Chikungunya. New recipe? Uh, no...

It sounds to me like something delicious. I had never heard the word until the other evening when I arrived in Managua for a meeting with a lawyer on the following day—to complete my residence application. Ivan and Erlinda had been ill for several days after I left for La Boquita, and I inquired after their health. Turns out, their empleada (cook/housekeeper) was the first to fall ill, and later both sons as well. The symptoms they described were immediately familiar to me.

Nobody wants to give an organ recital in a blog, and I mos' def omitted to chronicle my wretched first few days here in this space, save for the aforementioned mosquito misery. In fact, I was on the verge of admitting I had made a terrible mistake in coming here. I believed the heat was the culprit; I had a fever, my legs were hurting (due to arthritis, I figured), and at night, my hands were so itchy, I could not keep from scratching deeply, to little avail. In the morning, I expected to find a scabrous mess where my hands used to be, but they were only a little pink. Then, a bright red rash bloomed on my arms and chest. I chalked it up to heat rash, but just felt truly ill. The fever persisted for about five days, and the rash slowly faded, and suddenly, I felt just fine. Oh, the relief in the realization that the heat had not gotten the best of me—and then,when Erlinda described her semana desdichada (awful week), I realized I too had contracted chikungunya, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes first described in the 1950s in Tanganyika.  The illness is not transmitted human to human, and it can be fatal to infants. The joint pains can last for years—oh, goody—and though "itchy hands" is not listed as a common symptom, all in Erlinda's household suffered with it.

Well, my first tropical disease! May it also be the last.

I had a great visit to Managua. My new lawyer is a lovely chap, with long experience in promoting the rich cultural history of this country. He told me that Augusto Cesár Sandino visited the Pacific coast in high heat and dubbed it "this damned country!" We paid a brief visit to the Plaza de la Revolución and I maxed out my camera's memory card. To whit:

Managua's fine old cathedral, which was heavily damaged in the 1972 earthquake in which 50,000 people died.

And just to the other side, the neoclassic Palacio Nacional, built in the 1930s.  It is now the National Palace of Culture or Palace of Culture and comprises a museum, archives, newspaper archive and National Library along with the Nicaraguan Institute of Culture INC.         It was barely touched by the earthquake.       

                                                                                        

                              Fine interior court

Opposite the cathedral is the tomb of Carlos Fonseca Amador, founder of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) who died in the revolution, marked by an eternal flame, and flanked by the tombs of Col. Santos Lopez, one of the original twelve revolutionaries, and Tomás Borge, a co-founder with Fonseca; he was a statesman, poet and essayist, who served in various post-revolution governmental posts, lastly as Ambassador to Peru, who died in 2012. Here is the mausoleum:

There is also a monument to Nicaragua's famed modernist poet Rubén Darío, which I hope to explore next week when I finally present my residence application. 

(I promise more pictures, Mary Mary.)

And just as I was about to publish this entry, this little guy ambled by, scooping up ants under my table! Thank you very much!