading most. And I cherished these, for these were the moments that illuminated for me how we are all connected. (So if the stories on this blog start to feel lame by comparison, now you know why.)
Now it´s not that people in Nicaragua aren´t friendly to me. Of course they are. I love going for runs in the late afternoon and greeting the people that I pass along the way. Neighbors drag their rocking chairs to the thresholds of their homes and chat pleasantly while their children play in the street. But Nicaraguans are also more likely to leave me, as a foreigner, alone, or otherwise merely greet me respectfully. India for me was a 15 month in-your-face encounter with humanity. It startled me at first but then I couldn´t get enough of it. It´s funny how you can end up missing the things that once annoyed you.
To be fair, there are many things about Nicaragua (when compared with India) that I´m enjoying: Strangers are polite to each other, the streets are cleaner, and rickshaws don´t drive over your toes. And I do rather enjoy being out in public and just being a person and not an attraction. Of course in other ways, because they are both developing countries, I find living in Nicaragua and India to be rather similar: There are plenty of crowded bus rides and stalls with delicious street food and colorful markets and the faint scent of something burning and the hot feeling of humanity convulsing to loud music.
But I must admit there is in me sometimes a great longing for India. I miss the spicy food and I miss eating rice with my hands. I miss my friends and I miss the feeling of pulling up to my chess friends and having the kids run out to greet me. I miss the desert and the sensation of sitting in a village meeting. I miss all this and more--for the time I spent there was the most formative in my life. It was the place I came to as a young man, where I saw my ideals crushed like shattered orbs, where I saw the world starkly for all its beauty and sorrow and longed to know it still more. If I left India believing one thing, it was that to be human means to share with one another.
Recently, however, a good friend reminded me of the obvious: Nicaragua is not India. Nor should it be. I´ve only been here a month. And I need to give this place time to be itself. I´ve set goals for myself here: learning to speak Spanish, devoting a chunk of time to the projects in which I´m involved, traveling the country, making friends, and learning about the people and their culture. I need to give myself time to do that. And it will take time.
I love India, and I want understanding it and helping it to be a life-long project. But I know that I don´t need to be there right now. I know I´ll gain more if I return in a few years and can look at its changes with fresh eyes. And I´ve realized lately too that I want Nicaragua, and my presence in Latin America, to also become a life-long project. Currently, I´m limited by my language abilities and skill-set by what I can accomplish immediately. But I look at my time here as an investment, one that will yield sweeter fruits down the line.
Though on a daily basis I uncover fewer interludes, I know that this is where I am meant to be: discovering a new way of seeing in a new land.
So I began peeling my first one while I was walking home. And then misfortune befell me: my banana fell into a puddle. ¡Que rollo! I started laughing at myself and when I looked up again at the street I saw a lady chuckling along with me. This makes sense since dropping something, like falling down, is a universally comedic act. The lady was sitting on the crossbar of her husband´s bicycle and had witnessed the whole episode as he was peddling along. I immediately began to peel a second banana, and having this time completed the manuever successfully, I extended my arm, offering it to her. She gave me a broad smile and began laughing so hard that her husband had trouble stabilizing the bike.
It occurred to me later that this was the type of episode -- the small but infinitely pleasing encounters with strangers -- that made my 15 months in India so enjoyable. It is also the type of thing that I find has happened relatively infrequently here in Nicaragua so far.
I´ve found myself thinking a lot about India recently, and about how my experience here is different. I´ve been in Nicaragua less than a month, and I usually try to avoid making sweeping generalizations. But one of the biggest changes I´ve noticed, if I may be so bold, is that Indians are for the most part an uncommonly gregarious and curious people. For example, in the afternoons here I often like to go and sit in the park opposite the iglesia San Juan. I can sit on a bench and read undisturbed for an hour. If I tried to do that in India, I would last maybe four minutes before a group of 20 schoolchildren swarmed around me, jabbering away with a hundred questions. (I mentioned this to a friend here and she suggested that perhaps it´s because Nicaraguans are so used to Americans visiting, but really I must say that I´ve considered that and the response is just so completely different that doesn´t account for it.)
The truth is that while I rather enjoy having my privacy and being able to go out in public without being bothered, I miss the extreme sociability of India: A simple walk down the street (thrust into the midst of a masive procession to a temple), or ride on the bus (seranaded with Hindi love songs), or sitting in a restaurant (invited over to dinner at a family´s house) could bring me delightfully close to the people I was around. I suppose I needed India to crash through my reserved demeanor, and it just came through repeatedly on that score. It was just easier for me to meet people and make friends there. And it provided me with a wealth of small anecdotes -- I called them interludes -- which I suspect you enjoyed reading most. And I cherished these, for these were the moments that illuminated for me how we are all connected. (So if the stories on this blog start to feel lame by comparison, now you know why.)
Now it´s not that people in Nicaragua aren´t friendly to me. Of course they are. I love going for runs in the late afternoon and greeting the people that I pass along the way. Neighbors drag their rocking chairs to the thresholds of their homes and chat pleasantly while their children play in the street. But Nicaraguans are also more likely to leave me, as a foreigner, alone, or otherwise merely greet me respectfully. India for me was a 15 month in-your-face encounter with humanity. It startled me at first but then I couldn´t get enough of it. It´s funny how you can end up missing the things that once annoyed you.
To be fair, there are many things about Nicaragua (when compared with India) that I´m enjoying: Strangers are polite to each other, the streets are cleaner, and rickshaws don´t drive over your toes. And I do rather enjoy being out in public and just being a person and not an attraction. Of course in other ways, because they are both developing countries, I find living in Nicaragua and India to be rather similar: There are plenty of crowded bus rides and stalls with delicious street food and colorful markets and the faint scent of something burning and the hot feeling of humanity convulsing to loud music.
But I must admit there is in me sometimes a great longing for India. I miss the spicy food and I miss eating rice with my hands. I miss my friends and I miss the feeling of pulling up to my chess friends and having the kids run out to greet me. I miss the desert and the sensation of sitting in a village meeting. I miss all this and more--for the time I spent there was the most formative in my life. It was the place I came to as a young man, where I saw my ideals crushed like shattered orbs, where I saw the world starkly for all its beauty and sorrow and longed to know it still more. If I left India believing one thing, it was that to be human means to share with one another.
Recently, however, a good friend reminded me of the obvious: Nicaragua is not India. Nor should it be. I´ve only been here a month. And I need to give this place time to be itself. I´ve set goals for myself here: learning to speak Spanish, devoting a chunk of time to the projects in which I´m involved, traveling the country, making friends, and learning about the people and their culture. I need to give myself time to do that. And it will take time.
I love India, and I want understanding it and helping it to be a life-long project. But I know that I don´t need to be there right now. I know I´ll gain more if I return in a few years and can look at its changes with fresh eyes. And I´ve realized lately too that I want Nicaragua, and my presence in Latin America, to also become a life-long project. Currently, I´m limited by my language abilities and skill-set by what I can accomplish immediately. But I look at my time here as an investment, one that will yield sweeter fruits down the line.
Though on a daily basis I uncover fewer interludes, I know that this is where I am meant to be: discovering a new way of seeing in a new land.
posted by Hayden @ 12:00 PM
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