Tuesday, August 28, 2007

I'm back in Langley

Well it's good to be home with my family, but I already have plans to return to Nicaragua in 4 years with my daughter. Next time, we'll also visit some other Central American countries.
I met so many wonderful people in Nicaragua, loved learning about the culture, learned quite a bit of Spanish and I've been asked to be godmother to a baby that will be born in 3 weeks in Granada. What an honour! So thanks for your interest in my adventures and let me know if I can follow your adventures.

Monday, August 6, 2007

My husband, Mike, joins me for 6 days

Mike arrived last Thursday morning and I`ve hardly let him rest since!!! From the airoport, we went directly to Mombachu Volcano
to join students from my language school for an afternoon hike around the top of the volcano. Fortunately it was a clear day and the view was incredible. It helped Mike to get oriented. He kept up pretty well considering that he had only slept 2 hours on the plane the night before!After our hike we went to Granada and took his bags to my place and rested a bit before dinner. It was nice and breezy on the volcano but the heat in the city was a bit of a shock for him! After dinner we walked around town a bit, bought some cakes for a farewell party at our favourite nightclub and at 9:30pm we met everyone at Cafe Nuit for great dancing and visiting!Friday, Mike came to my last class at Casa Xalteva and he learned quite a bit of Spanish! At the break we bought some snacks to eat with my teacher Fernando, who has been great! Mike is impressed with what I`ve learned.

It was sad to say goodbye. It was like a family there. After lunch, we walked to Calita Feliz where I have been volunteering. Mike brought some hairdressing books and material generously donated by my hairdresser Karen and we took them to the woman that teaches hairdressing to young girls. She was soooo happy to get the material!!!Mike also taught the English lesson, which was fun! Then we went for a refreshing swim at the pool! After our swim we took a bag of clothes to Rena and her extended family. They really appreciated the gifts!

Saturday morning, we got on a local bus( quite a hot experience) and a shared taxi to get to the city of San Juan del Sur. We stayed in a lovely Inn and took a shuttle to the surfing beach for the whole afternoon! Beautiful beach andit was fun to watch surfing! For dinner we went to a beachfront seafood restaurant. My soup had every kind of seafood! Delicious! Coming back to Granada wehad a full afternoon and evening visiting friends for lunch and dinner. Incredible hospitality!!! They have nothing and yet both family went out of their way to feed us wonderful Nicaraguan food and entertain us with their daughters dancing and teaching us to dance. One of the two girls dancing is Gabrielle`s age and is going to write to her.The picture of us sitting outside a house is at Rena`s house. She had the table all set for us and when I went in her room there was water all over the floor. I asked her about it and found out that her roof was leaking in 2 of the 3 rooms. Her bed was soaked and there were pots everywhere to catch water. Today, Mike is out shopping with her uncle to buy the material to replace part of the roof. He went with his dictionary since neither of them speeks the others language.

These people have so little ! The place where we had lunch, her husband had malaria and his whole body was covered in a terrible rash but they had no money to buy the medication needed. We found out that $20 would help him alot so that was nice to be able to help.