Sarah

 

 

 

The radio is playing Rihanna with "Shine bright like a diamond" and immediatly I transports back in time. One year to be precise. I am no longer in my one-man-cafe in a snowcovered Oslo wearing three shirts even though I am indoors. In front of me are no costumers or coffee dispensors, napkins, croissants. Instead I am back in the hottest town in Nicaragua, Leon. I sit on a wooden chair by a desk and the sweat keeps on pouring down my body, even though I hardly have anything on. In front of me sits Gloria, with big, dark and crazy hair that goes along with those dark eyes full of kindness. She shows me a page in her notebook where she has written down "Shine bright like a diamond" while she keeps on singing just that phrase over and over again.

Gloria is my spanish teacher and hardly speaks any english. It is great for my spanish learning, forcing me over and over to find the right words to explain what I am trying to say. In the beginning we couldn't understand each other. But once we get to know each other communication gets easier, except the days I am way too tired to think since I was up all night working, watching the stars on the tin roof above the laundry area or dancing salsa. Then she shakes her head and tell me to go and get a coffee. It doesnt matter that it is 45 degrees outside, I should still have that burning hot coffee.

Gloria have one daughter, one son and a husband. I dont know their names. But I know her husband is a man who likes to cuddle which Gloria isn't. The heat in the city becomes just more intense if they are laying close to each other in bed during the night. Cause Gloria is a sweater (I talk about sweating. Not sweater - the clothes). We always try to take a desk close to one of the fans during our lessons, though it hardly makes any differance. Gloria sits with a tissue wiping the sweat of her face, cursing over the friends she have that aren't sweaters.

 

I dont know much about her son either. But he has been, or is still, training kickboxing or boxing. It was thanks to Gloria I could locate a boxingclub in Leon. Without Gloria I would never have been jumping on huge wheels in a mosquito filled basement, which I did enjoy a lot. She gave me not only directions to this but also to the best bakeries in town and what pastries to try and not to try. And she told me that all this new coffees, cafe latte, cappuccino, ice coffee is all new to them. She and a friend had been buying ice coffee without really knowing what it was. In result it gave both her and her friend a real brainfreeze.

Glorias daughter is listening to all the same American music that we listen to in Sweden. It was her daughter who, beeing fifteen years old, opened up Glorias eyes for Rihanna, the one with the hot legs. Gloria had seen a picture of Rihanna sitting on a chair with her legs apart, and oh my. Those legs, que piernas! It was thanks to her daughter Gloria now sat there in front of me endlessly humming "Shine bright like a diamond" and made me translate it into spanish, so she could know what she went around singing.

Soon the radio changes song and I am back to reality, to present time. Costumers are asking me if I have cafe latte, cappuccino and other coffees, not noticing the giant sign behind my back with the prices of all our coffees. Where it is also written cafe latte, cappuccino and so on in big letters. The snow hasn't stopped and maybe I should consider putting on a fourth sweater.

But for now the thoughts of last year, Nicaragua, Sonati, my spanish lessons and Gloria, keeps me warm. And for some unexplainable reason thinking of the past gives me hope for what to come.