H e couldn’t stop laughing almost the whole way to Managua. Bit by bit the other passengers were getting that way too, even though some of the younger men, between guffaws, were exchanging quizzical looks. It was obvious; after listless, colorless Honduras he was happy to be home. A middle-aged singer with a tiny Chaplin mustache, he was back from a tour of the Honduran “hot spots” where he probably enter tained his share of counter-revolutionaries. We met at the last of the three custom houses entering Nicaragua, 30 miles east from where I had crossed into the country in 1978. Even back then, in spite of the “civil war” and the pernicious welcome of the Guardia National, with their chipped teeth, sun glasses and low-slung forty-fives, pecking away at the Kafka- esque immigration forms, I was relieved to be out of Honduras. I was delighted to be back Nicaraqua. Sure, the initial vision of the bombed- out customs house might have rifle before—“Had he ever killed anyNow, boded ill to. some. I was mollified by the soldier, bedecked with flowers in his boots, waving me through while his buddies “siesta-ed” barefoot in the back. The tinge of the macabre was effaced by the nonchalance of the stocky border official who filled out the simple immigration form long-hand. A tiny brass bar on the collar distinguished him from his colleagues lolling about the 6' x 6' concrete shed and he was more interested by the game blasting out of the box in the corner. It was the finals of the amateur world series in Cuba and Nicaragua was tied one-one, with two outs and two men on for Panama. His “office” had no desk, no files—not even a phone through which to run a security check on me (he was issuing me my visa) or perhaps to notify H.Q. if he saw any tanks roll by. For a country at war, it was a pretty relaxed border and because there were no buses,' the musician and I plus a couple of others began hitchhiking south. The sun was still hot over the low scrub cover that cascades down the foothills from the Honduran highlands. The rumor that the forests had all been auctioned off by Anastasio Somoza was evinced by the distinct lack of trees and the loaded lumber trucks arriving from the north. One Honduran teamster, who gave me a ride, told me he always returns empty— Nicaragua has no more exports! As we drove on, we saw soldiers everywhere, riding on vehicles, marching single file along side the road; the silhouette of the AKM (a U.S. made automatic rifle), with its curved cartridge clip, forever catching the eye. One long bridge was so well protected we could barely get across for the crowds of soldiers chatting and strolling lackadaisically. On the far end, a pair of boxing gloves hung from the rafters of the guard booth—apparently the pugilistic arts are in—but no guard emerged to demand “papers” as is the routine everywhere else in Latin America. Here and there the hills began to be speckled with banana plants and small mango trees—sometimes colored by purple bougainvillaeas— indicating gardens. When we got to the junction with the road from Ocotal, where Augusto Cesar San- dino and his small army first challenged the U.S, Marines, we waited for a through bus. As a rainbow appeared to the south, I began talking with a Sandinista soldier who had just hiked out of the brush. When the bus arrived, he also boarded, accompanied by his Sancho Panza, a grenade thrower who couldn’t have been much older than 15. Then, relaxing his chin on the muzzle of his AKM, we continued the discussion. Since the barrel was also a few inches from my face I told him right off I was a little nervous. I had never been that close to an automatic . MB . \_^ST I I AL G u H - •^4^ 48 Clinton St. Quarterly
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz