Happy New Year
Thursday, January 4th, 2007If I do say so myself, this has been a wonderful start to the new year. To think that one year ago today I was in San Francisco, about to start a new job at Lieff, not even able to conceptualize a long-term travel adventure. And now, here I am in Granada, Nicaragua — we successfully navigated two bus rides without incident, found a beautiful cheap hostel, and had two conversations (not that halting at all) with Nicaraguans on the way. We’ve come quite a long way since stepping off the plane in Cancun all wide-eyed and completely freaked-out.
We spent a good deal of new years eve on the steps to the largest cathedral in Central America (in Leon), watching the night unfold for the countless young Leonesian families that frolicked together in the central square. Seven-year-old boys rode the lion sculpture to our left, a three-year-old girl to our right was treated to cotton candy, which, of course, enthralled her. “Algodone! Algodone!” (“Cotton! Cotton!”) she cried, her face all pink and sticky.
After dinner, we wandered the streets, crowded with revelers, and stopped into a few different bars to toast to the New Year. We decided to stop by our hostel for a bathroom break around 11:30 and immediately got sucked in to celebrate. A few hostel mates and the family that runs the place were clustered around a stack of cohetes (fireworks) on the sidewalk — and soon, so were we.
As soon as we sat down, the matriarch of the hostel leaned over to Sarah and me and informed us that the old man (“viejcito”) in the room next to ours was dying. “Surely you must know by now…” Now, Nicaraguan Spanish is nearly incomprehensible to me now that I’ve finally become accustomed to slow, clear, Guatemalan Spanish. In Nicaragua, they pronounce neither “s” or “d” sounds, preferring to slightly aspirate an “h” instead; they also frequently swap the “ie” dipthong for the simpler “e”, which doesn’t make understanding verb conjugations much easier. “El vehito ehta murendo…” However, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what words she was using. Unfortunately, in this case, understanding the words did me little good. Why would an old man be dying next door? Why would she tell us, her guests, on New Year’s Eve? I laughed nervously, thinking that the old man that she spoke of must be the year 2006, like those silly political cartoons with the old man year being replaced by the baby. I remained vaguely concerned after I said, “oh, you mean the old year…” and she replied “no, the old man.” I hoped that this was one of those lost-in-translation moments.
We settled down with the cohetes and had a load of fun throwing them in front of cars and scaring ourselves when they exploded. Sarah screamed each time. In between screams, I noticed that she was whispering with the mother, laughing often so that I knew she might be understanding their conversation. After exhausting our supply of fireworks (and watching one particularly short-fused cohete explode a foot away from the youngest daughter), we said our goodnights. Sarah, having successfully navigated a whispered conversation in Spanish, whispered to me that the talk about the old man was a trick on the youngest daughter, who was visibly concerned about the dying old man. The mother and two daughters solemnly approached the door behind which there (supposedly) lay a dying old man. When they reached the door, the youngest daughter paused and crossed herself before entering… only to find an empty room. She was duly laughed at by her (older and wiser) family members. We both felt a little bad for her.
So, that’s how the New Year was rung in — with big bangs, mean pranks, and of course, some really watery Nicaraguan beer. It was perfect.
Happy New Year,
-Megan (with help from Sarah)
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