Progress, Illness, and Woeful Tardiness

Shockingly, there has been no new content in this blog for two weeks!  This deplorable state is not due to a paucity of activity or events. There have been many distractions, the most recent of which is a continuing abdominal malaise, perhaps acquired at the airport the other night when I was meeting my current house guest, a lovely chap named Mike who is a new friend (to me) and an old friend of my pal Tom in Florida. But I digress...  I was early, the plane was late, and I was hungry, so I stopped at the Subway in the food court, and had a seafood salad sandwich. Within an hour, I was hurling in the ladies' and shaking uncontrollably.

Mike and I stayed with Ivan and Erlinda in Managua before busing to my house next morning. I slept very little, puked twice more, and felt like I was dying. Yesterday, I had a little of my own good chicken soup. Today, I ate some rice for breakfast. I am still queasy, and rather weak from lack of food and dehydration. This is my first real illness since my bout with chikungunya last summer. I hope it was the Subway so-called seafood salad and not something more sinister than food poisoning.

Over the past two weeks, we have been invaded by millions of houseflies. My supply of flypaper has needed replenishing twice, with sticky landing pads in every room becoming absolutely covered with insects in an hour or two. The solution was a screen door, which lacked screen, and had to go to the carpenter to be re-screened and repaired, The lower half was reinforced by a layer of chicken wire to protect the screen from doggy damage. The results have been stellar!  Perhaps a dozen flies manage to slip inside when the door opens to let out the dogs, but they are hardly noticeable after the ordeal of trying to eat a meal with a hundred flies flitting about the plates and forks.

Behold my new vegetable garden! To date, I have zucchini seedlings, but Byron is going to plant carrots and radishes in a day or two, and son Gabriel is bringing more seeds from the states next week!

My zinnias have been decimated by heavy rains and leaf-cutter ant predation. Byron bought a pesticide we hope will save the few remaining healthy plants. So far, about half the crop have perished.

Coconuts are coming on gangbusters!

 And Little Susie is putting on weight and looking pretty fly (no offense!).

Shopping, Entertaining: My Social Whirl

Last Friday, Maria José and I went to Jinotepe to buy a few necessities for Sunday's luncheon, my new home's debut social event. I had invited my Managua family, and expected to feed seven, but I had plates and utensils for only five and a half. Jinotepe has a larger mercado than Diriamba, and is almost as close by. I also wanted to look at fabric to see if I could find something to replace the despised blue of the sofa cushions.

Managua has several large mercados, and Masaya has a big tourist mercado, all under roof and packed with kiosks and booths, along with more extensive shops and stores. In Diriamba and Jinotepe, there are roofs, tarps, garbage bags and anything else that might keep out the rain. But plenty of rain gets in along the narrow walkways, which are muddy, greasy, uneven, and riddled with steps down or up, and often both. One dares not walk unmindfully, but then risks missing the gloriously chaotic displays of simply everything in the world that Murphy's and Woolworth's used to sell. Plus fruits, vegetables, plucked chickens, sides of beef, dripping livers, and pigs' heads. The filth and miasma of the walkways fall behind when you pass thru the entry of a proper vendor of, well, fabrics, in this case. Tiled floor, wall shelves packed with colorful bolts of mainly synthetic cloth. The cutting tables and notions displays are not unlike those found at Joanne Fabrics in Pennsylvania. We found what we wanted and after it was measured out and paid for, we slipped back into the dirty wet path, crowded with shoppers and vendors alike. (I WILL take my camera next time!)

Four of my Sunday guests did me the honor of arriving on time, a habit of mine that has earned me many chuckles and snark in this country of two or three hours' leeway. My Peruvian arroz con pollo was, I must say, excellent, and so was the company. Two latecomers completed the party, and I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

 Parzi and Ivan kept company in the hammock with Little Susie and Brynn

Erlinda wore a pretty Mexican dress, and Janeth made herself  comfortable on my new sofa. The cushion covers had gone home with Maria José, so I threw a blanket over them. So attractive...

Maria José arrived Monday morning and surprised me with new cushion covers she'd sewn over the weekend. Doesn't the sofa look swell? I wonder who took care of MJ's family for two days! She is a marvel!

Back on Campus (and it feels so good!)

My mind is much taken up now with the impending visit by my pride and joy, who is finishing up his first year as a teacher. Apparently, there were so many snow days, the school year will last until the last week in June. Gabriel has promised to play the organ at my niece's wedding - which I sadly will miss -- and thereafter, wend his way to my door for a couple of weeks. I am beside myself with anticipation. One yearns so for the presence - the feel - of one's offspring.

Yesterday, I moved ahead with my desire to be useful, to make a positive difference in some small way, with a visit to Keiser University's Central American campus, just a few kilometers up the road in San Marcos. I learned that they follow the North American academic year, and things are quiet for the nonce until classes resume in September. Keiser acquired Ave Maria University just three years ago; as its former name suggests, it was a Catholic institution, and there is still a strong Catholic presence on campus, with a resident priest and a pretty chapel. Work on the chapel roof limited my view to its exterior only. The campus is compact and lovely, with several newer buildings and many plantings and neat landscaping.

I was made to feel very welcome indeed by the head of academic support, who has laudable goals for her programs that may well provide opportunities to be helpful. She introduced me to the librarian, who is a remarkable woman, very personable, and no doubt, in possession of many good stories to tell of her 36 years living in Nicaragua. Just imagine the transformative history she has watched unfold here.

After Gabriel departs for the States, I'll get back in touch about setting up a tutoring schedule one or two days a week. I already feel I have two friends at Keiser, and it is exciting to be flexing my academic muscles, modest thought they may be.

On the literary front, I have made a good start on Tolstoy's War and Peace, that hefty epic widely regarded to be the finest novel ever written. On deck is an even more ambitious read: Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.