Sounds and Smells...

So I wrote this as the beginning of a post about Estelí while I was still in Nicaragua last winter. I never finished it, so I never posted it... and here it is six months later.

I was listening to Norah Jones today, and for some reason she inspired me to finish it up. I think it's because the next trip will be starting soon, and frankly I should wrap up the stuff for the last one.

So what follows was written a long time ago, and I'm posting it because.... well, because I want to! And because of Norah.
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From January, 2005:

It's funny coming into one of these little internet places in Estelí. When I was here last year this time, there were two internet places in the whole city, as far as I knew. Now there are 5 on the main street, and more on a couple of side streets -- and likely a couple I don't know about.

The cost is good for me: 10 or 20 córdobas an hour, which is about a buck or two bucks, give or take a dime or two. The place I'm in right now makes headphones available, so I'm listening to Norah Jones over the internet as I type this.

That's kind of funny, of course... Norah isn't one of the sounds I consider typical of Nicaragua. Every day, even here in a city of 120,000 people, I awake to the sounds of roosters crowing and pigs squealing as they are being slaughtered (there is a family on the next block that butchers a couple of pigs every morning and sells the fresh meat during the day. They buy more pigs weekly).

Today as I was getting up, I heard dogs fighting in the street. Turns out the family dog, a sharpé named 'Bone', decided to give a little pack of three dogs the bum's rush from his territory, which he thinks includes the little wild area at the crossroads about fifty meters from the front door. Well, it was three to one, and the others didn't back down. Bone ended up getting the worst of it, and he has been literally licking his wounds all day as a result. He'll be fine, but now I know why he has battle scars. Apparently this wasn't the first time he failed to count the number of opponents he was taking on in a fight.

Anyway -- roosters, pigs, dogs... other animals... also, for some reason, loudspeakers. These evil things are placed on the backs of trucks and rolled through town, and AT THE HIGHEST VOLUME AVAILABLE -- roughtly the decibel level of a jet engine -- everything is advertised, from pork rinds to Jesus. It wouldn't be so bad, but the houses are all open to the air, which means they're open to the noise.

And the smell. Nicaraguans burn garbage, and the smoke regularly wafts into the house, carrying the aroma of whatever they're burning. Also, the cars and trucks don't have the best exhaust systems, so I have become accustomed to the smell of exhaust fumes on a regular basis.

I don't mean to complain, though I guess I am complaining...