Eating, Visiting, and Relaxing in Moyogalpa

Nanette

After arriving in Moyogalpa and settling into our dorm we set out to explore.  We didn't get too far before we were passing by Berta's house. (Eileen met Berta, who is the principal of the secondary school, when she was in Nicaragua 7 years ago).  We went in and all of Berta's family were shocked and overjoyed to see Eileen.  They had no idea that we were on the way. Eileen insists that she wrote a letter but I guess we are faster than the postal service.  After sitting around and talking for a while we were invited for lunch.  We had a lovely plate of fish with a yummy sauce of onions and tomato, rice, and fried plantain.  It was surprising and a bit odd that they set the table for only the 2 of us and they were eating in another room.  We insisted that they eat with us so Berta did sit with us to eat.

Berta, Eileen and Alejandro

Eileen and Victoria

By the time we were done lunch and had done a bit of talking ( I arranged for Berta to spend a bit of time with me to help me practice my Spanish) we were almost too tired to think straight.  Down the hill to our hotel and off to bed we went.  After a good long nap we sat in the lobby with our computers and caught up on e-mail and blogging before heading back to bed for the night.

I had arranged for Berta to come at 10:00 because I thought I might still be sleeping any earlier than that.  Well, getting up early is not a problem here.  The first bus of the day passes our hotel at 5:00am and the whole place seems to shake, not to mention the noise of the engines struggling mightily to get that bus up the very steep hill.  It was off to lunch at Magdalina's house on the beach after my spanish class

 (Magdalina is Berta's eldest daughter).  It was nice and cool in the shade of the mango trees with a nice breeze thrown in for good measure.  Geouany (sounds like Joannie) who is Magdalina's husband was showing us all of their trees and I was thrilled to see that they had a cashew tree.  The cashew grows on the end of a yellow fruit that looks a bit like a mini yellow pepper.  The fruit has a bitter yet somehow refreshing taste.

Cashew

After lunch we went off to visit another relative.  Geouany brought us there on his motorcycle...not to worry, only one at a time.  On my trip, we met up with a herd of cows on a tiny dirt road and I figured that we would stop and wait, but no, he honked his horn at the cows and we drove right up through a teensy, weensy gap between them and a barbed wire fence. Was well pleased to get out of that without gouges on my arms and legs!  Had an incredible view of the volcano driving through a dairy farm and just thoroughly enjoyed the ride.  Dorrian lives about a kilometer outside of town about 100 metres from the proposed site of the runway at the new intenational airport.  I shudder to think of what that will be like.

Eileen survived her motorcycle ride

Geouany, Bermania, and Nanette

Wilbur, the night guard at our hotel, walks around with a Spanish-English dictionary so I figured he is trying to learn English.  We sat in the lobby for a couple of hours helping each other practice.  I think he is doing well for himself.  He is 23 years old, married and has a 23 day old baby.  He also has his own house because he went to work in Costa Rica for a year during the construction boom and managed to save enough money.  He works 2 jobs and gets only Sunday until 8:00pm for a day off.  He is not complaining but feels that knowing how to speak English may give him a bit of an advantage as Nicaragua opens up more and more to tourists.

Eileen

Nanette is doing such a fine job recording our trip I hardly feel the need to add anything.

Nanette:
That Eileen is just too busy right now to be adding anything (a real e-mail addict!) so I'll just post it without her 2 cents worth.