Sneakers are skidding and shouts echo inside one of the biggest buildings in town; I duck inside to find a basketball game well under way (or one could say floundering) between two local teams: Flipper VS. Super Ghetto.
Flipper is up one point, then gets a foul. Super Ghetto takes the lead. Super Ghetto then gets a foul, but Flipper misses both freethrow shots. It’s an exciting game. Super Ghetto players have snazzy new black jerseys, names featured prominently on the back (I root for #12, Tajado). Their Nike sneakers pace the floor well. They’ve got groove. It’s all very super ghetto.
Late the next night I’m out at a bar to sample the nightlife, though I’m already very tired from a long day of shooting. I notice the entire basketball team is there, judged by their communal height alone (the few in this world whom are taller than me do not escape my notice). I can’t help but also notice that their super ghettoness is expressed in a very American way – many have baggy pants, designer hats, big diamond earrings, marijuana leaf blingorama chains resting heavy on their chests.
American pop “culture” can seem to reach deeply into the world’s veins at times. I have a distinct memory when I was in Vietnam of eating a farewell dinner from my host family; we’re all sitting cross-legged on the floor, small bowls in hand with chopsticks in the other. Bugs are buzzing around the only lightbulb. At the end of the dinner, they turn on their small TV and flip through the channels until they get MTV. Beyoncé, in all her bootylicious glory, seductively dances on all fours; I have an acute taste of absurdity when all I can hear outside are crickets throbbing in chaotic unison, rural farmland stretching for miles in sweet silence. America’s image abroad, in fact, is undeniably contradictory. A superpower whose every move is watched because of its ability to affect every inch of the planet, it is in turns both loved and loathed.
In any case, Puerto Cabezas isn’t so isolated as where I was in Vietnam, and definitely has its own culture, distinct from the world, from America, and even from the rest of Nicaragua. It’s close to the Honduran border, and still harbors much of its native population of Miskito Indians that were here before the Spaniards came. These days, they speak Miskito first, Spanish second, and English third though it wasn’t always that way. Often, our interviews with the locals here could have been, or were held, in Miskito. The language is rhythmic, necessarily foreign to my Indo-European ears. Most of the locals here talk about the Pacific coast with some amount of disdain, as the “Pacific” is synonymous with wealth, and at times, government oppression. The Atlantic/Caribbean coast in contrast has its own authentic Miskito-Creole groove that has been etched by a history very different from the Spaniard-west. For example, the musical choices blared loudly from car, rooftop, or bar, range from Reggaeton, Bachata, to Soca, Dancehall, and Reggae.
Something nags me though – height. Everyone, I notice, is taller here in Nicaragua. I stand still on a busy street testing my hypothesis, and on average people aren’t reaching my chest, but my nose. I don’t get nearly as many comments for being “so tall” and I don’t feel like a towering monster when walking around in crowded areas like the market. As it is purely anecdotal evidence, I put it aside.
I walk into the local cornerstore to buy a fresco de pithaya, or dragonfruit juice to go.
My to-go pithaya juice arrives in a small plastic bag artfully tied to a straw. To-go takes on a new definition as my plastic-bag-fuchsia-colored juice leaks through my hands onto my shirt. In any case, it’s a slow day and the girl who served me is sitting outside reading a thick book. After getting over the shock of seeing her read a book – any book – I then think to ask what she’s reading. I’m fully expecting a dime store (peso store?) romance novel but instead she tells me, “Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen.”
“En serio?” Seriously? I ask.
I haven’t even read that book.
“So what do you think of Jane Austen?” I then ask.
“Oh, she writes great romance novels” she says.
Right. And why are you working in this joint serving 40-cent juices to the odd customer if you can read and enjoy Jane Austen, I want to ask?
Okay, I decide, my anecdotal evidence is in need of some fact checking – why are these people taller, why do they read literature, and yet still live in such poor conditions?
A massive history lesson ensues, rudely uncovering my ignorance of a country I would have long been interested in coming to visit had I ever caught a whiff of its recent past: Nicaragua had a revolution in 1979. A year later, after the infamous longtime CIA-sponsored Somoza dictatorship was successfully torn down by the Sandanista Front, one of the most remarkable improvements in literacy occurred in recent times. Within five months they reduced the overall illiteracy rate from 50% to 13%. As a result, in September 1980, UNESCO awarded Nicaragua with an award for their successful literacy campaign.
My small observations begin to fit into place. Better redistribution of wealth has lead to increased nutrition, better access to medical care, as well as better vaccination techniques and disease control. A very simple trend occurs: people, across social classes, begin to grow taller. It’s a documented fact that a redistribution of income leads to increased height among a population. 20 years later, the effects are palpable. I mean, at least I see the men eye to eye here.
Abrazos
-Isabelle
