Holding Strangers' Children

Word of the Day: chinear- to sit someone, usually a child, but not necessarily, on your lap during a crowded transportation moment

One of the most amusing bus moments while traveling in Nicaragua occurs when you wind up with a stranger's child on your lap. This has happened to me 3 times in my last 3 bus rides. I used to feel weird about chinear-ing random kids, mostly because this is not a situation that one gains any experience with while traveling in America. Also, because I am not as good of a person as I wish I were and kids are pretty uncomfortable to have sitting on you. Inevitably, however, their sad eyes get the better of me. Or the mothers looking very very tired as they stand in the aisle of the bus with a bunch of kids who are all like 9 months apart. O the pregnancies!!!

Lately, however, I've started aggressively chinearing kids at every opportunity as a way of asserting how culturally integrated I am to fellow passengers. This is the weird sort of competitiveness that PCVs start to engage in when they have been in country for too long. Subconsciously, I suppose the message I am trying to send is "Your casual tourist pasearing around does not chinear children! But I am different! I am benevolent and I understand how crowded it is. I will gladly lend you my lap if you will only accept me as a fake Nicaraguan! LOVE ME PORFAAAAAAAAAA"

 Today for instance, I was traveling with my gigantic tourist hiking backpack because my things stubbornly refused to fit in my normal backpack. I hate how this backpack makes me stick out.  Everyone starts speaking slowly and gesturing exaggeratedly when you have such a backpack. And so, at the first opportunity, I offered up my lap to a small kid who refused to talk and kept falling asleep and jerking awake and nearly falling off and refusing to put his head on my shoulder until he finally passed out so hard that his mother couldn't wake him up and had to carry him off the bus. And although my fellow passengers were probably like "LOL look at that freak gringa chinearing that child!" I felt a deep sense of belonging and satisfaction.

In short, Peace Corps makes you do strange things out of pride.