Infiltrating the Tents of Circo Zuary

I was coming back to my site late one night on a bus after a weekend vacation when I saw through the dark rain a huge tent with trailers all around. Circus Zuary had come to town.

Choosing to stop in this town seemed like a strange choice. Outsiders are mostly frowned upon or even feared. I asked my 27-year-old neighbor, Abby, if she planned on going.

“Only bad people hang out there,” was her only response to that.

I decided that I wasn’t going to let unfounded fears hold me back from not just seeing the show, but going further under the tent to see what the life is like of a Central American circus performer. One Saturday afternoon, I saw a boy I didn’t recognize from the school sitting on a park bench. Deciding to take a chance, I sat next to the kid and pulled the classic Nicaraguan icebreaker: I started talking about the weather. After a few minutes he told me his name was Eric and he was a juggler for Circo Zuary.

Eric was born in Honduras, and has been with the circus his entire life. All of thirteen years old, he has traveled all over Central America performing alongside his entire family.

“The best thing about being in the circus is when you do your act really well, the people cheer for you.” He said. It just might be the most honest response I’ve ever received.

After a short time, I asked if I could talk to some of the others in the circus. He only said, “yeah sure,” in a sort of “It’s your neck” kind of way. I decided to take a different approach. I rode my bike around to the back of the trailer caravan. There I saw an older gentleman resting in a hammock. I gave him a friendly wave and he returned. I knew I had found my in.

His name was Ricardo, and like Eric, he had been with the circus his entire life as well. He was the son of the founding couple in Mexico. Each of his brothers and sisters had taken a branch of the original circus off in a different direction and they all circulate Central America.

Being an English teacher I wondered how the kids were receiving an education. I asked Ricardo.

“We’re sitting in their classroom right now,” he said with a laugh and pointed to the door turned on its side and set on cinderblocks that we were using as a table.

All the primary school age kids that live and work in the circus receive classes, one room school house style, from a hired teacher that travels along with them.

“The kids study here with only notebooks and a personal teacher. When it’s time to move up to the next grade, they take a test with the kids in the primary school of where we are, and then we just save the papers that say what their grades are.”

Later when I returned to work, my counterparts confirmed that not only do the students pass the exams, they normally score much higher than the local students.

At this time I asked, “who’s in charge around here anyway?”

Ricardo waved for me to follow him to the biggest trailer.

“Ok, this is my sister,” he told me, suddenly very serious. “She’s older and a woman of few words. If things start to go wrong just say excuse me and get out.”

I was officially spooked, but I wasn’t backing out after having come this far into sometwhere so few get to see behind scenes.

Ricardo then ducked into the trailer to the matriarch. After about 20-30 seconds he reappeared with his classic clown grin and waved me to enter.

There I met Mama Celeste Ponse. At first glance, she gave off the aura of a real motherly persona, befitting of her title among the “cirqueños” as she called her people.

I had learned that a good body language technique for communicating with older women in my community was to find a way to sit down lower than them so that I look up to them like I might be one of her grandchildren ready for a story.

The change of expression on the plump old lady’s face showed that I had made the right move as she beamed down at me and she began to regale the history of Circo Zuary.

Her father, a Mexican artist and her mother, already a “cirqueña” formed the first generation of their circus.

When she was born, along with her brothers, they became the new performers in the show. She insisted on using the word “art” and “artists” to describe what the cirqueño does and lives by. Looking at her old black and white photos of her brothers and her performing on high wires, balancing on balls while singing and playing guitar, I saw the circus in a new light. They really were a giant family of artists, each with their own part.

“I’m 67 years old,” Mama Celeste said. “I’ve done my part. It’s time for my sons to focus on their art. I manage the circus so that they don’t have to be distracted by the business side of Circo Zuary.”

Mama Celeste said that she was so happy that she had sons since daughters tend to leave the circus to live with their husbands where as men bring their, usually artistic, wives along with them. This is how the circus grows.

I went to the show that night, Eric, Ricardo and others all performed to applause. Still many people would only describe the cirqueños as dangerous degenerates that can’t be trusted.

As I watched Mama Celeste’s granddaughter, Erica, entwined around a rope, gliding through the air with artistic athleticism I had Nietzsche’s words stuck in my head.


“The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.” 

FINAL FANTASY

As I grew older, my passion for fantastical adventures kept growing.  I fell in love with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Legend of Zelda and countless others.  Later in life, I started to get involved in anime conventions and renaissance festivals.

Science fiction and Fantasy media was completely changing how I saw the world and what I wanted to be in it.  I studied journalism and archaeology and I would be lying if I said I didn’t dream of Indiana Jones adventures along the way.  I joined Peace Corps in part to have my own adventure in the real world.  But it was here in Nicaragua, the real world caught up to me.

Let me say this, Nicaragua is poor.  It ranks as 3rd in the western hemisphere after Haiti and Bolivia.  A good portion of this country lives on less than a dollar a day.  That leaves very little money for people to expose themselves to the same media that I had. This translates into a much lower presence of even the concept of fantasy.

When I first realized this, I was shocked and wanted to do what I could to introduce as much as possible.  I brought movies, and tried to tell anyone who would listen to me about this side of imagination.  I soon realized that a lot of the people I was talking to just weren’t really interested in sci-fi or fantasy.

I then changed tactics, I wanted to know why the Nicas that I was talking to weren’t as enthused as I had hoped they would be.  I started watching the novelas and WWF wrestling, which they love, along with them.  I think my face might have given myself away when my host sister realized I wasn’t a fan.  I asked her why she prefers to watch this over my superhero movies.

She said, “Well that’s just so fake.  It’s not real.” 

As she said this, we were watching a novella series in which a Columbian cocaine dealer was making breast implants out of coke and putting them into all these supermodel women to transport them to the states. However the implants exploded on the plane, which does not happen in the real world either, by the way.  And upon landing, one of  the gorgeous women collapses into the arms of her lover complete with running mascara, water park tears and her latino lover’s shirt blowing open in the wind.

When this happened, I couldn’t contain myself and blurted out, “Well how real was that?”  Everyone laughed.

Not all the Nicas are quite as opposed to a world of pure imagination as others (5 points to anyone who gets that reference).  I lucked out massively when I found that my girlfriend was also a big fan of fantasy, superhero and other kinds of movies.  She even likes some video games including a few classics.

In the end, I guess this is probably my biggest culture shock, the almost absence of love for the fantastically unreal.  Here, stories tend to look as real as possible while including elements that would never happen in the mundane world.  This is something that I’ve missed a great deal from my home culture, daring to dream.

Tranquility at its Finest: Great Corn Island

The shade of palm trees brought the temperature to a perfect feeling while turquoise waves washed over pure white sands. My girlfriend, Kathya, and I laid in perfect peace on Long Bay beach, Great Corn Island.

Semana Santa, Holy Week in English, is the one time during the school year that we can really get away from the stresses of Peace Corps service and explore Nicaragua.  This would be the perfect time, I thought, to visit the Corn Islands. 

 In the USA, I had never heard of this place, nor have any of my friends and family who I asked when I decided to spend the vacation there.  After a bit more research, I was convinced that there could be no purer island getaway.   

According to Lonely Planet travel guides, Great and Little Corn Islands are in the running for the most authentic Caribbean island experience.  You won’t see any sort of mega-developments here and the tallest hotels stand at a very modest two stories. But the hotels that are there have some of the most friendly owners and staff I’ve ever met.  I accidentally overpaid at the Hotel G&G.  The next morning the owner, a large, bubbly Creole lady, Geraldine, found me. 

“I woke up this morning and I said to myself, you know, I think he paid the wrong price on that room!” Geraldine said.

 I was surprised completely.  She had charged me the price of a room with air conditioning, which really isn’t necessary there by the way. For the four nights we stayed there, the difference was 40 dollars. That much could go a long way in Nicaragua.

“You know,” I told her. “Most places that I’ve been to would have probably not said anything unless I brought it up.”

 She gave me a stern yet comforting smile that had the look of “Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids. “That would be wrong.” She said with a laugh as if I hadn't thought of it myself. Within the next few minutes we were all squared up.

Kathya and I then set out to explore the beaches. We walked all the way around the south end of the island in about two to three hours pausing often to swim, sit and take lots of pictures.

 We were almost alone for the entire walk.  We would occasionally walk past a group of tall Creole men pushing their fishing boat into the crystalline waters to catch a day’s pay.  Their wives would sometimes be on the shore, under palms watching over kids playing soccer on the sands. 


When the kids saw my large camera hung around my neck, they would stop what they were doing and come running, some almost naked, like I was giving away free ice cream.


“Una foto! Una foto! Tomeme una foto!” they would scream as they
bolted down the sands before striking poses for the camera.  They didn’t even want the pictures that they were yelling for.  They really just wanted to pose and look cool and see themselves in the playback of my camera screen.  After showing them the pictures, they would laugh and smile before dashing off down the sands.

One of the moms on the sidelines told us that the kids adore the tourists because they have traveled so far to come see their homes. “They want to make you feel welcome,” she said.


In the evenings, Kathya and I would dine on seafood soups and lobster along the fishing wharfs as the sun fell from the sky, bathing the island in pink and purple light.  After it got dark, we would head over to bambule just north of Long Bay for Toñas and music. 

The locals taste in music really was the final reflection of their characters.  Everything could be heard in that bar from bachata to Bob Marley to Hank Williams.  Going from classic island reggae to good old country was a something I was not prepared for, but after a while I could start to see the links.  The songs were all about chilling out, having a drink and being with that one you love.  Each song perfectly reflected that Corn Island culture.



“The people here don’t want anything,” said Kathya slightly amazed. “They have everything they really need.”

It certainly seemed true to me as I took another sip.  They really do have all that matters in life here: the sun, a beer and a boat to drink them in.