POST by LIZ: El Barrio Borrowers

Growing up in a large family, property lines were often blurry.  "What's yours is mine" tended to be the way I approached most of my interactions with my siblings and they with me. 

Being the second eldest of five, I spent most of my childhood living in a "big red house" which in reality was a cozy semi-detached house, with one bathroom (I'm not including the outside loo coz no one ever used it due to our arachnophobia), two small living rooms and three bedrooms, all of which were forced to accommodate the six of us, a variety of pets and our neighbourhood friends. 

I still thank God for the large garden attached to our humble abode. Although, we did have a cranky neighbour who hated kids and anything associated with them.  One Summer, I remember being confused over a decision my parents made: For the whole of the Summer holidays, they banned us from playing along the strip of land that we owned, which also happened to be the strip of land that joined our property with his.

His intolerance made it complicated  for my mother to allow us to roam freely in our garden.  It wasn't until I studied the economic term "negative externalities," that I was able to view the situation differently and action what Atticus urged Scout to do in "To Kill A Mockingbird": "to climb into someone's skin and walk around in it" 

But we were kids! We tried our best to interact with him and show this hostile hombre that we Townsend kids were fun, friendly and vivacious.  We would often knock on his door to ask for our ball back; when we were informed that this was an inconvenience for him, we would take initiative and collect the ball by jumping over the high wall he had built, which clearly separated the two worlds - ours and his.

Oh, our creative minds thought up lots of ways to interact with our irritable neighbour: my favourite was hosting a mud throwing competition to see who could make the best throw at his dazzling white camper van he proudly owned. It took some hard smacking of the wooden spoon for it to really sink in why he couldn't value our sport and why he didn't want to share "his target" for our mud pie competition.

We didn't have much growing up, but what we did have we often shared.  There were, however, those times where someone would yell out "That's mine, give it back!", and having a sister who received cool birthday presents and who later earned money before I did and therefore could afford the odd luxury here and there, I was often the one who had the words yelled in my face. 

I really didn't see what all the fuss was about.  I wanted to play with something fun - she had the Tiny Tears Doll that could take away my boredom. The fight over this doll became the bain of my mother's existence. Finally, for the sake of peace, my mum snapped and decided it was best if I didn't play with my sister's beloved doll any more. This decision however lead the doll to encounter a traumatic experience with a permanent marker - that happened to be in my hands at the time - and the poor dear's eyesight was never the same again after my chubby fingers thoroughly checked the eye flutter motion, which had been frequently advertised on TV.

As the years went by my needs changed: It was the 80s so I needed hairspray, she had some. I wanted to see what her clothes would look like on me - her wardrobe was in my bedroom,  I liked science and her make-up was perfect to use for my experiments.  Honestly, without her things, I wouldn't have had such an interesting childhood! 

But slowly I learned what was hers, was hers and not mine!  Which was ironic that this concept took so long for me to learn, as I had younger brothers who often "borrowed" my things which in turn produced the screamer of the phrase "hey that's mine, give it back", in me!

Nicaragua is known as the safest place in Central America but it does have a high petty crime rate.  When we decided to open our home to the community, we knew our things would be "borrowed". 

I have quickly realised that responding in the positive to the phrase "Can I borrow this?" actually means "Here, you can have this!" So I'm learning how to deal with this situation in our host culture so as to not feel ripped off in the process.

We have had many things "borrowed" and while we do our best at locking down the house, we also want to create a family feel to the place.  It's hard to do this if items become the most important element in the equation. 

Our kitchen supplies are often "borrowed".  One day I went to fetch a glass storage bowl to find that there were zero out of the four available.  I hunted high and low yet none were found! I decided to take action.  

At the morning meeting I casually asked for the borrowed glass bowls to be returned.  There was an uproar: people were offended and straight away thought I was accusing them of robbing from us.   "No.." I lied, "I just know that we once had them and now we don't, and I know at times you have to use something to carry food home in (even the food is "borrowed")... "  they were assured of our love for them, and we all went about our day as normal.  The next morning, low and behold, all four glass bowls were perched in the cupboard!

This is the way we usually approach the "borrowing" issue.  We've had backpacks, plates, cups, DS Chips, telephones, clothes, toys, etc., returned to us via our calculated techniques.  The passive, "Hey, have you seen...." technique usually works and the items usually appear in the weirdest places - which makes the average person second guess the situation.

But we always make the point of saying thank-you for returning the item along with a rambled spill about "in our culture when someone wants to borrow something it's polite to ask...so next time please..."

Being very much a part of the community, there have been the odd occasion where we pop into homes for a coffee and a chat, and notice some of the "borrowed" items sitting in a state of "yet to be returned." 

One "borrowed" item I don't tolerate losing is the electric rice cooker pot.  This is a HOT item that most Nicaraguans desire to "borrow".  For some reason they are supremely attracted to it - it seems to be that magic pot that makes the perfect dish every time! They don't want the whole thing, just the detachable pot. 

Honestly, it has probably been the most "borrowed" item. Usually our passive way of retrieving the pot works.  But in one particular instance, two weeks had passed and no rice-cooker detachable pot reappeared. 

I knew exactly who had it.  I even asked her directly to return the pot - which lead to all sorts of drama.  So, I commissioned Jed on a secret mission: operation detachable-rice-cooker-pot retrieval.

He was nervous to confront the matter, yet more afraid of me and my bi-polar reaction if he returned potless. On his red bike he jumped and began his mission. 

He strolled up to the shack which is held together by mud and sticks; greeted them in the usual manner and noticed the grey metal container sitting on the stone - which they would call their kitchen counter. Jed was cool, calm and collected - If I had been there, I would have become that 12 year old kid again yelling out "Hey, that's mine give it back!".  But Jed didn't do that. He sat and made small talk. He laughed and joked. 

Then as he stood up to leave, he reached over and picked up the pot from its drying position and said smiling, "Oh, I can take this back for you if you want." He then kissed the red-faced cheek of our dear friend; jumped on his metal horse and rode home.

The "borrowing" situation is certainly something that we have to deal with on a daily basis.  At times, it can be frustrating and sometimes a limitation to just how much we open up our home and to who and when, etc. 

Sometimes I find myself thinking about the ease it would be to have a separate centre to our home. But then I see it for what it is, and truth be known, it's just like it was growing up - being part of a family far outweighs the frustration of losing-forever "borrowed" items. Things can be replaced.