Teacher on Two Wheels

Above:  Arbin wearing my bicycle helmet next to his horse

Wednesday 1/2/08 Near Santa Rita, Nicaragua

Tired of hearing the sounds of cars whizzing by on the highways at night, I decided to find a camp spot far from the road, somewhere where Quiet lives. After rolling the bike for two miles down a bumpy dirt track through cow pastures, I finally found the type of spot I was looking for on top of a small hill.

I set up camp and took one of those fast, look-over-your-shoulder-for-people showers that one takes whenever a farmer’s wide open field doubles as a shower stall. Just as I buttoned the last button on my shirt and was hanging up my washcloth to dry, a man on horseback with a machete in his hand rounded the top of the hill. He stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted me.

I explained why I was there and told him a little bit about the trip.

“Is that your tent?” he asked in Spanish, motioning to the tent with his machete.

“Yep.”

“It’s beautiful. Very beautiful,” he said.

Many people in rural Central America have been taken aback by my tent’s apparent beauty. They particularly like the Y-shaped pole that holds it up. So many people have enjoyed looking at and touching the tent that I now feel confident a mere unveiling of it could get me out of the stickiest of jams.

The man dismounted and walked over to my tent and bicycle. When he saw my bike helmet he picked it up and smiled.

“Ah ha! A sombrero de cyclista!” He put the helmet on his head and acted as if he was cycling. After he traveled about 20 imaginary feet on his imaginary bicycle, he let the smile slide from his face and took the helmet off.

“It’s very dangerous here at night. I don’t think you should camp here. Many people walk around here and look for people to rob.”

I looked around at the miles of quiet, fenced-in fields spread out below us like jagged brown puzzle pieces. With the exception of a few farmer’s houses and miles of barbed wire fence, nothing man-made was visible.

“Here? Really?”

“Yes, many people come here at night.” Pause. “Why don’t you move your tent next to my house for the night. It’s close by and it’s much safer than this spot here.”

Dusk was washing over us fast and thick like a fog bank. I knew that with it would come mosquitoes. All I wanted to do was get in my tent and sleep. All the farmer wanted me to do was move my stuff.

“Please. I will feel better if you move. I don’t want anyone to get hurt on my land”

He watched in amazement as the tent collapsed once I removed its pole.

*****

The farmer, Arbin, showed me to the three room house he shares with his wife of one year, Marie, and his mother. When we arrived, the house was pitch black inside and looked deserted. I turned on my head lamp and an older woman with strong forearms stepped into the light.

“Arbin’s mama. Hello,” the woman said in English.

We shook. Her hand was strong and wet, from what I couldn’t tell.
Marie stepped out from behind her mother-in-law like a shy child and reluctantly introduced herself before walking out to the outside kitchen.

I set up my gear on the porch of the house before making my way inside. Once I entered, Marie lit a single candle to light the room. Inside the main living room of the house was a table and chairs, a hammock, a small 12-inch-by-12-inch TV wired to a car battery, and a concrete water jug.

Arbin’s mom turned on the TV and put on a weekly soap with characters they knew by name. Marie brought Arbin and I each a plate of rice, beans, and tortillas. For a drink she gave me a glass of corn milk mixed with cocoa powder. It was thick and pulpy but faintly sweet.

For an hour, we watched the soap and chatted during the commercials. Arbin, 35, told me that he married just last year. I was shocked by this as many of the farmers I met in Mexico and Central America married in their late teens or early twenties.

Trying to be polite but also figure out why he married so late, I said in broken Spanish, “Wow! I’m surprised. I thought you were younger because you and your wife both look so young. Were you boyfriend and girlfriend for many years before you got married?”

Above:  Arbin and Marie’s wedding photo

“No not really.” He turned to his mother. “See he thinks I look young! He doesn’t talk about my belly,” he said laughing as he rubbed his paunch. “I’m 35. But there are many young husbands and wives here. There are 100 people that live out here in these fields. Some married at age 14. Many at age 19 or 20.”

The commercial that was on at the time ended and the show came back on. Conversation came to an abrupt halt. Everyone focused on the small television glowing in the corner, the portal through which fantasy leaks for an hour a week and drowns out the chicken clucks and the drone of crickets outside.

*****

The moment the show ended, before the credits rolled, Marie bounced up from her seat and turned off the TV. The candle was low so she lit up another one.

“Do you want to see pictures of Arbin’s wedding?” Arbin’s mom asked.

“Sure, I’d love to.”

She pushed aside the sheet that hung in the doorway to her room and came out a moment later with a ratty shoe box. Inside were dozens of pictures, all of different sizes and in varying stages of photographic decay. The smooth skin on faces frozen in portraits was mottled with spots or stains. Picture corners peeled like unfurling ferns under the guidance of humidity. Written descriptions, ages, names on the backs of photos bled through to the images on the front and made some family members look like tattoo and scarification aficionados. Deep in the pile were a few wedding pictures of Arbin and his wife. Arbin looked uncomfortable and sweaty in his starched suit.

“You see this person here?” Arbin’s mom asked as she pointed to a stocky man in a cowboy hat. “He has 24 brothers and sisters. He is my brother-in-law.”

“24!” I exclaimed.

“24! I know, it’s so many. But he’s older and he is from a different time. His family needed 24 so they could raise more cows and grow more corn. Twenty four little workers.” She smiled and got lost for a moment in the memories the man stirred up in her. Pause. “Now, it’s not so popular. I’m one of 10 children though. Arbin is one of six. Five or six is common now. Five or six is good, even today.”

She didn’t look at Arbin but I could tell she wanted to.

When the second candle burned down, we made our way to bed.