1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html
class="detail single" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>Tiny Cities Made Of Ash - by Scott Gilbertson</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta name="description"
content="Drinking ice cold beer in the afternoon heat of Leon, thinking about what I've learned in Nicaragua: the world needs more hammocks. By Scott Gilbertson">
<meta name="author" content="Scott Gilbertson">
<link rel="alternate"
type="application/rss+xml"
title="Luxagraf RSS feed"
href="https://luxagraf.net/rss/">
<link rel="stylesheet"
href="/media/screenv9.css"
media="screen">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/media/print.css" media="print" title="print" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json" />
<link rel="dns-prefetch" href="https://stats.luxagraf.net">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2008/07/tiny-cities-made-ash" />
<meta name="ICBM" content="12.435654551658532, -86.88220022899453" />
<meta name="geo.position" content="12.435654551658532; -86.88220022899453" />
<meta name="geo.placename" content="León, Nicaragua">
<meta name="geo.region" content="-">
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Tiny Cities Made of Ash" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2008/07/tiny-cities-made-ash" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Drinking ice cold beer in the afternoon heat of Leon, thinking about what I've learned in Nicaragua: the world needs more hammocks. By Scott Gilbertson" />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2008-07-03T23:21:22" />
<meta property="article:author" content="Scott Gilbertson" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Luxagraf" />
<meta property="og:image" content="/media/images/post-images/2008/citiesmadeofash.jpg" />
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"/>
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Drinking ice cold beer in the afternoon heat of Leon, thinking about what I've learned in Nicaragua: the world needs more hammocks. By Scott Gilbertson"/>
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Tiny Cities Made of Ash"/>
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:image:src" content="/media/images/post-images/2008/citiesmadeofash.jpg"/>
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@luxagraf"/>
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2008/07/tiny-cities-made-ash"
},
"headline": "Tiny Cities Made of Ash",
"datePublished": "2008-07-03T23:21:22+04:00",
"dateModified": "2008-07-03T23:21:22+04:00",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Scott Gilbertson"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Luxagraf",
"logo": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "https://luxagraf.net/media/img/logo-white.jpg"
}
},
"description": "Drinking ice cold beer in the afternoon heat of Leon, thinking about what I've learned in Nicaragua: the world needs more hammocks. By Scott Gilbertson"
}
</script>
</head>
<body >
<div class="wrapper" id="wrapper">
<div class="header-wrapper">
<header class="site-banner">
<div id="logo">
<a href="/" title="Home">Luxagraf</a>
<span class="sitesubtitle">Walk Slowly</span>
</div>
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="/jrnl/" title="Stories of life on the road.">Jrnl</a> & <a href="/field-notes/" title="Short stories, snapshots of daily life on the road.">Field Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="/guide/" title="Advice, Tools, Tips and Tricks for Full Time Van or RV Life.">Guides</a></li>
<li><a href="/newsletter/" title="The 'friends of a long year' newsletter">newsletter</a></li>
<li><a href="/about" title="About Scott">About</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
</header>
</div>
<ol class="bl" id="breadcrumbs" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BreadcrumbList">
<li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" href="/"><span itemprop="name">Home</span></a> →
<meta itemprop="position" content="1" />
</li>
<li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/ListItem">
<a href="/jrnl/" itemprop="item"><span itemprop="name">jrnl</span></a>
<meta itemprop="position" content="2" />
<meta itemprop="position" content="2" />
</li>
</ol>
<main>
<article class="h-entry hentry entry-content content" itemscope itemType="http://schema.org/BlogPosting">
<header id="header" class="post-header ">
<h1 class="p-name entry-title post-title" itemprop="headline">Tiny Cities Made of Ash</h1>
<div class="post-linewrapper">
<div class="p-location h-adr adr post-location" itemprop="contentLocation" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
<h3 class="h-adr" itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress"><span class="p-region" itemprop="addressRegion">León</span>, <a class="p-country-name country-name" href="/jrnl/nicaragua/" title="travel writing from Nicaragua"><span itemprop="addressCountry">Nicaragua</span></a></h3>
– <a href="" onclick="showMap(12.435654551658532, -86.88220022899453, { type:'point', lat:'12.435654551658532', lon:'-86.88220022899453'}); return false;" title="see a map">Map</a>
</div>
<time class="dt-published published dt-updated post-date" datetime="2008-07-03T23:21:22" itemprop="datePublished">July <span>3, 2008</span></time>
<span class="hide" itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">by <a class="p-author h-card" href="/about"><span itemprop="name">Scott Gilbertson</span></a></span>
</div>
</header>
<div id="article" class="e-content entry-content post--body post--body--single" itemprop="articleBody">
<p><span class="drop">T</span>he bells are a constant cacophony, not the rhythmic ringing out of the hours or tolling from mass that the human mind seems to find pleasant; no, this is constant banging, the sort of atonal banging that only appeals to the young and dumb. The firecrackers bursting back over behind the cathedral add an off rhythm that only makes the whole mess more jarring.</p>
<p><img alt="Leon, lion statue" class="postpic" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2008/leon1.jpg"/>But Francisco seems entirely unperturbed and only once even glances over at toward the other side of the park, the source of all the noise and confusion. He’s too fascinated with the tattoo on Corrinne’s shoulder to bother with what slowly just becomes yet another sound echoing through León.</p>
<p>Francisco is a shoe shiner, but since we’re both wearing sandals he’s out of luck and has reverted to what seems to be the secondary universal appeal of westerners — a chance to practice English.
<break>
We’re sipping Victorias in a cafe just off the main park in León, Nicaragua. It’s our fourth day here — with an extra day spent at the nearby Pacific beaches — in what is, so far, my favorite city in Nicaragua.</p>
<p>Architecturally León is a bit like Granada, but since it lacks the UNESCO stamp it’s somewhat less touristy and a bit more Nicaraguan, whatever that means. </p>
<p><img alt="Leon, church bells" class="postpicright" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2008/leon2.jpg"/>It’s a city of poets and painters, philosophers and political revolutionaries. In fact, Nicaragua as a whole is full of poets and artists, all the newspapers still carry at least one poem everyday (U.S. newspapers used to do that too), but León is perhaps the pinnacle of Nicaraguan writing and painting, if for no other reason than it’s a college town — the constant influx of youth always brings with it vitality and art.</p>
<p>There are three separate Nicaragua universities in León and even though none of them are in session right now, as with Athens, GA the fomenting imprint of students lingers even when they are gone — political graffiti dots the cafes, bars are open later, people seem more active, the bells clang, the fireworks explode on an otherwise ordinary Sunday evening. </p>
<p>In short, León has something that most of the rest of Nicaragua (and the U.S. for that matter) lacks — a vibrant sense of community. </p>
<p>Of course in relation to the States nearly everywhere seems to have a much stronger sense of community and togetherness. </p>
<p>The irony though is that just writing those words together fills me with dread and loathing, a sure sign of my own inherent Americanism. </p>
<p>But the truth is community doesn’t have to mean over-priced “organic” markets, war protests round the maypole and whatever other useless crap passes itself off as community in Athens and elsewhere in America.</p>
<p>Every time I go abroad, not just Nicaragua, but Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, just about anywhere, the communities are somehow more vibrant, more alive, more sensual — full of bright colors, playing children, people walking to work, to the market, to the gym, to wherever. There is life in the streets.</p>
<p>In Athens there’s mainly just cars in the streets. Big, fast cars.</p>
<p><img alt="house, Leon" class="postpic" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2008/leon3.jpg"/>For instance, in León the houses are not the stolid tans, boring greys and muted greens you find in Athens, but brightly colored — reds, blues, yellows, crimson, indigo, chartreuse even — the doors are not shuttered and double-bolted, there are no lawns, no barriers between the life of the home and life of the street, everything co-mingles, a great soup of public and private with each overlapping the other. </p>
<p>The clatter of the Red Sox game drifts out the window, along with the smell of fresh roasted chicken that mingles with the dust of the street, the kids gathering in the park, the declining light of the day, the first streetlights, the evening news, the women in curlers walking in the shadows just behind the half-open wooden doors….</p>
<p>And it makes the streets more fun to walk down, there’s something to experience, things to see and hear and smell and taste.</p>
<p>Which isn’t to say that León is Paris or New York, but in its own way it sort of is. Certainly it’s better than my own neighborhood where I know exactly what color the houses will be before I even step out the door — and not because I know the neighborhood, but because I know what colors comprise the set of acceptable options in the States — where the children are staked in the front yard on leashes (invisible for the most part, but it won’t surprise me when the leashes can be seen), neighbors wave, but rarely stop to talk and certainly no one walks anywhere unless it’s for exercise.</p>
<p><img alt="doorway, Leon" class="postpicright" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2008/leon4.jpg"/>Why are American neighborhoods so dull? Why no happy colors? Why make things more lifeless than they already are, given that our neighborhoods are set up in such away that we abandon them all day and return only at night to sleep?</p>
<p>Dunno, but I can tell you this, León, Paris, Phnom Phen, Prague, Vientiane and just about everywhere else is far more exciting to walk around than the average American town. And it isn’t just the exotic appeal of the foreign; it’s about architecture, design and the sharp division of public and private those two create to make our neighborhoods into the rigid anti-fun caricature that the rest of the world sees.</p>
<p>Do I sound like a transcendentalist-inspired, anti-american crank? Sorry about that. I like America, really I do. And I hold out hope. One day my house will be vermillion — my own small step.</p>
<p>Plus, that’s a big part of what I enjoy about traveling — seeing how other people construct their house, their neighborhoods, their cities, their way of life… see not just how it differs from our own, but perhaps see some ways you could improve our lives. </p>
<p>Like hammocks. We desperately need more hammocks. Lots of hammocks.</p>
<p>But León isn’t perfect. In fact it fails on several levels — take that butt ugly radio/microwave/cell tower on the horizon — why the hell would you put that in the middle of otherwise majestic 18th century Spanish colonial city?</p>
<p>León, I’ll miss you, you’re just about perfect as far as Central America goes, maybe just see about moving that radio tower….</p>
</div>
</article>
<div class="nav-wrapper">
<nav id="page-navigation" class="page-border-top">
<ul>
<li id="prev"><span class="bl">Previous:</span>
<a href="/jrnl/2008/06/you-cant-go-home-again" rel="prev" title=" You Can't Go Home Again">You Can't Go Home Again</a>
</li>
<li id="next"><span class="bl">Next:</span>
<a href="/jrnl/2008/07/our-days-are-becoming-nights" rel="next" title=" Our Days Are Becoming Nights">Our Days Are Becoming Nights</a>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>
</div>
<div class="comment--form--wrapper ">
<div class="comment--form--header">
<p class="hed">Thoughts?</p>
<p class="subhed">Please leave a reply:</p>
</div>
<form action="/comments/post/" method="post" class="comment--form">
<input type="hidden" name="rder" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="content_type" value="jrnl.entry" id="id_content_type">
<input type="hidden" name="object_pk" value="91" id="id_object_pk">
<input type="hidden" name="timestamp" value="1596833469" id="id_timestamp">
<input type="hidden" name="security_hash" value="8176136c181b76e8c66bf9679d9bc8639a818123" id="id_security_hash">
<fieldset >
<label for="id_name">Name:</label>
<input type="text" name="name" maxlength="50" required id="id_name">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_email">Email address:</label>
<input type="email" name="email" required id="id_email">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_url">URL:</label>
<input type="url" name="url" id="id_url">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_comment">Comment:</label>
<div class="textarea-rounded"><textarea name="comment" cols="40" rows="10" maxlength="3000" required id="id_comment">
</textarea></div>
</fieldset>
<fieldset style="display:none;">
<label for="id_honeypot">If you enter anything in this field your comment will be treated as spam:</label>
<input type="text" name="honeypot" id="id_honeypot">
</fieldset>
<div class="submit">
<input type="submit" name="post" class="submit-post btn" value="Post" />
<input type="submit" name="preview" class="submit-preview btn" value="Preview" />
</div>
</form>
<p style="font-size: 95%;"><strong>All comments are moderated</strong>, so you won’t see it right away. And please remember Kurt Vonnegut's rule: “god damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” You can use Markdown or HTML to format your comments. The allowed tags are <code><b>, <i>, <em>, <strong>, <a></code>. To create a new paragraph hit return twice. </p>
</div>
</main>
<footer class="bl">
<ul class="footer-nav">
<li><a href="/blogroll" title="Sites that inspire us">Blogroll</a></li>
<li><a href="/contact/" title="contact luxagraf">Contact</a></li>
<li>Follow Along:
<ul>
<li><a href="/jrnl/feed.xml" title="RSS feed">RSS</a></li>
<li><a href="/newsletter/" title="Luxagraf Email Updates">Email</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/luxagraf" rel="me" title="luxagraf on Instagram">Instagram</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div class="support">Support luxagraf:
<div class="donate-btn">
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="HYJFZQSBGJ8QQ">
<input type="submit" name="submit" title="Donate to luxagraf via PayPal">
</form>
</div>
<div class="donate-btn">
<a class="liberapay-btn" href="https://liberapay.com/luxagraf/donate"><span>Donate</span></a>
</div>
</div>
<p id="license">
© 2003-2020
<span class="h-card"><a class="p-name u-url" href="https://luxagraf.net/">Scott Gilbertson</a><data class="p-nickname" value="luxagraf"></data><data class="p-locality" value="Athens"></data><data class="p-region" value="Georgia"></data><data class="p-country-name" value="United States"></data></span>.
</p>
</footer>
</div>
<script>
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {
var leaflet = document.createElement('script');
leaflet.src = "/media/js/leaflet-master/leaflet-mod.js";
document.body.appendChild(leaflet);
var lightbox = document.createElement('script');
lightbox.src = "/media/js/lightbox.js";
document.body.appendChild(lightbox);
leaflet.onload = function(){
var detail = document.createElement('script');
detail.src = "/media/js/detail.min.js";
document.body.appendChild(detail);
detail.onload = function(){
createMap();
var open = false;
}
}
lightbox.onload = function() {
var opts= {
//nextOnClick: false,
captions: true,
onload: function(){
var im = document.getElementById("jslghtbx-contentwrapper");
var link = im.appendChild(document.createElement('a'))
link.href = im.firstChild.src;
link.innerHTML= "open ";
link.target = "_blank";
link.setAttribute('class', 'p-link');
im.appendChild(link);
}
};
var lightbox = new Lightbox();
lightbox.load(opts);
}
});
</script>
<script>
<!--
// Register our service-worker
//if (navigator.serviceWorker) {
// window.addEventListener('load', function() {
// if (navigator.serviceWorker.controller) {
// navigator.serviceWorker.controller.postMessage({'command': 'trimCaches'});
// } else {
// navigator.serviceWorker.register('/serviceworker.js', {
// scope: '/'
// });
// }
// });
//}
//-->
<!-- Piwik -->
var _paq = _paq || [];
_paq.push(["disableCookies"]);
_paq.push(['trackPageView']);
_paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']);
(function() {
var u="https://stats.luxagraf.net/";
_paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', u+'piwik.php']);
_paq.push(['setSiteId', 1]);
var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.defer=true; g.src=u+'piwik.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s);
})();
<!-- End Piwik Code -->
</script>
<noscript><p><img src="//stats.luxagraf.net/piwik.php?idsite=1" style="border:0;" alt="" /></p></noscript>
</body>
</html>
|
