Bus ride to San Juan del Sur

I was on a bus from Cardenas to San Juan del Sur. All I could think about was my poor backpack tied to the top of the bus, along with the chickens. I just imagined all my books taking off and landing on the fields, the pages escaping the binding and flying around like birds and dragonflies.

A gringo, in the small town of Calcutta, wearing a worn out orange t-shirt, took a long drag from his cigarette. "I was a vet from the Persian Gulf War. After that, I decided I no longer wanted to be American. I saw some stuff and knew I could no longer live in the states. I moved to Costa Rica and did construction for about eight years. My boss took me to Nicaragua. I went back to the States, made some money, got my brother and my mother, and came back down here."

I was on a bus from Cardenas to San Juan del Sur. I sat next to this middle-aged North Carolinian Gringo (the only other English -speaking person on the bus and his family was the only English-speaking family in the entire village) and his nephew. I made the mistake of telling him that his nephew supports my friend’s theory that mixed kids are the most attractive.
“He ain’t mixed. He’s an adopted kid.” He picked up the child, put him on his lap, and started rubbing his head. “Right man? Where going to grandma’s house and then where we going? We’re going to your house? You’re going to go look at the chickens?” He tried to get his nephew to talk to me but he was too shy or I posed too much of a threat. I made some funny faces at the nephew. The nephew was unimpressed so I retired to watch the Gringo’s pale, worn out hands run up and down the smooth, dark skin of the small boy.
“You fly down here?” he eventually asked me.
“Yea. I flew into Juan Santa Maria.”
“Where’s that?”
“San Jose, Costa Rica.”
“Did you fly down here?” I asked.
“No. I come on the bus.”
“All the way through Mexico?”
“We drove because we used to live in Colorado, me and my brother, and then we drove all over America. We’re pretty much exactly alike, me and my brother, the way we think about the world and you know all of it. We had this van and we used to live in and staff, work construction all around the country. Then we drove down to Costa Rica, sold the van, sold everything, worked down there, then came up here to Nicaragua. I haven’t been out of Nicaragua in eight years.”
I started to wonder what my life would be like if I moved to this village. Would skinny-dipping in the middle of Lake Nicaragua beneath a full moon and a swarm of bats get old after eight years?
“Yea. I don’t think I will ever go back to the states,” he said.
I knew the U.S. fucked with him somehow. “So, so, so do you have sentiments against American people or the American government?”
“Just the government. American people are innocent people. We believe in our government. They just steer us the wrong way, you know. I was a believer. I was red, white, and blue all over. I was a marine, you know what I’m saying, I mean, I loved America until I went down to the Persian Gulf. Then, after that, I said I’m out of here.”
“Have you kept up with what’s happening in America right now?”
“No.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“We live up in the mountains over there,” he said pointing out the window.
“It must be crazy to have all that firsthand experience,” I said.
“That’s my mother’s house. I am painting her house this week. ”
“Oh right. Your mom is down her too.”
“Yea its only because we’re down here,” he said.
“My mom would never come here.”
“It’s not her place of choice but she didn’t have any other choice. She knew we were never coming back to the states, so…”
“What a flexible mom!”
“Yea, she’s retired now, our dad’s dead, she didn’t’ have any money, so…”