It’s the little things that count!
When living in the states it was so easy to view the rest of the world as minor countries. Even within the USA you forget how much your lifestyle was just a matter of luck of where and when you were born. Like so many others I attributed my high standard of living to my hard-working and intelligent efforts but it really was... mostly good fortune to be born to good parents in a wealthy country at a good time. My efforts may have helped but the foundation was already laid.
There were people that were unemployed because they did not want to work. There were poor people because they did not understand the value of education or know how to save money. After all, both groups of people were small statistically so it must be their fault. As you grow older you begin to realize the fallacies of your thinking but moving to a poor country makes you reassess your values very quickly. 90% of the people here fall into the poverty category though most of them are not so much poor as not having money, a major difference. Amy and I are still readjusting our thinking. Anyway, my point here is simply that sometimes it is the little things that are more enduring.
Everyday between 4:00 and 5:00 a boy comes to our door selling churros. A churro is simply a small, twisted piece of sugared pastry that our dog, Kenya, just loves so we buy her a few. The boy always arrives with a small blue bucket of churros still warm from the oven. They are quite good though Kenya rarely shares them with us. The boy charges us two córdobas each but charges our neighbors only one since we are rich gringos. The boy has heard us refer to him as the “churro boy” many times so now he just yells upon his arrival “CHURRO BOY!” This is so much part of our daily life that we worry the days he does not come that he may be ill.
One day I’m in a grumpy mood so I do not go the door when he arrives and Amy buys the churros. After paying the boy, he begins telling Amy how he appreciates all of the help we have given over the years like providing school supplies, backpacks, etc. He attributes his good grades to our assistance and tells Amy to thank me. OK, I’m a cynic and today, in a grumpy mood, but I’m listening to this and melting. I feel like running to the door and offering to pay his education expenses through college. All this time we thought he was just badgering us with his requests. The next day I bought some more notebooks for him and the neighbor kids.
On another day I found one of the neighborhood boys sitting on the sidewalk obviously bored so I engaged him in a conversation about books. There is so little reading for pleasure here which is sad to people like us that devour books. I wanted to find out what he enjoyed so I could find a book about his interests. After a considerable amount of my halting Spanish he admitted he would love to learn more about Nicaraguan baseball players. I resolved to find a book on his chosen subject. There are books in Nicaragua but not that many so after searching all over Managua I was not successful in finding that topic. I had about given up when someone donated a box of books to our library. Sorting out the books, lo and behold, there was a fairly new book about Central American baseball players with a large chapter on Nicaragua.
I couldn’t wait to see him again. In a few days he showed up and I presented the book to him. He thanked me and walked away. I was so disappointed with his reaction. As a reader of my diaries you know that I am a cynic and a hopeless optimist, a rare combination which amuses my wife. I thought he would jump up and down with joy, thank me profusely then lay on the sidewalk to begin reading the book word by word, perhaps being inspired to emulate his baseball heroes. Later in life, being a successful major league player, he would look back, remembering the old gringo that gave him a book which turned around his life. Playing with the New York Yankees he would name his first son after me. But apparently it was a waste of my efforts to have spent so much time looking for this book. You would think by now I would tire of being wrong so often.
I saw him again a few weeks later and we greeted each other. As he walked away, there in his hip pocket was my baseball book though by now it was obvious it had been read many times. It was ragged around the edges and permanently curled from being carried in his pocket. What I would give to see more books in such a tattered condition being carried everywhere. We teach the children borrowing books from our library to care for the books but a book in pristine condition has not been enjoyed as much as one that is falling apart from use.
Sometimes it really is the little things that count or are the most endearing.
There were people that were unemployed because they did not want to work. There were poor people because they did not understand the value of education or know how to save money. After all, both groups of people were small statistically so it must be their fault. As you grow older you begin to realize the fallacies of your thinking but moving to a poor country makes you reassess your values very quickly. 90% of the people here fall into the poverty category though most of them are not so much poor as not having money, a major difference. Amy and I are still readjusting our thinking. Anyway, my point here is simply that sometimes it is the little things that are more enduring.
Everyday between 4:00 and 5:00 a boy comes to our door selling churros. A churro is simply a small, twisted piece of sugared pastry that our dog, Kenya, just loves so we buy her a few. The boy always arrives with a small blue bucket of churros still warm from the oven. They are quite good though Kenya rarely shares them with us. The boy charges us two córdobas each but charges our neighbors only one since we are rich gringos. The boy has heard us refer to him as the “churro boy” many times so now he just yells upon his arrival “CHURRO BOY!” This is so much part of our daily life that we worry the days he does not come that he may be ill.
One day I’m in a grumpy mood so I do not go the door when he arrives and Amy buys the churros. After paying the boy, he begins telling Amy how he appreciates all of the help we have given over the years like providing school supplies, backpacks, etc. He attributes his good grades to our assistance and tells Amy to thank me. OK, I’m a cynic and today, in a grumpy mood, but I’m listening to this and melting. I feel like running to the door and offering to pay his education expenses through college. All this time we thought he was just badgering us with his requests. The next day I bought some more notebooks for him and the neighbor kids.
On another day I found one of the neighborhood boys sitting on the sidewalk obviously bored so I engaged him in a conversation about books. There is so little reading for pleasure here which is sad to people like us that devour books. I wanted to find out what he enjoyed so I could find a book about his interests. After a considerable amount of my halting Spanish he admitted he would love to learn more about Nicaraguan baseball players. I resolved to find a book on his chosen subject. There are books in Nicaragua but not that many so after searching all over Managua I was not successful in finding that topic. I had about given up when someone donated a box of books to our library. Sorting out the books, lo and behold, there was a fairly new book about Central American baseball players with a large chapter on Nicaragua.
I couldn’t wait to see him again. In a few days he showed up and I presented the book to him. He thanked me and walked away. I was so disappointed with his reaction. As a reader of my diaries you know that I am a cynic and a hopeless optimist, a rare combination which amuses my wife. I thought he would jump up and down with joy, thank me profusely then lay on the sidewalk to begin reading the book word by word, perhaps being inspired to emulate his baseball heroes. Later in life, being a successful major league player, he would look back, remembering the old gringo that gave him a book which turned around his life. Playing with the New York Yankees he would name his first son after me. But apparently it was a waste of my efforts to have spent so much time looking for this book. You would think by now I would tire of being wrong so often.
I saw him again a few weeks later and we greeted each other. As he walked away, there in his hip pocket was my baseball book though by now it was obvious it had been read many times. It was ragged around the edges and permanently curled from being carried in his pocket. What I would give to see more books in such a tattered condition being carried everywhere. We teach the children borrowing books from our library to care for the books but a book in pristine condition has not been enjoyed as much as one that is falling apart from use.
Sometimes it really is the little things that count or are the most endearing.
