Hungry anyone?

Found food in Hong Kong last weekend very photogenic but not very appetising. Tried one meal but was unable to finish the vegetable curry and faro dumplings, the taste of the dumpling was all wrong as was the texture of the curry. Then I really struggled with the concept of picking my fresh seafood from an on site aquarium.

Food is often one of the biggest challenges and can be one of the greatest pleasures in living in a new country. Not only are you confronted by all sorts of new foods and simply trying to figure out what they are, how to eat them and whether you like them or think your taste buds can adapt to them, there is also the challenge of working out how to buy the raw ingredients, what they are and how to cook them. I remember cooking revolting calaloo before I learnt you had to cut the stem out or appalling a friend in Guyana when I cooked squash without peeling it first. Of course western style supermarkets in Manila mean I can choose to stay with only the known foodstuffs but that doesn't seem very adventurous.

I do think that adjusting to Chinese cuisine and cooking would be a real challenge for the Westerner, it's perhaps the hardest cuisine to get enthusiastic about. Meanwhile, I get a desire for gallo pinto or nacatamales (Nicaragua) or chicken curry and roti or salt fish and bake (Guyana) about as often as I crave fish and chips or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (England) showing the ability to adapt.

Seeing Poverty

I guess it's not that long since I wrote a fairly lengthy post about life at traffic lights in Managua and I suppose it is one of the differences I have noticed in Manila. Metro Manila alone has a population about three times as large as that of the whole of Nicaragua. There is a lot of wealth and there is a lot of poverty in the Philippines, with a much bigger population the wealth feels more visible than in Managua, even though it definitely existed there too.

The slow traffic means Manila's street vendors don't have to limit themselves to traffic light junctions like in Managua and yet I would say I have seen far fewer vendors or beggars. About a week ago a child came up to the car windows to ask for money and our driver told him to go away. He told us you shouldn't give to children, I asked why and he said they will use money for drugs or glue, he went on to explain that he might offer them food if he has but mostly they reject it or he may give to the blind or disabled or the old.

On the way home on Friday night I watched a blind man being led from car to car by an emaciated female guide and what struck me was how absolutely no-one in any of the vehicles gave them anything, if I had seen the same scenario in Managua I know without a doubt someone would have given a coin or two. I gave nothing either although as we drove away I wished I had.

On the same day on the front page of the newspaper The Philippine Star it read:

The number of Filipino families that experienced hunger grew from about 3 million households in June to about 4.3 million in September, according to a survey released yesterday by the Social Weather Station (SWS). The SWS poll...found that one in five families or 21.5% experienced having nothing to eat in the last three months.

 Moderate and severe hunger increased by nearly 5 point to 18% and 1.5 points to 3.5%. 'Moderate hunger' refers to experiencing having nothing to eat 'only once' or 'a few times' in the last three months, while 'severe hunger' involves going hungry 'often' or 'always'.

When you see poverty daily it is too easy to become blind, cynical or feel helpless. God help me to really see.

The Bare Necessities

Working on projects means I spend a good part of my time planning and then trying to control outcomes to meet the plans. There always seems to be a Plan B at hand and often we end up on Plan C, my job is to control things to bring a project to conclusion in a timely manner without spending too much money. We like to be in control or at least to feel we are in control and yet every moment of our lives things are happening over which we have absolutely no control. Often I get frustrated but every now and again I remember since I have no control over this thing or another there is little point getting stressed over it.

I have no control over the weather. Therefore I have no control over whether I can fly from A to B according to my hoped for schedule, normally things work out within an hour or two of the plan, but we only have to watch the anger and chaos that builds up when suddenly an airport shuts down or reduces flights due to snow or winds or volcanic ash.

I am reminded of one of the prayers that was often read out in school assemblies and I believe attributed to St Francis of Assisi

Lord give me the courage to change the things I can change, the grace to accept the things I cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference.

I should have been arriving in the UK this morning, but on Saturday night with less than 12 hours before I headed to the airport I learnt all my flights through New York were cancelled as a sensible safety precaution in the face of hurricane strength winds heading up the US Eastern seaboard to NY. I thought maybe I could get diverted to London instead of Manchester thus avoiding NY but it seems many other people had that idea before me, so after an hour on the phone to the airline I learnt the earliest flight they could get me on even to London was Friday, 5 days later. I accepted it after all what else could I do and whilst I wasn't initially happy I realised spending another week in Managua with a room and a job and lots of friends around was most definitely better than being in queues for standby places day after day in Houston. Of course after several farewells people were surprised to see me but generally everyone seems pretty glad about it at this end.

So having packed or given almost everything away in anticipation of the grand departure I went to the supermarket across the road last night and bought what I deemed the bare essentials for the next 4 days, at least the bananas give a glimpse of healthiness to my choices.

The Bare Necessities

Thinking positive about leaving

Three full days to go and then I get on the plane out of Nicaragua. I'm sad to be leaving but in an endeavour to try and see some positives three have leapt out at me over the last week or so.

First it forces you to sort through all that STUFF you accumulate, especially when you have to whittle it down to three checked in bags (hoping they let me through with number 3 all be it paid for) and a maximum of one cubic meter of ship freight I won't be seeing for at least 3 months. I didn't think I had a lot of clothes until I started packing, I thought books would be my problem. Writing the packing lists of what is in each box or bag makes me realise just how much stuff I have. How did I keep thinking I didn't have enough socks? I have 30 pairs I discovered and my laundry is done 4 days a week!

Secondly and more fun than the stuff sorting is the fact that suddenly spending time with people becomes a priority. The fact you are leaving means both you and others suddenly try and make space in the diary to meet up. For example for more than a year now a couple at church and I have been making sporadic attempts to meet up for dinner and it has never worked out, once I heard I was leaving suddenly we were getting together for lunch on Sunday that very same week and chatting for more that three hours.

Monday's fine dining. Goodbye to friends.

Sunday brunch at my flat with friends in anticipation of my departure

This too seems to be one of the advantages of living out of your home country when you visit home because you are only there for a short period people are much more willing to find ways to accommodate meeting up since there isn't the option of leaving it for another week or another time when it'll fit in better. Doesn't always work of course, but it seems to be the general trend.

Finally people consciously start saying nice things about you and what they'll miss. Of course you hope they are being honest not just polite:-) It almost starts to feel like getting to eavesdrop on the nice things one hopes they will say at your funeral, only better - well maybe not better depending on what happens after death. I also find myself thinking what I will miss about those I take for granted around me every day.

Well more packing awaits.....

Dentist

When you know you are leaving several things that you have been postponing suddenly become priorities to get done, among those things are dentist and doctors appointment, after all with almost 5 years here I have found medical professionals I trust.


So probably to the surprise of my dentist I turned up for my six monthly check up and cleaning before the six months had elapsed. She knows I hate the visits to the dentist, I never used to but having left it 10 years without visiting as I moved from place to place it seems the enamel is not as strong as it was as a child, when I used to wonder why people were afraid of the dentist.Less enamel equals more discomfort in the cleaning, at least as far as I'm concerned. Since the husband and wife dental practice I attend worked for 10 years in the USA during the difficult years of the 1980's in Nicaragua they have the added advantage of speaking fluent English, particularly useful since my dental related vocabulary isn't as well developed as my sewage and engineering related vocabulary.

My dentist visit at the end of the day reminded me of another thing I like about being in Nicaragua. My dentist builds in extra time knowing she'll have to go slow and use less abrasive and quick techniques, break and talking time is built in. Each time I learn something new about them as people, admittedly there are certain moments when the two way element of a conversation is somewhat limited as some implement or other is thrust into your mouth. Since it was the last appointment on Friday there seemed no rush, no desire to shut up shop and be gone, we talked about politics both Nicaraguan and the riots that had broken out in England, about racial prejudice, about our tendency to be more fearful and risk-conscious as we get older and about moving countries.

As I left my dentist asked where I'll get my next check-up I replied that my hope was to wait till I come back to visit although whilst the treatment is cheaper than the UK if I have to add an airline ticket onto the costs it will be a very expensive dental check up! Nicaragua should do really well out of medical tourism being so relatively close to the very expensive US, but me I just like the fact that there is time to talk about more than just teeth, like older people tell us what visiting doctors in the UK was like before everything was governed by costs and targets. 

Making Friends

Although my flight is not yet booked I have almost exactly two weeks left in Nicaragua, before a brief stop in the UK and then off to Asia, the great unknown for me. I'm less of an emotional mess than I was just 7 days ago, but it still seems very odd to be leaving I thought I would have been here till January. Living abroad seems to involve a great deal more goodbyes than life in your homeland, partly because our stay is never really permanent and partly because many of your friends end up being other foreigners.

Over this last year it has felt like more of my foreign friends have left than usual either for good or for long periods away. Of course new people arrive too. Over the last few months I've got to know a recently arrived South African/US couple Jacques and Amanda who have joined our church. As I explained to them I approached them due to the South Africa link, if they'd been a 100% north American couple I'd probably have assumed it was the responsibility of the north American majority of the congregation to embrace them. It seems as the only British member I've assigned myself greeting the other "minorities". With so much change in the congregation this year lately I'd found myself of thinking of ways we can try to get to know one another better. Last Sunday was the biggest new attempt yet with our normal Sunday communion service being head down on Pochomil beach on the Pacific coast about an hour from Managua, followed by food, swimming and fun. It went well but felt a little odd that it also turned out to be the occasion for me advising friends I was leaving.

Communion on the Beach, Pochomil, Nicaragua

Lunch and fun after communion service at the beach

Saying goodbye to friends and then knowing the effort required to make new friends is the hardest thing about moving countries. I know the fact I will probably only be in Asia about 6 months and will be between two countries makes this task even harder, since I already know how seemingly unreasonable it is for someone to decide to invest in being friends with me when they'll barely get to know me before it will be time to say "Goodbye." I am trying to remind myself to heed the advice I've given to Jacques and Amanda as they try to get to know people at church, that unfortunately they have to take the first step.

Couldn't help smiling at Jacques observations on how difficult it can be making friends in a new country in their newsletter this month, something he's always thought was easy. Making friends by Jacques

London's Burning

This week the riots in the UK made front page news in Nicaragua La Prensa Spanish article on the riots so not only am I here looking at Nicaragua through outsider's eyes but I am starting to see my own country that way and starting to see how other's must be looking at us. Of course it may only be a few hundred or so people who have been looting or burning, but this is England, the world assumes a certain level of decorum, instead the photos look like they are coming out of one of the Middle Eastern countries in crisis. There our media said the protesters were fighting for democracy or were dismayed at the lack of opportunity for young people, there was outrage when the Egyptian government or dictatorship (depending who was writing) shut down Twitter and Blackberry to stop social communication to plan riots and yet it seems that's exactly what happened or was threatened with Blackberry in the UK.

Of course I am not justifying the burning of property and looting, nor equating the motives of the violence with the Arab Spring, although I'm a bit short of comments on my blog so maybe I should encourage the torrent of outraged comments that might produce! But it's a strange sensation to be associated with this country which is being covered for it's lawlessness. I'm used to people's media knowledge of the UK being limited to the royal family or celebrities. It's particularly odd to read the US comments on Yahoo, I'm always left wondering how wise it is to have a medium where people can say such outrageous things anonymously.

I am amused by the comments by Nicaraguan readers posted at the bottom of the London riots article.
Bartolo says: "So when is the NATO bombardment going to begin to defend the innocent civilians?
German's comment is more locally directed at La Prensa's constant criticism of the current Nicaraguan Sandinista government of saying "so now they are going to say these pyromaniacs (in London) are Sandinistas!"

A South African friend had also shared with me an article on a news parody website where the African Union would be meeting to decide if they should send peacekeeping troops in and they would be preparing aid packages for the poor effected families and condom supplies to prevent HIV spread in the disaster situation.

I am sure some people in the UK will be upset I am being so flippant but as an outsider it does look a bit arrogant that the UK government can decide to acknowledge a rebel, non-elected, non-democratic government and only a couple of weeks later have anarchy on our own streets.

And by the way who runs the country whilst all the English politicians are on holiday? Oh how foolish of me it was probably Rupert Murdoch anyway!

Traffic Lights

Moving away temporarily from posts related to the Middle East, I am remarkably going to make this post about traffic lights. I say "remarkably" simply because if I was still living in the UK I can't help feeling it would be a real challenge to try and find anything interesting to write about traffic lights beyond the very practical details of everything already contained in the Highway Code, which lets be realistic is a necessary, but far from interesting read!

Living in Nicaragua on the other hand affords all sorts of interesting observations related to what would normally be a mundane traffic control apparatus. Traffic lights are a business opportunity to offer all sorts of services and "drive thru" sales without the need to even pull off the road to drive through. The quantity of things that can be bought in those few seconds that you stop on the red light is almost unbelievable. There are the standard items like newspapers in the early morning hours, chewing gum, fruit, sweets/candies, peanuts or little blue, sealed, plastic bags of purified water. Then there are more specialised vehicle related accessories like seat or steering wheel covers, windscreen wipers especially now we have entered the rainy season, window shades, small flags of the country, political party or Barcelona FC to stick on your dashboard and a variety of bumper stickers. Mobile phone accessories and sunglasses are also common items to be available for sale.

In addition to the more common items there are also some traffic light junctions where there are more specialist items for sale, which you have to know which traffic lights to go to. For example the obvious one which I pass daily on the way to work is the coconut products intersection. A group of people arrive early in the morning with a cart full of coconuts and whilst a few people sit under the tree by the roadside and prepare the coconuts for the different forms of sale chopping off the husks with machetes to leave a ball of clean coconut flesh exposed and draining the coconut water into plastic bags, the others walk around the passing vehicles selling them. By early afternoon they have generally sold all their wares and sweep up all their refuse and push it away in their cart until the process starts all over again the following morning.

Clearly, the street vendors also know how to maximise their opportunities with seasonal products. These include umbrellas on rainy days, Nicaraguan or Sandinista flags in July and September for national holidays, fabric roses for mothers day and Valentine's Day and what to me look like a rather strange cross between an alpaca and a reindeer as Christmas approaches.

However traffic lights are not just limited to sales you also have the opportunity to be entertained mostly by children and young adults juggling some with painted faces or dressed as clowns. I am particularly impressed and concerned by the ones who juggle kerosene fueled torches, the sensible part of me always wonders if it's such a good idea to juggle with fire so close to petrol engines. Recently I noticed in the constant endeavour for people to get their act to stand out from the crowd a couple of young men dressed as clowns were juggling fire torches whilst one stood on the other's shoulders - as far as I am concerned they deserved the Cordoba (approx 3 pence) they were trying to get from the stationary drivers as they finished their brief act, the coordination of the timing alone is impressive. Lights turn red, one jumps on the other's shoulders, the lower guy lights the torches and passes them up to the upper one who then executes his routine before blowing out the torches, jumping down and then running around the nearby cars soliciting a donation all before the lights turn green again. There are mixed opinions, mainly among foreigners, on whether to give anything or not, but I've come to the conclusion it certainly looks like work when they offer this type of entertainment.

Perhaps the most common encounter of all at traffic lights are the windscreen cleaners, anyone with a plastic bottle of water and a squeezy window scraper can embark on this, some are friendly, others are insistent, still others are aggressive - a firm "No!" along with wagging the first finger indicates you don't want the windscreen washed, but you have to be attentive since the insistent to aggressive style means trying to sneak up and wash without allowing you time to refuse and then the obligation is to pay the required cordoba. Whilst it is a potentially useful service it can be exhausting when on the way home you pass at least five different traffic lights where everyone wants to wash your windscreen, and sometimes your windscreen can end up dirtier than before it was cleaned.

Perhaps unsurprisingly amongst all these other activities are also beggars, mostly children, women carrying children or people with disabilities. Sadly it seems most foreigners have a story of how the begging is a scam, that the children are sent out by their parents or women rent other people's babies as they earn more money that way or how the blind man and the child who guides him spilt the money they collect and they earn more than a labourer in a day. I think all of us outsiders find it a constant assault on our emotions and our guilt for a long while. I know for a long time, especially at the end of the day when I was tired, I found myself feeling extremely angry at having to face this barrage of demanding people repeatedly when all I wanted to do was get home and instead I was faced with anger and guilt, after all even if I believed all of the scam type stories there was no doubt I had more than them. It seems everyone in the end has to find their own coping strategy. What is mine? I decided that spending several hours going from car to car asking for change in the hot sun, facing frequent rejection, certainly constituted some form of effort or "work" and that sometimes, to some people I would give the odd coin and other times I wouldn't and whichever it were I'd neither feel good nor guilty but that I'd try and smile at them instead of scowling and feeling angry at the way their presence made me feel guilty about wealth.  

It is strange in some ways I suppose when I think about the few individuals on my work route who I frequently meet when the lights turn red, only in exceptional cases do I learn their names and yet multiple times a week we interact perhaps for 10 seconds and now I can recognise our shared humanity.

So the above is a glimpse into the 10 to 60 seconds transactions at the traffic lights which I do multiple times a day, almost unthinkingly now. In a few locations, especially where the number of vendors is high, there is an added challenge of ensuring that the few rogues in the crowd don't steal your side lights. I've learnt to be especially vigilant when some insists on washing your window even when you've said "No" and then their free hand drops out of site onto the wing of your car. Half the vehicles in Managua go around with one of their side indicators missing.

How to navigate traffic lights in Managua is a skill to learn, can be overwhelming, requires attentiveness but there is plenty to see, they serve a far wider purpose than simply traffic management  and no-one can say they are boring!