Watching the Birdies

Bird watching must be pretty spectacular in Nicaragua. There are some 700 species of birds, many with absurdly brilliant plumage and songs that range from melodic thrush notes to wildly raucous braying, and all manner of whistles in-between. Here on the Pacific coast, the sight and sounds of shore birds are largely missing, I have discovered. The occasional tern flies low above the water, but I have seen nary a gull or crane to date.

Around the house, there are Nicaraguan grackles who, like their northern brethren, possess a wide range of sounds, including slide whistles and throaty growls. Yesterday, I heard a softly tuneful song from the tree by the veranda, and when a breeze ruffled the leaves, I caught a glint of bright orange. It turned out to be a spot-breasted oriole. Here is an image from a Nica bird internet site:

And the grackle:

This pic is spot-on. Our grackles strut about the veranda and look up constantly. What are they looking for?

I packed my binoculars, but they were not in the box noted in my inventory. I hope they turn up, but since every single box was opened and perused at customs, I wonder if I'll see them again. There are numerous parks and trails for birders, and I hope to get to some of them over time.

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was 'thrilled' to see Hellman's mayonnaise at the PriceSmart. I have since learned that Hellman's is widely available, especially in little foil pouches that hold about a cup of my second favorite condiment.  This was not the case when I spent time in Nicaragua 27 years ago. During Reagan's embargo, there was only one store in Managua that carried U.S. products like Hellman's, the diplomatic store that only accepted U.S. dollars, and catered to international embassy personnel. For almost everything else that was not produced domestically, the Sandinista government turned to the Soviet Union. Toilet paper was hard to come by, and what was available was rough indeed. I lost my toothbrush once, and the replacement was Soviet-made and big enough to brush an elephant's choppers. Rather like sticking a small hairbrush in your mouth.

A couple of nights ago, the electricity went out in late afternoon. There are scheduled outages in every department of Nicaragua, both for maintenance and conservation. There simply is not enough power to meet the growing need. There is even a website where one can check the schedule and plan accordingly, but this particular outage was of the unscheduled variety. Mike and Beth invited me to accompany them to a newish pizza parlor just down the road. They bake with a wood-fired oven, and would have plenty of cold beer. Off we went in the pitch darkness with our flashlights. The pizza place was also dark, but open for business, and we were the only customers. It is quite a nice little place, with little wooden tables under a pavilion. The pizza was crisp and delicious, and the beer was heavenly cold.

When we returned to the house, the power magically appeared and normal life resumed.

Grin and Pare It

Okay, I brought way more stuff than I should have. More framed photos than I have wall space to hang. Blankets? What was I thinking? Favorite kitchen items I may never use here, but simply could not part with when I packed them. Stuff my mother gave me that I could not imagine giving away, and souvenirs of my travels that still can transport me back to the day I found them. Oh, the pain of editing. I thought I had gotten used to being brutal about what to pack and what to give or sell. This is cutting a little close to the bone...

The sala, or living room, is full of boxes at the moment, and my bedroom is not fit to be seen until I get a hamper. So I focus here on the veranda, where I plug in my computer, take my meals, and sit at night listening to the surf just below the garden wall. That row of pots just beyond the hammock is the line of demarcation between my porch and the landlords'.

Brynn is recovering her joie de vivre, and using her hind leg little by little. Here she is, chilling with Rasta, next to a cool seat just handcrafted by Mike, using rebar and a fanny-shaped stone he found on the beach.

In front of the house, a casita, or bodega, as Mike and Beth call it, houses a freezer and a washing machine. The automatic dryer flanks my apartment, strung up between two trees.

During my layover in Fort Worth en route to Managua, brother Bobby fashioned a little bowl out of canary wood on his lathe. Pretty nifty repository for my precious limes, essential for wonderful pico de gallo!

Tomorrow, the wife of the groundskeeper Salvador will come to mop the floors. They live with several children in a small house in a corner of the property. So, even when I am here alone, I am not alone. I'll probably go to Diriamba tomorrow to buy some hooks and some chicken. I love fish, but five days in a row is about my limit. 

Fruta del Mar

Landlord Mike offered to take me to the daily fish market at Casares, a neighboring town just down the coast, so early this morning I unpacked my super cute Walmart insulated tote and put in a frozen cooler pac, and we drove over to see what what was on offer.

The fishermen go out in their pangas and fish all night, and sell the catch in the morning. Last night, I noticed the faint light from a boat lantern out on the water.  Fishing in the dark must be eerie, I supposed; when you hook something on your long line, you can reel and reel and not know what will appear until it is hauled up into the dim light of the boat. Not to mention the swells and heat lightning. One must feel very vulnerable in a panga, which is basically a large keeled rowboat, so far from land.

Today, there were mackerel, black tuna, sting ray, pompano, sardines, and dorado (mahi mahi). I bought a small tuna, which has deep red flesh and is not to Mike's liking. It was very cheap, too, so maybe he knows something I will discover when I try it myself.  And I got a dorado from which I will get ten meals, for about $20. Then we drove a few blocks to find Ramon, filleter non pareil, who charged me about a buck to carve up my purchases. Of course, I neglected to take my phone, so pictures will have to wait until my next foray.

Home at Last

Clouds of butterflies, flickering in and out of my peripheral vision, browsing and dawdling over pink and blue blooms, add their own pale greens, yellows, ambers, and whites to my seaside palette. Dozens and dozens of them, gaily breakfasting before the heat of the day settles in, and I am so beguiled I cannot yet believe this is my new reality.

These blue flowers drop off by noon and new buds appear before nightfall to bloom in the morning!

My hope that the cargo solution would appear after the Monday holiday was rewarded, "hurry up and wait"-style. The call to pack up and be ready to go to La Boquita came around 11:30 in the morning, but the 1 p.m. departure time stretched out to 4, and then the van appeared with my boxes, all having been opened, but more or less intact. Parzy and I joined the driver up front and off we went. We stopped en route at an ATM so I could withdraw massive handfuls of actual dollars to repay Parzy for the import taxes, the storage fees for customs, the customs agent's fee, and the transport van fee.

My doorway, with new window boxes! And just inside...

But by 5:30, we were unloading the boxes at the villa, and I warily was  beginning to believe my plan was nearing its fulfillment. I rode back to Diriamba with the van to lay in some supplies at the local supermarket. I was sorry to say goodbye to Parzy. He did so much to help me, always with good humor, and I will miss his sardonic wit.

When I left the super, Pali, all my purchases had been stuffed into one big feed sack, and I climbed into a waiting caponero, the tiny three-wheeled conveyance that is ubiquitous in most smaller cities and towns here. (Not certain I am spelling it properly...) They don't go very fast, so it was a long ride in the inky darkness of rural Nica. Later, I dug out my sheets and towels, made the new bed, and sat for an hour on the veranda listening to the muffled crash of the waves below. Forgot to eat dinner. Slept poorly. Never mind. I'm here.

Into Every Life...

Never have I experienced rainfall as intense, heavy, and prolonged as a weekend thunderstorm that blew into Managua on Saturday afternoon. For nearly a full hour, the tormenta raged, flooding the gardens and bending the eucalyptus boughs hither and yon.  It simply would not let up, though eventually it gave way to a steady lighter rainfall that persisted for hours. I reckon at least four inches fell in that first hour.

Friday, when the daily "no progress' report came down from the customs agent, I was discouraged to learn that the coming weekend was to be followed by a Monday holiday to observe the anniversary of the July 19, 1979 revolution. So no progress is even possible until Tuesday. Interestingly, the celebration would be held close to sunset, which comes early here, at about 6:30. Why? It seems that Commandante Ortega has a sort of lupus, which makes it difficult for him to tolerate sunshine. I looked it up; perhaps he has the condition known as Subacute cutaneous lupus erythematosus,  in which lesions appear due to sun exposure.

And there he is, with his wife, Rosario Murillo, on the broadcast of the celebration. In the second photo, there's a bit more red and black (colors of the Frente Sandinista Liberacion Nacional party) than the blue and white of Nicaragua. Plus those lunatic trees...

Friday evening, I was killing time playing computer mah-jong when I heard Brynn shrieking with terror in the front garden. I ran to her. She was on the ground, wriggling in pain, and when I put my hand on her she bit it hard. Apparently, Yogi had finally had enough of her attempts to play with him, and he had responded by hurting her. She was in awful pain as I gathered her into a towel and into the car. Parzy drove to a local barrio vet, and my heart sank to see how very basic were its amenities. No x-ray, no scales, only a few bottles and jars of medical products. The vet was a very gentle older fellow who examined Brynn very thoroughly, bending her legs and testing her joints, even lowering his ear to listen to the moving parts of her body. She cried out once or twice, but he concluded that no bones were broken. She did have a couple of scrapes on her abdomen, and a clear tooth mark on a front leg. The most obvious problem was her limp left hind leg. The vet gave her injections of an anti-inflammatory and B12 complex. He ordered rest, and more anti-inflammatory on three successive days.

Two days later, she has not recovered her happy demeanor, but at least she is starting to walk and show some interest in her surroundings. She has had a trauma, and I am very concerned that the hind leg appears to be no better. The vet  ordered hourly massages of the thigh muscles, along with some daily calcium pills. Her appetite is good, and I will carry out those instructions to the letter. My poor little Brynn. I hope her youth works in her favor.

Mental Compost

Thoughts while waiting for cargo...

I went to a little reunion of sorts with Erlinda. She and a woman who had taught at the same school years ago got together with a few other friends for some chat and a meal. An appetizer was tamal (not to be confused with the same word meaning a mess, or a muddle), which is basically the corn mush part of a tamale, the little meat and mush pie, wrapped in banana leaf and simmered in water. This tamal looks like greyish-yellow clay, cut into strips. It is firm enough to pick up with fingers and eat with a little soft cheese. It has almost no flavor, lacking any appeal in appearance or taste. Yet when it was served, all remarked on how it was real Nicaraguan food.  It wasn't horrible, but in a country with such piquant and luscious flavors for the table, its attraction mystifies me. I suppose it is like Scottish haggis, a cheap source of nutrition that travels well without refrigeration.

The road from Diriamba to La Boquita is a study in contrasts. It passes through some attractive farmlands where goats and cows are grazing, and past a stone quarry that is being worked today much as when it was started nearly a hundred years ago by some Italian immigrant stone cutters. It produces vast numbers of stone blocks for building fences, walls, paving roads. Doubtless, the saw wheel is electric, and the output today far exceeds that of yesteryear, but the simple stone block remains a reliable source of strength and durability in building materials.  Further down the road, a sizeable solar array turns some of that hot Nicaraguan sun into precious energia. And beyond lie fields of sugar cane that is about knee-high at this time of year.

PriceSmart is a Costco or Sam's Club sort of enterprise that has cropped up all over the Caribbean and Central and South America. I went there with Erlinda's son to buy a couple of bed pillows. Many American products are available--I was thrilled to see Hellman's Mayonnaise on offer--and in addition to electronics and booze, power tools and baby clothes, laundry soap and frying pans, the place has a large fresh foods department. I bought a membership, although I am not sure how much I'll be able to shop there without a car to help transport my purchases. And the prices were not especially fabulous on many things. A plastic patio table and four chairs ran nearly $400! Not many Nicaraguans can afford that price, and for cheap plastic? No bargain.

Just received word that the cargo is in Managua. Once I pay the overland bill, it can be released to me, with one probable obstacle: import tax. Retirees who receive residence visas are granted tax-free import of household goods up to $25,000. I will not have my residence visa for some months, likely, so I must rely on a customs agent to plead my case and try to get the lowest rate possible. Fingers are crossed, as funds are not unlimited, and I still have furniture to buy.

It's Rocket Science

My first two days in Managua yielded little, as the cargo had not yet reached the city. I relaxed and watched Brynn chase chickens and run after Yogi, the family's tan Lab retriever mix. I did ask about buying a bed and stove for the apartment in Managua, and Erlinda advised me to consider Diriamba, the large town near La Boquita where I would likely do most of my shopping. As it happened, her brother-in-law Francisco was visiting Diriamba and could possibly help me.

Francisco is a NASA engineer who lived in New Orleans for many years, and most recently, in California. His work on the Space Shuttle and satellites has been exciting, to be sure, but also stressful, and he is looking forward to retirement at a house he's been building in Managua. His family hails from Diriamba, and he still has sisters there, plus a brother who has a farm off the road to La Boquita. He also has a nice utility vehicle, with racks on the roof perfect for taking a mattress and box springs to the seashore!

We shopped a couple of stores, with plenty of counter-offers and exasperated sighs from Francisco. When we struck a deal for a stove, bed, electric fan, coffee maker, and a blender thrown in by the saleswoman (a vendor blender?), Francisco had saved me over a hundred dollars, and took us off to a local comedor for lunch. This was a modest affair, serving good soup, beef and potato plates, and syrupy fruit drinks. I apologize for the absence of photos. I cannot seem to remember to take the bloody shots as any good journalist ought to do.

Then, a short hop back to the furniture place to load the car and drive to La Boquita, where the stove fit perfectly into the 24" space and the bed was, well, a bed. I counted my lucky stars. Francisco made a potentially fraught production into a pleasant, sensible errand. Not only that, but his sister owns a pharmacy in Diriamba, where I can get all my prescriptions, as well as a new indoor shopping mall down the street, which I plan to explore sometime soon. Strand by strand, my situation is coming together.  And I can now make coffee in my new digs. As soon as I buy some coffee.

I hope I do not need a rocket man to retrieve my boxes. The vigil resumes.

The Heart of Texas

The shots did the trick (for a few days, at least) and the sands ran out on my life in the US.

That final morning in Pennsylvania never happened. We were to have departed for the Pittsburgh Airport at 10 a.m. for my 3:30 p.m. flight to Fort Worth. There is, however, a rule that if the temperature in Texas exceeds 85 degrees at arrival time, a dog cannot be transported in the cargo hold. The best solution was to take an early morning flight, at more expense, naturally, which meant that Gabe and I left at 2 a.m. for Pittsburgh. We had been working frantically to ready the house for our departure, cleaning, packing, cleaning some more. Gabe was a brick throughout, and we arrived alright and checked my bags and pup with no difficulty. Gabe stood by while I zig-zagged through the WTF line. I started to cry. It dawned on me that I had no clue about when I might see my precious boy again. "What have I done?" I asked myself. All the logical truth about his need to steer his own canoe just evaporated in a rush of motherly longing. My expressed desire for solitude vanished in a compulsion to escape the stanchions and go to him. He left, finally, and I shuffled along toward the screening area, sniffling and weeping like a big old baby.

At arrival in Texas, there was Bobby, beaming, bursting with his usual energy and enthusiasm. Brynn seemed none the worse for her trip in the luggage compartment, and so began five days of exquisite relaxation at his lovely home in Fort Worth. Bobby's wife Shirley is a remarkable combination of good looks, intelligence, and bonne humeur. Brynn took to the pool like a champ, and we all enjoyed good food, good talk.

I admit I have little fellow feeling for Texans (or anybody, really) of the political right wing, they who would teach creationism and shutter all abortion clinics and vote for Rick Perry. But I can happily testify to the charms of great municipal management. Fort Worth is a fantastic city, overflowing with culture, commodious public spaces, and good restaurants.

An email from the border import company demanded immediate documentation of my cargo or face a daily fine of $80. I  was glad to know my boxes were at the gate, so to speak, but I needed plenty of assistance from Bob, Shirley, and my friends in Managua to sort out the needed papers. I was still too stressed to cope, and I was rightly ashamed of my panicked reaction. It managed to sort itself out, and  the remainder of the visit was blissfully calm. It was a chance to recharge for the next leg of the journey to Managua. Again, the high ambient temperature intervened, and this time, Brynn had to sit in a small container under the seat in the cabin with me. She did pretty well through a plane change in San Salvador, and we were both delighted to see Ivan and Stefan there to greet us in Managua.