Around the latter part of 1984, I was well immersed in the
Nicaraguan farming cooperative “La Quinta”.
I had passed most of the tests that had come my way: bathing in a cold river; gratefully eating a never changing diet of tortilla, bean and/or rice dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, served with cup after cup of overly sweet coffee; hauling hundred pound sacks of
potatoes out of the fields and generally working side by side with the
cooperative members in whatever task was at hand.
I had learned enough Spanish to fend off the majority of jokes about my
mispronunciation of fairly common words.
I had even been congratulated for how easily and quickly the words hijo
de puta! (‘son of a whore’) rolled off my tongue at any injury or minor
mishap. I was known by all as “Guillermo”
– the more easily remembered Spanish translation of William. I had been
accepted, in all my quirky gringo ways, as a member of the cooperative.
One evening, in the darkening space of an old cattle shelter
that had been turned into makeshift living quarters while new houses were built, Martin wandered over to where I
was sitting and asked me the names of my parents. I told him and curiously watched as he returned
to a small wooden table where, under the flickering light of a tin kerosene candle, he continued his painstaking writing on some pages torn from an
old school notebook. Martin was the
secretary of the cooperative and my closest friend. He had learned to read and write during the rural
literacy campaign carried out by Sandinista youth following the 1979
revolution.
The following day Martin came to me and, slightly embarrassed,
handed me a crumpled piece of paper that was handwritten on both sides. He asked me to give it to my parents when I
returned home. What he knew of my
parents was drawn from casual late-night conversations about life and family
and the fact that on a couple of occasions, I had taken advantage of their Florida
flea market addictions to get them to find and send to me dozens of cheap
one-dollar wristwatches and assorted tools that were put to use around the
cooperative.
I translated the letter and gave a copy to my parents when I returned to the U.S. I still have the original, covered in plastic
and set aside in a box with other pieces of lifetime memorabilia. I don’t at this moment have it in front of
me, but I remember most of what it said:
“Greetings from a revolutionary
Nicaragua. This is for the parents of
Guillermo Weaver, because he has told me your names which are Stanley Weaver
and Doris Weaver. I want to say that even
though we have never met, I feel a great friendship with you through your son,
because he has been a member deep inside of our families. I also want to thank
you for the beautiful gifts you have sent, which have also been very useful,
because we know that it is only those with a conscience who would send these
things to someone you don’t even know, things that are so needed here in our
suffering and beloved Nicaragua. For
that I call you my friend. Adios and
Gracias.
Even though I have
said goodbye, I want to tell you one more thing. There are over 50 children here in the
cooperative and they all love your son very much and will all miss him when he
leaves us.
Please excuse my bad
writing and some bad expression. Until
we meet. Martin Melgara Ruiz.”
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