Saying good-bye is hard

It is hard to imagine not being here anymore. One always feels needed, if one is lucky, and imagines a small hole ripped out of the fabric of the community upon departure. I know it closes up soon. But I feel a little uprooted.

These are in the order of the pictures on the camera.

Angel, very aptly named, showed up everyday at an ungodly hour to drive my kids safely back and forth to school in Managua. The Carretera Masaya was the thing I worried most about my whole time here. He crossed himself and said a prayer before each trip and it always made me feel better. He proactively avoided riots and demonstrations. I have never owned a cleaner car. He was genuinely horrified when I told him I wash my car at home only once or twice a year.

He will be doing some independent tourist driving for other operators and hopes to buy a car with his brother and have his own business soon. He and his wife are expecting a baby in July.



Moni was our personal chef for the year. She cooked delicious meals and did all my shopping. I was so happy not to have to go to the store and to have a whole year off of cooking. I learned how to cook Nicaraguan food and crepes from her. She made it possible for me to enjoy sunsets with a drink in my hand or to keep working right up to the moment dinner was ready. She showed up for work the day her father died and the day she was in labor. She is planning on starting a small cafe in her house across from the bus stop.


Cristina is the keeper of Perla del Norte and has taken care of us and the house since we started coming down here. She is the best housekeeper in town. I know because we had a few substitutes while she was on maternity leave and they were frightening. I can pick up from here and return back to my other life, knowing that everything will be taken care of.

Avi has been a great friend this year. He is such a mensch. I've loved having him as one of the family. Always ready to help with anything, he has been a great Torah reading, basketball playing example for my boys. He takes his work (peace corps) very seriously and I've loved getting to know lots of committed but realistic young folks through him. He will start the next phase of his life when he leaves Nicaragua at the end of the summer. But until then, where will he eat, where will he do his laundry, where will he surf the internet?

Laurence and Thelma are the folks we have known the longest in Granada. They have included us in all the fun from day one and shared innumerable tips. It's been great raising (ha!) our kids together for the year. They also hooked us up with great people including Moni and Angel. And the other third of the Wednesday night supper club Melodi and Jeremy and the girls. They are just starting their expat life in Nicaragua.

Good bye to the beloved neighbors al frente, across the street. I so enjoyed the long evenings drinking wine in this rum and coke life. Their danish/chilean house was always an oasis of graciousness. And their kids are damn cute.

And of course, the Lopez-Rodriguez family who welcomed us into their family and shared everything. The pig business is going great. Omar is setting up a jewelry workshop. Lucia and Silvia are continuing their studies

There are more, but I have to go pack and I'm afraid I can't find all the pictures of everyone at the moment due to an i photo issue

Running/bike route along the Lake

Took my camera on the run the other day and on a bike ride later when the sun was shining











Sanitation engineers






















Family Transportation









Cows on the loose.
















Goats eating mangoes








Construction site













Malinche tree - Thelma says there is a saying that marriage is like a malinche tree. Beautiful flowers changing into long dried up pods.



No weed wackers here.

Eighth Grade Promotion

Noah ended up feeling like he made friends here, but there were times when I had grave concerns about the social experience at school. I really do want my kids to get out of their rooms, but when I hear about what goes on in the rough and tumble of adolescent life I wonder if it is worth it.

One last trip into Managua for Eighth Grade Promotion, except this time in a borrowed car because we already sold our beloved RAV 4. We sat by ourselves. The only person I marginally know, recognize, would be more accurate, is a mom who only speaks Korean and I didn’t see her when I sat down. The kids looked very spiffy in their dark pants/skirts and white shirts. Amazing how short and tight girls in eighth grade can interpret the dress code. It must be the age. I always feel the same way about the bat mizvah girl.

As the kids got up to get there diplomas, their names were like a who’s who of Nicaraguan business and politics. I usually cringe when teachers and administrators get up and say, you are the leaders of the next generation. Here though it is very likely true. It is a very small pond. These kids’ families have been in control for ages and they will continue. The student speaker, Krista, hit it right. She told her classmates, “We are sitting here under a million dollar roof [ANS has the largest covered athletic area in the country] and the only thing our country is famous for is poverty. What are we going to do?”

Noah said his not terribly emotional good-byes. With facebook, I guess you never really have to say good-bye. We went home to celebrate with lunch at Garden Café.

Fabiola’s First Communion

After many months of preparation with her Tia Lola, a catechist, Fabiola was ready for her first communion this Sunday. Mass was at 8:00 and I can’t believe that I ever felt rushed to get to services at home by 10:30. Jonathan and I were glad at least a few of the neighbor’s saw us dressed up and going to church.

San Jose Obrero is a simple church in Sabaneta. The priest wore a long black cosack and the nuns dressed like Mother Theresa. It was Mother’s Day, so the priests’ sermon focused on the wonderful love of the Nicaraguan family. Europeans and North Americans may shut themselves off from each other in their own rooms and surf the internet with little family contact. The Chinese abort their first child if it is a girl.

Things are not like that here where we still love all children and family togetherness.

Fabiola looked beautiful in her white dress and veil. She clutched her candle and rosary in lace gloved hands. I missed the actual moment of the first communion because I didn’t realize it would go so fast.

The piñata (party) was in the late afternoon. We were requested to come early, so we did. Fabiola was still in her white dress and sat in the chair of honor surrounded by her friends. Grown ups were seated around the room staring into space.

The wall of speakers is so loud that there isn’t any conversation. The mingle part of the party doesn’t ever seem to happen at the Nicaraguan parties I have attended. Maybe it is because here in Granada, everyone knows everyone. At first I thought I needed to make an effort and that people weren’t talking to me because they thought I didn’t speak Spanish. But when I look around, I notice no one else is chatting either. I helped pass out the soda to give me something to do.

It is always a challenge for my kids. They just sit in a rocker and look very bored. Silvia keeps asking, are the boys bored? Yes, I say, but it doesn’t matter.

Piñata time. Fabi starts swinging at the church bell piñata with a big stick. All of the kids take turns. The boys swing like mad, blindfolded, and the girls dance and take a powerful swat in time to the music. The piñata master raises and lowers it, creating a dance or a battle depending on whim. As the piñata disintegrates, the kids get closer and risk their lives to grab the candy. Marisela, the best dancer, gets another turn and bangs out a lot more candy. Then the stick is turned over to Jorge, without a blindfold. He beats it down and candy covers the room. The mob descends and tears the piñata apart. Mayhem ensues as about twenty children tear through the yard at full speed chasing and fighting with each other for bits of the piñata. Nobody got hurt and not a single adult ever intervened to tone things down.

I tried to dance a little, but I am very self conscious about my stiff hips and lack of rhythm. I study every one dancing, but still I can’t seem to mimic effectively. My movements are too big and off the beat. After about 4 hours, we left. We ate the delicious chop suey that Fabiola’s grandfather made over a wood fire, but they hadn’t cut the cake yet.

Sunday morning walk

We walked through the market today on our way to church for Fabiola’s first communion.

I had to say to myself Wake up! Wake up! You will not see these sights for a while! Horses were outside my front door. Habituation is a fascinating fact of life. It is Mother’s Day here.






Lots of red balloons and hearts. I saw more than a couple bikes carrying two to three people, with the person in front holding a small elaborately iced cake, uncovered. I couldn’t get my camera out of my bag in time.



This little boy is peeing in front of a sign that says – Let’s work together toward a cleaner Granada! The fresh water sharks featured in the public service announcement are nearly extinct. It’s wearing a diaper.

Loners abroad

My children spent almost their entire lives in a big old house in Seattle. When I say almost their entire lives, I mean it literally, because we are a family of homebodies. Very few locations beyond the front door have the enticement and charm of sitting in our kitchen, gathering around our dining room table, hanging out on our deck or typing away on our computers. Alone. In our rooms.

Last year, I realized with a start that my children were monolingual and extremely introverted. It is my own damn fault for not marrying a foreigner, for passing on the painfully shy genes from my family, for not following through with those social skills clubs when they were little. My seventeen year old wants to be a biomedical researcher and my 14 year old wants to be a hermit, albeit a hipster indie kind of hermit. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I cringe whenever the newspapers describe some horrible terrorist or criminal as a loner. As if that explains a lot.

Even though we hardly ever even leave the house, we decided to spend my son’s junior year abroad – together in Nicaragua. People said, Aren’t your kids going to miss their friends? Well, no not really because they have always been each others' best friend. There was minor trepidation about leaving their buddies for the year, but I told them they would come back and find that not much had changed. They kept up on facebook, barely.

One of the reasons we felt it would work was because they are closer to each other than to any of their friends. We thought it would be good to force them into a different social environment, a different country, a different world. We didn’t have that many specific expectations for the year, other than the hope that we would get to the other side whole, with an expanded world view.

Perhaps in our wildest dreams we imagined ourselves fluent in Spanish, and fully integrated into the community. One of the things about travel is that you change your location, but you always take yourself with you. I was under no illusions that my children were likely to join a street soccer game or that I would become chummy with my neighbors. In Seattle, my best friend used to live across the street from me, but I didn’t really get to know her until she moved two years later.

Here in Granada, I did once pull my rocking chair onto the street like my neighbors do every evening. I forced myself to sit for a while, but I had a real panic attack and I had to go inside.

We have spent a lot of time in our house. Just like at home. I mean just like at home in Seattle. Hours pass and we are each sprawled on our beds, using our laptops. My work life continues to take place in cyberspace and it isn’t that different if it is from Capitol Hill to Rainier Valley or Granada to Seattle.

I may have had a slightly different vision for the year, but I can’t say I am surprised, or disappointed in the way it has played out. I have spent a lot of time with my teenage sons, which is something I do not take for granted. I’m glad that we can make our own home where ever we go. I feel part of two communities, even if I never sit on my front porch in either one of them.

Blintzes

We made blintzes last night to celebrate Shavuos. They are supposed to symbolize the Torah all rolled up and handed to the people standing at Sinai. It’s usually our biggest cholesterol laden fest of the year. At home we have the first of the local strawberries if we are lucky. Moni wasn’t able to find ricotta cheese at La Colonia, so I went back out to look for it but I couldn’t find it either. I substituted cottage cheese and cream cheese mixed up in my barely functioning blender. I had to look on line for the Settlement Cookbook recipe I always use. I couldn’t find it, but someone had posted Steven Spielberg’s mom’s recipe saying it was similar so I used that. Here it is so that YOU will not have the frustration of someone talking about blintzes but not giving the recipe.

Dairy Blintz Batter
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup flour
• Pinch of salt
1. Combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour batter (about 3 tablespoons at a time) onto a hot, slightly greased pan, and rotate pan so that mixture covers bottom completely. Fry on one side only.
2. Turn pancakes out on a towel. Place desired filling on browned side, make an envelope, and fry in butter until brown on all sides. Serve with sour cream. Yield: 15 blintzes
Cheese Filling
• 1 pound Farmer cheese (dry cottage cheese)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• Sugar and lemon juice, to taste
• 1/4 cup raisins, if desired
Combine all ingredients and mix well

Yum Yum. They were a little salty, because I can't find unsalted butter, but very delicious. We had ours with Gallo Pinto for a well rounded Nicaraguan meal.

I did not stay up all night reading Ruth, but I look forward to a return to my normal biorhythm when I am in a cooler climate.