Melissa's Travels

Fiestas Patronales, Diriamba, Jan 19^th and 20^th 2007

All the time that I have been living in Nicaragua, I was always struck by how devoid the country seemed of a cultural history, in comparison to Mexico and Guatemala. I always assumed that this was mostly due to the fact that indigenous peoples on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua, were mostly wiped out or assimilated, and there are no present day indigenous communities of the Nahuatl speaking people (there are, of course, the indigenous Ramas and Miskito peoples on the Atlantic coast). Now, the Nahuatl speaking peoples of Central America were located from Mexico to Nicaragua and include such tribes as the Aztecs. Here in Nicaragua, the most prominent groups were the Nicarao and the Chontales. After attending the fiesta in Diriamba, I realize that there is a strong and vibrant connection with indigenous roots here in Nicaragua, it is just more hidden, and widely variable from region to region. Here in the north, the cowboy culture is much more common, with celebrations including mariachi bands, hipicos (horse parades), rodeos, etc. However, all the children do learn dances in schools and all Nicaraguans know the words to the most common national folk music.

But the celebration in Diriamba was the first time I had seen the grand mestizo celebrations that mix indigenous and Spanish culture. The highlight of this festival is the performance of El Gueguense, a play written by an unknown author in both Nahuatl and Spanish. The main story is of El Gueguense (in Nahuatl in means something like grumpy old man) and how he is detained with his two sons by the Spanish governor as he crosses land without permits. Through clever wordplay and deception, he gets off the hook and manages to marry off one of the governor’s daughters to his son. The most important part of the play is not the story, but rather the undertones of mockery the indigenous have for the Spanish lords, and of how El Gueguense uses the Spaniard’s stupidity about the Nahuatl culture and language to trick him. Now the whole play is 2 hours long, and only once during the festival do they perform the whole thing.

Santiagos day in Jan 20^th, but festivities have been going on for the whole week before that day. On the eve of the 19^th, San Sebastian meets up with hi buddies San Santiago of jinotepe and San Marcos of San Marcos at the road into town. They are all marched into Diriamba together, where they spend the night in the church, no doubt catching up and sharing a little gossip and a few tall tales. On this ngiht, everyone was crowded into the plaza to see the saints arrive and for the performance of Carlos Mejia Godoy y Los de Palacaguina and the fireworks display. This included a man who moved about the crowd, holding a Picasso version of a bulls head, all angles and stretched canvas, with rockets affixed to the points. He would stop at a place in the crowd, a signal rocket would go up, and the bulls head would explode in color and light, as the man danced around, terrifying and electrifying people in the crowd. Now and then crowd members would jump away in panic, pushing back into people in the crowd, in a panicked domino effect so that I feared a little of being trampled on. But it never got out of hand. Everyone was well behaved, and compared to Esteli, quite sober and polite. During the saints day (20^th), everyone seemed to be on good behavior, until the day after, when the hipico would begin. Nothing like horses to bring out the borrachos!

As the Dia de San Sebastian begins on the 20^th, everyone is gathered in the plaza in front of the cathedral. Little by little the groups of performers arrive, and as they do, they each set up their own small space within the crowd, so that within the mix of people, are holes where musicians and dancers perform. One group performs El Toro Huaco, where lines of costumed players from old to young snake back and forth, to the tune of drums and hand held shakers, in a slow rhythmic pattern, while another player holding a representation of a bull moves in counter movement to the dancers. All the players where tall peacock feather hats, painted wooden masks of European faces with blond hair and blue eyes, velvet capes, rainbow scarves hanging from their forearms and multi colored sequined panels on their trousers. This is apparently an intact traditional Nauhuatl dance, with costumes modified by contact with the Spaniards. Another group performs El Gueguense. There are many characters in this group. One part of the players wear peaked hats of many colors and mirrors, with the same European face masks. El Gueguense is a large man with a different mask, with black hair and a beard. There are two maidens, a princess, a prince, and a small boy dressed up as some type of official, all without masks. The other players have horse masks, painted black, with the most beautiful headdresses made of 20 or more long colored braids, topped with a short cropped mane-mohawk and roses or many colors. The braids and mohawks are made from dyed straw that comes from a palm and it is called PITA. The colors are red, yellow, blue, purple, bright pink, orange, and turquoise. The horses wear vests with colored beads across, like old fashioned watch chains. They dance in between parts of the play, to the tunes of a fife, drum, and again, the shakers. Then there is el Viejo y La Vieja, an old man with a cane, a wooden mask of a pale old face and a large cigar, who dances around wobbly and lecherous with the women in the crowd. His wife, La Vieja, is played by a man, fat, with hairy arms, an ugly face, and the largest bum you have ever laid eyes on. To the tune of the marimba group, she shakes it and dances with the old man until you think her bum is going to fly off into the crowd! Now in addition, there are at least 5 separate groups of dancers, each with their own costumes and musical groups, each performing different traditional dancers of the region. All these groups, playing at the same time, with the crowdmembers weaving in and out and about, in some kind or organized chaos, keep going for about 2 hours, until the main members file into the church for the special mass. Then amid deafening bell ringing and rocket firing, San Sebastian is brought out of the church, festooned in ribbons and all tarted up for his day out on the town. But what saint would want to take a day off without a few buddies to enjoy it with? So San Sebastian is joined by San Santiago and San Marcos, the patron saints of neighboring towns, and they are marched around the town, preceded by all of the groups mentioned before. In every barrio, the procession stops for a bit to perform their dances and acts, and there is much music playing and revelry. The whole thing takes about four hours. Now just to be fair I should mention that San Chago and San Marc are good friends, and invite San Chago to their shin-digs as well. The three musketeers of Nicaragua. Now the night ended with the most AMAZING performance by Balet Folklorico Nicaragua. Now, I have seen the Balet Folklorico of Mexico, and this was just as good if not better. Hopefully they will tour the states some more and you can see them. AMAZING! More than 12 different performances from all the different regions of Nicaragua, beautiful costumes. I really, REALLY finally got a taste of how diverse and interesting Nicaragua culture is, from the cowboy themed dances, to beautiful full white dresses and marimba music huarachos, to indigenous dances of the Miskito, to the sexually charged may pole dance of the slave descended Garifunas. It’s only a shame they don’t do more to promote it. And I don’t mean for tourism, but within their own communities. Instead of such fascination with reggeaton, if only every weekend there was a performance by local dance groups of something similar in the plazas. What they need is more money for the Ministry of Culture.

There were also a ton of food vendors, a carnival that made me think of a Stephen King novel (I’m sorry, the Ferris wheel did NOT look safe), and lots of rabble rousing and carousing and good fun. There were very few fights, and the whole thing was just lovely and fun. I could only stay for Friday and Saturday and left on Sunday, missing the big hipico and more cultural events and music groups that would perform Sunday night. I think they must celebrate for the entire month of January, since they were announcing all of the things that were scheduled. I give a lot of credit to the city council because the whole thing was really well organized and pleasant. HIGHLY recommended if you ever travel to Nicaragua. So much so that I am planning on going to see pretty much the same thing all over again (I guess some performances are different) in Jinotepe at the end of July. Its San Santiago’s day and he’ll team up with his buddies to tour that town. Maybe this time it will be less windy. Seriously, I always think of the south as hot, but since Diriamba and Jinotepe are up in the mountains a bit, there is a lot of wind, and in January, that means cold! Like 50 degrees cold, but when you only have capris and a little sweater, it feels freezing!

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MEXICO FLASHBACKS

When I think of my trip to Mexico and Guatemala in October, I think in imgaes, colors, scenes, and it is because of this that I mourn the loss of my camera and all of the photos. But then, perhaps, this is an opportunity to recapture what has become a lost art in current times: writing. And so, from time to time, as I am writing entries in this blog, I will enter in images as I remember them. The chronological order of the trip is not so important, but for those who are interested, it went like this: Three days on a bus from Nicaragua to Veracruz, ten days in Veracruz at a bird conference, a day on a bus to San Cristobal, Chiapas, five days in San Cristobal, five days traveling through Chiapas, five days in Guatemala, 2 days on a bus back to Nicaragua. And people of importance, for those of you whom it angers when I just mention names:

Ashley: old friend whom I met again at the bird conference. He taught me how to band birds in Louisiana in April of 2004. That site was completely decimated by Hurricane Katrina

Daniel: man I met in Veracruz, very nice, he is from a town nearby on the coast

Alex: tour guide and friend whom I met in San Cristobal. Originally from Monterrey

Alonso: archeoastromoner, part Mayan, part New Yorker, incredibly knowledgable of many things Mayan. And a good cook

Melanie: German girl I met while traveling in Guatemala. Invited me to Octoberfest where she promised to introduce me to a tall cute German

French-Canadian:FC for short. Also met him while traveling in Guatemala, but his name escapes me now- Sebastian? This is why I should write things down.

MIMES

The zocalo in Veracruz is very beautiful, a large plaza with a cathedral on one side, the government palace on another, one side is the street, and one side is all hotels with restaurants that put tables all along the outside, a wonderful place to sit and just watch the people pass. One day, after the end of the conference, I was walking along the zocalo,watching everything. Little street vendors selling cigars and candy, some with large bouquets of balloons and foams animals for children. Indian women setting up stalls where they would sell cloth, clothing, ceramics, and jewelry at inflated prices to Mexican and foreign tourists. I was walking, absorbed in my own thoughts, as I often do, when I began to realize that people were smiling at me. I was confused for a bit, until I realized I was being accompanied by a mime, a small balding man with a bit of a panza (belly). He was pretending to be my boyfriend, and I laughed right out loud when I saw him. I think he thought I looked sad. So we joked, silently of course, and then I went on my way. I sat in a café, watching the foot traffic, again those ubiquitous girls in party dresses, staring. I drank my café con leche, which, it is true, is the best I've ever had, when I realized something was going on in the plaza. I walked over and watched quite an impressive display of dancers, tall beautiful women in large yellow and white skirts, dancing to the music of live marimba, while the master of ceremonies described each dance before it took place. The men in impossibly white pants and shirts, with straw hats and yellow scarves, dancing that fast paced stompy tap dancing footwork that makes everyone applaud. Again, absorbed, taking films, when a man to my right spoke to me. It was the mime! I was surprised that he was vocal, but he informed me that he was off the clock. He spoke well good English, because he had lived in the states (who hasn't?). I think he tried to ask me out, but it was a confusing blend of teasing mixed with flirting. I suppose mimes aren't very suave when it comes to picking up women. With words, I mean. Maybe if he put himself inside an invisible box and pantomimed us having dinner I would have understood better. Or perhaps my English is now worse than my Spanish. Anyway, we did not end up going out, mainly because short bald men in stripey shirts with facepaint and white gloves don't appeal to me.

TIRES

I am walking down the street of a small dusty Guatemalan town, the streets full of very small people, the women in the most amazingly beautiful huipiles I have ever seen. Intricate, and I mean intricately embroidered white animals densely populating bands of green fields and black earth. I walked by a car repair shop, with its open garage facing the streets, oily bits of cars and dirty rags littering the floor. In front stood a man, leaning against a wall, grease stained clothes, smoking a cigarette, engaged in an animated conversation with a little old man sitting in a pile of tires. Sitting IN five tires stacked up, and he, like a miniature king on a throne, sitting such that his torso sat sticking erect from inside the tires, while his little legs splayed haphazardly out as well, as though someone had stuck a puppet in a cup. A wrinkled old man with coke bottle glasses, the gummy inward sucked lips that old men without teeth have, chattering away, waving his hands about, long and brown and hardened and angled and knobbed by years of hard work. He looked so comical to me, that I laughed, in spite of myself, at how sometimes life feels like a surrealist painting.

LANGUIDITY

Ashley and I are walking down streets, attempting to find the mythical alley where music is played live outside. We follow the strains of a mambo, and turn down a narrow alley, that opens up upon a small plaza, strung with lights and surrounded by tables chairs scattered without a sense of order. Across the plaza, up a few steps, to a concrete platform are six middle-aged men, framed by crumbling colonial walls. A band, a group of friends, playing with an ease and precision only seen in those who have played together a very long time. In the center dance the couples, slowly, gracefully, with an ease and precision seen only in those who have danced together a very long time. The music stops, and very carefully the couples return to their tables, chatting with each other and their neighbors. They sit, the men sip from their beers, the women open their fans and cool themselves. Only does it seems the break has begun when the music begins again, and with the same grace the couples put down their drinks, close their fans, and return to the center. Like a well orchestrated waltz, the pauses as much a part of the performance as the dancing. A single word comes to mind: languid. The air dense and humid. There is nothing rushed here. There is no sense of urgency, no looking about to see who is watching. It is not the planned display of bodies and skill that you see at hip discotecas. The dancers are immersed in the music, and in each other. And I think, it is not so bad to grow old, to enjoy the small things that life brings you, to still get dressed up, to still preen and flirt and show off, but with a confidence not seen in young people. As if, at the end of the night, the shell falls apart, and all that is left is the music and the touch of your partners hand. And then you see the solitary old men, still living in their youth, in flashy shirts open at the chest, maritime chains and charms of saints who guard sailors flashing amid the white hair. The wiggle, they prance, they entice lithe tanned tourist girls from the audience of watchers to dance with them. They try and teach the dance to the smiling girls, who are charming in their gracelessness. But then they are so amused with themselves these men, the proud bantam roosters of the night, that their bodies betray them, and they too dance to be seen more than they dance for the music. And I think, maybe we don't change that much as we grow old. Well, perhaps not men at least.

Snake Oil salesman

Literally. Well, not quite, since I guess he was selling snake POWDER. The point being that in a dusty plaza in a small Guatemalan town of Nabaj, a man stood, surrounded by a crowd, handling snakes. He proceeded to wrap them around his wrists, let them slither on the ground, batting them into place by tapping them with a stick. All the while spinning his web about the power of powdered snake venom. He placed the snakes in a bag, and brought out the product. His sales banter consisted of many dirty jokes. The audience was mainly old, small men, of indeterminable age, with young boys off all ages, poking in between the stoic adults. The older boys stood with arms crossed and one hip flung out in a cool detached manner, belied by their eyes on the snakes, apprehensive, mesmerized. The younger boys, all smiles and nervous energy, jittery movements between the legs of larger men. While the older men stood, as if they had seen this all before (as might well they had since it’s a weekly performance), weary, and afflicted. And if they bought the product, it would be because where there is pain, discomfort, and poverty, there is always hope that a miracle cure can be bought for less money than the pills at the pharmacy.

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hi all

well, i planned my trip to return to NY in time for a meeting on the 19th, to which no one showed up. Salt on the wound is that I had a very uncomfortable journey up to Sontule in the back of a pickup truck to be there. Now, the coffee picking has started so I can excuse the community members, but the organizations and universities signed copies of the invitations and still no show. bugger

anyway, I had great fun on the 21st, since Ana and Aracellis andKevin and I went around on horseback, delivering gifts to people. Some of them were things I bought, and some were the donations from Lucy's class, although I could not bring all of them. So picture me in a Santa hat, with 5 year old Kevin on a brown mare, with Ana and Ara on the white horse, with bags of presets, and Ara getting off the horse at the different houses and giving the gifts to the kids.

Ana and Ara and Isabel and Lesbia helped me for three hours the night before packing the gifts in paper. Just so you know, I used part of the money all my aunts and uncles gave me, plus some extra help from Aunt Joan to buy cute fleecy shirts for my immediate nica family and good friends (which is still like 25 people). I told them the gifts were from me and my family and they say THANKS!!

Lesbia had a little Xmas tree with ornaments she put up in Isabel's house, and Kevin washed all of his toy cars and put them under the tree. The night before last I p0ut their presents under the tree and after dinner we opened them. The cutest thing was that after everyone opened their gifts and looked at them, they very carefully packed them up in the paper again and put them under the tree because it looked so pretty. They all said they would unwrap them again after Christmas.

CHRISTMAS

So christmas here mainly centers on the 24th, with everyone gathering at a family house, you go to mass, stay up all night, and then there is a big buildup to midnight, when everyone celebrates the birth of christ, hug s and kisses, kind of like new years, and then there is a big dinner.

Well, I went to someones house for a little bit, and then went dancing at a really nice club all night. Its called Semaforo, Ive been there lots. Its a nice Rancho bar, which means its all outdoors, with thatch roofing and a big bar with a sort of western cowboy theme, a stage for live performances and a dance floor which is kind of small. We drank medios de Flor de Caña, where you get a bucket of ice, a cup of limes, a bottle of coke, and a half liter bottle of rum. Oh, and lots of cups to share. And i had tostones with cuajada which are twice fried plantains with farmers cheese. Yummy!

And so, like everyone else, I stayed up until 4am and spent oall of xmas day recovering. I went and had a nice lunch with Juanita and Leo, baby Zaira, and some of her friends

For the actualk night of the 24th, I went out with juanita, Leo, baby Zaira, Otoniel, Elizabeth, and Ervin, her boyfriend, to a discoteca. But its a rancho bar, so with a nice open area with tables under palapa, or thatched roofs. While the babay slept, we drank and danced the night away (well, no one drank too much, and Jane not at all, since shes breast feeding). At midnight everyone hugged and kissed, kind of like our new year

I hope you all have a very good holiday!!

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hi all

just wanted to let you know that I arrived safely in esteli. I went to a christmas fair (complete with selling of cows, bull riding, street food, and a disco) that was after the ipico. i missed the ipico, boo hoo.thats basicall where cowboys ride their horses in a big parade and the get drunk and people might get injured, but its fun!

my friedn picked me up from the airport, and i had my first cold shower, and it was chilly here last night and this mornin. deceber is cooler, like 60-70 degrees apparently

well, ill try to catch up on my blog soon, but I have to prep for a big meeting tomorrow

love
melissa

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