Last night i stumbled home from Oxigeno, the local night club that everyone and anyone partying in Leon on Friday nights goes to. I spent the beggining of the night at Via Via, listening to live music and conversing with my spanish professor. Dr. Oragon is actually a MD, but he directs the language institution i have been teaching and learning at. and he likes to drink, and buy drinks for his 'favorite students'. i cant tell you how many double tequila shots passed, but enough to cause me to forget how to walk, hence the stumbling. i left the hamburger stand in Parque Central, an inevitable pit stop on ones way home from the bar, and barely made it out of the middle of the park before deciding it was a good idea to give in to my bodily functions. i proceeded to piss on a wall adjacent to the park. Keep in mind, TIN, this is Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America. There arent exactly strict laws concerning public urination. at least i thought there wasnt. PEople piss everywhere, street kids, the homeless, drunks. I guess the difference between me and them is that i am WHITE and have money. i also know that public masterbation is prominent in many parts of Latin America, i.e. Havanna. although i am sure this phenomenon is not unique to L.A. In fact we have experienced it firsthand in the Quetzaltrekkers office, but thats an entirely different story indeed. but peeing where you please seems to parellel, at least logically, with the levels of public littering in Central America. PEople throw their trash everywhere. not only is it culturally accepted, making this trend virtually impossible to reverse, it is enabled by most members of the community. for example, when a Nica is sitting on an aisle seat of a bus, its no problem that he cant reach the window. when he finishes his Miranda, his neighbor on the window seat will kindly open it for him so he can casually reach over to dispose his bottle in the streets. trash bags and plastic bottles are the most prevalently littered item, and they dot the landscape of neighborhoods, farms and roads. its sad, and certainly ironic, that many people who live in some of the most beautiful parts of the world, have such disregard to nature, and allow the inherent beauty of the land be litterally trashed with the consumer debris of capatilism. why arent these corporations responsible for this trash anyway. their name is still on the product, and they are the ones proffiting of its consumption. I digress.
its funny how confused they are, and how foreign we look in their eyes, as we attempt to dispose of our trash properly. sometimes after a hike, we find ourselves waiting for a bus to go home, in some remote town. We have asked to leave the trash, that we have put so much effort into not leaving behind, with someone, with the unwarranted assumption that he or she is not just going to throw it in the street, or in the neighbors yard, or in their fire pit.
anyway a motobike comes speeding toward me, not marked, but the two operating it were; with blue uniforms, the words " tourism police" drapped across their ragged and dusty getup. meant to protect and preserve the safety of tourists, who for better or worse provide a large portion of income to local residents, i become a prime candidate for easy bribery. they confronted me, clarified the illegality of my actions and continued to check my person. i get the feeling it wasnt for drugs or weapons, but purely for money. of course i had none at this point. i began to explain to them in my drunken and broken spanish that i see people do it all the time, as if this makes it not illegal, and that i was genuinely sorry for contributing to the filth that lines the streets of LEon.
its funny, because the last public peeing incident i had, mike and i were walking down the street, talking about how much we loved nicaragua because we can pee anywhere we please, so i decided to pee anywhere i pleased. it was someones properity, who would of thought, and this someone had a private security gaurd, who would of thought, for it and he immediatly shooed me away. right after we had just wrongly concluded that peeing in public was ok.
so not having money when salary deprived public officials demand it as a form of retribution, is not good. luckily they accepted my offer; to drive me home where the gringos cash box resides. they drove me home on their motorcycle, helmetless of course. it reminded me of when i was in Santarem, brazil, that tiny town on the amazon river, where our professor explicitly prohibited us from using this method of public transportation. moto taxis being the prevailing way to move bodies.
when i get back, Jaxser, one of our 2 nicaraguan volunteers was on the stoop, with this hopeless norwegian girl, one of at least 50 in leon, due to some odd university exchange program. he kept the police calm, while i ran inside to collect the funds; 200 cordobas or US$10 to pay the "fine". so basically i paid 10 bucks for a cab ride home that usually costs less than 1.
i have been trashing leon due to its dirty streets, all puns intended. but i dont want to paint the wrong picture. leon is far from being without its pleasentries and attractions. there is a reason why i have been living here for the last two months. and it far outweighs the, although destrucitve, but superficial conception of a littered street. leon has character, leon has personality. Leon beats, Leon breaths, Leon thrives. Leon es comida, Leon es cultura, Leon es vida.
there is something about it that sets it apart from its rival, Granada, which although more beautiful and colonial, also feels more contrived and traditional.
But damn leon is hot, f-ing volcanoes.
only have a week left here, and then less than a month left of traveling before i return home.
BUt i will definitely have to find my way back to leon one day.
VIVA SANDINO.