Eliana and I made a 3-day whirlwind trip back to the states for my Grandma Wilma’s funeral in mid-December.  We arrived in San Francisco at midnight on Thursday and left at midnight on Sunday.  I didn’t quite feel ready for a trip back home and I wondered how it would feel to be back in a fast-paced English speaking country.  With our luggage in tow as we approached the international waiting room and looked through the floor to ceiling clear glass windows into the San Francisco night sky, Eliana made a comment that jolted me back to the reality of not just being in the states, but being in the states in December, “Christmas trees!”  I forgot all about being surrounded by English again.

Rewind to August 1st for a moment.

Two pick up truck beds were jam-packed with our luggage.  Nine surf boards protected by swimming noodles, t-shirts, board shorts, and bathing suits were evenly divided into 3 factory-padded board bags.  Two navy blue suitcases acquired through freecycle (one of which was a groovy-awesome 1970s hard case, and inevitably Eliana’s favorite) were full of Eliana’s toys, favorite blankets, books, games, and educational materials, and another suitcase was practically exploding with clothes, collapsable storage bins, flip flops, sunscreen, 6 months worth of face stuff, and my hairdryer which I have only used to dry out the inside of our car.  A few carry-ons contained snacks, sticker books, drawing paper and crayons, computers, cameras, ipods, Eliana’s babies and corresponding accessories, scrapbooking materials and photos I couldn’t risk loosing, and the like.  The rest of the contents that used to fill our four bedroom townhouse and two car garage had been sold, given away, or put into a single car garage for storage.  Bills were paid and recurring charges, such as health, car, and home insurance, mortgages, and visa bills were moved to internet banking.  Our life was the most organized it was ever going to be, and yet it felt like Pandora’s Box.

We had vacationed to Nicaragua twice as a family, and while I felt both comfortable and excited to make the move, two questions repeatedly stole my attention:  how will it feel be be surrounded by so much Spanish, and how it will it feel to be Jewish living in an officially Christian country?

The answer to the first question came fairly quickly and deserves its own post.  To answer the second question, however, I needed four months, six days, fifteen hours and  an unanticipated last minute trip back home.

I expected the experience of being immersed in a homogeneous, officially Christian dominated culture to be, at least on some level, tiring, but for the most part, interesting.   I was so curious about this that I looked for evidence of Christianity and reflected on my reaction to it the very minute we walked out of the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport.

Our scenic 2.5 hour drive from the Nicaraguan capital of Managua to our new home in the country along the Pacific ocean revealed the words Jesus, Dios (God), or Christo, written on most buses and taxis (and many cars), enough praying statues in both the middle of rotundas and along the sides of streets, and bible quotes spray painted on concrete buildings to make the Bible Belt look only mildly religious, several imposing 2 story-high bright pink political signs donning Daniel Ortega’s presidential re-election slogan advertising “Cristiana,” and an orchestral arrangement of Ave Maria over the loud speakers of our closest third world style supermarket.   I found it all be fascinating.   I was, after all, an outsider observing another culture.

Even after experiencing Nicaragua for a couple of months, all the signs, statues, versus and music were “their” culture, not “mine,” and I felt in no way to be represented by nor the intended recipient of the messages.  I noticed God was referenced often in daily conversations and I came to expect the answer to “How are you?” to be “I’m well, thanks to God.”  It wasn’t until I stopped looking for religion and assessing my reactions that I was able to absorb the impact of the religious messages so abundant they may as well have been raining down from the heavens.  I basically just got tired of it and stopped reading them.  When large, bold-type calligraphic letters whirl past me on the street now, I know to think, “religion,” and leave it at that.   Ave Maria, however, will never get old, as I genuinely enjoy listening to the celestial melody at almost any time or place.   Its rhythm has an especially calming effect when in Pali deciding which carton of milk to grab when they are once again out of the only non-fat variety with a re-sealing top or the shelf that reads “natural peanut butter” is, as usual, bare.

Now let’s fast forward to December.

Masked in a mountainous summer theme, December snuck up on me like a soon to expire unopened container of Mountain High Yogurt.  Status updates on Facebook alluded to the fact it was December and I’d be wise to indulge, but I was waiting for proof I could see, feel, and smell.  That proof never arrived, not like it did at the SF airport.

I did notice a few Christmas trees and decorations here and there but it didn’t register with me that Christmas (and therefore Chanukah) was actually fast approaching.  Downtown Rivas reminded me more of Lake Tahoe in the summer than Christmas in December and it messed up my sense of time.  The garland outlining the inside window of the Texaco (tex-AH-co) sun drenched mini-mart just didn’t fit into my schema of Christmas, and the Christmas tree in front of the brand new Wal-Mart owned Maxi Pali decorated solely in red and golden Flor de Caña ribbon and ornaments (arguable the best rum in the world made right here in Nicaragua) caused me to pause and think “Huh…,” rather than to feel extraneous or that I should express my love in córdobas (dollars).  While there were no Santa’s sitting next to their sleds taking pictures with excited little niños, the Pepsi billboard in Rivas picturing Santa adorned in his heavy red and white jacket as he traveled in his snow covered sled did stand out like a sore thumb.  I just don’t see Santa traveling here in that outfit, nor do I see him threading any chimneys since the houses here don’t have them.  The advertisement caused me to ponder how many locals have actually experienced a cold, let alone, snowy winter (in the middle of summer), and can personally connect to what this guy, Santa, was actually doing.  I’ve yet to even see an evergreen tree growing anywhere, unless you count the cacti, but I don’t think you do.

I realized that my schema for December and “The Holidays” is so firmly planted in my experience growing up and living in California, that I didn’t appreciate that it truly was December until I was back home.  While in Nicaragua, it actually felt like December was going to pass without ever coming.  Once in the states, however, a supposedly non-religious country, it took only a millisecond glance out of the window for Eliana to shout for the first time this month, “Christmas trees!” and for me to reflexively think, “Wow, it’s actually December.”

And that’s when it hit me.  This is a third world homogeneously ethnic and religious country, in which minimum wage equals $5/day, the poverty level is set at less than $2/day, clothes are often washed in the river and hung to dry on barbed-wire fences, horses, oxen-drawn carts, and hitchhiking are common modes of transportation, wrenching at the local bike mechanic runs 90 cents an hour, a $2 tip is greatly appreciated, the average diet consists mainly of rice, beans, and plantains, and an exceptionally minuscule percentage of the population has credit cards.  So there is no opportunity for wide-spread consumerism to set in and businesses can’t rely on December spending to make or break their year.  There’s no pressure to spend to prove your love nor is there a need to justify why you’ve gone light on presents.  You don’t have to keep up with the Joneses because the Joneses are poor too and there’s no shame in it nor a reason to hide it.

Awakening my eyes to the gigantic and beautifully lit all-white Christmas trees directly in front of the San Francisco International Terminal passenger pick up zone, I realized that living in a third world Catholic country is pretty easy.  Consumerism can’t marry into and magnify religion, so holidays are not in my face like they often are in the states.  Yes, religion is here.  Like air it is everywhere.  But it’s almost unnoticeable if you don’t look for it (probably because it’s in a different language), allowing me to be myself and believe what I believe, without trying to define who I am and what I believe in comparison to those around me…well, that is, until they ask me which one am I, Christian or Catholic?