The Haircut.

It has been quite a long time since my last blog so to those of you who have been following my travels sorry for the gap since the last update. That being said, we have been busy! So much so time seems to be slipping past us like cockroaches across toes in the night (believe me that simile holds much more credence after you have been living in cheap hostels for 3 months!). Two weeks left... even typing it gives me hebby jebbys. I suppose I have a few great things to come home to: brats on the grill, a snowless Wisconsin (it had better be!), stressed out friends still in school, and of course family, family, family! But still I am already missing the crisp mountain air and the daily sightings of llamas on the sidewalks of Peru. The rich sense of family and freedom I felt in Ecuador. Guatemala for its tranquility, color, and sense of spirituality. And now, tomorrow morning, we leave Nicaragua. While we say goodbye to our host families from two years ago, say goodbye to El Fortin and its bright eyed children, say goodbye to all the beauty that is Nicaragua we also say hello again to another old friend, Costa Rica. I cant wait to see what adventures she has in store for us!
The girls and I have really been trying to live in the present... having just re-read my last paragraph I need to start trying a little harder! That being said I cannot catch you all up on the events of the week my sister and some friends came to visit, or all that El Fortin means to me, or all the seemingly mundane moments with my girls in--the smiles shared and the conversations had are far to numerous and beautiful to try and put in print. However, just yesterday I did have a life-changing experience at a rather unexpected place that I would like to share with you all. It was not in El Fortin or on horseback in the rolling hills of northern Nicaragua, but rather at a barber shop in Granada.
As a cautionary precursor: my beautiful mother usually cuts my hair and despite never being classically trained in the barbering arts she is freakin´ amazing. That being said, yesterday I had the most amazing haircut of my life! Sorry ma. This was a barber shop. Not a $12 and week of undie grundies for being the only kid on the playground with crooked bowl cut, cost cutters, or an ammonia-smelling salon, but a barber shop. A real one! One you may find old black men in talking about Joe Lewis or Muhammad Ali. The kind of place with chairs wide enough for a man´s behind and his 6-shooter.... I´ve got it!... the kind of place Clint Eastwood would go to get his ears lowered, that is if he doesn't just look at himself in the mirror and terrify his follicles into the proper length.
So picture this place... in Nicaragua. Hugo was my barber´s name and his hands felt like cool pillows on a warm summer night. They worked fast and with the confidence of a seasoned trapeze artist. The once unkempt locks never stood a chance. They fell to the floor in clumps all too aware of their own defeat. It seemed like I had just sat down and already it was over. My scruffy chin dropped to my chest as I sat in awe but somehow managed to muster up enough Spanish to ask for what I really wanted that day-- ¿Puedes afeitarme tambien? (Could I get a shave as well?) What with the threat of a sliced jugular and the proceeding lawsuit on the hands of the establishment I´m not sure if straight-razor shaves are even street-legal in the States anymore... all I knew is that in the past year or so (or the time I could actually ask for someone to shave my face and not have them laugh at my poor excuse for peach fuzz) I had never had a straight-shave... and I wanted one, now more than ever. Hugo with his hands now out of sight said without a flinch, ¨dude, I could curl and color your hair if you really wanted me to.¨ Wow, what a man.
With the pull of a lever I was suddenly looking up at the make-shift duct work of the old Spanish-colonial building. A series of washes later (as a traveler you accumulate a grayish film on your skin I like to think is a combination of dead skin, dirt, sweat, and freedom... mostly dirt though) he was on me with the blade. I closed my eyes either confident with his skilled strokes or foreboding the sprinkler of blood that would surly stain those dirty ducts when once trusted hands do slip. The experience past like a dream... I remember only flashes and then all of my pores inhaled at once... as if for the first time. Then came the after shave that smelled like fresh cut wood, lotion that smelled like the mountain air of the Andes, and finally another cream that I can only describe as smelling like pure brawn... I cannot be sure to this day but I have a sneaking suspicion it was pure testosterone. I stayed in my re-born position for a while undisturbed, and then I heard it. It sounded like the small 5 hp engine of a weed whacker starting up. I opened my eyes just for a moment and I saw Hugo with a contraption on the back of his hand that looked like a small silver canister but it shook his entire arm violently as if it were filled with radio-active atoms or killer bees. Hugo then proceeded to massage the hell out of my entire face, sternum, head, and arms until I was all but numb from the chest up... I was speechless. The machine strapped to his hand finally coughed and sputtered to an immediate stop and with the pull of another lever I was upright again, looking at an image of myself in the mirror before me. As if my own hand was now possessed I reached it to my cheek to examine the master´s work.

I dare you to find a baby´s butt that smooth.
I then realized, this is what God must feel when he gets a shave!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Love,
Cory