When the six Geneseo students came to her restaurant door, Ileana Rivera wanted to help them but didn’t know how.
They stood outside; she wondered why they didn’t come in. When they finally entered they waited in the middle of the room, whispering and talking to each other. She knew they didn't speak Spanish. She didn’t know a lick of English.
“They were just standing in the middle and I thought, ‘What am I going to tell them?’” Ileana remembers. “Then I approached them and made a lot of hand gestures.”
She managed to figure out that they were waiting for her to tell them Cafetin River’s was open and for her to push tables together so they didn’t have to split up. In El Sauce, people just stroll in and take a seat. Since most businesses are in people’s private homes — sometimes with the living room attached — the Geneseo entourage weren’t sure how it worked. Ileana realized she was in a cultural divide but couldn’t communicate to alleviate their stress. It was, as they say, an “a-ha moment.”
“I knew that at least I needed to start on the basics to communicate,” says Ileana. “I have my business and I need to have a good service. I felt really embarrassed because they said later that they were not well attended. That’s when I started to think I need to learn English.”
Another time, two Geneseo students came for lunch. She couldn’t understand what they were ordering, “so I just made them what I think is best. Everyone likes chicken,” she says. That turned out better. They loved it.
Ileana was one of the first residents to come to Kellan’s English classes in El Sauce in 2006. There was no Geneseo office on the main street then. The mayor, Ervertz Delgadillo, offered the meeting room in the government office for nighttime classes.
English classes were offered off and on, according to availability, until last May. Now they are full time, and Ileana is in her chair three times a week practicing her present tenses and making presentations about her life, Nicaragua and sometimes, singing songs to perfect pronunciation.
She laughs, along with her daughter, Melba, who is leaning on the cash counter as we talk in the rocking chairs, and says: “My family tells me an old parakeet can never learn to speak.”
It’s really hard to put the words and sentences together in conversation, says Ileana, but she’s come a long way. If we were to walk into Cafetin River’s now, she can talk with basic words “and give you what you need.”
“She didn’t know anything when she first came,” says Kellan. “I think she knew ‘Hello.’”
With more Geneseo students coming to El Sauce and more volunteers for the 4 Walls Project, Ileana sees it as a vital business investment, too. If visitors are looking for a place to eat and hang out, and the other owners can’t communicate and she can, they will come to Cafetin River’s.
She’s learned several times that you need an advantage to make it in El Sauce, where unemployment hovers at least at 40 percent. Ileana and her husband, Zidar, were married when she was 16. Her first daughter, Jahoska saw first light, as the El Sauce people say, when she was just 17. They were butchers, killing the cows and selling their meat on the same day in a small “carneceria,” or meat shop. At first they were one of only a few meat shops. When more moved in, business slowed. They sold cream and cheese instead. The same thing happened.
“We would have a lot of loss, with cheese that didn’t sell going bad,” she says.
Ileana experimented with her oven and found a new talent. Baking.
“When I learned that it was good and the bread was delicious, I took the bread to a family member’s store and sold it and bought a bigger oven,” she says. She sold more and took a lot of custom orders. “No one has taught me how to do it. I did it on my own. I can learn it myself.”
When the cheese went belly up, she opened Cafetin Rivers. That was eight years ago. The Riveras make it work, supplementing the income with her cake and bread orders. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can order dinner too. Ileana is famous for her “muy rico” food. Very rich.
Always laughing and having a good time, Ileana asked me to please visit her sometime when the interview was over. On Thursday, she spent the morning cooking a special lunch for us. Instead of eating in the restaurant room, she set a table in her own home with a big dish of cannelonis Nicaraguan style — with a sweet tomato-cream sauce stuffed with chicken, pepper and salt. We ate two helpings before dipping into a pudding dessert.
Ileana has been with Kellan since day one and promises to stay with it.
“I don’t want to get tired of going to class because I really think I’m going to learn,” she says.
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