My sister-in-law story

She showed up at our place in León a theoretical-month before the baby was due. The bus ride through the mountains of the state of Matagalpa was a rough ordeal. So within a couple days she was taken to the local 'free' hospital downtown to deliver. She stayed in a bed overnight; the baby went into an incubator with other premies (sharing space, in a poor country, is the spirit & the necessity). She stayed in the hospital for three more days while the baby girl 'incubated', but without a bed or chair, she shared the floor with cockroaches. (My wife was so incensed at the filthy conditions she was going to videofilm it and denounce the place to a local TV station. Never happened. Everybody got too busy with baby.) My wife & their younger sister (who lives with us and for whom I pay tuition, otherwise she, a good student and the first in the family to graduate from high school, would never have considered going to college) brought their older sister food while in the hospital. On the fourth day all came into our home. We accommodated. Expenses roughly doubled. I insisted mom & baby go to a nearby pediatrician; she put them on vitamins. Mom breastfed the miniature person and drank some special concoction (pinolillo) every morning to pump up her mammaries. The baby came into our house shriveled & feeble, but left plump & healthy, grabbing or kicking anything in reach. We managed to get mom healthier too. Both are now at my mother-in-law’s house where they get expert care and grandmotherly loving.

Having the baby in the house before and during Christmas made the holidays more delightful and more joyous than I can remember. All the women fawned & cooed endlessly over the little human. Never has a baby been hugged & kissed more. My wife went overboard buying tiny clothes, and shoes (¿Unable to crawl, barely able to see, what’s it need shoes for?) My sister-in-law is older than my wife and though we were certainly crowded, I confess it was a privelege sharing our place with them. She was constantly cleaning up and preparing delicious meals. The baby was quiet because she slept so much, and on waking the women would rush to be the one who’d cuddle her or change her, and if that didn’t work, she’d immediately have a teat or bottle put in her mouth. If the first two months of life are determinant that baby will have a reservoir of contentment to draw from for the rest of its life.

In line with 3 frijoles' brother-in-law stories on therealnicaragua.com, you might be asking: what about the father? No father was named on the birth certificate. I know cause I went with my sister-in-law to help straighten out a snafu (a typo on the original document) between hospital & city hall. (Bureaucracies are nightmares everywhere today, but there’s always one person, one elevated personage, who can straighten out the worst tangle of red tape with a signature. I had to push, take advantage of being a gringo, but we found HIM.) When she asked me to become the baby’s godfather (who could resist Marlon Brando’s role, without cotton under my cheeks?) I asked her pointblank: who’s the father? She named a much-too-young guy she was messing with (who’s mother pushed her out of the picture, I guess) and said he doesn’t know. But others who knew him say his complexion is too dark to match the baby‘s, which is chele-like (a pale-face). (Not me. No slimmy comments from any slugs out there.) So it shall remain her/their secret. Her lifestory is a typical (for Nicaragua) tragedy but it tears at my heart to recall it, the layers of injustice piled upon one life, and its necessary effect on a sweet soul struggling to survive.

It ain’t just Nicaragua. A recent report for the US Congress (CRS RL34756, 11/20/08) says that 38.5% of all births in the US in 2006 were nonmarital. To Hispanic women in the US, 49.9% of the births were nonmarital. To black US women, 70.7%, and to non-Hispanic whites, 26.6%, and to US Asian women, 16.3%. The trend is expected to increase. Perhaps it’s sociological, indicating the demise of the institution of marriage (especially without religious ceremony), or, because the demographics seem to follow income inversely, it may be attributed to the increasing ‘ease’ for a single parent to raise a child with the government‘s and other's help. (In Nicaragua it is often the grandparents.) Or maybe it's more anthropological, indicating the independence of the sexes and the modern difficulties in maintaining pair-bond relationships to raise children.

Irregardless, sex happens, everywhere, often unguarded. So populations grow, often happily, sometimes tragically, but more commonly with societal help. Let us remember that America's president Obama was raised by a single mother (though married at his birth), her parents and their 'communities'; few doubt his potential greatness, apt for these difficult times.