Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman Page B

approaching from behind.
    “Buenos tardes,”
say the four scruffy, barefoot kids. Good afternoon.
    “Cómo se llama usted?”
asks the biggest boy. What is your name?
    When they hear my answer, they smile and nod to each other. Then the big one speaks again. “Would you read us a book?”
    And there, late in the day, on a dusty path in front of the Nicaraguan customs office, I sit on the ground and read them a book.
    A pickup and two buses later, we reach Managua. Henry, who will be living in government housing and working for the agricultural department, deposits me in the foreign-tourist part of town, and we say good-bye. I’m on my own.
    I check into a motel: dark rooms, shared bathrooms, lumpy beds, and cheap (three dollars a night). The place I choose is the cheapest and most dilapidated among the hotels, but it has a common room, which seems like a good place to meet people. There are backpackers draped around the couches when I arrive.
    “Hi,” I say, introducing myself to the crowd. After we’ve been talking for a while, they invite me to go dancing with them—live music under the stars.
    “Sure,” I say. It’s my new credo: Say yes to everything.
    The parking lot turned into a dance floor is packed and sweaty. The crowd, all Nicaraguan except for the eight of us, is young and active and swinging to
salsa
and reggae and American rock. Hips are gyrating sensuously and the dancers are smiling, as reflections of mirrored balls and flashing lights whirl around their bodies.
    When I first arrive, I am hoping to stand in the background and watch. Not a chance. There is an excess of single guys, and if you are close enough to watch, several hands and smiles greet you wordlessly at the beginning of every new dance.
    “Where are you from?” asks Carlos, the young man I am dancing with. He looks about eighteen and he’s wearing a Detroit Tigers T-shirt.
    “What?” The music is loud.
    “Where are you from?” he shouts.
    “The United States,” I shout back.
    “How long have you been here?”
    “I arrived three hours ago.”
    “Tomorrow,” he yells at me, “I would like to take you to Xiloa!” A nearby lake with a beach.
    Nicaraguans are not shy. Nearly all of the Nicaraguans I meet over the next eight months, especially the young ones, have an air of pride and confidence that comes from having made the revolution (in 1979) that got rid of the dictator, Somoza, and nearly all of the wealthy class, most of whom fled to the United States. Perhaps because I am an American, Nicaraguans are eager to invite me into their homes, to share their food, to show me that the revolution was a good thing. What I see and hear during my visit is very different from what I read in the U.S. newspapers about a people under siege by the Sandinista government. Up close, it is clear that the Sandinistas
are
the people.
    “Sure,” I say to Carlos’s invitation. “I’d love to go to the beach.”
    The next day, Carlos, his little sister, an American woman from my hotel, and I take off at noon on a crowded bus where people are squashed together like those potato chips that come in a can, every body part fitting snugly into someone else’s body.
    We get off at a lake just a few miles outside of Managua. Carlos, his hair below his shoulders and his smiling brown eyes flecked with green, looks handsome in a navy T-shirt with the short sleeves rolled up to his shoulders. As we walk, teenage girls turn their heads. Carlos tells me he is a medical student in his second year.
    “In the days of Somoza, I could never have thought about becoming a doctor. The university was for rich people. Now, even the poorest people can become doctors or whatever they want. Education is free.”
    As we approach the lake, we walk along a grassy slope that leads down toward the sand. The grass is spotted with picturesque pavilions, thatched roofs on poles with benches underneath—protection from the tropical sun. As we get closer to the water, we