A Morning in San Nicolas

San Nicolas, nestled in the mountains

There are few proper addresses in Nicaragua (at least in the way that Americans think of addresses). But in the province of Esteli, in the town of San Nicolas, on the house next to the mayor's office, at 5:50 a.m. a crow scratches its claws noisily across the tin roof and then leaps into the air, cawing.

Just next door, the rooster in the yard two houses down from the mayor´s attempts a crow that sounds more like a final rasp of breath. This is the 20^th crow it has attempted since 4 a.m.

A dance class performing outside the school

On the street outside, the brightly repainted American school bus announces its 6 a.m. departure for the city of Esteli by uttering seven beeps in quick succession. The grey bench seats are already full and 23 people stand pressed against each other in the middle aisle. Everyone slides back the slightest bit to make room for the 24^th person, a woman wearing a butterfly clip in her long hair. The woman with the butterfly clip is returning home to her husband and two-year-old daughter for the weekend. Every week, she leaves her family and travels four hours to San Nicolas so that she can earn enough money to support her family by teaching English at the local school. The woman with the butterfly clip likes the velvety feeling of baby's skin. She dislikes the harsh sounds of the English language.

The bus begins its slow chug up the mountain, swerving out of the way for two cows walking down the main street in San Nicolas. The cows give a lazy moo. They have large wishbone-shaped sticks hung over their necks so that they can roam around the town on their own and not escape into gates or bushes. The cows like nibbling on the beans between the cracks in the pavement. They dislike carrying the heavy sticks around their necks.

Preparing produce for market at the organic farm, La Garnacha

The cows belong to a man who wears a cowboy hat. While they are roaming around the town, the man with the cowboy hat is refilling the water tank in his back yard. The town water comes on for two hours in the morning every other day. It takes exactly 38 minutes for the tank to fill up. After he fills it, the man with the cowboy hat will climb onto his horse and ride off to the small bean farm where he works on a nearby mountain side. The man likes the feeling of putting his feet in stirrups.

While the man with the cowboy hat is filling the water tank in the back yard, his wife stands over a wood fire inside the house. She mixes together corn and flour and water and heats oil in a griddle over a cement stove. The woman places the 46^th guirilla she has made this morning into the basket that she will bring to the school later on, so that she can sell the thick tortillas for 5 cordobas each, or about 20 cents. The woman likes braiding her daughters' hair. She dislikes watching the older students at the school drape their arms all over each other.

English lessons

Six miles away, at a tiny shack along the Pan-American Highway, one such student sets off from her house. She wears her favorite Aeropostale t-shirt because her school uniform is still drying on the line. It takes her 1 hour and 45 minutes to walk over the mountains to the school in San Nicolas, so she starts early, just as the sun is rising. As she walks, she thinks about the boy she likes with the swirly design shaved into his scalp. The girl with the Aeropostale t-shirt dislikes having to step out of the way for cow droppings. She likes the feeling of bright new clothing.

Meanwhile, back in the house next door to the mayors' office, the two Gringos sleeping beneath the tin roof begin to stir. In 2.25 hours they will pass the two cows nibbling beans in the street. They will enter the classroom where the girl in the Aeropostale t-shirt sits, waiting for her English class to start. At lunch they will buy one of the 77 guirillas that the guirilla woman has cooked that morning. The Gringos dislike the drops of water that creep through the holes in their roof when it rains. They like saying “Adios” to every person they meet as they walk to school.