It was cool to see Managua again two weeks after arriving at the airport. In some ways, we felt like we were back in a city at home because Jinotepe doesn’t have roads as wide or a hotel as tall or nearly as many lights; that being said, it was hard to ignore the tin-roof houses and dilapidated shacks amongst the Western-style buildings. In Jinotepe, most people buy their clothes in the market or from small stores with a only a few sizes where things are cheap both in price and in quality. (I bought a pair of pumps for about seven dollars yesterday afternoon.) I was surprised to see that at the mall in Managua, they had a Guess store! It was like walking into a completely different world where people could afford to dress up and go shopping on a Friday evening. While it was fun to gawk, it shook me up to see that some percentage of Nicaraguans have so much money to spend on shopping when others have so little to spend on living.
When we walked into the movie theatre, we may as well have been in Edmonton. They had air conditioning, for one thing, which isn’t very common in Jinotepe, and the prices for the food were in US dollars. I got a “frozen cacao” to perk me up after the long minibus ride in the dark and it was probably the most delicious frozen drink I’ve ever had, like a chocolatey chai chiller.
Anyway, we showed up fifteen minutes before the movie and paid four dollars to get into it, so there to my friends who had no sympathy for me when I was worried that I wouldn’t get to see it! Watching the movie – which was amazing and sad, of course – was an entirely different experience, though. People spoke and laughed and played with their cell phones and smoked throughout the whole thing! It got pretty frustrating because although most people were probably reading the subtitles, we wanted to listen. Still – we got to see the final Harry Potter movie in Nicaragua the day it came out. We’re pretty lucky!The whole night was full of reminders of how privileged we are as well as how privileged some Nicaraguans are. The place we went to dance, Moods, was a really big club not unlike the ones at home except that the nine-dollar cover included drinks all night, the music had a much more exciting latin groove to it and – just like in the theater – there were people smoking everywhere. I remember Brianne talking to her family last week and saying, “A lot of people here can’t really afford to be good-looking,” which makes a lot of sense. When you’re struggling to make ends meet, you have to have your priorities straight. Looking at the people in Moods, it was clear that making ends meet was not an issue; in fact, most would have fit in at home. We spoke to a few people who spoke really great English, too, which José said isn’t uncommon because the people who have more money can afford to learn; one guy I spoke to even said he went to an American school here in Nica. Apparently the majority of the people who go out to places like Moods on a regular basis can afford to do so because their parents have money, but some work, too.
The night out was kind of a break from reality – before we left the dark movie theater, we actually paused to relish the familiarity before “going back to Nicaragua” – but one night was enough. Even though things were a lot like home, it felt more luxurious because the divide between rich and poor was terribly apparent. I’d rather be in Jinotepe:)
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