How to rid oneself of a stalker (who is probably on drugs)

Hello again everyone! After a little break thanks to guest bloggers and guest languages, I am back. Luckily for you, I have suffered from a crippling boredom this past week (I’d say that it is a fate worse than cheese balls but that would be a big lie). Why is that lucky for you, you ask? Well, when I get bored, I do one of four things: sleep, sit in the hammock (that’s right, we have a hammock in our new house), watch perfectly legitimately purchased movies that happen to be on DVD-Rs, and observe. The latter is most relevant here. When I (or anyone, really) observe things in Estelí, I notice weird things going on. You get to read about these things.

First and foremost, a strange fact. Did you know that not all roosters crow in the morning? How do I know this? Apparently our neighbourhood rooster, possibly confused by the faint smell of chicken from the nearby market, feels the need to inform everyone of his presence between 10:00 and 11:00 PM. There is no sign of dawn at that hour. I do not understand this rooster’s behaviour.

Another behaviour that I don’t understand is that carried out by certain Nicaraguan men on hot days. These men have invented a posture that is simultaneously bizarre and hilarious. They pull their t-shirts up just past their belly button, in order for it to be able to rest on the crest of their belly. Once their (often big) bellies are fully visible to the general public, they place on finger firmly in their belly button, as though something would leak out if they didn’t. With their belly exposed and finger in place, they proudly look around, content to show off their new pose. I don’t know if they are cooling themselves, searching for lint, or just given themselves a good rub and pick, but this posture makes me laugh out loud every time. It also seems to be a popular posture in all situations- leaning against posts, walking on the street, sitting in a chair on the porch, I have yet to find a place where a bit of belly button air is not needed.

The English that is spoken here is quite wonderful, both because of the vocabulary and the randomness. Most young people speak a few words of English but unfortunately, their teacher has been rap music and/or Hallmark cards. Every once in a while, I get a very proud “what’s up foo?” or simply a “’sup?”. I don’t regularly answer these questions in Canada so I certainly don’t know what to say here. Amy was once asked by her homestay family what the lyrics to “the lollipop song” meant. Her response was that rap music (hip hop?) is not the best place to learn English. When not inspired by the musical stylings of our generation, the English words are strangely out of place. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I may get a hearty “good morning!” or, as I’m approaching someone, they yell a confident “good bye!”, only to be greeted by my confused expression. The only other thing I get is “I love you” and/or kissy faces and/or sounds from 15-17 year old girls. I’ve become so terrified of them that I avoid the streets when the schools let out and cross the street when I see a group of them.

In addition to these observations, I have two more stories to tell. They are entirely unrelated to one another and have to do with drug accusations and entirely inappropriate stalkers. Do read on!

I miss several things about my homestay family, and one of those things is the use of drugs as an explanation for nearly every strange behaviour that my dear homestay mom reads about, hears about, or sees. For example (I am not making these up):
- Three years ago, her neighbour’s son tragically kills himself because his mother did not let him go swimming with his friends. My homestay mom suspects he was on drugs.
- A Nicaraguan man who swept a Canadian student off of her feet was actually married and had a child. He must have been on drugs.
- A Canadian student is swept off of her feet by a Nicaraguan man who ended up being married and having a child. She must have been on drugs.
- A student had an epilepsy-related seizure in my homestay family’s home. She must have been mixing hard drugs with her epilepsy medications.
- After an argument with his girlfriend, a Canadian tourist kills himself in their hostel. He must have been on drugs.
- A Swiss student staying with the family lost a lot of weight. The cause, you ask? Drugs.
I lived in perennial fear of making any sort of complaint, strange movement, or asking a strange question lest I be accused of being on drugs. I don’t doubt that drugs are a big problem here, but they certainly aren’t the single explanatory cause for: machismo, unfaithful partners, weight loss, slow Spanish learning, car accidents, love at first sight, every suicide, etc.

The second story is an outrageous story of a Nicaraguan man enamoured with one of my housemates (Xochi). Xochi’s camera had broken so she looked around town to see if it was cheaper to order a new one, have it fixed, or send it back to Canada to have it fixed. While trying to price the latter option, she had to give her name and phone number to an agent at the DHL Shipping office. With all of her price comparisons done, Xochi returned to our house for supper. Not a good story yet, I know. What happened next, however, was beyond strange. While Amy, Xochi, and I were eating supper, her phone rang. It registered as an unknown number, but since all of us are slowly developing contacts with various groups and individuals in Estelí, this wasn’t strange and Xochi answered. It was quite obvious that something was up (given her constant replies of “I think you have the wrong number.” “How did you get this number?” “I wasn’t at DHL today.” and “How about I call you instead?”) but the weirdness of the story wasn’t evident until Xochi regaled us with details of the phone chat. Apparently, this individual (Raphael) said that he was behind her in line, got her number from DHL (we assume he was either eavesdropping or he snuck a peek over the counter), and was hoping for “friendship” and “someone to practice English with”. He was probably on drugs. Given the outright creepiness of this behaviour, we saved the number in Xochi’s phone as “creep”. Not content to let her go, “creep” text-messaged Xochi the next morning, saying that he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression, just that he wanted friendship, that she should meet his family, and that he could visit her house. He proceeded to phone three more times that day, two of which Xochi ignored (since the number now popped up as “creep”) and the third of which I answered. Raphael seemed caught off guard by a Spanish-speaking male. He asked about “his friend from DHL”. I told him that I didn’t know who his friend was and that some Canadian girl sold me her cell phone that day. Apparently he didn’t really want friendship because he wasn’t interested in befriending a Dutch man (I told him I was from the Netherlands to avoid being asked about English practice) and was only interested in his DHL friend. As ridiculous as my excuses sound, he has yet to phone back. He either believed me or got the hint. Regardless, the outcome is the one that we were hoping for!

I just thought of a third story so I apologize for lying earlier. This past weekend, I visited what can only be called a lifeguard’s nightmare. With the intention of lowering my core temperature which for six weeks has felt somewhere around 72 degrees Celsius, I went with Xochi and a few friends to a pool near our house. The scene was chaotic. See if you can guess how many injuries we witnessed based on the physical and behavioural descriptions below:
Setting the scene…
- A pool no more than five feet deep (not an exaggeration. At no point did the water rise above my chest.)
- That same pool measuring about ten feet by twenty feet.
- A pool so densely packed with people it may well have been Bangladesh.
- Slick rocks and tiles surrounding the pool.
- No lifeguard on duty.

Actions we saw that made me shudder and, at least a few times, scream…
- Teenagers diving head first into the pool. These were not so-called “shallow dives” but full head first dives. They dove from both the deck and from a three foot platform (why this pool had a diving platform I have no idea).
- Kids fighting (with angry expressions so I don’t want to call it play fighting) to throw each other into the pool. Chalk it up to stubbornness or machismo, but the kids refused to give up and seemed more willing to be dropped on the rocks than thrown into the water.
- Full on sprinting up and down the deck of the pool.
- A white girl in a bathing suit who clearly distracted the young men’s attention. Seriously, men here (and some women, too, I suppose, but men are much more guilty) make no attempt whatsoever at subtlety. They stare and stare and stare and don’t care who notices. This happens on the street all the time but seemed amplified in the pool. When Xochi was about to get into the pool, with a claim of “I’m so excited!”, my only response, based on the young men’s eyes glued to her, was “So are they…”.
- Oh yeah, there was also rampant underage drinking.

And the final tally of injuries… 0. I know. I could not believe it. I was relatively certain that I was going to have to phone the ambulance at least 5 times, if not more.

Also, we threw a party (house-warming / thanks for being our Spanish teachers) for our Spanish teachers on Friday. It was delightful and eventually ended up with a few people dancing, as most Nicaraguan parties are wont to do.

No change to report in my Yahtzee score, so mom’s record is still safe. In other gaming news, my crippling boredom has made me into a Minesweeper, Solitaire, and Hearts champion. Unfortunately Windows tracks how many games of each I have played and I am pretty sure that number will be well into quadruple digits by the time I come home…