A very amusing moment happened as we were driving to the ferry on the island of Ometepe. It was a ten second stop motion snapshot of what life is like here.
We were happily driving along at a very slow pace through one of the many small villages. The topes force you to go slow here.
A man suddenly appeared on the right carrying a dead chicken. It was hanging stiffly in his hands, recently deceased, stiff and warm I guess, probably a victim of road kill. There are plentiful chickens here, roaming the streets with no regard for the cars til the very last second. And the funny thing about chickens is that you never know what they are going to do. So we have also seen a few dead ones in various states of disrepair along the tracks.
Anyway, this guy had a very smug look on his face as he carried the carrion across to a lady on the opposite side. He walked up to her and proudly presented his offering to his assumed wife, who, with one look, shattered all his illusions of being the great family provider. Her look was that of utter disbelief and disdain. “what’s that you bring me? Roadkill? And now I suppose you want me to cook it!”
He, being a stereotypical Nicaraguan male, like all others here, was obviously very pleased to have exerted such minimal effort to produce dinner, happy in the knowledge that he could now relax in his hammock for the rest of the day and look forward to the easily earned bounty of his days work.
And, she, being a stereotypical Nicaraguan female, overworked, underwhelmed, eternally busy, and eternally disappointed by her fat and lazy husband, expressed in her eyes a total disbelief that he could sink any further into her abject disdain.
It was a beautiful moment. It was a slow tango of poignant expressions leaving me amused and mindful of how it is here for these lovely people. But it was also a momentary expression of Nicaraguan life. It is hard to put food on the table. The intense heat, lack of government assistance and infrastructure make it a hard life for most. But harder still when the men tend to spend a lot of time hanging around in the shade chatting with friends or just snoozing in hammocks.
Don’t get me wrong, I have seen a lot of men working very hard in the fields, tending to their cattle or banana crops, but they do tend to be a lot thinner. And probably wouldn’t consider a rigor mortised chicken as suitable fair for the family table.
And every woman I have seen has been busy with chores, washing, sweeping the dust, attending to children or stoking the fires to cook for their families.
So that moment summed it up. It is how the world here revolves. And I was thankful to have been paying attention. I have done my fair share of roadkill dinners. But that was through choice, to try something new. Squirrel, pheasant, deer, they were all fair game. But only for me and my camping friends. Never would I have risked trying to pass it off as Sainsbury’s, Taste the Difference!
The differences are profound.
Ha yes I think I too would have had at least disdain maybe even more. But such small observations of the realities of life for others is what makes your blog so interesting. Xx
Great description. Sounds like an episode of Eastenders!!