Tales Along the Way from Granada, Nicaragua to Washington, Dc

By Armando J. Calonje M.

When my father set out to write a few tales to answer some questions his children had about his life, he realized there was much more to tell and decided to put the stories together in a book. The process of compiling all these stories about his journey from Granada, Nicaragua to Washington, DC became a journey in itself. Months of research, reaching out to unknown family members, and navigating the publishing world was all new to him, just as moving to the United States had been when he was nineteen years old. The stories not only answer the questions he was trying to answer, but gives his children a view into his life before they were born. As he would say, life is story.

Carolina M. Calonje

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475932072

Armando J. Calonje M.

Armando J. Calonje M. was born in Granada, Nicaragua. He graduated from the Jesuit high school Colegio Centro America. He left Nicaragua in 1961 to pursue university studies in the United States of America at Louisiana State University in New Orleans. He completed his education at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he obtained a B.A. in 1971 and an MBA in 1975. He worked for the Embassy of Nicaragua in Washington from 1966 to 1974 and for the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States from 1974 to 2000. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife Silvia; has three children and three grandchildren. He is the author of Tales Along the Way, from Granada, Nicaragua to Washington, DC, an honest and detailed autobiography of his life narrating his experiences during his trajectory to Washington, DC after leaving his native country. This work was published in 2012. Some of the tales included in this book were published in Spanish in the AROAS Bulletin (Association of Retirees of the Organization of American States.)

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Copyright © 2012 by Armando J. Calonje M.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-3206-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3207-2 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 06/18/2012

Contents

Background and Acknowledgements

1. Life is a Story

2. Where I was born, Granada, Nicaragua, Central America

3. Growing Up In Granada

4. Nandaime, Nicaragua

5. Colegio Centro América (CCA)

6. My Father

7. My Mother

8. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

9. El Salvador, Central America

10. Embassy of Nicaragua, Washington, D.C.

11. Silvia Cerviño Alayón

12. The General Secretariat of the OAS

13. ". . . no, I am not rich, I am just lucky…’’

Annex Calonje’s Family History

To My Children

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Silvia Cecilia, Armando and Carolina

*     *     *

Our memory is not an archive,

it is a live mechanism which relives an experience,

reproduces what impresses it,

but unlike a photocopy,

does not copy what has been perceived

By Dr. Simeon Rizo-Castellon

(Translated from Spanish)

*     *     *

Background and

Acknowledgements

Why do people write? Be it books, short stories, fiction, non-fiction, political, economic, scientific, etc. I do not exactly know what is their motivation or objective. Nor do I know if they are seeking financial retribution, acknowledgment from their prospective readers, or who are their intended audiences. However, I do know that the majority of writers regardless of their intentions or motives all narrate a story. A story of love, romance, hate, intrigue, mystery, war, about their lives as well as of others’, and so on.

When I started writing some of my stories I was answering the questions my three children, Silvia Cecilia, Armando and Carolina, to whom I dedicate this book, would ask. Mainly about how I came to the United States, as well as other questions about my family, namely, about my father and his family. Many times, in response to my lack of knowledge about some of these facts, they encouraged me to find out about my ancestors and relatives, and even suggested that I record something in writing.

To satisfy their curiosity as well as mine, and since I did not know much about the origin of my father’s family, I set out to inquire and research with friends and relatives to gather as much information as I could to pass on to my children and their children. As I started to write down what I found, I thought it would be selfish not to provide them with a full picture of my life since the time and place of my birth to where I am now.

As I went on with my writing and started to mention some of my relatives as well as some of my friends, I realized that perhaps some of them could also be interested in my stories or my cuentos as I call them in Spanish.

I decided to title my book Tales along the Way, from Granada, Nicaragua to Washington, DC, because from my home town of Granada on my way to Washington there were many interrelated stories, or cuentos, regarding my childhood, my life in Granada my attendance and graduation from High School and many more after my arrival to the United States of America.

What had started out as a challenge became an experiment. I was challenged because I did not know how far I could go, how much I was going to be able to find, if I was going to be able to finish what I had embarked upon, and an experiment because I chose not to write it in my native language, Spanish, but instead I opted to do it in English the language of my adopted country.

As you read through this book you will notice that I am not a professional writer, nor do I write well in Spanish or English and if had to write long hand or in a typewriter you would not be reading these stories. When I left my native Nicaragua after graduating from High School, I did not master the art of writing in Spanish, perhaps because I was not encouraged to do so at my school or perhaps it was just me who did not have the skills to do so. When I came to the United States the situation worsened because I had to practically abandon Spanish to concentrate on learning to speak, read and write in English. I had to memorize in advance my English assignments at the university to be able to write them in the classroom (I will explain later when I narrate my experiences at the university in New Orleans).

I often say that what you remember today is not exactly what you lived yesterday, so, based on this statement, I offer to you the best of my recollection of many of the facts about myself, my life in Nicaragua and in the United States of America, and some of the events that brought me to where I am today. I do not have any factual information that I can cite, like books, references, articles or any other written material, however, in some instances I make reference to some writings just to make a point or to identify or relate an action with a date. Most of what I have written is based solely on my recollection of things and events as they happened. I have tried to make it as simple as possible and tried not to make the stories too long or too boring so you are not tempted to stop reading them. I tried to make each chapter independent of each other so that if you desire to skip one you can follow up or pick up the story without reading the previous one but I encourage you to read it through chapter by chapter.

When referring to some of the characters that I mention in the book, in some instances I have used only first names, and in other instances I have used or given a fictitious name just for the sake of using a name, or to protect their identity. I used this approach when I did not recall the name of the person or when I have opted to not identify him or her. With regards to some of my female acquaintances, as I mention in the text, I have given some of them fictitious names for the reasons that I have indicated accordingly.

With regards to the stories themselves, all of them are a truthful recollection of what happened and how they happened, and although I have done some adorning of some of them I did not fall into the temptation of embellishing any of them.

*     *     *

In gathering most of the information to complete my stories, I would like to thank some of my friends from my High School, the CCA, such as my former class-mate Carlos Jose Chamorro who helped me by reading the chapter about the CCA and for providing me with additional information. Jose Antonio Gonzalez, who directly or unknowingly, during our periodic lunch meetings, also provided or corroborated some of the facts about our school and our time in it. I would like to thank Jaime Morice and Amado Salvador Peña, also former class-mates, who provided me with photos of the school and a copy of our last school year Recuerdos, or memoirs of the school and to Simeon Rizo Castellon, also a former class-mate, for providing me with details about his brother and my good friend Alvaro’s educational background and for unknowingly providing me with the quote for this book.

To William Doña, a former school-mate who provided me with details about a small school that we attended in Granada, which I had forgotten, and a photograph of our sixth grade. I would also like to thank my cousin Rene Sandino Monterrey for providing me the photographs of the Cathedral of Granada and the street where I used to live in Granada, La Calle la Calzada. To my cousin Julio Monterrey Muñoz for safekeeping the suit case that my mother left with him when she left Nicaragua for the United States, which contained valuable documents and photographs about our family and of my father’s distilling business.

To Karla Cuadra, the great great-grandaughter of Jose De Jesus Calonje, my grandfather’s brother, who provided me with a wealth of information about the Calonje family. Without her I would still be searching for such data.

Also I like to thank Luis F. Gomez, James (Jim) B. McCeney, and Mildred (Millie) Imirie my colleagues with whom I had the privilege of working at the General Secretariat of the OAS and who also provided with valuable comments.

To my daughter Carolina who helped me edit the entire manuscript and most importantly correcting some of my errors, namely with the use of the in’s or the on’s as well as others, with which I have always had trouble when writing in English. To my daughter Silvia Cecilia and my son Armando for their continued support, and to my son-in-law, Michael Ford for helping me with the title of this book.

Finally I wish to thank the most important person in my life, Silvia, my wife, with whom I spent hours reviewing the text and the stories, deleting some, and adding others that I had missed. For her patience for putting up with me while spending so many hours in-front of the computer, and for her finally understanding the motive or motives for writing such a personal account of my life, and who in spite of her teasing me and asking me about whom would interested in reading my stories, she strongly encouraged me to re-write and continue writing after having mistakenly erased three full chapters. She knew that if I started this project I was not going stop half way.

1. Life is a Story

Webster defines Story as an . . . account, report, chronicle, version related to history, annals; relation, rehearsing, recital, recounting… as a recital of happenings less elaborate than a novel… , . . . a narrative, anecdote, yarn, . . . narration, description; fiction, tale; fable, fabrication… , . . . lie, falsehood, untruth, fib, misrepresentation…

Life, as I perceive it, is a story, un cuento. Each of us has a story to tell and as the saying goes there is always a story waiting to be told. We are always swapping tales and stories with friends, relatives, and sometimes with strangers, and in a course of a conversation we often exchange many stories.

There are cuentos de cuentos, stories of stories, some are true stories, some are false, some are interesting, others, in my opinion, are boring (when one is only stating a factual version of historical events); there are funny stories not chistes, jokes, war stories (the ones we tell our friends about our exaggerated past experiences). There are adorned or enhanced stories, when the author or story teller adds related facts to make his story less boring or more humorous, and so on.

Life stories are often difficult to narrate especially when the story-teller is the main character. In which case, he or she has to put the best or a supreme performance of his life, because you cannot rehearse the acts or go back and repeat them if something goes wrong or if you are not pleased with the results. In my case I made some mistakes, I recognized my mistakes; I did not dwell on them and moved on and tried to perform better than in the past.

*     *     *

I place myself in the category of the story teller who likes to tell adorned or enhanced stories with a mixture of truth, plus adding a humorous anecdote to make it more interesting or funny with the idea of capturing the listener’s or the reader’s attention and somehow getting a smile from him or her. Next is an enhanced simple cuento, and I would encourage you to decide what is true and what is not.

At this point my daughter Silvia Cecilia would have said, "There goes Papi with another cuento. My daughter Carolina probably would say I don’t want to hear another chiste," and my son Armando would say Oh! Pops is just a jokester.

When I am in Monterey, California I usually go to a young Mexican hairstylist to have my hair trimmed, she is much younger than Jose Ayala, the barber at Spiro’s Barber Shop in Silver Spring, Maryland. For many years Jose has cut my hair, as well as my son’s Armando, and my grandson Dominic. After returning from one of our trips to Monterey, I paid a visit to Jose. After he had finished trimming my hair he was cleaning my head with his hands trying to remove whatever hair I had left before using the blower, but he was not being very gentle. What can you expect from a male barber? I told him that the girl who trimmed my hair in Monterey, besides being better looking than him, and unlike him she was very gentle and caring and that in addition to cutting my hair she massaged and caressed my head and my neck. Of course Jose did not believe anything that I was telling him, but he laughed. That was the purpose of telling him this brief and enhanced story. I wanted to steal a smile or a laugh from him; I wanted to make the story funny. I achieved the purpose, Jose laughed. Can you tell which part of the story is true?

At Armando’s wedding in Bend, Oregon, in June 2010, I wanted to say a few words after the ceremony and I told the preacher of my intention, he then jovially asked everyone to take a moment since the father of the groom wanted the floor. At that moment my children including Silvia, my wife, perhaps were petrified and terrified about what I was going to say in front of everyone since I did not have anything written and because I am not very good about speaking in public, let alone at improvising. They did not have to tell me how surprised and scared they were. I could see the expression in their faces and I also could see how relieved they were when I finished with my brief speech. I told the audience a true story about how when we had our last daughter, Carolina, we had considered naming her Cristina and that now that our son had chosen Kristina to be his wife we, in the end, had fulfilled our wish to have a Kristina in the family. However, in the process of telling my story I introduced a little humor to it, and in doing so I had achieved my objective. Almost everyone in the audience laughed. You can always tell a true story but you do not have to be too dramatic or so serious about it. You must always add a little humor to your lives, we will laugh a little and we will live happier.

I don’t think that I am a superstitious person, nor do I believe in horoscopes, but whenever I can I read the one corresponding to my birthday, Gemini, just to see when I can find one that does not coincide with my personality, but I have seldom found one that totally does that. Recently I read one in the Washington Post, which comes close to the way I am and feel about certain things. It reads as follows:

You are deeply averse to inconveniencing others. What you fail to understand is that being inconvenienced can be the most interesting part of a person’s day. Who are you to deprive someone of that?

With this idea in mind I will ask you the following question, Who am I to deprive you of reading my story? Perhaps reading it will be the most interesting part, of your day. So read on! I hope you enjoy it and laugh about it. However, I must warn you, there will be some instances where you will be inclined to feel a bit sorry for me, but please do me a favor and do not pity me, because although the road was a few times bumpy, I had a grand time traveling it.

2. Where I was born, Granada, Nicaragua,

Central America

Nicaragua is one of the five Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) located between Mexico and Panama, Belize and Panama are not considered part of Central America.

Nicaragua is a country full of history, traditions, and flavors such as gallo pinto, nacatamales, vigorón, rosquillas and much more. Es un país de lagos y volcanes, it is a country of lakes and volcanoes.

Nora Cedeño Maglioni de Hernandez, a Nicaraguan poet, wrote about the flavor of Nicaragua. She gives an accurate and colorful description of the country. Among the many examples she writes:

". . . Nicaragua, como dijo Rubén, es pequeña pero uno grande la sueña, grande para los que se quedaron, grande paro los que nos fuimos y grande para los que sólo están de paso . . .

. . . Nicaragua es un triangulo en donde se conjugan perfectamente el Cocibolca y el Xolotlán. Que linda es Nicaragua bendita de mi corazón . . . Así es Nicaragua, así es mi país, la tierra mía donde yo nací . . ."

Granada, the city where I was born, takes its name after the city of Granada in Spain. Having been founded in 1524 makes it the oldest city, not only in Nicaragua, but perhaps the oldest city in the Americas. Granada is located in northwest of the shores of Lake Nicaragua, one of the largest lakes in the world, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the San Juan River.

*     *     *

After the end of the Civil War in the United States of America, many former members of the Confederate Army as well as other adventurers went south to Central and South America looking for fame and fortune. Among these was William Walker an adventurer from Tennessee, USA. These adventurers were called pirates or filibusters but they were mostly known then as carpetbaggers.

Walker, who supposedly had been invited by Nicaragua to assist with warring factions in the country, declared himself President of Nicaragua, setting up shop in Granada. After years of abusing the citizenry, armies from other Central American countries persecuted Walker to expel him from the region. While being chased by patriot forces out of Granada, Walker as he was escaping through Lake Nicaragua; before he set sail he set the city of Granada on fire, living a sign on the lake shore which said HERE WAS GRANADA. Walker was later captured and executed in Honduras in 1856. The sign was kept in a storeroom close to the Lake. As a child I was able to see the sign, but I do not know what happened to it. Prior to Walker, Granada was also burned by another pirate named Bartholomew Sharpe of British origin, who plundered the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in the 1600s.

With a few exceptions, the temperature in Nicaragua hovers between 80 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the entire year. Granada is no exception. The rainy season in Central America is called winter and starts towards the end of April and ends around the middle of September, which coincides with the summer season in the northern hemisphere.

*     *     *

It was early June of 1941; it must have been steaming hot in those early days of June in Granada. The recently married couple Armando Calonje Cornejo and his wife Sara Monterrey Zavala were expecting their second child. They already had a girl who had been born in December 1939 she had been named Nora. Lucky she, the temperature was cooler in December.

Preparations most likely had been already made. The extra towels and sheets were ready for delivery. The maid had been instructed to take extra care in cleaning the room where the birth was going to take place and she should make sure to have enough warm water ready. I do not know what the water was for but I was not there to find out. Although there was a hospital in Granada it was customary at the time to give birth at home, perhaps because the services at the hospital San Juan de Dios were not the best.

Necessary family arrangements had probably been made. Nora was going to spend the night at her grandparents, Sara’s parents. The doctor, perhaps Dr. Manuel Ubago, who was one of the gynecologists in Granada and friend of the family, had already informed Armando and Sara that the delivery would take place any day between the first and the fourth.

Armando and Sara were probably happy since the doctor had told them that he anticipated that it would be a boy. There was no ultra sound or imaging equipment back then to determine the sex of an unborn child. They already had a girl and perhaps they wanted a boy to complete the pareja, or pair. Probably they were living in the house located in the Plazuela de los Leones, the Lions Plaza; and they had gone through this same ritual when Nora was born. To this point you are wondering why I am guessing what happened, why I am using such words as perhaps, probably, etc. The reason is because I had not been born yet.

The doctor was right on target, the child that was later named, baptized, and registered as Armando Jose Calonje Monterrey, me, was born on the fourth day of the month just as he had anticipated. I was told that it took a couple of nalgadas, slaps in my butt before I let the first scream and that my first words were: carajo que calor hace aquí, damn it is hot in here.

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At two years old

Seven years later, my parents went through the same routine and the same preparations. My sister and I were sent to spend the night at our maternal grandparents and so on and so forth, since my brother Alfonso was born in November 1948. Lucky for him, he was also born when the temperature was cooler.

Nora grew up to be a very pretty and vivacious young lady. Although we were close in age and as siblings, we had very little in common. She liked dolls, I liked toy guns and toy soldiers; she liked to read romantic novels and see romantic movies, I liked to read cowboy novels and watch war and cowboy movies. Television was not available then, so Nora and I used to fight for time to listen to the radio. Despite our differences, we did have something in common; we liked to play treacherous jokes on our cousin Nicho, the son of my mother’s brother. I will describe in more detail later.

At about the age of eighteen, reluctantly, my father agreed to send my sister to the United States, New York to be specific, where she would stay with a relative while she attended secretarial school. She would later move to Washington, DC where she stayed with our first cousin, Camila (Camilu) Astorga Meekins, daughter of my father’s sister Lydia. At that time Camilu, as we used to call her, was posted to the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington, DC, where she discharged the duties of Vice-Consul of Nicaragua.

At the age of twenty one Nora married Dr. Robert Gorczica and lived most of her adult life in Toms River, New Jersey. Their happy married life was cut short at the young age of twenty-eight when she developed the terrible and mind disabling decease of schizophrenia. They both passed away and are buried in Toms River. Ana Maria and Mary Jennifer were their two daughters; both of them are married with two children each. At this time, Ana lives in Florida and Mary lives in San Diego, California.

The seven year difference in age between my brother Alfonso and I made it difficult for me to be close to him growing up. When I was an adolescent, experiencing and venturing with my friends throughout Granada, he was still a small child perhaps experiencing his own growing pains. I have little recollection of having shared with him anything worth mentioning at this point. I do recall however, that when my father bought him a two wheeled bicycle, I was the one who showed him how to ride it. When I graduated from high school and left for the United States he was still in his last year of preparatory school.

Like me, Alfonso finished his secondary school at the CCA, Colegio Centro América. But unlike me he stayed in Nicaragua to pursue his professional education. He pursued legal studies at the Universidad Católica, the Jesuit University where he obtained a Jurist Doctor degree.

He lived in Nicaragua until the 1980’s, but he immigrated to the United States after the Sandinista revolution and settled in Washington, DC. I know little about his life during his growing up years or his high school or university years. However, I know that after he graduated and obtained his law degree; he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Managua during the Somoza administration. About his personal or romantic life I know even less. While my mother was living in Washington, DC, she told me that he had been obligated to marry a girl named Maria Leticia Estrada when it was discovered that she was carrying his child. A baby girl was born, she was named Angelica Maria. He later divorced Maria Leticia. Both, Maria and Angelica were given the name Calonje. I believe that both of them still live in Granada. Alfonso still lives in Washington, DC.

In regards to my name, I was named Armando after my father. It was a tradition in most Latin American countries and in Spain to name the first son after the father. It was believed that by doing so the father lived through the son or that the father or the name is perpetuated by giving the son his father’s name, and so it goes until it is broken by one of the descendants. The middle name Jose was given to me, because you had to give the child a Saint’s name, in this case San José (Saint Joseph). The name of the mother is also given, although it is rarely used.

Following this tradition, Silvia and I named our first born Silvia—after her mother, and Cecilia for Saint Cecilia, the Patron Saint of Music, however, we liked the name Cecilia. The same we did in naming our son Armando Jose. For our daughter Carolina, we chose between the names Carolina and Cristina, finally deciding on Carolina. Her middle name is Maria, after her maternal grandmother.

3. Growing Up In Granada

As a child, life in Granada was uneventful. We never owned a house, so I