Chapter 1: Residencial San Ramón

Chapter 1: Residencial San Ramón 

Near the very south of the city, was a neighborhood by the name of San Ramón. To explain the directions to a non-local would have been tedious, and if its explication be requested by a total foreigner, it would have been nearly impossible to satisfy his demands. Under the extraordinary circumstances of coming across a fellow countryman who would cringe in confusion at the utterance of San Ramón, one would assume he was not from Managua, but had likely only recently arrived from one of the numerous towns scattered across the south Pacific.

            Managua, “the greenest capital in Latin America,” as I once saw it praised in an article, was by no means designed with that purpose. In fact, it would have been preposterous to mention or imply that there had been any plans for its infrastructure. Anyone could have told you that after the earthquake, the city acquired a life of its own. Expanding uncontrollably into a giant suburb, carving its way through the lush landscape like leafcutter ants after the rainy season has past.  

If, by chance, you happened to come upon the least sign of planning, such as a sidewalk or park, a public building, a museum, you could be absolutely certain that you had discovered what was known as “Old Managua,” that portion of the city which was never restored, and whose original inhabitants had long abandoned,

            And so it was that, when driving through this unusually symmetrical area, one would involuntarily daydream, with unanticipated nostalgia, about a romantic past, a time long-gone, when the city had been a city, where people could walk upon sidewalks, tipping their hats to one another, or smiling to acquaintances, hurrying to and fro, from bakeries and newspaper stands into office buildings and coffee shops, whether one had been a part of that epoch, or not.  

            After the center had been destroyed, the years went by slowly—terribly slowly, as if the earthquake had startled even Time, who required a moment of repose before carrying on. But alas, Old Managua was eventually repopulated, and presently, whenever you chance upon those curious gridded streets lined with long-forgotten sidewalks, those wide slabs of concrete, frighteningly condemned to exist unevenly, permanently scarred by fractures: long snakes of green foliage slithering through its once perfect symmetry—one invariably finds himself in a peculiar state of longing and remorse, which is not unlike what certain small-town Europeans experience, walking along winding cobblestone paths, narrowed with medieval stone, as they carefully divert their glance from certain bricks which have been vandalized by grotesque faces in neon spray-paint.  

            And so, Old Managua remained for many of us, a fairly isolated place. It seemed to exist in a separate sphere, detached in such a manner that it was not until my late teens when I would unexpectedly witness the sight of the Palacio de la Cultura, a spectacular building, styled after an Ancient Greek temple, smothered by nearby houses of erected from zinc, wooden planks, black plastic bags and barbed wire. I was astonished, no—in utter disbelief, not by the unfortunate location of that ivory palace, but by the notion that ever an edifice so gorgeous, so imposing and majestic could be constructed by us, humble Nicaraguans. And so, although the historical sector of the city still existed primarily as a place of residence, it now had a secondary, paradoxical role, as both a shameful and yet inspiring relic, a reminder of the numerous failures and misfortunes of which abound in our unfortunate nation, and yet a solid example of our potential.

The real Managua, however, begins not too far off from the shore of the lake, known to the natives as the Xolotlán, a disgraceful name, which we, the vastly superior and creative peoples have renamed Lake Managua, a beautiful body of water which is in reality an offshoot of an immensely larger, more abundant lake, the Cocibolca—now, Lake Nicaragua. Nonetheless, our lake remains a remarkable sight. Its beauty being so celebrated, that when admired from a higher altitude, one cannot help but yearn to photograph its peaceful azure existence, appearing like a massive moat surrounding the gallantly green castle of the Momotombo, our city’s nearest volcano. A desire which inevitably led some more entrepreneurial Nicaraguans to introduce the Kodak industry into the capital—an investment which made up their fortunes, as well as their last names— all the while dumping tonnes of mercury into that very lake we wished to photograph, an accomplishment which succeeded in protecting the inhabitants of those waters from conniving fishermen who wished to consume them, finally permitting us Managuans the luxury of importing all our fish from other regions of the country, regions which, we can only hope, for their own sake, are blessed with nothing more than atrocious-looking lakes.

The real Managua, however, extends from the southern shores of that tortured lake, down along a road, which I venture to call the spinal cord of our country, not only for its crucial role in commerce, but for uniting us with our neighboring nations, known humbly as “The Road to Masaya,” Masaya being the first town you encounter along its extensive unbending path. Following that road, southwards, before leaving the department of Managua, you would soon notice green fields to both your left and right, passing dozens of streets bending left and right, all of which lead to neighborhoods we would call residenciales as opposed to barrios, for they accommodate the more comfortable classes, people who would rather avoid the connotations attached to the more vulgar term.

It was in one of these particular residenciales, which if viewed from above must have resembled those famous satellite pictures of the Amazon, marking the progress of deforestation, in which roads appear like the skeletons of fish. It was in one of these series of lesser bones emerging from the one long spine was where I was raised, specifically the one known as San Ramón—a name borrowed from its church—whose quarters are so vividly imprinted upon my memory that I could describe in such meticulous detail each of the houses which surrounded its wide streets, so that one could, if impelled by caprice or curiosity, visit that now almost forgotten neighborhood and distinguish which were the homes of each of the persons that compose the characters in this small book, if only the residencial still existed.