It's time for some more...
Random Thoughts from Nicaragua
Yes, you guessed it, I'm back in Managua, doing some training for four new reps who have been hired to replace the reps who have left, and that has left me with some random thoughts.
1. I have failed as an Allen. Those of you who have a) known the whole Allen family, or b) been part of said family, will know that photography is very important to this particular clan.
I, on the other hand, forgot to bring even a disposable camera down here, much less our relatively nice digital one...and the worst part is that I'm not all that bothered by it...which makes me a traitor to the clan...or something.
2. Nicaragua, can be quite a cool place, once you get outside of Managua, which I did today. I went to a town called Masaya, to the big market there, and saw the countryside. It was cool (ok, it was about 27, or about 9,006 with the Humidex, but that's cool for here) and misty, and beautiful. We zoomed along the highway and saw volcanoes, and plantations, and little villages, oh, and lots of people hanging quite precariously off the back of Pick Up Trucks, but as they say, when in Rome...
3. Nicaragua, I beleive I have mentioned before, is a nation of poets and writers. I didn't really realize that, but there in the middle of Masaya, basically the Nicaraguan equivalent of a touristy knick knack market, was a booth of books. And not trashy used paperbacks, no, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Isabelle Allende, and the previously mentioned Ernesto Cardenal. I asked if they had any Cardenal translated in English, and he shook his head sadly no.
Then I asked if he had any Ruben Dario (the latino equivalent of Shakespeare), and I believe I caught most of the reply, which was "He is our national poet, we simply would not translate him out of Spanish."
So I left it at that. So while I would like to read some Dario, I think I'm going to have to look for translations in a nice quiet university bookstore...in Canada.
4. The food here, continues to be amazing. We went to the aptly named "Rosti Pollo" today (means, literally, "Roast Chicken"), and had amazing food. I have also discovered something important about the Diet Pepsi here. If you drink it straight from the can, it's awful - it has almost a Vanilla aftertaste, which is fine for some, but not for us addicts. You wouldn't see a pusher on the corner of Parliament and Gerrard pushing Hazelnut dusted Crank, or Swiss Chcolate Almond Smackaccinos, so don't mess with my Diet Pepsi. The discovery, though, is that if you put it over ice, it tastes like normal Diet Pepsi I'm used to.
Frankly, I'm at a loss to explain, and I figured it out quite by accident, and have been testing the theory ever since, with consistent results. Very odd.
5. Don Roger, the driver I mentioned at length before, has gotten in touch with his Inner MIG pilot (he used to fly MIG fighter jets for the Bulgarian Air Force (Ok, the Soviet Air Force in Bulgaria)). He now drives like he's flying a MIG. I made the horrific error of sitting in the front seat today. I think I aged three years. You know when someone's going way too fast for the comfort level of all inside the vehicle, when the truck goes to lane change, and everyone inside simultaneously shoulder checks...except the driver.
I'm sitting in the back from now on, preferably surrounded by pillows. I have to hand it to him though, he knows his vehicle like the back of his hand...exactly what it's capable of in all weather situations, and even though it's doing my heart a bit of damage, I know I'm safe. Hell, he may not be young enough to pilot a fighter jet anymore, but he's still got what it takes to do 80km/hr on a quiet side street filled with random suicidal j-walkers, and not have so much as a near miss.
6. More on Masaya. In the market today, I was fully prepared for the onslaught of pushy, aggressive market vendors...frankly what I've grown used to in markets in various neighborhoods in Toronto, where restaurant owners will see you looking at the menu, and come out side and stop just short of bodily dragging you in and duct taping you to a chair (i.e. Skylark in the Gerrard St Indian Bazaar in Toronto comes to mind), so when I got to Masaya, I expected the worst.
Well, I was shocked, to put it mildly. I went into a booth, and the very nice lady started talking to me about what she had to offer. I looked around, smiled and said "Gracias", and she said, and I quote, "Mucho Gracias."
That was it. No last minute offers, no price drops, no nothing. She smiled and followed me back to the entrance. I was stunned.
I have had Panhandlers in Montreal who were 100 times more aggressive than that.
I must be a fluke, I thought, but it was like they were telemarketing in a "no rebuttal" state (some states in the US have a 'no rebuttal' law, meaning that if a residential telemarketer calls you, once they have finished their pitch, if you say "I'm not interested", they are prohibited by law from saying "yeah, but..."). They'd make their best pitch, and when it didn't work, that was it...shake hands, walk away, no hard feelings.
I think, however, that it says something deeper about Nica culture. They are to a person the most incredibly polite people I have met. And I'm not just talking about people in the service business, I'm talking about colleagues at the call centre, I"m talking about students I trained...get this: After every class, last time, all the guys in the class would line up to shake my hand before they left, look very seriously into my eyes, and thank me for a good day. It was kind of wierd at first, but then I grew to really appreciate how much they appreciated me. By the end of the week it was a big old mutual admiration society...I expect more of the same this week.
I think the whole concept of being pushy 'hawkers' is just not on the radar. Now, I'm sure in the famous Mercado Oriental things would be a bit different, but I don't know if they would ever be as bad as some of the market and street vendors I have seen in parts of Toronto.
So I officially like it here. And although I can take or leave the city of Managua, I think the people of Nicaragua have wormed their way into my heart in a way I didn't quite expect.
Oh, and I bought Isaac a Xylophone. How cool is that?
Random Thoughts from Nicaragua
Yes, you guessed it, I'm back in Managua, doing some training for four new reps who have been hired to replace the reps who have left, and that has left me with some random thoughts.
1. I have failed as an Allen. Those of you who have a) known the whole Allen family, or b) been part of said family, will know that photography is very important to this particular clan.
I, on the other hand, forgot to bring even a disposable camera down here, much less our relatively nice digital one...and the worst part is that I'm not all that bothered by it...which makes me a traitor to the clan...or something.
2. Nicaragua, can be quite a cool place, once you get outside of Managua, which I did today. I went to a town called Masaya, to the big market there, and saw the countryside. It was cool (ok, it was about 27, or about 9,006 with the Humidex, but that's cool for here) and misty, and beautiful. We zoomed along the highway and saw volcanoes, and plantations, and little villages, oh, and lots of people hanging quite precariously off the back of Pick Up Trucks, but as they say, when in Rome...
3. Nicaragua, I beleive I have mentioned before, is a nation of poets and writers. I didn't really realize that, but there in the middle of Masaya, basically the Nicaraguan equivalent of a touristy knick knack market, was a booth of books. And not trashy used paperbacks, no, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Isabelle Allende, and the previously mentioned Ernesto Cardenal. I asked if they had any Cardenal translated in English, and he shook his head sadly no.
Then I asked if he had any Ruben Dario (the latino equivalent of Shakespeare), and I believe I caught most of the reply, which was "He is our national poet, we simply would not translate him out of Spanish."
So I left it at that. So while I would like to read some Dario, I think I'm going to have to look for translations in a nice quiet university bookstore...in Canada.
4. The food here, continues to be amazing. We went to the aptly named "Rosti Pollo" today (means, literally, "Roast Chicken"), and had amazing food. I have also discovered something important about the Diet Pepsi here. If you drink it straight from the can, it's awful - it has almost a Vanilla aftertaste, which is fine for some, but not for us addicts. You wouldn't see a pusher on the corner of Parliament and Gerrard pushing Hazelnut dusted Crank, or Swiss Chcolate Almond Smackaccinos, so don't mess with my Diet Pepsi. The discovery, though, is that if you put it over ice, it tastes like normal Diet Pepsi I'm used to.
Frankly, I'm at a loss to explain, and I figured it out quite by accident, and have been testing the theory ever since, with consistent results. Very odd.
5. Don Roger, the driver I mentioned at length before, has gotten in touch with his Inner MIG pilot (he used to fly MIG fighter jets for the Bulgarian Air Force (Ok, the Soviet Air Force in Bulgaria)). He now drives like he's flying a MIG. I made the horrific error of sitting in the front seat today. I think I aged three years. You know when someone's going way too fast for the comfort level of all inside the vehicle, when the truck goes to lane change, and everyone inside simultaneously shoulder checks...except the driver.
I'm sitting in the back from now on, preferably surrounded by pillows. I have to hand it to him though, he knows his vehicle like the back of his hand...exactly what it's capable of in all weather situations, and even though it's doing my heart a bit of damage, I know I'm safe. Hell, he may not be young enough to pilot a fighter jet anymore, but he's still got what it takes to do 80km/hr on a quiet side street filled with random suicidal j-walkers, and not have so much as a near miss.
6. More on Masaya. In the market today, I was fully prepared for the onslaught of pushy, aggressive market vendors...frankly what I've grown used to in markets in various neighborhoods in Toronto, where restaurant owners will see you looking at the menu, and come out side and stop just short of bodily dragging you in and duct taping you to a chair (i.e. Skylark in the Gerrard St Indian Bazaar in Toronto comes to mind), so when I got to Masaya, I expected the worst.
Well, I was shocked, to put it mildly. I went into a booth, and the very nice lady started talking to me about what she had to offer. I looked around, smiled and said "Gracias", and she said, and I quote, "Mucho Gracias."
That was it. No last minute offers, no price drops, no nothing. She smiled and followed me back to the entrance. I was stunned.
I have had Panhandlers in Montreal who were 100 times more aggressive than that.
I must be a fluke, I thought, but it was like they were telemarketing in a "no rebuttal" state (some states in the US have a 'no rebuttal' law, meaning that if a residential telemarketer calls you, once they have finished their pitch, if you say "I'm not interested", they are prohibited by law from saying "yeah, but..."). They'd make their best pitch, and when it didn't work, that was it...shake hands, walk away, no hard feelings.
I think, however, that it says something deeper about Nica culture. They are to a person the most incredibly polite people I have met. And I'm not just talking about people in the service business, I'm talking about colleagues at the call centre, I"m talking about students I trained...get this: After every class, last time, all the guys in the class would line up to shake my hand before they left, look very seriously into my eyes, and thank me for a good day. It was kind of wierd at first, but then I grew to really appreciate how much they appreciated me. By the end of the week it was a big old mutual admiration society...I expect more of the same this week.
I think the whole concept of being pushy 'hawkers' is just not on the radar. Now, I'm sure in the famous Mercado Oriental things would be a bit different, but I don't know if they would ever be as bad as some of the market and street vendors I have seen in parts of Toronto.
So I officially like it here. And although I can take or leave the city of Managua, I think the people of Nicaragua have wormed their way into my heart in a way I didn't quite expect.
Oh, and I bought Isaac a Xylophone. How cool is that?
posted by Jason Allen at 7:00 PM
2 Comments:
oooh. very cool (and noisy!).
when i was in nigeria, i was in the backseat of a car without a seatbelt. we stalled about 3 times BEFORE trying to get onto the highway without an onramp. Just straight into traffic.
I tried not to yelp the entire time I was in the country for fear of being rude, but when the nigerian guy in the passenger seat turns to the driver, and says "are we safe?" at which point they both put on their seatbelts, i figure it was safe to feel slightly alarmed. :)
1. sigh. *exasperated head shake* You know, I suspect they sell disposable cameras in Nicaragua... There are very few things one can forget and not replace in country. And most of the things one MUST NOT forget to bring, you don't need to worry about. So Jason: GO BUY A CAMERA. Don't blog about having forgotten to bring your disposable one! I'm willing to bet your hotel gift shop sells the damn things!
4. Perhaps that's how the Diet Pepsi has always tasted, you've just never tried it at that temperature before?
5. My philosophy when faced with driving of that ilk on narrow roads -- don't look. Nap if possible. If I'm going to die plunging over the side of a cliff in a foreign country? I'd rather not see it coming. Remind me to tell you about the 8hr bus ride over 150km of scary-ass road in the Philippines sometime.
6. Cool! That's a nice surprise!
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