Dinner with Fiona

It's not unusual here on Ometepe to have livestock wandering around.  I'm telling you, the farm animals rule the roost, so to speak.  There are chickens, roosters, turkeys, pigs, horses, cows and goats running loose all over.  This is just the domesticated stuff.  Add in the monkeys, iguanas, snakes, geckos and a whole bunch of insects and birds - it's the freakin' Animal Kingdom.

Hacienda Merida has a few mascots - a rabbit named Maximus, any number of stray dogs, an iguana we named Iggy, a horse named Princess Luna, two bats I call Bram and Stoker - and Fiona the donkey.

We were sitting in the common area here at Hacienda Merida, enjoying dinner and conversation with Alvaro Molina, the director of the bilingual school here.  It was Alvaro's first night back home after spending a week up north in Esteli, Nicaragua visiting his mother.  In fact, his trip had started when we arrived here, so this was the first time we'd met him face to face.

We had seen Fiona around, grazing on the grounds, minding her own donkey business.  But this night, she must have heard that Alvaro had returned.  Right in the middle of dinner, she joined us to say hi.  She came clip-clopping in from behind Alvaro.  We were sitting opposite him so we saw her approach but didn't really know what to say or do.  Maybe we were just getting used to strange animal interactions.

Alvaro, ever the showman, launched right into a spiel about Hacienda Merida and Fiona, the spokesdonkey.  Pretty entertaining stuff!

For the record, Fiona loves 'pasta roja' (spaghetti with red sauce).