Doña Bemilda

When I first met her, she hugged me, kissed me on the cheek, and promptly apologized. I was laden with a heavy backpack and an equally heavy duffle bag, about to move into her house for 3 months. I appreciated her hug and kiss. It was what I was told to expect, and I had prepared myself for it. Her apology came from what she was told to expect – a person who isn’t used to touching other people, especially by way of greeting.

This became a ritual for us. Each doing what we thought the other would like, apologizing for it, and eventually, through honest communication with a heavy emphasis on laughter, we came to find out how the other actually operates. 

She’s 56 but she looks 66. Overweight, having been that way her whole life. She has shoulder-length soft hair that she keeps black through the magic of hair dye. Her eyes are shrewd and gentle all at once. She smiles with her mouth slightly open, her two top front teeth protruding out.  I think her beautiful. There are times when I have come into her house and found her dressed for church and seemingly glowing.

She lives on the same block that she lived on as a child, although there are far more houses there now. Her family used to own the entire block. Now, they rent some of it out, have sold other parts of it, and remain with two corner lots: that of her brother, and hers. Her house is a more modest affair than her brother’s, though both are fancy by the general standard. Every time I go back to visit, another flourish is added. She has been working diligently on a garden that starts on the back patio and winds its way around the side of the house, taking up the front deck as well. The side garden is a line of roses, named after her eldest granddaughter, the brilliant Salomé. The back garden has her own name, mostly herbs and vegetables, and the front blooms have been dubbed “Vanessa’s garden” – the name of a middle granddaughter whose energy is as impressive as that of the ever-growing bushes. 

“I’m evangelical now, so I’m happy”, Doña tells me one day over breakfast. I smile and thoughtfully chew my mango. Eventually I simply say, “I’m glad. You should be happy.” She almost always sat with me at breakfast, though she was rarely hungry enough to eat with me that early. Sometimes she would have a coffee. Presto, if she didn’t have the better kind of instant coffee, which is called 1890. Not a bad instant coffee, as far as they go. Though one still marvels at the fact that most of the country uses instant coffee though coffee is grown in immense quantities.

We would talk about all manner of thing, mostly over the dining room table, trying to understand one another. Here is where I learned the true power that mealtime can have in bringing people together.  Over time I sensed she had little self-esteem. This was proven as stories of her past unfolded. She married young, to an evangelical pastor.  She didn’t love him, but she wanted to get out of her home, tired of living under her mother’s roof. He took her to Honduras. He beat her, and eventually she left him, but only after giving birth to and partially raising four children. Her first son, a wise and gentle deaf-mute, still lives in Honduras with his own family. Her second son lives in the same town as she does. He is the Mayor, following his Uncle. The 3^rd son is a professor of English and lives in a house attached to her own. Her youngest child, a daughter, lives in the city 10 minutes away, and their on-again, off-again relationship is the product of a difficult home situation and the sometimes desperate love between mother and child.  

She gave me fruit every day. And vegetables; she knew I loved them. She also made the best scrambled eggs I have ever eaten. She understood that I didn’t much like meat. That I needed to leave at 6 on some mornings to go running, and, yes, even if that meant jumping over the locked gate to avoid bothering her to unlock it for me.

She told me every day how pretty I was. She talked a lot about the physical appearance of others. How it changed throughout the month. If someone was ugly, or dark skinned. She often sounded as though it lessened her opinion of them. That she would have liked them if only they hadn’t been black. Between her and her brother I was exposed without mercy to the Racism that exists here. It is not a taboo topic.  People will tell you without shame that they do not like Chinese people, or “Negros”.  Even when I have pointed out that this is Racism, which I have not done to Doña Bemilda, there has been no glimpse of regret or shame; it is taken as a given, a popular opinion.

In many respects, Doña is not like other Nicaraguan women. She lives alone. She doesn’t like to cook, or clean. She is highly educated and independent, and travels to Honduras regularly to pick up fancy underwear and bras which she then sells to women in her town. She bathes outside on her back patio and I relished in being able to do the same. I discovered one day (don’t ask me how) that she keeps a machete under her bed. She is outgoing and practical and brave, but the truly unique thing is that she has taken her happiness into her own hands -

and it seems to be serving her well.

The bathroom of the house is next to her bedroom. She wakes early in the morning, before 5, and dresses and prays. I got up very early as well sometimes, and padding through the dark and quiet house to the bathroom, I liked to peek into her room and watch her absorbed completely in her hours of reverence. I knew that she was earnestly asking that everyone she knows and loves remain healthy, happy, and safe.  I knew she was thanking God for all of the joy that has befallen her, and asking for guidance through the pain that she still carries with her some days.

You feel filled only with love and gratitude when you go back to visit and find her, with her best friend and Salomé, seated in 3 of the four white metal rocking chairs that live on her front deck. You greet her with a simple “DOÑA!” and a hug and kiss, now a comforting greeting for you. She once told you that you shouldn’t call her Doña, because you would get her confused with someone else. But you replied that no matter how many Señoras are in your life, she will be your one and only Doña.