My 2¢

Whenever I try to use my nascent Spanish-speaking skills,  I  break out into a sweat. My face turns red, and every single word I ever thought I knew, in English, Spanish or Urdu, simply seems to drain from my mind. In the past few days, though, I’ve noticed that I’m sweating a little less and speaking if not with more self-confidence then at least with less self-consciousness. I can order a meal, invite people to a party, and even craft the occasional (lame) joke in Spanish without feeling like a complete moron. So yay me for embracing the challenge of learning a new language even given my age and advanced states of aural and recollective crepitude (i.e., I can’t hear or remember too good.) And yay, especially, to  Synergy Spanish (www.synergyspanish.com) for making the effort easy and fun.

But this business of learning a language has put a couple of thoughts in my head. One pleases me greatly. The other, though it shouldn’t have, takes me completely by surprise.

The thought that pleases me is that even at my advanced age and states of whatever, I’m still willing to walk down this new road. I’m so afraid of my brain and philosophy getting stale that I’m thrilled every time I discover within myself evidence to the contrary. As I’ve often stated, my life’s goal is to move “directly from my arrested adolescence straight into my second childhood.” In learning Spanish, in emulating the comprehension levels of a four-year-old, then a six-year-old, then a ten-year-old, I think I’m keeping me young.

But here’s the other thing, the surprising and important thing: learning Spanish is bringing me closer, quicker, to the people, feelings and zeitgeist of Nicaragua; it’s hastening my process of going native. Like I said, I shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone knows that language is the window to culture. It defines and protects a culture. Just ask the French, who guard their language with the ferocity of a mama lion defending her cubs. Or ask the stateless Roma people — gypsies — for whom language is one of the critical adhesives yet holding that culture together. Or ask me; as Spanish creeps into my brain, I naturally view the place I’m in less as an outsider and more as a stakeholder.

The other other thing I’ve learned from studying Spanish is that I don’t have to be perfect. Even if I fumble, forget words or sweat, at least I’m making the effort, and those around me seem to value the effort, not just for the strategic attempt to improve our communication, but for the respect it shows. Me, I’m just thinking it’s about damn time. For all the times I’ve been to Nicaragua, I feel I’m way overdue in showing that particular respect. But it was perfectionism that held me back. I pride myself in having a mind that does some things exceedingly well. I can crack a story, for example, “with one lobe tied behind my brain.” But learning a language is such a beginner’s quest, so fraught with failure. The urgent need to do it as well as I do other brain things was really holding me back. Until I let it go. I reminded myself that perfectionism is the death of creativity; if we think we need to get a story or a script perfect, on the first try, we’re doomed to failure, because the need to be perfect will certainly keep us from ever getting underway. I had no idea that the same idea would hold true in learning Spanish, but there it was: Once I let go of my need to be perfect, everything got easier.

And I started to sweat less.

So now I’m on the verge of returning home (I fly back next Tuesday.) I’ll be in LA for five weeks, then right back here for another dance. I’ve no doubt that I’ll continue working on my Spanish while I’m home (I’ve got 30 more MP3s of Synergy Spanish, yay!) And I’ve no doubt that when I get back here, I’ll start sweating all over again.  But that’s okay, because the important thing is that I’m moving in the right direction, and the other important thing is that I’m still moving at all, with all the energy and enthusiasm of the arrested adolescent I am.

More later, -jv

I had a good Sunday, traveling to Granada and Masaya with my colleague German and his girlfriend, Yahoska. You see them pictured here, kicking off this post, because I promised German I’d get his picture in my blog and by way of apologizing in advance for no doubt butchering the spelling of Yahoska’s name.

Not a huge amount of time to throw this post together, and I’ve been having some serious technical issues related to integrating photos and text in my posts, so I’ll hit the high points, and hope that I can knit the whole thing together to my quirky software’s satisfaction.

First on the agenda was a boat trip from the shores of Granada to and through the offshore tiny islands (residue of an ancient volcanic hiccup, I’m told, that spewed hot lava throughout this corner of Lake Nicaragua). Motoring among the isletas on a little fiberglass launch was a bit like the Jungle Ride at Disneyland, absent the fake hippos. Though I’m told that Lake Nicaragua does contain some pretty hefty bull sharks, so passengers keep those hands and arms inside the boat at all times. High point of the voyage was a stop at one islet populated by capuchin monkeys like the one you see here, Lucy. They’re omnivorous and ravenous, these simians: they’ll eat anything and everything, up to and including your hat.

The central plaza of Granada features the usual assortment of craft and food vendors, plus something I’ve never seen before: indigenous roulette wheels or, more accurately, wheels of fortune (or even more accurately, wheels of misfortune). You can bet one of four numbers or one of four colors. As far as I could tell, the promised payoffs were astronomical, far in excess of the actual odds. This baffled me, for I know there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but German assures me that the wheels are gaffed (rigged, that is) and even if you win, you won’t. I hazarded two pesos just to justify taking the picture, but losing propositions really aren’t my cup of tea, so off we went.

Next stop:  the mercado in Masaya. Masaya is a folk art and craft nexus in Nicaragua, and though my first thought (after last weekend) was that I really didn’t need to see another mercado (after last weekend), I found this one to be much more to my taste. Not quite so frantic; more interesting things to look at. Faces especially.

I’m not much of an art buff. My view of art is strictly subjective (“Pretty picture – me like”) but every now and then I see something that just leaves me slackjawed in wonder.  I’m a little squeamish about posting this picture, for obvious reasons, but I’m pretty sure you’ve never seen anything like it before, and who am I to deny you a peek? The real question is, though, who volunteered to pose?

After a late late lunch at a restaurant over looking la Laguna de Masaya, we headed back to Managua, in time for me to post this post before catching up with evening obligations. My lagoon pictures are all pretty boring, so I’ll close this post with a parrot shot I caught on Lake Nicaragua.

Parrots. So much cuter than sharks. More later, -jv

I don’t generally devote my blog space to the creative output of others, but thank you Dr. Kauffman for shedding so informative a light on the pressing problems of the day.

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance.

The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, written by a US man, and posted on the Internet. It’s funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination … End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I’m confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan.

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education, University of Virginia.

PS: It would be a damn shame if we couldn’t own a Canadian.

Check it out thuswise.

I spent a big chunk of Sunday walking from my apartment to Mercado Roberto Huembes where — I’ll spare you the suspense — I managed to have removed from my person nothing of value, so chalk one up to the new, wareful (wary + careful) JV. The walk took about an hour, which I devoted, as I’m wont to do these days, to Spanish language lessons on my (new, replacing the one that got filched last week) MP3 player. These recordings crack me up a little, because the people in the dialogues seem to have an inordinate concern with finding a doctor, losing their passports, and traveling to Spain in the fall.

I made it to the mercado, and it was about what I expected: a dense, loud, hot agglomeration of products ranging from shoes to piñatas to pigs’ heads, of which, as promised, I’ll spare you the pictures.

If you want to find Managua’s social life on a Sunday, here it is: many people getting their hair cut, gossiping, joking, buying, selling, hanging out. Myself, I bought almost nothing. I wasn’t really there to shop but just to observe, absorb, and take pictures. I have a feeling that some of the images I stored (in my brain, not my camera) will come back to be useful in my work this week or next week or sometime. I think markets like this are kind of coral reefs of commerce. No one is making a lot of money, but everyone’s making a little, and it allows the economic ecosystem to survive and maybe even thrive a little and grow. Buying and selling to one another is the definition of bootstrap economy, and modeling techniques for bootstrap economy is one of the things our show is about. So yay me for doing my homework (and my other homework of learning Spanish, which turns out to be lots more fun than listening to music or books on tape while I walk).

Okay, pictures. Of  piñatas, toys, stray dogs, new products, food (note, food light), and a toy called the electronic knife gun. I don’t know what it is, but as you can see, there were a whole damn lot of them. So, there’s your quick spin through Mercado Roberto Huembes. If you really need a photo of a pig’s head, shoot me an email or leave a comment here, and I’ll see what I can do. More later, -jv

I now know what to buy myself for my birthday when it rolls around next month.

The bad news is it’s a replacement for my MP3 player that was PICKPOCKETED today at a festival parade in Managua. Can you believe it? I had it secured in one of my vest pockets, but they got it anyway, along with a little notebook and my CROSSWORD PUZZLE. Bastards! Stealing a man’s crossword puzzle!

So now the inglorious basterds have an awesome music collection they likely won’t appreciate, some Spanish language audio lessons they certainly don’t need, a notebook filled with illegible musings they probably can’t read, and a crossword puzzle they definitely can’t solve.  I can replace all the music and lessons (they’re on my computer) and the stuff in the notebook was really just drivel — it won’t make or break my memoirs. Nor did they get my money, phone or ID, which I had in a ZIPPERED secure vest pocket, or my camera, which was also well secured — well, as well secured as I thought my MP3 player was; though in fairness I was fairly careless with the puzzle.

You know, it’s funny: Everyone said, “Enjoy the parade, but watch out for pickpockets,” and I was all, “Yeah, right, no one’s gonna lay a finger on Johnny Traveler.” Well, they laid a finger on me. I guess it goes to show that you can never be too careful, even if you’re savvy Johnny Traveler. But the incident will definitely contribute to my growing sense of Managua paranoia. Perhaps you’ll remember the warning I heard, and related, during my last trip down: “In Managua, you’re never more than a ten minute walk from being killed.” Okay, this wasn’t that, but still…

I recently talked to a guy who got robbed near the airport while completing a (to my ears quite sketchy) transaction to purchase bulk quantities of gold. Okay, chalk him up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time by his own volition, but that’s $15,000 he’ll never see again.

Meanwhile, this past weekend, the tae kwon do instructor to one of my writers was drive-by shot to death. He’d been trying to help kids get out of gang life, and apparently the gangs didn’t like that. Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time? Of course not. He was just doing the wrong thing in the wrong guys’ eyes. He wasn’t trying to buy sketchy gold. He was trying to help people’s lives rise. And it got him killed.

Which makes, of course, getting pickpocketed quite minor by comparison. Still, it sucks. Sucks for me, but really sucks for people around here who have become accustomed to, and somewhat numbed to, the background noise of violence and violation in their lives. Imagine living in this constant state of condition red. How can anyone ever relax?Where I come from, people are trusted till they prove untrustworthy. Around here it’s the other way around, and that’s just spiritually taxing for everyone.

Meanwhile tonight I’m also thinking about my friends and colleagues in Moscow, who are enduring their seventh week of hellish heatwave, topped by peat fires and forest fires that have made the city’s air virtually unbreathable. (Perhaps you’ve seen photos of the new gas mask vogue.) Imagine being caught between that rock and hard place: If you don’t open your windows, you’ll fry, but if you do open them, you’ll choke. And trust me, the infrastructure of Moscow is not equipped to deal with fires on a large scale, nor provide relief on a large scale (air conditioners? Ha!)

It’s a hard world out there, and for those of you readers who don’t travel much, or don’t put yourself in (shouldn’t be) sketchy (but are) situations like Managua parades, let me tell you it’s harder than you imagine. I don’t mind losing an MP3 player, really. It’s just a thing, and things can be replaced (happy birthday to me). I mind the tincture of innocence I lost along with it, but I’m old enough to know not to carry that with me when I travel anyway. And I’m inspired to do two things. First, be more careful. Careful as I am, I’m not nearly careful enough. Second, keep working hard to improve things around here by “better living through television.” This can be a grim place. It’s certainly a poor place. A tough place to live. Taxing as hell for those who live here. It needs all the help it can get.

More later, -jv

part wan
part dew
part tree
part floor
part fire
part sex
part soften
part aid
part noun
part sten

The more things change the more they stay the same my ass.

If that were remotely true, I’d still look like this.

More (and less) later, -jv

Friday evening in Nicaragua. I’ve just finished watching the Red Sox play the demon Yankees on a Spanish-language feed, which meant that I understood about every fourth word (mostly “pelota” or ball) but could nevertheless follow, and profoundly enjoy, the Sox’s trouncing of the demon… well, you know.

In my mind, though, I’m suddenly back in 1998, on one of my first trips to Nicaragua, when I was just absolutely spellbound by Mark McGwire’s assault on Roger Maris’ home run record. He hit 70 that year, and Sammy Sosa hit 66 and — get this, because this is really the point — the thought that the two of them were juiced to the gills on steroids literally never crossed my mind. This was only twelve years ago. I was already 43 years old. Could I really have been so innocent? I had no business being so innocent.

Yet when I think of what Nicaragua was to me then — terra most formidably incognita — versus what it is now: a place I wear like a comfortable old shirt, I think to myself, yeah, well, I guess I was that innocent. Since that time I’ve been so many rocky places… your Romania, your Russia… and after all this time, and even at this late date, I think I’ve finally grown up some. I can handle; I can hang.

But I still watch baseball, though, and I still love it. I still care as passionately about the stupid Red Sox as I did in 1998. Moreover, I still have baseball in my blood, exactly as I did when I was eight years old. And that, I think, is why I never got it that McGwire was juiced: I watched him through an eight year old’s eyes. Of course the thought of steroids never crossed that child’s mind. How could it? That was a child’s mind.

Ah-ha, but it still is. I still have the mind of a child. It’s been layered over by a veneer of sophistication, but that’s just a veneer.  I’m still all wide-eyed innocence, love of baseball, and a heavy, heavy dose of WAINHDIGH (where am I now, how did I get here?) I may be more comfortable in Nicaragua, but I’m still spellbound. I’m spellbound by life no matter where I’m living it. Truth be told, I never have grown up.

Want evidence? I have it right here. I just dug up an old journal entry from one of my first trips to Nicaragua. Read it, and tell me if it doesn’t sound like me. I finally figured it out: I’ll go to my grave sounding like me. And I swear to God, as the last breath leaves my body, I’ll be thinking, “Where am I now? How did I get here?” More later, -jv

January 13, 1998

Tonight I am thinking about earthquakes.  It’s been 25 years since Managua was flattened by one, a big one, the kind of jolt that really makes news, though when it happened it was barely a blip on my radar.  How strong was it on yours?

Managua used to be a city.  There was a downtown, a locus, a place of reference, arrayed against the lake like any good city built to topography before the intervention of cars and reinforced steel.  One night in December, 1972, it all came down.  First it fell down, then it burned down.  Two earthquakes took it down, in the space of half an hour.  Don’t ask their magnitude.  Enough.  They were enough.

It’s common in Managua to see trash burning in small curbside piles.  Mostly it’s clippings; life is abundant with this much sun and rain.  It gives off a smell that makes you think of marijuana, if you don’t know the smell of marijuana very well.  The fires go out without intervention.  Wet clippings only burn so far.  What’s left is a circle of ash, as big around as a trashcan lid.  Gray and black ashes.  That’s how Managua must have looked from the air on the morning after the earthquake.  Roberto Clemente’s last sight.

At a certain point in my life, all I knew about Nicaragua was that baseball great Clemente died in a plane crash there, delivering earthquake relief.  The only other name I could vaguely connect with the place was Somoza, the dictator, presumed by us smug suburban high school seniors to be a bad guy, a CIA pawn, or a stake in the fence against communism, depending on your point of view.

Watergate was about to break; when it did, it made high school celebrities of my classmates Tom and Jodi Erlichmann, children of that right-hand man.  Exclusive of politics, I had a mad crush on Jodi Erlichmann.  If memory serves, I kissed her once.  And if memory doesn’t serve then what good is memory anyway?

Nicaragua never entered my mind.  Not until ’79, and then because of a song.

The Clash was a band I adored for a time, the closest I ever got to head banging in any serious way.  They sang a song called Sandinista, and I gleaned from context that it was about a revolution in, that’s right, Nicaragua.  When I heard that the revolution was successful I was happy, because I knew the song and I liked the band.  I was glad that a bad guy like Somosa was gone of (liberal) course, but mostly that a party with such a snappy name got to be boss.

To this day I confess a similar affection for the Shining Path guerrillas of Peru.  Sendero Luminoso.  What could be cooler than that?

I rooted for the Sandinistas.  Not as vigorously as I rooted against Reagan, but in both events with about as much impact as a sports fan watching a televised game.  I think I even rooted for the Sandinistas as a sports fan; Clemente had dug Nicaragua and that was good enough for me.

The next Nicaraguan word I learned was contra, and if I dig deep enough into my junk trove at home I’m sure I could find the “Oliver North, American Hero” button I picked up as a goof at the height of the arms-for-hostages uhm thing.

Sorry, I forgot, I have that here.  I brought it along as a goof.

I hate when people fight.  I’m a conflict-avoider from way back, and when the conflict involves loss of body parts or blood I’m especially opposed.  They finished that war, I seemed to be dimly aware, and that was fine with me.  I forgot all about Nicaragua.

So didn’t everyone.  With the end of the cold war, Nicaragua was no one’s client state, nor tourist destination, nor feed for the six o’clock news.  Maybe if they had another earthquake I’d have paid attention; in the meantime I learned the names Daniel Ortega and Violeta Chamorro in case I needed them on Jeopardy some day.

“Who were presidents of Nicaragua, Alex.”

“That’s correct.  Select again.”

“I’ll take ‘rhymes with Rendero Ruminoso’ for a thousand.”

Around that time I might have used “Managua” in a sitcom script.  I might have had some dim-bulb character’s mangling of Spanish lead to a farewell “Hasta Managua.”  I’m sure the line got cut.

A lot of lines got cut, including my line to that career, which led me to this career, which led to me going all over the world selling, not to put too laughable a point on it, the contents of my brain.  It’s not a bad job.  It brought me to Managua, a place I’d otherwise never have known better than a baseball card.

But how well can you really know a place you just visit? Even if you visit (can three trips in five months be called frequently?) frequently.  I know Nicaragua well enough to sympathize with it, though for the bogus reasons above I now realize that I always have.  Now I have worked here; now I have a stake.  It’s not a stake in a fence against anything, just a desire to give people… what?  Thoughtful TV?  Will that help?  Will it matter to me if it does?

Because my life is about the new thing, the next thing, I can be certain of one thing:  Sooner or later, Managua will fall off my map, replaced by other, even more exotic destinations.  I haven’t been to Africa yet, haven’t been to Eastern Europe.  Eventually I’ll trade in my frequent flyer miles for a proxy job, shopping my brain worldwide from the privacy of my very own home.  In the end this place will be nostalgia for me, something I mull in my emeritus years.

“Did I ever tell you kids about the time I made Nicaragua safe for situation comedy?  It’s a heck of a tale.  Let’s see, if memory serves, the fighting had just stopped.  And if memory doesn’t serve, then what good is memory anyhow?”

Or… maybe… it’s possible… there could always be another earthquake.  Wouldn’t it be ironic for a California boy to die in a Nicaragua earthquake?

In any event, the scars from the last one still haven’t healed.  They never rebuilt Managua, not in a skyscrapers sense of the word.  Rube tourists search futilely for this town’s downtown.  Instead, the city has spread, scattering government offices, banks and other enterprise all over.  Nothing’s next to anything here.

Maybe it’s a strategy to decentralize power, to make sure that Somoza-type bad guys don’t ever get back to be boss.  Of course, depending on who you talk to, Somoza-type bad guys already are boss, and if Managua never rebuilt, then Somoza-type bad guys are to blame.  Or the other guys are.  Depending on who you talk to.  Either way, Managua wanders in circles.

There was an earthquake.  It ripped up a city.  There was conflict over whether and how to rebuild, and the job never really quite got done.  Who got paid?  Who grabbed the aid?  Who knows?  While I was busy with punk music and “Charles in Charge” and Jodi Erlichmann’s kiss, Nicaragua stumbled through repression and war, CIA meddling, radical politics, poverty, inertia, and a thousand other aftershocks I can only dimly understand.  The earthquake happened a generation ago.  Its rumbles reverberate still.