Ileana

My first memory of her was at the kitchen table. She was sitting across from me, beautiful, I unable to take my eyes off of her over my morning egg. To my left was her boyfriend, a nurse, though I didn’t know for certain at that point if they were a couple.  One could only assume, given that they spent so much time together. I don’t see many public displays of affection between couples here.

For breakfast was cornflakes, an interestingly popular cereal type. She poured the bowls full of milk, brought them to the table, and each shook in their desired amount of cereal. I was quiet, eating my own gallo pinto (rice and beans, deliciously prepared by my host mother), egg, and cuajada (cheese). I paused to watch their ritual, fascinated because I have never done or seen what they were doing in the manner that they were doing it, envious because I wanted to have a close enough relationship with someone in order to form a ritual. Minutes passed of them pressing the flakes deeper and deeper into the milk, and again, and again. I realized that they didn’t want the flakes to be crunchy. I should have asked why. I suppose I still could.

She was immediately kind to me.  Giving me full smiles and talking to me in ways that made me feel as though she knew language was my barrier to communication, and that my quietness did not stem from stupidity or arrogance.  

Her personality is one that I wish I could imitate. She is confident and gregarious; making jokes with everyone, bringing a much appreciated blunt honesty that presents itself in such things as a comment about her “enormous moustache”.  For her do not exist the awkward moments of not knowing what to do in a situation. After 5 years of medical school and one of interning, she got sent into the mountains to do her 2 years of social service – which she finishes in January. Afterwards she can return to school to focus in an area of medicine – anywhere from 3-5 more years - as those 8 years only title you as a general medic.

Her hair is long, dark, and curly in an astonishingly perfect way. When she lets it down you can smell her shampoo from across the room. She puts it up in the morning, so by the end of the day it may not even be completely dry. Her nose is small and rounded, her lips full - in fact all of her is full and pleasantly rounded. She looks better in jeans than anyone else I know. When she smiles the tops of her cheeks form a similar curve to that of her nose, and she casts her eyes down.  Why does she cast her eyes down? You aren’t sure if she is embarrassed about smiling, or if she simply wants to savor every smile as her own personal moment of joy, or if there is more to the joke than she lets on (or that I am able to understand)…

She has a daughter, Rebecca. She is 8 years old and lives with Ileana's ex-mother-in-law in Chichigalpa, Chinandega. I found this out after a couple months of being here. I have had the pleasure of meeting Rebecca several times. She is the spitting image of her mother, and just as humorous. I asked Ileana about the story of her living in Florida, where her mother lives still. She said they moved there when she was 18. “I fell in love, I got married, I had a baby”. She is no longer with the man. I have seen pictures of him – she showed the wedding album to us around the dining room table, where so many other interactions take place. She looked 15, not 19, on that day, and just as beautiful. She was thinner. The boy she was marrying was lean, tall, and there were no pictures of him smiling. Indeed, Ileana only had a ghost of a smile in some of them. Photos seem to be very serious things here. Or perhaps they don’t want to pretend they were smiling if they weren’t. I don’t know; it’s another thing I haven’t asked anyone about, and ought to.

When I first got here, we would get up and need the shower at the same time. I would let her go first, because she actually has to be at work at 8, whereas I only choose to be there at that time. She was the one who gave me the idea to bring music into the shower here. It certainly makes the frigid water more bearable in the early morning cold. One could say that if you were still dragging the threads of dreams around behind you before you got into the shower, you will not be afterwards. I am not complaining – running water is something I will appreciate forevermore! For the first several months, I showered like this. But concerning either method the reality of the fact is: it’s cold.

At one point I was planning a lesson and she was kind enough to lend me a very helpful book – in Spanish - about STI’s. I may or may not have lost it. Then again, I may have given it back and forgotten. When she handed it to me she said, “Es bonito.”