1. You see billboards advertising machetes
2.There are vultures everywhere, especially eating dead animals on the side of the road. no chance for road kill cafes here!
3. If you don´t fit at least 10 people in the back of your pickup, you´re a weeny
4. There´s an obsession with honking, anywhere for any reason.
5. You wear the same 3 outfits over and over for 9 days...and you LIKE it!
6. You get used to bathing with cold water and holding your breath while you shower.
7. There are yellow diamond shaped road signs with sillhouettes of iguanas on them.
8. You see a woman walking along the highway wrapped in her bath towel, then notice the river near by.
9. Woman breastfeed, without a covering, in restaurants, church, busses, stores, etc.
10. Everyone seems to be driving drunk, but they´re only swerving around huge potholes. Wee!
Well, folks. What else does one do when they don´t have much else to do?? Go to Nicaragua, of course! Yup, that´s right, I went with a pastor´s family and got an intense taste of Latino culture. He said we´d leave at 8am, obviously that means 4pm here. We get there at 12 midnight but I couldn´t sleep because the adults were talking and their conversation started implanting itself in my dreams. I dreamt one was preaching, ¨Hayyyyyyyy misericordiaaaaa!!¨ meaning ¨There is lovingkindness¨, but like a Black preacher, except he looked like George Lopez. Yes, I do dream in spanish at times. It´s coming along steadily. I spent 4 days in Nicaragua without any english and didn´t get frustrated at all with that, but i did get frustrated with the timing of the latino culture.
We were going to return to Teguc. on Monday or Tuesday, which in my mind meant Wed. or Thur...just trying to think like them.. Well, the first morning they said we´d leavethat day, Thursday because we couldn´t go to the mountains like we thought becasue of the rain and mud it´s too dangerous, and where we were staying, with the pastor´s sister, was too uncomfortable. So we explored the city but left late and got back very late, and the pastor´s wife got sick. So Friday she rested and were were going to leave that night, but we explored the city of Managua and surroundings some more. Guillermo, the pastor, said we´d go to some hot springs that night. Well, night came around and he said we would be leaving at 3 am when it´s cooler. A few hours later he said, no, it´s too dark then, so we´ll be leaving in the morning, saturday morn. ugh! i tried to go to sleep after that i was so frustrated but the neighbors were having a drinking-regatone party, so i went and slept in the truck. that was much better. later, guillermo had to move the truck so i had to go inside the one room house with a dirt floor and sleep next to the drinking party. I don´t know how any of us got to sleep, but let me tell you, i was sure happy to get in that truck to go home! HOME! Tegucigalpa, I love you! Never thought i´d think THAT!
There were 5 people living in this small, hot, humid one room shack. We found a frog in our room. I don´t want to know what else was in there that i didn´t see.
Finally, we got backto Teguc. What should be a 6 hour trip took about 12, because we did stop at the hotsprings after all. Then we stopped to eat with some friends, then drove around looking for anther friend to visit with. Then we shopped at a market and i said 5 minutos! And i found what i wantedin 5 minutes, but alas, i am a foreighner and very rare, so of course our 5 minuto shopping trip turned into a 30 minute one. But I´m finally home and enjoying the cool 85 degree weather.
Blessings to all!
