‘Bupkun’: Outsiders Among the Wounaan

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand
W. B. Yeats, “The Stolen Child”


Although we are still well within the boundaries of the province of Panama, it feels as if we are in Darien, one of the few remaining tropical jungles on the planet. The moment we enter the mouth of the Rio Hondo—earlier this year, in April, during a school field trip—massive walls of mangroves reach out from the river beds, as if in greeting. The scenery is stunning—every possible shade of green has taken hold of the world. The landscape our eyes devour is worthy of being on the cover of National Geographic.

Our trip has two purposes: one, to deliver school supplies for the children of the village of Rio Hondo and, two, for seventeen students and three teachers from Balboa Academy to learn more about the Wounaan. Our members represent Ecuador, the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, the United States and Panama (including a few descendants of Zonians).

On the afternoon of our first day in Rio Hondo we are welcomed into the nicest home of this impoverished village: a two-story hexagonal wood building, the only two-story edifice in the area. A community leader, Narcilo, lives there with his family. He escorts us upstairs. In the exact center of the room hangs a long canoe, carved out of a tree trunk. When asked why a wood boat dangles from his ceiling, Narcilo replies: “That’s not a canoe. It’s a Cuchuil.” (A word that sounds similar to ‘cook-wheel’.)

While the students are engaged in the ritual of Kipar—the culture of body painting, which Narcilo's wife performs on the students—the elder explains the legend of the Cuihuil to me.

“For many centuries the Wounaan competed against the Bupkún—the outsiders. In the end, as everyone knows, the Bupkún won. But to reward our loyalty, God gave the Wounaan a great gift: the Cuchuil. This gift has given us considerable control over the fate of the world.

“This room, although it is in my house, is a ceremonial center. Young men can come anytime between 8 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon to play the Cuchuil, which we bang like a drum. Playing it pleases God and this helps bring peace to the world. When conflicts between humans reach a critical level, we play the Cuchuil more frequently. It has a beautiful deep wood tone that’s pleasant and soothing.”

Narcilo pauses for a moment, looks at me, shrugs, and then says: “I’d play it for you now, but if the Cuchuil is played after 2 in the afternoon it pleases the devil, not God.”

* * * *

The following morning—on our first full day there—after breakfast, the top item on our agenda is a long hike through the rainforest. As we travel through the Wounaan trails that allow the residents of Rio Hondo to harvest the palms used for weaving baskets and to get to the small plantations of corn and plantains they’ve carved out of the jungle, it’s easy to imagine how difficult it must have been for Vasco Núñez de Balboa and the Spaniards accompanying him to cross the isthmus through terrain far more entangled than this to become the first Europeans to set eyes on the Pacific.

A dozen or so Wounaan children follow our group. Along the way the boys imitate the sounds of howler-monkeys and birds, and these imitations are uncannily authentic. But the indigenous youths are separate from us, although they had played games the previous evening for several hours with our students. A social barrier still exists—a five-century buffer of mistrust that has evolved into a cultural shyness that keeps these children wary of outsiders and preferring to communicate in the primal language of jungle inhabitants.

Even so, when we arrive at a swimming hole the thin walls of our segregation begin to crumble. Sweaty and hot from the hike, we, the city dwellers, jump into the brown stagnant water—a river will overcome it at high tide—to cool off. Since the shower of our rustic quarters seldom has water, the women in our group take advantage of the opportunity to shampoo their hair. The Wounaan children observe them in silence, seated on the rocks alongside the dry riverbank. But the temptation to join us proves too strong to resist and before long they jump in the water, playing, shampooing their hair, laughing and splashing around with the rest of us.

For the time being the gap between our cultures, languages, and origins ceases to exist. Water, that which cleanses, nourishes, and sustains life, has united us, making all of us embrace our common humanity. And although in a couple of days the students and teachers will return to the entirely different ways of city life, for the moment water equalizes us, and for the remainder of our time in Rio Hondo we will be at ease with our new identity as Bupkúns, outsiders among the Wounaan.

All in a Day’s Work

Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.
Albert Einstein

When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: “Only stand out of my light.” Perhaps someday we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.
John W. Gardner

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
Gail Godwin


Teaching, as any member of the profession will attest, has its rough moments. There are days when little of what a teacher has prepared works well. And, to make the tale more heartrending, the days when an educator presses the right buttons and the love of learning takes hold of every person in the room, the days when every student ravenously consumes the items on a lesson plan—resulting in an adrenaline rush that leaves everyone flushed and energized—are, indeed, rare. Yet the memories of these magical class periods are what sustain educators through the agonizing instances when, regardless of how hard they may try, the students’ vacant stares tell them, and bluntly, that the aims for the day have fallen short of the mark.

Still, the rewards of teaching, which come in small and large measures, far outweigh the frustrations. What’s more, the incidents that validate an educator’s labor often take place outside of the classroom—in the hallways, when a passing student pays a compliment that leaves the teacher feeling radiant; or when a teacher discovers that something a student learned in one’s class makes a moment in another class luminous; or when a teacher receives an email with a message of gratitude from a former pupil. Such occurrences are marvelous, and on the day I start to write this piece, I was the beneficiary of several comments that made my day—perhaps, even, my month.

Wednesdays are half-days at Balboa Academy. These afternoons are often devoted to workshops designed to help teachers to continue growing in the profession. On this particular occasion, the workshop was about, of all things, improving the way we teach writing.

I arrived a few minutes early and was walking toward my assigned table, greeting colleagues along the way, when a teacher whom I had never met before approached me.

“Dr. Sirias?”

“Yes?”

“My son is in your Spanish class and he absolutely loves it. He been telling us every day about the stories they are reading and discussing in class. He’s now giving me the titles of books he wants me to buy. I’ve never seen him so excited about reading. I just wanted to thank you for that.”

I tried, as best as I could, to deflect her compliments. I stated that her son is a bright young man, a terrific student—which he is—and that I had little to do with his newfound enthusiasm for literature. Still, as I sat down to await the start of the workshop, I was feeling quite elated.

My group soon began its task: to learn how to assess the skills of individual writers. Wanting to concentrate on a particular essay, I stepped outside of the large room in which we had congregated and sat down on a comfortable chair in the hallway to read the piece in silence. As I approached the midway point in the student’s paper, I felt a human presence next to me. I looked up and recognized a teacher from the middle school.

“Dr. Sirias, sorry to interrupt,” she said. “I simply wanted to tell you that my daughter loves your Spanish class.”

Again, I made an awkward attempt to ward off the praise and then, blushing profusely, I thanked my colleague for her kind words.

The rest of the afternoon I worked with added enthusiasm, thanks to the statements that helped to validate my daily efforts. After we concluded working that afternoon, I rose from my seat, ready to head home, when a third teacher approached me.

“Dr. Sirias, my daughter feels that your writing class is inspiring. She has never been eager to sit down to write an essay until now. Thank you so much.”

I wish I could say that I receive such tributes every day, but the truth is quite the contrary: on most days, like all teachers, I go about my business without accolades. But neither do I expect them. Nevertheless, such instances of recognition make up for the moments of frustration during which I feel I had done everything within my power to make a difference, only to fall short of the expectations I have set for myself. But today, what made this afternoon especially moving is that the flattering remarks came from fellow teachers—from others who, like me, know, and intimately, how difficult it is to perform magic in the classroom.

Uplifted at a President’s Funeral

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
Niccolo Machiavelli

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
Socrates

Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you.
Saint Francis de Sales

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Alexander Pope


In the old Managua—destroyed during the December 22, 1972 earthquake—the Presidential Palace was located in the highest point of the city: on the hilltop ridge next to the crater lake of Tiscapa. The wide, majestic building could be seen from virtually anywhere in the capital. When my family moved to Nicaragua, in 1964, the residence reminded me of a beacon of hope—that’s because the man who occupied it then was a compassionate, caring person.

Rene Schick’s presidency is remembered as a time of peace, stability, and respect for human rights; and I believe his life-affirming leadership is one of the primary reasons that my adolescent memories of Nicaragua are so idyllic. His presidency was a oasis in the midst of the long years of political turmoil that preceded him and the popular uprisings that would follow. And President Schick’s calming influence over Nicaraguans became possible, I believe, because he identified with the common man and woman, and they, in turn, completely identified with him.

Rene Schick had been the nation’s Minister of Education during Luis Somoza’s presidency. And the elder brother of the dynasty saw something in Schick that few others did: an ability to lead in a composed, positive manner. When Luis Somoza declared his preference for Rene Schick to be his successor, protests surged from within his party. The leader of this subversion was Julio Quintana, Minister of Government and Justice and a hard-line supporter of the Somoza regime who, in addition to seeing himself as the logical successor, took exception to Schick’s humble beginnings and troubled past.

And the truth was that Rene Schick’s past was susceptible to criticism. A native of Leon, he studied law in the local university, obtaining a degree in spite of a serious affliction: alcoholism. The people of Leon told stories of the many times they saw the young attorney stumbling drunk through the city streets or, worse yet, passed out on the sidewalks. Schick’s erratic behavior reached such an extent that many Leoneses gave up on this bright young man who, unfortunately, seemed incapable of holding down a steady job. Yet those who did so would be proven wrong.

Desperate to redeem himself, Rene Schick turned to Alcoholics Anonymous. He became a fervent convert and before long he was preaching the virtues of sobriety with missionary zeal. His speeches were so moving that attendance at AA meetings soared, and he was credited with convincing many others to abandon alcohol. A school principal, a regular at the AA meetings, impressed by the young man’s charisma, offered him a position as a sixth-grade teacher. Schick accepted the job and found his life’s calling in education. Shortly thereafter, he also started to become involved in local politics.

Years later, during the Liberal Party convention in which Luis Somoza officially announced Schick as his nominee of choice, Quintana’s strategy was to belittle Schick, suggesting that he was a working-class alcoholic who was barely fit to be in a school. In spite of the attacks, Schick won the nomination, and when word leaked out about what had been said about him, instead of rejecting the former teacher, the common folk of Nicaragua embraced him as one of their own. Schick responded in kind, working diligently to become “El Presidente del Pueblo,” (The President of the People).

As President, in a practice that Schick’s own ministers criticized as an improper use of government funds as well as preserving age-old Latin American paternalistic practices, poor Nicaraguans would stand in line for hours to share their troubles with their leader, and he’d hand out money to help alleviate their plights. Through this ritual, Rene Schick, among Nicaraguans, became a symbol of kindness and compassion.

But the presidency’s generosity came to an abrupt end on August 3, 1966, when Rene Schick died of a heart attack while working in his office. The news of his sudden death shocked every Nicaraguan, but none more so than the working class, who in this President had found a hero.

Only six days before President Schick’s death, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro wrote the following in an editorial of La Prensa: “We must acknowledge that during the three years of Schick’s administration Nicaragua has experienced an era of tranquility. From that tranquility, everyone has benefitted.”

And on the day after Schick’s death, a new editorial issued a prescient lament: “Neither bloodshed, nor imprisonments, nor forced exiles took place during Schick’s administration.”

* * * *

In Managua’s old Mercado San Miguel, my mother owned a small store. Although the enterprise was never very profitable, running it entertained her. Twelve-years-old at the time, I’d often spend the day with her, helping out whenever I could but mostly studying the vibrant community of this vast open-aired market.

On the day before Rene Schick’s funeral, his body was scheduled to lay in repose in the Palacio Nacional for the public to view. This building, where the Nicaraguan congress used to meet, was an eight block walk from my mother’s business. Around noon, curious to witness the event, as well as wanting to pay my respects, I received my mother’s permission to go there on my own.

It was a sweltering tropical day. The sun beat down relentlessly upon the thousands of working-class people who skipped their siestas to pay homage to their dead leader. Outside the National Palace, in the middle of a narrow street, two rows of cadets from the Academia Militar stood at attention, facing one another. A cadet had fainted because of the heat, and he looked tragically young, even to me, as he lay with his face flat on the steaming pavement. His fellow cadets stared straight ahead, as if a prostrate body in the middle of their formation was the most natural thing in the world.

I got in line and waited under the scorching sun for my turn to enter the building. When it finally arrived, I sighed, relieved to be indoors. Almost instantly, however, the sound of women wailing startled me back into the moment. Inside the National Palace, two long orderly rows of mourners filed slowly alongside the president’s casket. There were no restrictions; people passed so close to Schick’s remains that they could have touched him. But no one did. Instead, a deep feeling of loss bonded everyone there, a dense solemnity that commanded respect.

The former president appeared to be sleeping, peacefully at rest. The sounds of crying became more intense the closer I came to the casket, and even in my twelve-year-old mind it was evident that the poor of Nicaragua had lost someone important, someone they had loved and trusted.

Shortly after I had stepped outside of the viewing room, and I was on my way toward the exit, something frightened the people walking in front of me. What happened, I’ll never know. Did a member of the Guardia Nacional brandish a weapon menacingly? Did one of the guards, feeling suddenly threatened, make a gesture that alarmed the crowd?

The human wall in front of me turned abruptly, trying to find another exit. I failed to respond properly; instead, I attempted to push my way toward the original exit, against the flow of the crowd. Within seconds I was being bashed around by a throng intent on getting out of the Palacio Nacional.

I started to have difficulty breathing, trapped in an increasingly airless cocoon of adults. I was also being crushed, my ribcage hurting from the pressure of the throbbing mob. I was about to surrender to a spreading wave of panic when an unexpected occurrence took my mind off of the dangerous situation: my feet left the ground. In the tight weave of the crowd, I had become weightless. Suddenly I was advancing with them, without effort.

Then something inside of me, something I can only describe as an angelic instinct, told me to relax—and upon doing so, in spite of the peril, the ride became enjoyable. As the huddled mass of people made its way to an alternate exit, I glanced around me, scanning the faces and feeling an inexplicable kinship with every one of them. Although the experience of being carried lasted twenty seconds, at the most, it felt like I was suspended amid the humanity for hours.

As we at last approached an exit, the crowd thinned somewhat, and as gently as I had been lifted, my feet were back on the ground. As soon as we passed through the stately doorway and were once again in the dense tropical heat, we scattered—everyone rushing in different directions. I moved to one side, leaning against an outer wall of the Palacio Nacional, utterly relieved to be safe and free.

In the more than forty years that have passed since that mournful event, the experience of that day has become a haunting metaphor for me: after the death of Rene Schick, Nicaragua entered a period of unparalleled turbulence, a time when every Nicaraguan would be in need of angels and luck to deliver them safely from harm.

A Heartwarming Letter from a Reader

Hearing from readers who've been touched by something one writes is always a magical moment. I doubt that I'll ever get tired of learning that the long, lonely hours behind the publication of any work have been worthwhile.

In April of 2008, in this blog I reprinted a review of Bernardo and the Virgin that Kevin McCloskey published on Amazon. The reason I did so is because I enjoyed the story-form his review took, and I wanted to share that. At the time I tried to find a way of contacting Mr. McCloskey to ask for his permission. Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with his email address. In any event, I included his review in the following posting: "A Revision Update, and a Story as Review of Bernardo and the Virgin."

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I received a heartwarming letter from Mr. McCloskey. This time, I share the missive with his full consent.


Dear Silvio,

I just found to my delight that you reprinted, on your blog, my Amazon.com story/review of Bernardo and the Virgin.

I was, indeed, inspired and moved by your splendid novel.

When my brother Brian returned from Nicaragua he read it, enjoyed it, and thanked me for it. Then he mailed the book back to Nicaragua to a friend. Oddly enough, Brian tells me he is headed back to Nicaragua next week. This will be his third trip there in two years.

I was extremely worried about my brother when he made his first impetuous trip. But after visiting Nicaragua myself, I extended my brief trip and deepened my understanding the people and the place by reading Bernardo and the Virgin. Books don't often change me, but after reading your book I became a bit less cynical, and somehow less worried about my brother's capacity pursue his own journey.

I am sorry that I am unable to write this note in pure story form. I am an illustrator, so I do love stories, and I am sometimes a writer of small things.

Thank you for writing of bigger things.

Kevin McCloskey
Communication Design Dept.
Kutztown University