Wet, wet, wet

Nicaragua is most certainly the place where the word ‘extremes’ was invented. Either it is so dry that your feet hurt when you walk on the dry grass in our garden – or it is so wet that the same lawn could be used for mud wrestling. As always in this country, it is either-or: Drought or inundation.
And so it started two nights ago. The winter. After six months of drought, the sky suddenly looked different. On the way back from office, a colleague even told me: “It looks like it is going to rain soon.” I couldn’t tell the difference, but took her word for it and started looking for flashlights, batteries, candles and matches when I got home. Rather safe than sorry.
Turned out to be a good idea. The thunder and lightning was far away in the beginning, but soon moved closer. As we were eating outside on the terrace, we had the entire show right before our eyes. Lightning was immediately followed by thunder – and before the sound had died away, a new lightning had occurred. Lightning followed lightning, and was then followed by more lightning. The street was lit up as during day, while rain poured down in cascades. We were beyond cats and dogs – rain in Nicaragua is more like elephants and giraffes.
The lights went off a couple of times, but always came back. Once again, thanks to our neighbour Hospital Metropolitano, which I believe is the reason why we have so few power cuts. Everybody else I’ve heard of lost electricity during the couple of hours that the thunderstorm lasted – and quite a few didn’t get it back until the following morning.
And then it all stopped. Our garden suddenly had a built-in pool, and all the dirt, leaves and the bit of trash that somebody had left on the street was gone. Managua looks so clean when the rain has passed, like if some giant hand has washed the entire city. That is… unless you live in one of the barrios downtown or some other place where all the water (and the trash) eventually ends up.
That is also the part of town where rain and winter isn’t just funny and fascinating, but also mortal. Because the winter did claim the first victim, a 12 year old girl who slipped in the rain, grabbed onto a wire hanging next to her, which unfortunately turned out to be a fallen, electrical cable, fainted and was carried away by the rain that had turned the street into a river. That is the part of the winter that hurts and why you actually have to take care and prepare your kids for whatever situation in this country.

Published by Christian Korsgaard

To have or to have not

A couple of nights ago, I took my dear wife to a concert with Guatemala singer and songwriter Ricardo Arjona in the national baseball stadium of Managua. An excellent concert that left me full of admiration of the magic Arjona performs with words. Only few manage to combine social indignation, voice, music and humble performance as he does. I recommend his newest cd – Adentro – and in case you speak Spanish, please pay special attention to the song Mojado, the Spanish word for the illegal immigrants crossing the border into the Promised Land up North, into the USA.
Maybe because the message from Arjona was so pro-poor and in favour of the underdogs, I was quite surprised by the clear-cut social division at the concert. Nicaragua is made up of those who have, and those who have not. Mostly, the two groups manage to stay apart, only sharing occasional and accidental encounters. The unofficial, but still rather evident borders and limits are drawn all over society, invisible to the outsider, but evident and acceptable to the insider. Here I can go, there I cannot.
But occasionally, the two groups happen to meet. The Arjona concert was such an occasion and once more Nicaragua proved to be the place where the unexpected takes place each and every day.
In any normal concert I would expect the happy mob, the crowd, the fans, the enthusiastic and fanatic to stand next to the stage, waving hands, throwing kisses and screaming.
Not so in Nicaragua. When you have paid 50 dollars to share white plastic chairs with the rest of those who have, then you expect to be separated from those who have not. So we got numbered seats right in front of the stage, far away from the ‘ordinary’ people who were confined behind two rows of metal fence, some 50 meters from the stage.
The result was a physical distance between the artist and the mob that in my understanding is a fundamental part of a live concert. It created an awkward situation because the rest of those who have, clearly expected me to remain seated in my white plastic chair - while Arjona and the music obviously expected me to get up and yell, clap and sing along.
But I am well-behaved and thus kept my butt in the chair, frustrated. When you are among those who have, do as they do. The few people, who tried to stand up, were quickly brought back to social reality by a girl next to us: “Sit down; you are not among those who pay to stand!”
Fortunately, even a couple of hundred ugly plastic chairs cannot stand the pressure of humans wanting to mingle, dance and be part of the show. So eventually – but only when the last song came up – it was okay for all of us to get up and get carried away. Which we did, thus erasing the social border a little bit.
Which basically once more proves that music is a powerful tool to bring people together.

Published by Christian Korsgaard