Thursday, August 24, 2006
DONT EAT THE SARDINES
There are times in life when you should be polite. And there in times in life when you must put aside politeness in order to do what is best for yourself or for the greater good. I was recently confronted with Duch a situation. I was aiting for my car to be fixed by the dad of the best friend of Otoniel, my mas o menos boyfriend. Now, Don Armando is a trustworthy fellow, but his way of fixing things is for you to wiat around so he can show you what he is doing and so you can go with him to buy parts. All in the name of transparency and good faith, but makes for quite a waste of time, which I have been doing a lot of recently (see next entry). Well, alter about half an tour, Armandos sweet wife Justa (Justita) sat down and starting talking to me (in metal chairs in the outdoor workshop). She had been making Armando lunch, which he never got to eat because I showed up at 1pm and he started working on my car. We went to get parts and when we got back around 3pm. Justa, with whom I had now covered the topics of deforestation, politics, and the status of my pregnant friend, asked if I had eaten lunch. Well, I had not, but I feel bad taking peoples food becuase well, I just do. So I said I ate at like 11am so I was not very hungry, and she insisted that I must be. She invited me into her humble ranchita, as she called their connected house, to eat. It was partly the way she said it, kind of shy, and embarrassed for me to see their house, yet wanting to extend the most hospitality she was able. She further dismissed the meal as nothing, just a bit of rice and beans. She asked me a bit if I was used to eating the food in the campo, and I heartily replied that I love eating rice and beans and eggs all the time. Its good, I love it. Which, although sometimos I do have intense cravings for super fried eggs and salty rice, is not entirely true. But what do you say to someone who so very much wants to share something with you? And she was very nice to sit and talk with me for two hours, and proceded to Chat with me for another 2 hours that remained in the never ending saga of repairing my car (sidebar-and here I thought owning a car would SAVE me time-hah!). Now, with my huge plate of rice and beans and eggs and two giant tortillas, she handed me the remote so I could watch tele. Out of politeness (here, not a bad mistake), I left it on the novelas, even though channel flipping revealed Seinfeld (the episode where George moves the frogger machine, a favorite of mine), in case she wished to join me.
Now, she returned into the kitchen and asked if I wanted sardines. The sardines that come in a can with spicy sauce. As much as I love tuna, there is something TOO fishy about sardines. Whats more, I had eaten them from a can 5 times or so and been sick twice. The odds were against me. I demurred, insisting that she had given me so much food already, there was no way I could eat it all. But she kind of held the can in her hand and looked at me, in a way the seemed to seek approval, and shyly said something about having gone to the pulpería to get them for me. Now here was a woman, the mother of a a good friend of my boyfreind, who had spent many a night at her house when the boys were young and both perfomrming with the church music group, who had pitied me, bored and waiting for my car, had taken it upon herself to Chat with me, and then, worried that I might be hungry during such a long wait offers me food. And, feeling that her humble meal was lacking, and this no doubt exacerbated by my existence as a gringa, and the girlfriend of her friends son, tp whom under other circumstances she would have liked to present a more delightful meal, offers sardines. How could I refuse? (this embarrasment over the inadequacy of the meal confirmed later by her describing the delicious chicken soup she made for her son last Sunday, and her asking me if I had tried a dish similar to nacatamales, and me having to quickly state that although it sounds lovely, I dont eat meat for fear of a second awkward dining experience). I took an aceptable amount, and ate with gusto. We chatted quite a bit more, from abortion to religion to her experiences during the war to birth control, and the relative dfifficulties of raising sons or daughters. Very interesting. Very Catholic, very anti abortion, but yet very in favor of birthcontrol. Anyway, upon my leaving, she apologized again for the long wait, and said she hoped it wasnt too boring, and I assured her that with good company and good food, time is never wasted (it was quite a good improved line I must say). And to them both I hoped thatat the next time we met it would be a social call, and not about the car. I resolved in my head to get some chilote or a chicken from the farm for them as a present, then rethought the chicken, because she would be compelled to cook it for me to eat. There is a strong Nica tendency to take any gift, and somehow turn it around and give it back in some way to the giver. But thats another story
The sad ending to my tale is that I am suffereing as we speak the consequences of eating sardines in a can out of politeness. Sick all of last night, but not to an extreme degree, and persists today with nausea and stomach cramps. This on top of having to stand in lines all day (see next blog). Well, off for now, to get some pepto and then go stand in line again. Just please, whatever you do, if you come to Nicaragua, dont eat the sardines in the can, even if dancning girls in hotpants are advertising them (see previous blog). They are bad. Very very bad. My tummy hurts
AN EXERCISE IN PATIENCE
we all hate the DMV, In fact, it could be said that going to the DMV is one of the most odious tasks to befall beleaguered Americans. Now, try to image going through the same process in Nicaragua. Feel the pain and pity me, oh yes, I deserve much pity.
DAY ONE AUGUST 21, 2006
Step 1-go to transit police and ask them what you need to do. Now, waietd at the windo (20min), Was helped by a nice emough policewoman who did her best to explain the process and even wrote down what I neede to do (more or less).
Step 2- Turns out car is registered in a different district, so I cant get new plates until she does a transfer. So I need to go to the bank and deposit Money for the transfer. While I am there she says, take advantage and make deposits for the other fees. Then I should go to the renta office and pay a tax, and then go to the alcaldía (city hall) and pay some other mysterious fee. Byut first I should pay at the bank and then come back so she can start working on the transfer, which takes half a day. So I goto the bank. We open the doors and it is a packed zoo of people. I waited for about 45minutes and moved not an inch. I decide it might be calmer after lunch, so we went to eat and then I go back while Oto is kind enough to run some errands for me.Now, the policewoman said that the deposit slips would be there at the bank. I found the only deposit slips that said POLICIA NACIONAL on them. I filled out five and waited in line (2hours). Then, when I presented he documents to the cashier woman, she said they wwere not the right ones. I told her that they were the only slips there. Now, she says to go talk to the woman sitting at a desk. Keep in mind theback is still a zoo, with multiple lines and people as confused as I am, because the keep going up to the tellers to find out which line to stand in, which makes the lines go very slow. So I head back to the woman at the desk, who is fully occupied in what looks like a complicated process and there are more people standing around her desk, implying some sort of line to talk to her. With my espert eye I look around and finally settle on an authoratative woman giving instructions to some other woman, and as their conversation closes I shove my way in with the ubiquitous "disculpe, pero si ud. Puede ayudarme" and my best pathetic look. I explain to ther my confusion, she reviews the deposit slips and says in the ubiquitous nica entre to bad news "fiajse...", these slip wont be in until tomorrow. But, I cry, I have waited here for more than two hours, and you are going to tell me I have to come back and wait again tomorrow just because you dont have a slip of paper? I mean, there must be something you can do, I need to have this done today or the police are going to fine me (total lie). So, she drafts another desk woman to fill out the slips, who hands the task to an underling who knows nothing, so we begin a painfully slow process of her filiing out one line, and then seeking her superior for verification For five slips (30minutes. SO back to the teller woman. I stick with the pushy tactic, and stand right be her window, other customers privacy be damned and hand her my slips. She finally attends me after it is done, only then tells me one slip is wrong. SO while she puts the others into the computer, I run off to do it right, and the come back, only to find irritated people in my place, thinking I had left. Well, I push through them to my spot, hwhere she is still processing my slips and hand her another one. I get dirty looks. But hey, everyone seems to either be getting or giving dirty looks. Or blank confused expression looks. And I get my receipts(15minutes)And I think about poor older campesinos coming to town to do therse things and feel bad for them.
Step three : So slips paid, back to the Transit police and wait for the nice policewoman (20minutes)To do the transfer, she needs some information filled out by this inspection polieman in a shack. Oto and I go there, papers in hand. We wait (30minutes). A nice woman asks us if I have insurance. I do not, and knowing that I Hill need to get it anyway, I follow her to her shack. Keep in mind, although the nice policewoman has griten down what I need to have, she was rather vague on the ORDER in which things need to be done. So it is now starting to become obviuous that it might be a game of waiting only to be rejected because you didnt have some necessary paper befote proceeding to this step.
So, I get insurance (45minutes), have to go make fotocopies(10minutes), finís insurance process(10minutes). Wait again by shack as inspection man does his thing. For fear I am in the wrong place, I stop him on one of his ventures from the shack, and say “I have to do a transfer”. He looks at me and says, ok, wait. As if to impla, yes, he can do this for me. Now meanwhile, people are all crowded around the shack, you dont know whose queued up and so people keep forcing their way into the shack and I am getting agitated like maybe I should be more forceful, is this the way things are done, or Hill I only piss him off because he already told me to wait. And you dont want to piss off a policeman. Especially not this one, who was clearly in a bad mood.So we wait (1 ½ hours). Finally, mean policeman asks us what we want. I repeat to him the vague instructions given to me by the policewoman, which were for him to fill out the inspection form to do the transfer. Now, I was pretty nuclear about why to do this, but so was Otoniel, so it wasnt my spanish. Nasty policeman asks for my papers, and when I show him what I have, he gets all annoyed. Starts almost yelling about how I dont have thr right papers, I need to do this and this and this, and why dont I read the sign, and I try and protest and say that the policewoman sent me, its for the transfer, but hes already started in on some other hapless souls, so I stand there with my papers and feel like crying. Otoniel says, okay, so lets go do the things this guy said. And I was like, no, wait, she sent us here for a reason. So back to policewoman who was outside chatting (the lights went out as part of the periodic rolling blackouts now standard in Esteli). We explain to her the problem, and so she finishes the paperwork she was doing and comes with us over to the shack. She is obviously a superior, because she explains to him what to do and he saya ok, but when she leaves, he continues to help everyone else but us first and finally gets another nice policeman to fill out our paperwork. We then drive rapdily over to the car inspection place, but they inform us at 4:45 it is too late t start an inspection since they close at 5pm.
And so ends day one in the saga of getting your car registered in nicaragua JUST DAY ONE, mind you from 10am-5pm.....the story continues....
">Link
There are times in life when you should be polite. And there in times in life when you must put aside politeness in order to do what is best for yourself or for the greater good. I was recently confronted with Duch a situation. I was aiting for my car to be fixed by the dad of the best friend of Otoniel, my mas o menos boyfriend. Now, Don Armando is a trustworthy fellow, but his way of fixing things is for you to wiat around so he can show you what he is doing and so you can go with him to buy parts. All in the name of transparency and good faith, but makes for quite a waste of time, which I have been doing a lot of recently (see next entry). Well, alter about half an tour, Armandos sweet wife Justa (Justita) sat down and starting talking to me (in metal chairs in the outdoor workshop). She had been making Armando lunch, which he never got to eat because I showed up at 1pm and he started working on my car. We went to get parts and when we got back around 3pm. Justa, with whom I had now covered the topics of deforestation, politics, and the status of my pregnant friend, asked if I had eaten lunch. Well, I had not, but I feel bad taking peoples food becuase well, I just do. So I said I ate at like 11am so I was not very hungry, and she insisted that I must be. She invited me into her humble ranchita, as she called their connected house, to eat. It was partly the way she said it, kind of shy, and embarrassed for me to see their house, yet wanting to extend the most hospitality she was able. She further dismissed the meal as nothing, just a bit of rice and beans. She asked me a bit if I was used to eating the food in the campo, and I heartily replied that I love eating rice and beans and eggs all the time. Its good, I love it. Which, although sometimos I do have intense cravings for super fried eggs and salty rice, is not entirely true. But what do you say to someone who so very much wants to share something with you? And she was very nice to sit and talk with me for two hours, and proceded to Chat with me for another 2 hours that remained in the never ending saga of repairing my car (sidebar-and here I thought owning a car would SAVE me time-hah!). Now, with my huge plate of rice and beans and eggs and two giant tortillas, she handed me the remote so I could watch tele. Out of politeness (here, not a bad mistake), I left it on the novelas, even though channel flipping revealed Seinfeld (the episode where George moves the frogger machine, a favorite of mine), in case she wished to join me.
Now, she returned into the kitchen and asked if I wanted sardines. The sardines that come in a can with spicy sauce. As much as I love tuna, there is something TOO fishy about sardines. Whats more, I had eaten them from a can 5 times or so and been sick twice. The odds were against me. I demurred, insisting that she had given me so much food already, there was no way I could eat it all. But she kind of held the can in her hand and looked at me, in a way the seemed to seek approval, and shyly said something about having gone to the pulpería to get them for me. Now here was a woman, the mother of a a good friend of my boyfreind, who had spent many a night at her house when the boys were young and both perfomrming with the church music group, who had pitied me, bored and waiting for my car, had taken it upon herself to Chat with me, and then, worried that I might be hungry during such a long wait offers me food. And, feeling that her humble meal was lacking, and this no doubt exacerbated by my existence as a gringa, and the girlfriend of her friends son, tp whom under other circumstances she would have liked to present a more delightful meal, offers sardines. How could I refuse? (this embarrasment over the inadequacy of the meal confirmed later by her describing the delicious chicken soup she made for her son last Sunday, and her asking me if I had tried a dish similar to nacatamales, and me having to quickly state that although it sounds lovely, I dont eat meat for fear of a second awkward dining experience). I took an aceptable amount, and ate with gusto. We chatted quite a bit more, from abortion to religion to her experiences during the war to birth control, and the relative dfifficulties of raising sons or daughters. Very interesting. Very Catholic, very anti abortion, but yet very in favor of birthcontrol. Anyway, upon my leaving, she apologized again for the long wait, and said she hoped it wasnt too boring, and I assured her that with good company and good food, time is never wasted (it was quite a good improved line I must say). And to them both I hoped thatat the next time we met it would be a social call, and not about the car. I resolved in my head to get some chilote or a chicken from the farm for them as a present, then rethought the chicken, because she would be compelled to cook it for me to eat. There is a strong Nica tendency to take any gift, and somehow turn it around and give it back in some way to the giver. But thats another story
The sad ending to my tale is that I am suffereing as we speak the consequences of eating sardines in a can out of politeness. Sick all of last night, but not to an extreme degree, and persists today with nausea and stomach cramps. This on top of having to stand in lines all day (see next blog). Well, off for now, to get some pepto and then go stand in line again. Just please, whatever you do, if you come to Nicaragua, dont eat the sardines in the can, even if dancning girls in hotpants are advertising them (see previous blog). They are bad. Very very bad. My tummy hurts
AN EXERCISE IN PATIENCE
we all hate the DMV, In fact, it could be said that going to the DMV is one of the most odious tasks to befall beleaguered Americans. Now, try to image going through the same process in Nicaragua. Feel the pain and pity me, oh yes, I deserve much pity.
DAY ONE AUGUST 21, 2006
Step 1-go to transit police and ask them what you need to do. Now, waietd at the windo (20min), Was helped by a nice emough policewoman who did her best to explain the process and even wrote down what I neede to do (more or less).
Step 2- Turns out car is registered in a different district, so I cant get new plates until she does a transfer. So I need to go to the bank and deposit Money for the transfer. While I am there she says, take advantage and make deposits for the other fees. Then I should go to the renta office and pay a tax, and then go to the alcaldía (city hall) and pay some other mysterious fee. Byut first I should pay at the bank and then come back so she can start working on the transfer, which takes half a day. So I goto the bank. We open the doors and it is a packed zoo of people. I waited for about 45minutes and moved not an inch. I decide it might be calmer after lunch, so we went to eat and then I go back while Oto is kind enough to run some errands for me.Now, the policewoman said that the deposit slips would be there at the bank. I found the only deposit slips that said POLICIA NACIONAL on them. I filled out five and waited in line (2hours). Then, when I presented he documents to the cashier woman, she said they wwere not the right ones. I told her that they were the only slips there. Now, she says to go talk to the woman sitting at a desk. Keep in mind theback is still a zoo, with multiple lines and people as confused as I am, because the keep going up to the tellers to find out which line to stand in, which makes the lines go very slow. So I head back to the woman at the desk, who is fully occupied in what looks like a complicated process and there are more people standing around her desk, implying some sort of line to talk to her. With my espert eye I look around and finally settle on an authoratative woman giving instructions to some other woman, and as their conversation closes I shove my way in with the ubiquitous "disculpe, pero si ud. Puede ayudarme" and my best pathetic look. I explain to ther my confusion, she reviews the deposit slips and says in the ubiquitous nica entre to bad news "fiajse...", these slip wont be in until tomorrow. But, I cry, I have waited here for more than two hours, and you are going to tell me I have to come back and wait again tomorrow just because you dont have a slip of paper? I mean, there must be something you can do, I need to have this done today or the police are going to fine me (total lie). So, she drafts another desk woman to fill out the slips, who hands the task to an underling who knows nothing, so we begin a painfully slow process of her filiing out one line, and then seeking her superior for verification For five slips (30minutes. SO back to the teller woman. I stick with the pushy tactic, and stand right be her window, other customers privacy be damned and hand her my slips. She finally attends me after it is done, only then tells me one slip is wrong. SO while she puts the others into the computer, I run off to do it right, and the come back, only to find irritated people in my place, thinking I had left. Well, I push through them to my spot, hwhere she is still processing my slips and hand her another one. I get dirty looks. But hey, everyone seems to either be getting or giving dirty looks. Or blank confused expression looks. And I get my receipts(15minutes)And I think about poor older campesinos coming to town to do therse things and feel bad for them.
Step three : So slips paid, back to the Transit police and wait for the nice policewoman (20minutes)To do the transfer, she needs some information filled out by this inspection polieman in a shack. Oto and I go there, papers in hand. We wait (30minutes). A nice woman asks us if I have insurance. I do not, and knowing that I Hill need to get it anyway, I follow her to her shack. Keep in mind, although the nice policewoman has griten down what I need to have, she was rather vague on the ORDER in which things need to be done. So it is now starting to become obviuous that it might be a game of waiting only to be rejected because you didnt have some necessary paper befote proceeding to this step.
So, I get insurance (45minutes), have to go make fotocopies(10minutes), finís insurance process(10minutes). Wait again by shack as inspection man does his thing. For fear I am in the wrong place, I stop him on one of his ventures from the shack, and say “I have to do a transfer”. He looks at me and says, ok, wait. As if to impla, yes, he can do this for me. Now meanwhile, people are all crowded around the shack, you dont know whose queued up and so people keep forcing their way into the shack and I am getting agitated like maybe I should be more forceful, is this the way things are done, or Hill I only piss him off because he already told me to wait. And you dont want to piss off a policeman. Especially not this one, who was clearly in a bad mood.So we wait (1 ½ hours). Finally, mean policeman asks us what we want. I repeat to him the vague instructions given to me by the policewoman, which were for him to fill out the inspection form to do the transfer. Now, I was pretty nuclear about why to do this, but so was Otoniel, so it wasnt my spanish. Nasty policeman asks for my papers, and when I show him what I have, he gets all annoyed. Starts almost yelling about how I dont have thr right papers, I need to do this and this and this, and why dont I read the sign, and I try and protest and say that the policewoman sent me, its for the transfer, but hes already started in on some other hapless souls, so I stand there with my papers and feel like crying. Otoniel says, okay, so lets go do the things this guy said. And I was like, no, wait, she sent us here for a reason. So back to policewoman who was outside chatting (the lights went out as part of the periodic rolling blackouts now standard in Esteli). We explain to her the problem, and so she finishes the paperwork she was doing and comes with us over to the shack. She is obviously a superior, because she explains to him what to do and he saya ok, but when she leaves, he continues to help everyone else but us first and finally gets another nice policeman to fill out our paperwork. We then drive rapdily over to the car inspection place, but they inform us at 4:45 it is too late t start an inspection since they close at 5pm.
And so ends day one in the saga of getting your car registered in nicaragua JUST DAY ONE, mind you from 10am-5pm.....the story continues....
">Link
