This was a home once. You can tell by the
layout; the small bathroom on the first floor, the kitchen with the large
island. The wide open living and dining
rooms. An office. Family pictures on the
mantel, memory markers much like grave stones. Over the years the family remodeled,
added on, and are still – you can see the construction that they attempt to
cover with tarps and large plastic signs advertising themselves. Now it is a hotel. Stunning art on the walls. Arrow
– shaped pool. Breakfast included. Ring a bell to get in. The son, Jose, and his
young family work there every day, but there are other employees as well. Jose,
who is the only male worker there save for the security guard that appears at
night,speaks English fluently. He lived in the US for over 10 years. Went to
school, came back, went to the US again, came back.
This is access to an opportunity that so
many have not had, and will never have.
He is easy to like. Long, curly lashes,
bright brown eyes. An easy smile framed with dimples, soft body. Generous
disposition. He cares about you. He sees us at our most vulnerable. Ill,
physically or mentally, taking time away from our homes and jobs for various
reasons. He’s been hosting for so long
that he knows the routine better than we do. He knows what to expect from guests and has
made rules accordingly. Nobody in the pool after 7pm co-ed rooms only for
married couples leave the key at the front desk.
Whether people follow these rules is
another story…
He has two young children. I go to fill my
water bottle with purified water from a jug in the kitchen; Managua water isn’t
potable. It’s getting late at this
point, past 6pm, and a little girl is curled up in an armchair, fast asleep. She’s
been there most of the afternoon. Her comfort is like the comfort of the smell
of your father as he envelopes you in a hug. Or the easy, impossibly flattening
stretch of a cat. The bowl-shaped satisfaction of waking up in the predawn
hours to know that you have several more hours of teeth-clenchingly delicious
sleep.
This comfort is why people come back to
this hotel, though there are others similar in the same neighborhoods. Go not
two miles away and you can have all the familiarity that one can get out of a 5
star, international hotel. GO to that other hotel. You will not hear the
laughter of the cooks in the kitchen, not know them all by name and chat with
them daily. Sort red beans with them on the green countertop talking of
nothing, nothing at all important, but enjoying the sound of the breeze and
this opportunity: to do something so old and practiced and never-changing. Sharing
time without having to sit silently doing nothing when you’ve run out of
something to say for the moment.
Jose will do what he can to make you happy.
He will look into the problems you are having with the hot water system that
you mentioned to his esposa. It’s not a huge problem, you tell her, but I got an
electric shock when I tried to turn the water off. He doesn’t know how to fix
it… Ah well. Turn the water on and off with a towel, you decide. Anything to
take advantage of the hot water, though at this point you almost would rather
not use it. It dries out the skin…
He works during the day, mostly, and he
tells you that he will until he dies, and his children, and their children and
their children. You have no idea where he lives at night and realize that you
have never been polite enough to ask. You wonder if his house looks anything at
all like the hotel. If it is as clean, as modern. If the windows are as grand,
for these are windows of a palace.
You’ve never heard him raise his voice.
