What's Happened Since Our Guests? (Part 2)

Week of June 16:
- We finally met Cindi, our landlord.  She lives in New Mexico and visits the island a couple of times a year.  She was excited to see the house we're renting and how Hamilton did with the work prior to us moving in.  She's very nice and loves Merida as much as we do!

- We took the paddle boards out and made our way down the shore to drop in for a visit with our friends, the Lorio's.  It's nice to be able to get around on something other than our feet!

It's a jungle back there!

- We've been juggling the high school class schedule a little to accommodate a school program that, thus far, has been perpetually postponed.  The program is billed as a sort of talent show, with kids performing song and dance routines they come up with themselves.  One of our high school students, Ericks, asked our gringa friend Jen (who is a dance teacher) to help him and his buddies do a routine to "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys.  Haha!  She was tortured by the song!   The kids started out excited and energetic but then started being quite disrespectful of her, unfortunately.  Ericks is a great kid and he apologized for their behavior and attended every rehearsal.  But many of the others started talking back, showing up late, not coming at all.

It's funny like that here.  When something new is happening, people are really in to it.  But soon enough, the bloom is off the rose.  People get disinterested quickly here.  We've experienced this with our classes - attendance with a few folks seems to come and go.  It can be frustrating if you let it get to you.  Jen was donating her valuable time and was pretty pissed with the way the kids acted toward her in the end.  She and her family went back to the states for a couple of months, so would not be able to see the performance - should it ever happen. 

- Perfect picture of a pair of Pescadito's playful and perky puppies:

They ain't nothing but two hound dogs...

- We were out on the porch one day and saw a group of fishermen setting and pulling their nets up on the beach in front of our place.  This is common - pescadores use our beach frequently to pull nets in and gather their catch.  They were collecting and bagging their catch, when we noticed they had one fish they were kind of excited about.

We walked down to the see what they were fussing over.  They had a fish they called pesca de diablo (devil fish).  It's a nasty invasive species from South America that makes its way up the Rio San Juan.  They eat native fish and their eggs.  Ugly as hell too!  No pictures, unfortunately.  The guys said they are catching more and more of these, too.  Yikes.

Week of June 23:
- The World Cup.  One of only three or four sporting events that truly brings the world together.  The others, IMO:  the Olympics, the Tour de France (there are many cycling events but this is the biggie), rugby's version of the World Cup.  Yes, soccer, folks.  Neither of us were fans back home but down here, you kinda can't help but get caught up in the excitement.  So, yes, we did just that.  Ole ole ole!  We received a lot of advice from our friends on who to root for (Brazil and Germany), who to root against (Costa Rica and Mexico).  We watched when we could, catching parts of group play matches here and there.  And we followed results, story lines, and scenarios online, if for no other reason than to be able to engage in conversations with others.  

Not knowing a whole lot about how the event or the game works, we took it upon ourselves to frantically read up on rules, qualifying, point systems, players, coaches, teams, etc.  And it truly helped us understand what was happening.

I mentioned Costa Rica above.  And I've written about the fact that there is no love lost between these two beautiful and unique countries.  We only know a handful of people who were glad they were even in the World Cup tourney!  I asked our friend Pedro why the people of Nicaragua wouldn't root for their neighbor to the south.  His response said it all:  "If Nicaragua was in the tournament, they would not root for us."  

Okaaay.  Moving on…

-  We welcomed a new volunteer - Dani.  She is from Honduras, is related to Alvaro at the Hacienda and attends school in Florida, USA.  So, a changing of the guard, from Christina to Dani.  It's nice (and, selfishly, easier for us) when volunteers can 'hand off' to one another.

Jasmina, writing her name to introduce herself to Dani

Funny story:  My son and his wife, Lisa, taught at Escuela Internacional Sampedrana, a fully bilingual school in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  It's a private school for rich kids, like a prep school.  Making conversation with Dani, I mentioned this to her and she responds:  "Oh, we hate those guys!"  Seems she attended the equivalent school in her hometown in Honduras of Tegucigalpa, so the two schools competed in all sports and club activities.  According to my son, EIS usually won the important stuff.  Haha!

- We've had a couple of heavy rains and expect them to occur more frequently as winter progresses (although rainfall is still far below average).  We were having issues on the backside of the house with water coming in through and around the kitchen window.  We informed handyman extraordinaire Hamilton and he came back a few days later with a newly created 'mini-roof' to install, to protect the tiled kitchen counters and other work he's done inside the house.  It seems to be working so far.

Pre-fabbed and ready to go.

OSHA?  We don't need no stinking OSHA!

Aww, it even matches the house colors.

- Turns out the 5:30 AM bus actually comes at 5:30 AM.  Go figure.  Our attempt to make a quick mid-week trip to Moyogalpa for supplies was thwarted by something Nica actually happening on time.  We missed the bus by about 10 minutes.  Live and learn.

- In a related story, the high school song and dance program got postponed - again.

- We found this baby iguana frantically trying to get out of the house.  We helped him exit, of course, but not until we go the picture!

- Christina and her boyfriend Chris left Merida.  She told us she loved her time here and was grateful that she never encountered a tarantula during her stay.  She admits a fear of spiders, especially those big hairy bastards.

- After seeing Christina off at a farewell dinner, we returned home to find a big hairy bastard on the wall waiting for us.  Attempts to reach Christina failed.

Week of June 30:
- We had a midday meeting at the bilingual school and took the opportunity to commute by paddleboard.  Good times!

- Piglet visit!

- We finally made the trip to Finca Mistica.  Um… yum!  Fresh baked bread and cookies.  They are located down the road toward San Ramon, so we rode our bikes there.  We got to the turnoff that leads up the volcano.  The 400 meters up was… challenging but worth it.  Food was great and we met a potential new student.

We're not really accepting brand new students any more to our existing classes.  We've been at this for five plus months and our students have come a long way!  To bring in a newbie would have one of two results:  the class would have to be slowed waaaay down to accommodate the new students which isn't fair to those who have been attending all year; or the class would continue at the current pace and the new student would be lost, become frustrated and ultimately quit coming.

So… we are entertaining the idea of adding a new class.  In fact, we are adding a new class.  Like we weren't busy enough before.  Oy.  This new class will be geared toward the folks who work in hospitality - hotels, restaurants, guiding, spas, etc.  Offered four days a week, we'll teach the same lesson on Monday-Tuesday and Wednesday-Thursday.  This way a student only has to come to two classes per week (M or T; W or Th) to keep up.  

We'll see how it goes!

- Pretty flowers!

Random splash of Nicaraguan color.

- Our unmown "lawn" makes great iguana habitat.  We love spending quiet mornings getting to see all three residents coming down to sun and munch the green stuff.

- The high school dance thing got moved yet again.  With a border run coming up for us we might miss it completely.  Sigh.  Ah well.  We had canceled some classes because of this event and subsequently tried to get word around to reinstate one of them. Perhaps we'll learn not to plan things around events in Nicaragua.  

Except that 5:30 AM bus.  That's friggin' clockwork, man.

- We were fortunate enough to get to know a couple of guys from Argentina - Juan Pablo and Gabriel.  Great people, traveling around Central and South America, finding work and opportunity wherever they went.  They have been in Merida at the Hacienda for quite some time, doing film and photography work for Alvaro, for the hotel, and for OBS.  And, boy, are they excited about Argentina's chances in the World Cup!

(l-r) Bex!, Gabriel, Gabriel's awesome mustache, big pile of empty beer bottles, random dude, Juan Pablo's thumb, Juan Pablo

They shared a fantastic example of 'finding work and opportunity'.  They were staying on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica during Semana Santa (Holy Week, Easter).  With their cash running low and tons of tourists available, they came up with a genius plan.  They bought fresh fruit (cheap), cut it up and sold 'fresh fruit salads' on the beach to hot and hungry tourists.  Ha!  Buy in the morning, sell out by midday, eat and drink beer at the bar the rest of the day.  Brilliant!  They made enough money to stay a little longer, easily covering their room and board.

- It was mid-year testing week for the schools, so we gave the OBS first grade students an English midterm exam.  We asked them to:

• identify colors - blue, green, red, orange, yellow, purple, brown, black, white; 
• count to ten (many kept going to 15 or 20!); 
• answer the question 'What is your name?' with 'My name is ____.'
• identify half a dozen noun flashcards - house, tree, leaf, sun, etc.

They did great and it's a good feeling knowing they are actually learning the language!!  

We is such good teachers.

- We decided to throw a little old-fashioned American Fourth of July party to celebrate US independence and the completion of Term 2!  Woohoo!!

Yep, vacation is underway!

First order of party prep - Corn Hole!!

We put the corn in cornhole.  Well, actually, we put it in the "bean" bags.

Handsome.

Magnificent detail work. 

Party Ingredient #1 - Red, White, and Blue Decorations; the chairs match, too!

Party Ingredient #2 - American Picnic/BBQ Food

Party Ingredient #3 - American Backyard/Bar Game

"Goooooooooooooooooooal!"  Oops, wrong sport.

Heated competition!

We found perros calientes (hot dogs), some bread that we could use as buns, Bex! made potato salad (having scored what was likely the only jar of mayonnaise available in the village), and I made baked beans (or as 'baked' as I could replicate without an oven).  The food was dee-lish and we had a great time.

Plus, for us - leftovers!!

- We continued to watch and closely follow the World Cup games.  Also, the Tour deFrance started.  So, yeah - sports central for us!  This is just like when the World Series overlaps with the NFL preseason!

- Hand feeding mangos to a 2,000 lb. bull!

I'm sure the barb wire will stop him, should he get upset...

- Needless to say, we paddle board every chance we can, even if it's just a quick out and back.  Like we said, getting good at this new endeavor here where the tropical water is warm warm warm is much better than falling in back home.  Brrrrrr! 

Week of July 7:
- We were fortunate to be out on the paddleboards to witness an amazing show from Mother Nature.  Sunsets here are usually awesome; this one in particular was spectacular!

A boy and his volcano

Bex! in silhouette

- Speaking of sunsets…

We were preparing to leave for ten days to make our required every 90-days border run to renew our visas.  During our absence, plans were in place for Hamilton to paint the interior of the house.  In preparation for this, we packed all of our stuff away and stored it in the spare bedroom.  

It was a strange feeling.  The house we essentially empty, save for the table, chairs and bed.  Every sign of 'us' was out of sight.  It made us feel sad and melancholy because it was a preview of how it will be when we head home in December.  Packed up, empty house, leaving on a bus.  (Although we'll have to send our luggage by taxi.)  Going home will be exciting, of course, but we'll likely never ever live in a place like this again and it felt bittersweet.

Can't even begin to imagine how hard it will be to leave in December! 

Anyhoo, we'll cross that bridge when it comes.  The night before we departed for the border, we took time to enjoy this view from our porch.

   

Hasta luego, Nicaragua!

Hello, Costa Rica!