Policia ( aka my visit to a Nicaraguan jail )

My adventure begins on the road from San Juan del Sur to Grenada. It was a bright sunny day I was riding in the taxi of my host family in San Juan del Sur. In the back of the car was my friend Benjamin ( student from Washington State studying Spanish).

We were riding along and came to a road block. Not an un common thing in Nicaragua. Specifically since the road we were traveling on is part of the Pan american highway. Anyone going from parts south to places north must go through this road. Alternatives are, to say the least dangerous.

At this road block there are police and their job is to ensure that the movement of the people in the country is legal and blah blah blah. So we stop and hand over our passports like very law abiding people. Benjamin. He gets his passport back no problems no questions asked. For me . He starts flipping pages in my passport.

I'm cool, thinking maybe there are just a lot of stamps. I know and he just needs to find the right page. But then the conversation starts.... Mind you this is all in Spanish.

Police: How long have you been in Nicaragua?
Me: About 20 days.

Police: You arrived in the country 20 days ago?
Me: Yes ( thinking that I had just told him that)

Police: How did you get here?
Me: A plane. ( now wondering what is going on)

Police: Where is the stamp that shows you got here 20 days ago?
Me: In my pasport. ( very politely but nervously)

Police: Show it to me.

So he hands me back my pasport and I start to flip pages. Thinking this is the dumbest thing in the world. Is this guy blind or what! I am looking and I find the page with the stamp from my previous visit in 2004, and there before my eye a stamp that looked like 2005. Now I was confused. Wondering what year it was. And then I started to get nervous. Very.

Police: Please step out of the vehicle and follow me into my office.

So here I am, my beuatiful sunny day turning into a sweltering inferno as I sit in a wodden hut on the side of the pan american highway as the policeman is explaining to me that if this is just a simple mistake then it can be cleared up in immigration. And at most that would take 2-3 days. Until my status in the country was cleared I would have to stay in the custody of the police in jail. As I was questioning my understanding of what he was telling me... willing myself to translate what he was saying into something else. I tried to explain the situation.

Me: But the back of the 6 is faded so it looks like a 5 it really is a 6.
Police: I am an experet in documents and forgery and fraud. That is a 5!

Me: But look the customs paper has a stamp. Clearly that is a 6. See 2006
Police: Yes but that paper does not have your name on it.

Me: But what about this page here it has my name on it. And these numbers here match the printed numbers on the page with the stamp.
Police: - a questioning look- Your passport is not correct.

As I got upset I thought maybe "Maybe I am doing something wrong and need some more help here." So I called my Professor at the University, Dr Enrique Rimbaud. As I tried to explain to him in my spanish that was failing me and close to tears, I let him talk to the police man. I went outside to cool off. I was breathing trying to explain to Benjamin ( who cant follow conversation as well, but knew it was not good) what was going on.

There was some yelling on the phone and then it was returned to me. My professor was telling me something about having to go with them and him having a friend who was a policeman in the area and me being released into his custody while this was sorted out.... ( what....?)

I started to discociate.
That out of body experience where you feel like this is happening to someone else. I was having visions of myself a law abiding citizen of the states being finger printed and locked up in a jail in Nicaragua.
A jail in Nicaragua.?!

Where there lots of people there?
What type of food would they feed me?
Should I eat the food?
Would they feed me?
Where the men and women together?
Was it clean? Were they violent?
What about my stuff?
What about my language training?

I was standing outside bemoning my terrible luck trying not to cry. Benjamin and I were trying to decide if he should come with me to where the city was, go on to Grenada, or go back to San Juan del Sur. He was swearing loyaly not to leave me to sit in a jail by myself.

Just then the taxidriver ( Julio) came out with my stuff. The policeman looked at me had and then told me I could go. I looked at him quisically for all of half a second before I took my stuff promised to fix my papers and hopped in the cab. I did not think to ask any type of questions. And we were off.

Julio told me after we were a little bit further away that the policeman's wife had just brought him lunch and maybe that was the reason he had a change of heart. I am greatful to God that I can tell this story and laugh... his reason for letting me go. Personally I don't really care.