Revolution by Deb Olin Unferth

it and stuck pieces of it to my body. We had to chew it well, and I had many spots that needed it. We asked some Internacionalistas sitting in the atrium to help. We sat around chewing and sticking pieces of gum to me, between my fingers, on my stomach. “How long should I wait?” I said. We didn’t know. First we thought twenty minutes, but then we thought maybe thirty. Then George said wouldn’t it be a shame if we took it off and they were almost dead but not quite dead. All in all I think we waited about an hour and twenty minutes and then took it off and it didn’t work. For weeks it went on and we didn’t know what to do. I was desperate, I was in despair. It was a crisis.
    Then suddenly I got sick of the bugs or forgot about them, or the bugs forgot about me and left or died, and we all went on to something else. They went away. I don’t know how.
    Many things are like that.
    *   *   *
    Another time a doctor from Canada was alarmed by what we ate. We ate whatever we could find, we ate from venders on the street when they were there.
    â€œFrom the venders?” he said. “You cannot eat the food from the venders.”
    â€œWell, people eat it,” we said. “Someone eats it, we eat it.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t eat it!” he said. “And what are you doing about the mosquitoes?”
    We weren’t doing anything about the mosquitoes. What were we supposed to do?
    He went on like that about all we did wrong. At last he sighed and said, “Can you do the waltz at least?”
    Alas, not even that.
    â€œNow, that I can teach you,” he said, and he did.
    â€œOne two three, one two three, one two three,” he said. “Here, put your hand on my shoulder. Good. Now you two try it together.”
    He clapped and called out the numbers while we danced up and down the landing.

BICICLETAS SÍ, BOMBAS NO
    The Internacionalistas signed George and me up to build bikes.
    Because of the trade embargo, Nicaragua had fewer and fewer cars and trucks. Buses looked like cartoons of buses with too many people on them. Cars were dropping parts along the road, were held together with paper clips and pins. The Nicaraguans would ride bikes, the Internacionalistas decided. A company in China donated five thousand unassembled bicycles and sent them over on a boat. George and I were going to assemble them.
    We reported to the mechanic the first morning, a bikeman from some rainy state in the U.S. North. He said he would teach us what to do. He was very good at teaching and serious about it. He used many words and hand gestures. I was so busy watching him teach me how to put on an electrical unit that I forgot to listen to what he said. Finally he stopped and handed me one of the electrical units.
    â€œGive it a try,” he said.
    I gave it a try.
    Later we didn’t know what to do about how angry at us he was getting. He kept looking at what we were doing and then saying, “Honest to God!” and grabbing the electrical unit and putting it on like he told us to before. George knew a little about bicycles, had ridden one as a kid, could change a quick-release tire, blow it up with air, but he seemed only able to hold the tools or walk across the room holding them, which infuriated the mechanic. The mechanic had three Nicaraguans working there, real pros who could wrap a chain in ninety seconds, and another Internacionalista, a pretty blonde, Sammy from South Africa, who was funny and wise. I began following her around the shop, imitating her accent and the way she walked. She was thirty-seven years old and as soon as I met her, I hoped to be thirty-seven one day.
    â€œGeorge,” the mechanic kept saying, “hold this.”
    â€œWhy should George hold that?” Sammy said. She had a habit of raking her fingers through her hair. “Can’t I perfectly well hold that?”
    â€œYeah,” I said, pulling at my hair.