So this morning we interviewed the President of Nicaragua.
I might as well be out with it, you know? No sense beating around the bush and all.
We were told to be at the Presidential Palace at nine-thirty this morning, and that we would have a half an hour on the nose, including set-up and break-down. We planned our questions. We wore our most professional clothes. We arrived at the Palace at nine-twenty and made it easily through security. A woman led us down a covered sidewalk, past a reception desk, down a hallway, and into an elevator. We went up a few floors - two or three. We got out of the elevator. We walked down another hallway and into a waiting area with big couches and beautiful paintings by local artists on the walls.
Three men were sitting on a couch and two armchairs when we walked in. One was dressed in fatigues, one in a suit, and one in relatively casual clothes. He was holding a video camera. While we waited to be shown in, Arthur and Trevor set up the light and put the camera on the tripod. I tried to coax my heart out of my throat. I tried not to hyperventilate or spontaneously combust from nervousness. Arthur noticed the man with the camera across the room. He nudged me in the side and nodded toward him. “Ours is better,” he breathed. I smiled. It was.
The President’s aide came out and made small talk with us for a few minutes. Arthur was (of course) wearing his cowboy hat, and the man (whose name I didn’t catch) was delighted to discover that Arthur was actually from Texas. He asked us where we’d been in the country so far, and told us we had to visit Leon, his home city. Then he told us that we could come in.
We walked down another hallway, turned a corner, and there he was. The President of Nicaragua, Enrique Bolaños. He could be my grandfather! I thought, astonished. Why was I so nervous?
The interview was flawless. The President joked with us as we put on his mic and called Arthur “cowboy.” When it was over, he picked up the blank book in which I’ve been writing down interview questions. I picked it up the last time I was in Germany; it’s silver and says “Dichtung und Wahrheit” (”Writing and Truth”) on the cover. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he asked me. “Ja, ein Bisschen,” I replied, and we proceeded to have a conversation in German about his German heritage.
The four of us - Trevor, Arthur, Ana, and myself - posed for pictures taken by the President’s photographer, shook his hand and thanked him for his time, gathered our equipment, and were escorted back through the waiting room, down the hallway, and into the elevator.
During the interview, he referred once to President Bush. President Bush. President Bolaños. They’re like, equals. Stephanie Appell, you are sitting on the couch of the President of Nicaragua, I thought, and almost grinned.
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