During the fall of 1988, I traveled to Nicaragua to attend a Spanish language school. The program provided housing to students mostly in private homes with families. Since few of the families spoke English, this immersion in Spanish combined with classroom study and field trips led to rapid acquisition of the language.
I was placed with a family who lived just a few blocks from the school and consisted of Monica, who was in her late 40s, and her two daughters. One daughter, Camila, was sixteen, and a second daughter, Daniela, was twenty-six and had a baby. Monica and Daniela’s husbands were both in the military and were stationed in the capital so they only occasionally came to visit on weekends.
While there was a war going on in Nicaragua at the time, the fighting was mostly confined to the far north of the country and Esteli, the small town where the school was located, had not experienced any combat for quite a long time. It was because of that tranquil nature of Esteli, that I was all the more surprised when I was awoken one morning at 2:30 by the sound of automatic rifle fire just outside my bedroom window.
I jumped out of my bed and ducked down beneath the edge of the window. After the initial barrage of gunfire, there was some shouting directed at the shooter from across the street and then there was another round of gunfire. I would later learn that the source of the gunfire was an AK-47 assault rifle with a magazine that held 30 rounds. Each time the magazine would be emptied, there was a brief bit of shouting followed by more shooting in full automatic mode. There seemed to be only one shooter and because he was shooting almost constantly, I was hoping the rifle would overheat and jam. But the ear-splitting noise continued for minutes. And those minutes seemed like hours.
Monica, Camila, and Daniela made their way to my room with the baby. My room on the south side of the house had higher windows, and offered better protection, than their rooms on the north side of the house. Although it was pretty dark, I could see the worried look on their faces.
After another two bursts of gunfire, Monica carefully lifted the corner of the drape covering the window and observed the scene outside for a minute or so. She then announced, “It’s Enrique!” and jumped up and headed out the front door to the street.
My heart was pounding as Monica walked right up to the man holding the rifle. She then said something to the shooter and took the rifle away from him! Soon afterward, the man’s brother arrived along with two police officers. They put the man in a police car and drove away.
When Monica came back inside the house she explained that Enrique was the neighborhood drunk and was celebrating the birth of his second child. That celebration earned Enrique a few days in jail and left me with the memory of a sleepless night in Nicaragua that I won’t ever forget.
