Hello parents and friends, since there is a limited amount of time that we are able to use the computers, i think i am just going to write one email to all of you at the moment, sorry. lol. Well, my family is possibly the best thing to happen yet on this trip. There are ten of them living with me in my house. The grandmother, mother, father, three brothers, one brothers wife, two children of the brother, one child of the brother’s wife, and another kid whose mother is living in north carolina with two more brothers. The way we have figured it out, they start popping kids out when they are about twenty, and do so every two years for a very long time. The house is actually very nice, and yes there is a shower. However no hot water, but there isn’t any anywhere in Esteli. Today was the first chance i got to take a shower, and it was not as bad as you would think. Any amount of cleaning is very looked forward to by me. God does my hair feel great today. The father is a pastor, the mother is a teacher, and the oldest brother owns a store with his wife. I’m not really sure about any ages, except that the two youngest brothers are 19 and 21, and both of them are currently attending a university. The four smallest children are wonderful, they are the grandchildren or the great grandchildren, depending on how you look at it. The five year old girl, who up until today would not talk to me, is awesome, and turns out she speaks better English then me. She speaks better spanish than any nicaraguan i have met so far, except for bertha. Yes, we have one teacher per child, and we study for three and a half hours every day. It is pretty intense but we are learning a lot, and are getting pretty good at basic communication. Me and hil visited a very poor school yesterday, It really makes you think. Three hundred and twenty students attend, and there are four classrooms. Me and hilary are going to be doing some volunteer work there, once or twice a week. The camera was such a good idea, and you are going to love the pictures that i bring back. Everyone is welcome to write me by email, or snail mail, depending on what you prefer. I would love to get emails from all of you.

This is such a beautiful country, but it doesn’t keep me from missing all of you.
Have a wonderful day.
Always,
Matt

abstudent16@hotmail.com

Hey,
Well, we have finally found an internet cafe that we can use and understand….. kinda.
We made it safe and sound to Esteli and we happened to meet the president of Nicaragua in the airport and again on the plane. It was a very intresting experience. We made a new friend, her name is Bertha and we met her in the airport. She is Nicaraguan and lives in Managua. She was traveling back from a vacation with her family and they seem very nice, I know that you did not want us traveling to Managua but they have offered to let us stay in their house and show us around. They also have a house in San Juan Del Sur that they might take us too. If we go to Managua we would go on our second or third weekend. Second if it is up to me, third if it is up to Hilary. I love the family I am staying with, it is huge. There are ten of them. 11 including me. They are very nice and both me and Hilary really enjoy talking to them….. if you can call it talking. ClassÂ¥s are going very well, although they are a pain in the ass. Our Spanish is improving rapidly but we still have no idea what we are doing. Esteli is a very nice little city, and aside from the daily harassment Hilary receives, it is going very well. Much much love, and I will talk to you soon. As I said phones are few and far between, but you may be able to call my house. If you want to , you should try to call around 8 or 9 ur time. Hilary would like to say something so…
love matt

HEYA! just to reiterate what Matt said, weÂ¥re doing just dandy. His family is really, really sweet, and one of them speaks pretty good English so it’s a) easy to talk with him and b) we learn a lot because he can say a word in English if we don’t understand it in Spanish.
I’m trying to get Matt to go to MIRAFLOR this weekend, LEON AND MASAYA next weekend, and MANAGUA the third weekend. Bertha and her family are really nice, and they tried to slip us past customs, but the Presidents bodyguards wouldn’t let us cuz we had too many bags. Deeply amusing. and when we were confused in the airport in Managua and couldn’t find our driver (because we are stupid and blind) the President helped us out.
We aren’t getting into trouble, so no worries.
Matt is learning a ridiculous amount of Spanish tambien.
adios, much love, and tell everyone we say hi (you could post this in the blog if you wish)
love and Light, Hilary

Matt and Hil. We got your phone messages yesterday but we’re starved for more information!

I hired one of Matt’s best friends, Chris Grosjean, for the summer. He’s a strapping lad, requires no breaks and very little fuel, complains not at all, and works like mule, which is to say, you have to tell him it’s time to stop otherwise the sun would set, the stars would appear and he’d still be hoisting beams or staining decks.

He did, however, let me in on a secret today. He said the work he does for me gets him out of cutting the grass on weekends. I laughed and told him I saw his dad, John, cutting the grass on Sunday and he replied, “He needs the exercise.” Sharp, smart words from an equally sharp boy. Anyway, we have fun – okay, maybe only I have fun – and I learn tons of interesting things about his life and the lives of his friends.

Such as what is the primary entry door into their houses. Ever had a conversation with anyone about such a thing? Probably not, but here in Acton it’s not as strange as it sounds. Joy Hertz once told me that if someone rings the front door bell she knows it’s a salesman and she doesn’t answer it. Chris listed every friend and the door they used, and not once did he say front door. The closest he came was, “The secondary front door.” I think this topic came up after we had stained someone out of their condo.

Without disclosing anything of a personal nature that might get Chris in trouble, some of the other topics we’ve touched on include: his primary and secondary friends, the parents he used to consider scary, all kinds of baseball related things (readers of the blog and friends of Chris know he is an accomplished athlete with hopes of pitching in the majors), the uptight locals who call the police for the most trivial of transgressions (yes, a reference to Matt, Chris and their friends will appear AGAIN in the local paper under the police blotter), his grades, how much he studies, and of course how brave Matt and Hil are to have traveled to Nicaragua.

Which leads me to the latest news about my son. At 3 PM my cell phone beeped to announce I had missed a call. Instead of the usual display of the time and the calling number, it said — UNKNOWN 12 AM 1/1/00 .
Chris and I were both convinced it was Matt, which made me feel real good. Send my only born off to a foreign land and then make it impossible to get a hold of us. Bad enough that he was back in school, had no access to hot showers or video games, and was surely feeling isolated because of a lack of a common language, but then to be unavailable when he needed me most. Do I sound self-pitying or just pitiful? Chris wondered why Matt didn’t leave his usual message, “Dad, you never answer your cell phone!” However, Chris also assured me that there would be a message on my machine at home, and sure enough there was.

I played it multiple times, happy to hear his deep voice sounding like a self assured twenty-three year old. Here it is, almost verbatim:

“Anybody there, hello. Mother, Father. Well I’m trying to call now and we can’t find phones that work much less get out to America so I don’t know how often I’ll be able to call. Umm we arrived in Esteli safe and sound so everything is all set. We actually made a friend in the airport. Aaah… and we might be staying with them in Managua for a weekend or something. We’ll try to set up an email address so we can send you some email. I’ll try calling back when it’s convenient. Love you guys, bye.” Click!

Diane is out tonight enjoying dinner with her long time social work group, but you know I had to call and relay Matt’s message. I know how much better Diane is going to feel knowing that Matt and Hil met some stranger in Managua, the only town he was warned to stay out of, and that he’s going to be spending his weekends there. What a chip off the old block.

Chris’ only demand, that he be driven from job site to job site in this chair atop my truck.

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Photos from yesterdayís American Repertory Theatre and the Minneapolis based Theatre de la Jeune Luneís presentation of MoliËre’s, The Miser. The best play weíve seen since Amadeus. Sorry Molly. Globe Review

9:30 PM
Diane did the math and decided that Matt and Hil would be calling between 8 and 9 PM. She went upstairs earlier to wait under the covers and I just ran up to say something like, ìWell! Itís 9:30 and they havenít called. Arenít you worried?î And I would have, but sheís snoring too loudly to hear me.
11:30 AM
Fun facts we now know about Esteli, the town Matt and Hil will be spending most of their time. For the home stay families this can be their only income so they are quite grateful for having boarders. They donít have hot water – Matt will miss his lengthy showers – and the families do all the laundry on wash boards. Taxis in Esteli to any other part of Esteli costs thirty-five cents.

Earlier when I wrote about how we were going to the airport, I didnít mean me. Diane and Lou took the kids, stood in line, and waved an early security proscribed goodbye. Diane reports they both appeared happy and confident, and that their leg to Miami arrived an hour early. Matt has strict instructions to call from Esteli tonight, and tomorrow night and at least once a week after that. If he wants to check-in more often, fine, but those are my bare minimum demands.

This turned out to be much harder for both of us that I could have imagined. Diane didnít sleep and when she returned chose the couch in the living room rather than be reminded of her fitful night in our bed. The couch didnít help and now weíre both wondering when our next sound sleep will come. My guess is after his second call when he tells us heís okay, and his voice confirms it.

Outside Hil’s house before the ride to the airport.

Matt’s surprise going away/birthday party was a surprise and from the parent-in-a-corner’s view, a rollicking good time. Now, however, it is 4:30 AM and we’re off to the airport. What a fine, stomach in knots, sleepless night I had. I suspect Diane’s was not much better.

I was working at one of the condominiums when this hummingbird knocked himself silly flying into a glass sliding door. He sat dazed long enough for me to snap his pic from about three inches. When I finished he flew away. The nail heads gives good size perspective.

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Groggy
View from above

The sequel to Just a Phone Call.

My mother speaking:

I don’t know if I should bring this up, but did you know Alice Bates? I think maybe Joan does. She’s an old friend. Last year, she and her husband George decided to retire. They’re maybe sixty, married over twenty years. Second marriage for both. George was in the appraisal business and Alice sold Avon products on the side. She also did some waitressing on the weekends at that restaurant in St. Joe across from the Catholic church. She told me that was her social life, and so it might have been, when those children were all so young. I met her when she came to my Yoga class at USI; George told her yoga might help with her lupus.

He’s a good man. Didn’t read much but absorbed some NRA propaganda; hence the guns. His oldest daughter is not his but they brought her up as if she were. His youngest girl, Lisa, is married with two children and is probably the most attached to him. She even imitates his mannerisms. His middle daughter was killed in an auto accident last summer. He was inconsolable .

Alice had told me some time ago that she wanted them to take a vacation to Vegas to cheer him up. Gambling was something they both enjoyed–don’t know if they knew the odds…but they surely did. About two months ago they were returning from their cabin on Kentucky Lake when he got sick. He said his back hurt but his doctor at Deaconess here said it was lung cancer – Stage 4. They told him if chemo didn’t work, he had six months. The chemo made him pretty sick even with phenergan.

I called Alice two weeks ago to tell her about a Wall Street Journal article on cancer treatment. There was silence and then she said, “Too late, he took his life last night. I just thought kids were shooting off fireworks. There were about 15 cops in the house including detectives. They were very considerate–got to see all my dirt.”

I told her I had a robbery once and had left a mess–gone all day from early in the morning. The detective said, “They messed things up pretty good, didn’t they?” I had to laugh and admit that I was responsible for some of it.

I asked Alice how the youngest girl, Lisa, was doing.

“They had to medicate her”, Alice replied.

I called back two days later and Alice wanted to discuss the funeral. To see if it was okay to put it off until the 15th of July. The oldest girl who was not his, thought it should be sooner. I told her, “Do what feels right to you. It is not up to the children.”

Then Alice said, “I need to ask you something else. I’m scrubbing the rug. How do I get the blood out?”

I told her cold water first.

“I’m doing that but it isn’t getting it all out.”

“Hold on while I get an old cookbook with household hints. It says use a paste of starch.”

ëI don’t have any.’

“Do you have cornstarch? That will probably work.”

“Yes, “ now with voice breaking, “I’m going to miss him so.”

“Go ahead and cry, You must or you can’t heal at all.’”

“The floodgates open and we both hang up.”

Saturday morning the phone rang and it was my mother :

“You got your printer to work?”

“Dash did it, he talked to the Epson rep for a long time. Followed his instructions and now it prints.”

“Mack must be happy to get his stock portfolio. I could tell by your email that the storm clouds were overhead.”

“Epson said it was a conflict with OS X.”

“But why did it work before? And that means you didn’t have to send the other printer back?”

“I don’t know. They said it was fluky, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

“I wonder what we’d do without the Ruthenburgs? Travis, now Dash. I couldn’t fly down there and fix it. Funny though, this computer that Mack so hates, yet if that portfolio of his is delayed, look out.”

“He wanted me to go into the basement and get the old printer.”

“The Stylewriter… . It still works but uses a different cable. You can’t plug it in to your new computer.”

“That’s what I thought.”

My mother often says, “That’s what I thought,” when I’m thinking, how does she know?. She knows so much about so many things but about computers? She shares that sense of mythical mastery with my sister.

“Dash and I went to Fahrenheit 9/11.”

“Did you like it?”

“Oh yeah, but Richard Cohen wrote a scathing review.”

“Who’s Cohen?”

“A syndicated Washington Post columnist in our paper.”

“Far more people loved that movie than did not.”

“Really?”

Peter sounded equally surprised, which confounded me, until I realized it’s the internet where I get most of my information.

“When does Matthew leave for Nicaragua? Will my check get there in time?

“Not till next Sunday (this was Saturday and my use of the word next drives some people nuts. Like Diane). You have plenty of time.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Yeah, nervous and excited. The closer it gets. I can’t stop running into people who look at me as if I should be behind bars. Without them, I’d be fine.”

“Well, we have to let him go.” She said it in the greater letting go way, not the obvious, because, after all, we didn’t have to say yes.

“Dash loved Nicaragua. He thinks he’ll be fine if Matt stays out of Managua.’

“Many people say that, and Matt and Hil only pass through, unless they go back on weekends.” That was supposed to be funny but wasn’t, unlike what my sister wrote me, “Tear up his plane ticket and send him to live with us. We’ll treat him badly, but there will be hospitals nearby.”

“How much does he know about the politics of the country?”

“Too much. He and Hil saw a documentary at Harvard that featured our support of Somoza and our funding of the Contras. There were people in the audience whose families were killed by the Contras. I wish he didn’t know any of that. At sixteen his life should be carefree. But I think this trip could be transformative, like when Peter went to Japan. He found his country.”

“No, it’s more like when Peter marched with Father Groppi in Milwaukee at the same age. Do you remember what Brian said before Peter left?
ëDon’t smart off and keep your head down.’ “

“That is funny. That reminds me, how is Ben?”

“He’s better. His doctor upped his Tegretol.”

“About time.”

“I know. I thought I should do something but I can’t be responsible for everyone.”

“Yes you can, and you are, and you do and remember, you talked to Diane about his manic episodes. What you have to do is let go.”

To be continued….

I wander the aisles at Idylwilde looking for the tomatoiest tasting tomato. Is it the vine ripened one from Holland, or the hothouse tomato from nearby Bolton Farms or the hard as a marble, pink one from California? I know Iíll be fondling, smelling, bouncing those things for three more weeks before the first native grown tomato is on the market. In the meantime, shinydome, living two degrees further north, has again – how many years in a row is this, twenty? – produced a fully vine ripened one on the 4th of July.
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The beartooths of 2004 were even more beautiful than last year! Lots of snow in the high country, budding and blossoming flowers in the lower meadows, waterfalls like Yosemite, birds, bears, deer. And, all week, we were never out of earshot of guzzling, roaring streams cascading through bouldered chasms, and were always in sight of mighty cliff faces never trod by humans.
You’ll hear more about it when my compatriots, Captain Phil and Senor Cutter send me their digital shots.

Ed

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