Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

This weekend Keith took us interns on a lovely Sunday tour of Old Town Managua. We started off by getting a better view of the city from above, standing on -----, a giant hill overlooking all of Managua. It used to be ol’ Somoza’s bat-cave (slash military hub, and also, notorious torture chamber location), where he could comfortably look down upon his kingdom. Then the earthquake and revolution struck, a couple statues were toppled, buildings demolished and well, now it’s a national monument and park. Interestingly, as some may or may not be aware, Managua is (apparently little-) known for not having standard addresses. Its true. Everything is in correlation with other landmarks (i.e. my work address is something along the lines of Villa Fontana (neighbourhood name), 1 block north of Club----, 75 feet to the east. No street names, highway numbers, just “2 blocks west of La Union, 1 block south,” and the like.

Moreover, the address directions are not just ‘east’ north, south west, as we would write in English. Oh ho no. North is ‘al lago’- literally, ‘towards the lake.’ Lake Managua is the northern boundary of the city. For east they say “arriba” (‘up’) and west they say “abajo” (‘down’). Well what comes up and down in the east and west respectively? The sun of course! South used to be said “al montaña”- ‘to the mountain,’ because before the earthquake the city only went as far as Somoza’s crib. But now it is well beyond, on the south side of the mountain, so never mind that (these directions really are just a suggestion, as you will soon find out).

So to recap: no address in the prosaic sense of the term. All addresses shall cease to name a particular street (pah! Too many names for the taxi drivers to learn!) and postal codes are strictly forbidden (you already have your licence plate, that’s enough alpha-numeric memorisation work if you ask me). Everything is referred to as north, east, west or south of a particular point of reference (a gas station is good enough).

A good grid-system and we are away to the races, right? So imagine my consternation, (mental constipation if you will), when atop that historic hill, Keith explained to us that the latest brainchild of the city planners was, get this: ring-roads. Yep circular roads are the main thorough-fares of choice in a city based on compass directions and (sometimes transient) landmarks. Hmmmm.

posted by Kiki @ 9:16 a.m.