Jorge

    He is the most lonely person I know. He tells stories to the air, his features just handsome. A fading scar on the outside of his right eye. Full lips. It's his smile, though, that lets you in and makes you feel important and funny; cared for. He knows about all the living things in his town - people, dogs, rabbits, flora. He dresses well, always looks and smells freshly bathed, hair and shoes shinier and better ordered than a stack of new dishware in a kitchen supply store.

     
    He's been doing some form of labor since before he had hair under his armpits. When he's not sitting at the sewing machine that he supports in its mission of fabrication he sits in class, which sitting at the sewing machine pays for. When he's not in either of those tail-bone bruising states, he wanders in the sugar-cane fields and in the shadows of the regal Guanacaste trees that surround his small and windy town. 

    
     The inside of his left front tooth is chipped. Nothing terribly obvious, just the corner, but when you've listened to him speak for long enough you replace paying attention for 5 second spurts of imagining how it happened. You won't ask him, ever, how it happened because you're embarrassed by the fact that such a question could never naturally follow the story of his father drinking away  the family money, or of Jorge's fainting experience on a hot day while working in the bean fields at the age of 9 with no food or water to fuel the machete swipes. Machetes are hungry and find human hands to attach themselves to in a rather beautiful symbiotic relationship. Machetes do not discriminate based on age.

     In spite of his childhood in which photos show him barefoot out of wretched poverty (instead of youthful freedom) he retains romantic theories and dreams.  He wants to make the most of himself for his country and family. He studies journalism to eventually spread revolutionary ideas of self-education and recreational marijuana, and to pridefully bring knowledge of his country and culture to other nations. And, of course, to travel. His town encircles him like a python, not just because of the size but also the memories that roam the streets with him.

   He's one of those that never stops loving someone once the reaction has settled. Some leave each love behind like candy bar wrappers. But Jorge keeps them alive and sweet in his head. His loves have their own misted glass cases that he keeps dusted and streak-free. He is never single for long because he has perfected a professional and meticulous form of flirting that one cannot help but admire. It is patient and skillfully individualized to each and every female, simultaneously making him vulnerable enough to be almost irresistible. Almost. In his attempts to kiss you, you will be so undecided in whether to turn your head that by the time you do make up your mind, his lips will make it to the corner of your mouth.

     He used to dance and will tell you each time you meet that he used to be thinner; his buttocks firmer, calves more defined. He does move with the grace and ease of practice, always looking over your shoulder as he spins you, or greets you, or tells you of his past. He's looking for danger, you imagine. But he is not so maternal as that. Though some days he picks up his two young nieces from school and the three of them can be seen balancing their way back to the SE part of town on his Rasta-colored bicycle.

     He plays the guitar, which is he is better suited for then singing. He is part of a band and all the members have long hair except him. He had to cut off his dark, straight strands for his job. Something a bit difficult to understand, as the clothes making is the business of his extended family. He spends all day with kin - brother, cousin - there are various places like this in the old town. Houses indiscriminate from other houses until you pass by the open door and are met by the 10 eyes of the young men working the maquinas. Gender roles we know in the US make you think that women would be doing those jobs, but if the options for work are clothes making, 
then that is what the men do while the women care for the children and home.
"Stay-at-home-Dad" is not a fad in Nicaragua. Yet. 

He loves his mother more than anyone, more than himself. She moved to Costa Rica to work and send back money, rarely getting the chance to visit physically.

He used to be Mormon. He may be still but the Church shut down. Though the gates are still opened from time to time to allow the basketball courts to be utilized, mostly for soccer practice.

He wants to build himself a small house so he no longer has to live with his younger brother who resents being a younger brother. 

He says women blossom like flowers within the hour after they rise for the day.

He loves to bathe naked in the first rains of the season, to wash away the predictable summer.