Lest I paint too romantic a picture, please be aware of the opposites. We cannot flush tissue down toilets in this Central American city: Please do not put any paper in the toilet to avoid plumbing problems. Used tissues must be deposited in the garbage bin located beside the toilet. Although León is relatively clean, watch you don’t break a leg on the many sidewalk potholes and chunks of broken pavement. Pockets of poverty — a weary elderly shoeshine man with bent back hoisting his trade tools across the central square; an old, barefoot woman peddling postcards; a younger one, tired already, extending her hand — exist alongside scores of university students sitting on the steps of the Cathedral’s base scanning their cell phones.
I watch a group of four boys, 8-10 years, jostle along the street with slingshots ready, their eyes on a moving target along the side of a building. The shortest one takes aim on the run, fires, and whoops with joy. The friends run together to the wall where the hunter picks up and proudly displays his fallen prey, a lifeless iguana.
As we retrace the steps to our BnB, I spy a long, lean, and gaunt older gentleman dressed in black, trailing closely behind us. His hair is sparse and grey. His bearing is regal. We enter Paz de Luna; he automatically follows. Startled, I turn to investigate before we disappear to our room. I see him approach the desk, motioning in his mouth with waving fingers. This time I signal to the female staff, we will pay for his food. She smiles, nods, shows him to a wooden table in the front foyer.
The frail stranger, sitting with back straight at the dining table facing the street is staring out the window at the clear, blue, cloudless day, waiting patiently for food. He does not see us.
That’s when I recall the painted message on the wall of a local café, Pan y Paz (Bread and Peace): the world would be a better place if everyone had bread and peace every day.
Which reminds me again of the street boy with the large brown eyes. I saw him for only a second, but he will haunt me for a lifetime.
