Hambre and other words painted blue

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard the Blues he played . . .

As I write these words, the clock in Nicaragua is working its way toward midnight and Thursday is fast approaching. It has been one week since my last blog and there are many words to be said. The easiest place to begin is with Friday and the first stroke of blue.

You see, until this point, I had seen the people and their poverty, but nothing pierced me except their joy and their hard work. That changed on Friday, and I ended the day grieving. A week later, there is a lingering ache each time I remember it. The day began like all the rest as we prepared to return to La Conquista for another day of games with the kids in Robin's program. It really was a glorious day of games: puzzles, hula hoop, dominoes, checkers, and jump rope (I taught the Cinderella dressed in yella song and had some very competitive boys who LOVED it, each trying to best the others in how many doctors it would take.) Dance lessons continued with the girls and I was overjoyed when Nikito's family arrived. They love seeing us and the feeling is mutual, but I am all about Emmanuel. Guillermo calls me Emmanuel's "chela" mama. (Chela is another word for gringa.) The day was fine until Emmanuel disappeared while I was playing with some other boys. Now, it is pretty common here to just let the kids walk away whenever they want, even if that means a 6-year-old wandering in the streets, but I am not Nicaraguan, so I was worried. I finally saw him when he peaked his head around the corner from outside and looked directly at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. In my general arrogance, I assumed he was upset because I was giving other boys more attention, so I went outside, held him in my lap and told him he was my favorite. It seemed to work for a minute and he returned, but this behavior continued. Each time, I convinced him to come back inside, but he never told me what the problem was. Finally, he answered me, cradling his head in the crook of my neck, he cried and said, "Yo tengo hambre." Literally, I have hunger. I wanted to cry to see that kind of sadness born of a complete lack of food. I told my Nica friends how much it hurt me and they reminded me that "hambre" was a part of every day in Nicaragua and that missing meals was commonplace for all the kids. There was a snack that day for Emmanuel, but it couldn't fill the caverns of hunger within him. Nothing that San Lucas does can stop the hunger, but they are working so hard to bring change. They are great people fighting an impossible battle against an invisible foe.

. . . In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone, I heard him sing, heard the piano moan . . .

The weekend brought rest and a little vacation, but the look in Emmanuel's eyes was not erased by the tide. The gray skies that cast an ominous shadow on the ocean all day as we relaxed at Playa Mango Rosa seemed a fitting bass line for the song that danced in my head. Don't get me wrong, there was something hypnotically beautiful about the waves that crashed ashore as the sun set behind craggy rocks that jutted into the Pacific Ocean. I enjoyed every minute of it (especially the Mahi sandwich that found its way into my belly that day), and I left our Saturday beach outing with a content heart, but there is just something beneath the surface of it all. I can't describe what I am experiencing, because it is so new to me. It is like there is music playing, notes that I don't recognize but that have always been there. It is a song that is jubilant and freeing in its expression of living, all at once beautiful and mournful. It is as if the whole world is singing the blues.

I have always loved the blues. They represent something truly beautiful to me. Singing the blues has always been about freeing your soul, unloading your suffering, and finding healing. One of my favorite short stories is called "Sonny's Blues". I think that I love this story so much because it is one of delicate hope, birthed from music. Sonny is able to escape his heroin habit through the piano. The instruments "speak" to each other without words and things are made whole when others listen to the story Sonny tells through his music. I believe that we are those who listen, and that if we will hear the world, hear its song, the way that grief bespeaks grief and love bespeaks love like so many instruments, then the world will begin to heal. I carry with me a delicate hope.

Sunday was all about rest, a true Sabbath. We relaxed and napped and relaxed and napped and then went to church with the family that night. So Sunday left little to be told, but Monday brought Ometepe. The island of Ometepe was our real vacation, two days on a gorgeous island with two ginormous volcanoes, in the middle of a lake big enough to have its own tide. This lake is the only fresh-water lake in the world with sharks and it was beautiful. My hotel room had a beach side window and I slept and woke to the gentle sounds of waves lapping against the shore. We explored a nature preserve, swam in a perfect spring and watched the sun set at the Western-most point of the island. The next morning we went to see petroglyphs and then caught the ferry back to the mainland. It was a perfect few days spent with great kids and the ever mirthful Guillermo. Oh, how we love Guillermo! A few words must now be written about this wonderful man. Guillermo has been our appointed driver for the majority of the trip. He has been our chauffeur, our GPS (in a country where no streets have names or numbers) and our friend. He makes us laugh, tries to remember our English names, calls Jon "Chino" and bats his impossible eyelashes "como un caballo" at us. There is such light in his eyes, that his "blue" word had its own luminescence. You see, Guillermo has a giant scar on his head (which is easy to see since he is bald) and the kids have wondered about it but been afraid to ask. On Monday night, as we sat down to dinner at Finca Santa Domingo with sound of waves in the background, Guillermo handed us a letter and walked away. The bluest word on the page was "tumor". Guillermo had been struggling with a tumor and ensuing radiation for years and is, even now, waiting on more results. He wrote about the hope God had given him and how the doctors had said three times that he would not live, but that he had three times defied them. He wrote about his love for his wife of 13 years and his daughters and how he wanted to continue to be with them. He wrote about his joy and his peace and the love for God that he had in his heart. In the midst of it, words like cancer and tumor began to mean little. His "blue" was like the brightness of the sky made brighter by the sun. He was saying that shadows exist, but they create no darkness of their own. Shadows are only powerful if you hide in them. Guillermo is no hider.


Thump, thump, thump went his foot on the floor. He played a few chords then he sang some more.

That brings me to today (or yesterday as the case may be). Today was a celebration of the new community center in La Conquista. It was a happy day and we saw all of the kids one last time *tear* before we left and spent time with Anke, the German implant, at the library she and her husband started. They are doing great work in literacy and education within the community of Diriamba and hoping to expand. When the library closed, Anke took us back to her house for fresh-baked German cake (AMAZING!) and Nica coffee. It was a perfectly lovely afternoon (and I would have so much more to say about Anke and her family if there were any energy left in me). Throw in a soccer game and a very late dinner and the night was complete.

This week has been so dichotomous for me. It has been restful and mind-emptying, while filled, at the same time, with questions that can never be answered. It has been bright and full of joy, and it had been peppered with blue. I know I am better for it, and I know, now, that the bluest word of them all is adios. It swirls around me in shades of navy and indigo and wraps me in its blueness. Blues singer Alberta Hunter once said, "We sing the blues because our hearts have been hurt, our souls have been disturbed." On the surface, this seems a statement of pain, but I don't see it that way. Merriam Webster says that to disturb is to alter the position or arrangement of something. Nicaragua has altered the arrangement of my soul. These people have disturbed my understanding of the world in beautiful notes saturated with color and hope and laughter and a little sadness. Tonight, I am a Picasso, and yes, Alberta, my heart does hurt a little as I prepare to leave this exquisite country.

. . . and late into the night, he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon.