En Leon

El Catedral de Leon

I have been in Leon for 3 nights now. My Spanish has improved dramatically. I am about where I was two years ago plus finally getting used to using two forms of the past tense. There are more than 2, but I will be a lot easier to understand if I even master these two.

My first night here I stayed in the hostel called Lazybones.

The Lazybones Hostel

It is a sanctuary.

Everyone staying there speaks english, there is a lovely pool, they sell cold beer, there are beautiful plants all around, it is clean, you cannot hear the honking outside, there are computers to use for free, there is coffee available around the clock, and you can wear clothing which in my opinion is more appropriate for the sweltering heat (ie. virtually none),

Outside everyone stares and the men make all manor of noises if you are not wearing blue jeans. Actually, I don´t get the impression the men care much about what you look like or wear, just that you exist and are a woman.

In essence, the hostel is not Nicaragua, but yesterday I paid for another night in the dorm ($8) and just used the pool, drank a beer, and sent a couple emails. It was wonderful, but the Nica working at the front surely thought I was an extravagent fool. The cost of the towel ($1, more proportionate if staying and using for a week), beer ($1.25), and the room was equivalent to a very nice meal in a pretty nice restaurant. To me, it was equivalent to a vacation from my vacation and worth every centivo!

I am not complaining, only exposing that I willingly succumbed to my own weakness for the comforts of privilege. Actually, the home which I was placed in for the duration of my language class is more than I had anticipated. The woman is a vegetarian and a yoga teacher! This seems to me to be very different from the norm here. I went to her yoga class in the home of Belgian couple on Monday and will go again tonight. The meals are good with fresh fruit and hot dog buns (!) for breakfast, beans and rice and something else for lunch and dinner. All meals are served with fresh juice.

The living room and courtyard of my home-stay home

Leon was considered the center of the revolution in the 80´s. Many houses were bombed by the Nicaraguan dictatorship. I went to the museum of the revolution and the attendant took me up to the roof of the building and told me that all of the corrugated metal roofs were new. If they had the clay tiles, they were original and thus had not been bombed. My view from that particular building indicated almost half the buildings had suffered.

A house that was never rebuilt

There are many political murals around town as well. One very large one tracks the story of Nicaragua from pre-Columbian times, through the conquest and revolution to today which is symbolized rather optimistically with 2 children running off into a green pasture. Many have told me that despite the idealistic hopes of the revolucionistas, the people are worse off today tha before the revolution. Thus all of the other murals are darker...

Mural politico

I believe you can double click any photo to enlarge it. The mural is pretty interesting.

One other interesting thing about Leon is that is has the largest art museum in Central America. It is a private collection housed throughout a very old building which has been beautifully restored. There were even a several Picassos amongst some truly great Central and South American works. I am normally not that attracted to a lot of contemporary art, but I really liked a lot of the newer pieces in the collection. It is quite a gem, and with an entry fee of only a dollar it is moderately accessible for the local people.

One very long day

Nicaragua from the air.

I didn´t sleep much on the red-eye which probably only surprises me. I read for too long and then slept a little and then we were in Houston where they insist on arm rests between all of the chairs in the airport (it´s the George W. Bush airport so I am sure he has something to do with it).

The weather is perfecto. Hot but a great breeze. The first business I found that was open Saturday in this ghost town on Easter weekend was a frozen coffee place. Cafe Latino has whole rows of slurpee-like machines with icey frozen coffee drinks. I signed right up for one since it was just about my afternoon latte time anyway and I was sweating my gringo butt off wandering around aimlessly getting honked at by underworked taxi drivers. Got most of the way through it before it suddenly dawned on me that I should be avoiding drinks with ice in it that may melt a little and release tiny amounts of water into my beverage. Let alone just drinking crushed ice! Oh well, tasted great so I am glad I didn´t remember sooner! So far so good.

Later in the evening I visited the Plaza de Revolucion, one of the few areas with touristic interest in Managua, unfortunately. The famous statue of Sandino is on the square. The profile of this statue is used as an icon everywhere. There is also a beautiful cathedral that was built in the early 1900´s that suffered too much in the earthquake in 1972 (I think) to continue to be used.

Sandino y yo

After that, I headed across the street to the coast of Lake Managua and walked around a mini festival, or maybe it was a permanent thing, hard to know. I had dinner under an easy-up that was weighted down from the breeze by coconuts hanging around the canopy. This made me happy. From my table I could watch all sorts of things. Here are the highlights... two kid`s rides, one powered by a guy on a bicycle, another (the teacup sort) just pushed around by three guys.

Pedal powered ride. Possible even a retrofitted ice cream bike.

A pickup with 11 people in the bed and 3 in the cab. A great clown. A teeny tiny baby squeezed (more so than held) in between two people on a motorcycle. A ferris wheel you could never pay me enough to ride. And a plate which indicates that in Nicaragua, pollo fajitas means chicken fingers.

On my walk home I came across a huge circus tent (nowhere near the other festival) and decided to see the Russian Circus rather than brave a nightclub as una gringa sola. I definitely didn´t want to return to the hotel at 7:30 even though it was dark and felt like midnight to me. One thing red eyes are good for is resetting your clock quickly.

5 dirt bikes. 1 Cage. FANTASTICO!!!!

Contortionist Grand finale- foot archery?

Now it is Sunday and I am off to catch the bus to Leon and one last night of relaxation before I try to stuff a bunch of Spanish into mi cabeza.

new do

I finally have a moment to share with you all the silliness that overcame me on my birthday weekend. I can almost blame it on Brandi, but I went willingly to the barber's chair at Rudy's- and we didn't even opt for the tasty bloody mary's in the bar next door!

So here we have the bangs. First time since age 8 maybe?


And here we are highlighting the fact that at least half my hair is gone!

My favorite part was when the (almost certainly gay male) hairdresser said drastically cutting long hair like mine used to make him as nervous as the people in the chair but he would reassure them "it's what's left on your head that matters". In my case that wasn't that much. Well, comparatively.

Unfortunately, this is not a very Nicaragua-friendly do as my bangs like to do very strange and unflattering things by morning. I have resorted to product at home, but hats might needto be pressed into service next week. Luckily I will be needing one for the sun anyway. Bustin out the straw cowboy hat! Yeehaw- sunshine and HEAT!!!

Watch that first step...

It's a doozy!

We are officially in over our heads on this one. Although surely we would do better than the previous remuddler did. At some point they changed the slope of the stairs going from the main floor up to the attic-turned-bedrooms. Or maybe there never were stairs - which would not help explain the shredded nature of what we foundSomething is definitely not right here.Something is definitely not right here.
This is a view of the middle of the support for our stairs that go upstairs, as viewed from the stairwell heading to the basement. The plaster along the latter is now filling 4 very heavy trash bags in the basement. What we seem to be looking at is the culmination of 2 problems, neither seeming to have a very good reason. The stringer (dark wood, supports stairs) is too shallow (why? I don't have any idea) so they just added a 2x4. Simple fix, surely just as strong! The cutout that you see, that sort of looks like an upside down stair is where two stringers meet because neither were long enough (why? I don't have any idea). And it didn't even seem necessary to bridge this gap with the scabbed on 2x4!

We had to take a time out after this one. It all started with replacing the door to the basement and realizing that the door jamb seemed to be supporting the stairs. It will now end with a complete rebuild of the stairs. And this can't even happen until we can move into the main floor bedroom which is after the drywaller comes which was supposed to be after replacing the basement door which will now have to wait.

Oh boy. The take home message here? Buy new or GUT IT ALL right off the bat.

I think my next tattoo should say "Remodeling is NOT fun". It could go right on my index finger so every time I point to another cute little fixer upper the entirety of the conversation would go like this: "That would be fun. Oh wait."

Taboo food

We have been finalizing the health assessment that will be done in El Eden in the last couple weeks.  Many of the questions are in the recommended list of questions provided by EWB-USA, the national organization that oversees the local chapters.  One of those questions was whether there are any foods which are taboo in that community.  Admittedly, I couldn’t even think of an example of such a thing in any culture and in typical fashion blurted that out.  Can you think of one?

 

Someone quickly jogged my memory with cows in India (or more specifically with Hindus).  Of course.  That should have been an easy one.

 

I followed that stellar performance with a statement along the lines of “Well, we don’t have any food taboos here.”  Which quickly fell into the interesting discussion of what things are actually taboo here:

Dog

Cat

Horse

Deer hovers on the threshold

 

But to me, all but the last aren’t “food” so why would I consider them “taboo foods”!? 

 

If you lived in a community with limited means for travel outside your immediate area, assuming the population was fairly homogeneous, it seems that ‘none’ would be the most likely answer to this question.  We will see what happens in the survey, and then see if we can pick any up while we’re down there.  My guess is that they are pretty similar to our taboos.  Which is to say, they only eat food. 

 

It just made me think that even a seemingly straightforward question can carry a lot of extra baggage when placed in various contexts. 

 

Wikipedia, of course, covers all of this in detail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo_food_and_drink).

 

what I should be doing

and

I guess I'll go step over all this and brush my teeth before I burn myself out on this blogging bit in one manic day!

Bright Spots

I've been complaining a lot about the winter these last couple weeks, but just now when I went outside to take shots of how dreary the garden looked now compared to the summer shots I posted a while ago and this is what I really found:

Double hellebores in full glory.

Hellebores and heather--my favorite this time of year.

Irises and crocuses from the little packages that "we" (Tony was so excited about them!) gave out at our Michigan wedding celebration.

And a Fairy Door!!!!

And this one I like to call "juxtaposition".

If you ever wondered why the hell it is taking us so long to finish our house, look back at that picture and this one
or this one, depending on the season and you'll get the idea.

I can hardly breath when I look at this. This should also answer any questions anyone has on why I don't ski anymore - This is a Tony ski trip! Seriously, I feel like I'm falling when I look at that.

I prefer fairy doors, frankly.

Actually I don't, but the chicken inside me does.