Pictures from my parents' trip

Thanks to Becca, my parents' pictures are online. Here are a few for you to enjoy!

In Matagalpa, Nicaragua on the Selva Negra Coffee Farm (available at Whole Foods!)

Horseback riding on the farm:

The workers sorting the coffee:

One of our many meals on the farm:


The children collecting mud from the boiling pits:


Fresh fish on the beach:


Fresh fish (see the pattern?) in Granada:


Lucy, the monkey, stealing our nuts!:


Nina with Lucy on her lap:


Paul and Nina with Whitman and Junior:

Out to dinner at Rodney's wonderful restaurant on my parents' last night:

´´Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home´´ - Bill Cosby

My parents (Nina is writing) could not wait the 3 more weeks until we come back home, so they came to travel around with us during our last week in Nicaragua. Where to begin...

Unfortunately, I can´t post any pictures because a.) our camera was stolen, b.) our borrowed camera doesn´t have a connector cord and c.) we will be home before my dad learns how to post his pictures online. So therefore, just imagine ¨Chevy Chase goes to Nicaragua¨ when you read the following stories. We will get pictures up at some point!

My parents flew in on February 12th to Managua and Paul and I had our rental car and sanity ready to go. Whenever my dad sees anything remotely dangerous back home, his famous line is, ¨that guy has a death wish.¨ Needless to say, we heard that line several times on the first ride from the airport to the hotel as they witnessed 5 people on 1 bicylce, men sitting on top of cargo on a truck, children inbetween street lanes, and so on.

We spent our first day touring around Granada. My parents got to meet Junior and Whitman, and even see their new school. Even after several reminders, my parents kept speaking English to them and other children thinking they would understand. After blank stares, they would continue trying to ask in a slower, louder voice, as if that would help. Luckily, our spanish is now up to a decent level where we could translate for my parents all week so we wouldn´t have to witness these painful encounters. We have a basic vocabulary and can get by, but when my dad insisted on me asking people about their water pipelines and electrical meters, I struggled a bit.

We took a boat ride to little islands off of Granada. When our boat reached Monkey Island, our guide asked if we were scared of monkeys. When we said that we were not, he started calling, ¨Lucy¨ and the next thing we knew, a monkey came swinging from the trees and landed in our boat. She immediately walked down the aisle and climbed into my lap! Everyone knows I am a germ freak, so I was trying to enjoy the moment and not think of the countless diseases or necessity for an immediate shower. The guide asked if we had any food for Lucy. Paul took out our salted almonds, kindly brought to us from Becca a few weeks ago. Lucy wasn´t satisfied with a handful, and next thing we knew, she swiped the bag! My mom did not like how greedy Lucy was acting and started pulling the bag out of her hands. Once she was holding the bag and Lucy´s entire body weight on the other end, my mom won! Well, Lucy began hitting my mom and screeching. We all saw her teeth and were yelling at my mom to just give Lucy the bag. Luckily, she listened and we escaped any monkey bites. Lucy left our boat and swung through the trees with her imported almonds from the good ol´USA to show her friends and family what the stupid tourists brought this time.

We laughed about Lucy as we ate whole, fresh fish (we´re talking head, eyes, teeth, tail, and fins on our plates) from Lake Nicaragua at a restaurant nearby. This is my dad´s favorite type of thing. He loves to eat the most local and/or strangest food he can find. This means that we had to request plantains (pronounced as plantin´ by my father) in all fashions for every meal at every restaurant on the trip. He even made us ask a local guy at the market if he could chop a coconut with a machete. The guy looked at us like we were crazy, but he performed this tropical trick, which pleased my father. Don´t worry, my dad was also able to find cow tongue later in the trip. He wanted to find iguana soup after seeing countless iguanas being sold along the highway, but luckily, we never found it. Otherwise, he would have made us try it, too!

The next day, we went to the market in Masaya, where you can find all sorts of handicrafts. My dad was in his element...HAGGLING. My mom wanted to buy a cute dress for my niece and the lady wanted seven dollars. After my dad suggested four dollars, the lady just laughed. He put five dollars on the counter and they lady still was not interested. He told us all to walk away because this lady was clearly being ridiculous. Next thing we knew, the lady was calling us back! We thought, wow, it worked. We walked back to the counter and she said, ¨you left your five dollars on the counter¨ with a snide grin. Next, my dad was very interested in finding a painting for Lake Barkley. Unfortunately, he loved all the ugliest, tackiest, paintings involving parrots, and my mom could not agree on one she liked. Finally, he settled for a coffee painting my mom enjoyed and thought was more appropriate, considering Paul and I worked on a coffee farm. Paul and I found a painting we liked, owned by the same guy. My dad and this guy began the fun sport of haggling. My mom, Paul, and I were not helping the situation by laughing. Paul and I were selectively translating in laughter, as my dad and this guy were both frustrated. We walked away once again, this time with our money in hand. Over an hour later, as we started the engine of our car, the guy knocked on our window and was ready for my dad´s offer. Looks like we got the last laugh! As we purchased the painting, the guy rolled his eyes and told us our dad was ¨muy duro¨ (very tough), which was a great ending to our day in the market.

The rest of our trip involved driving to Leon, the pacific beach, and to a coffee farm in Matagalpa. While on the drive, we stopped by boiling mud pits, where we were lead along this unofficial, dangerous park by five kids 12 years-old and younger. We cringed as they reached down to scoop up some extremely hot mud with a spoon, to give us a closer look. My dad felt the urge to express his admiration and said, ¨mucho _(made up spanish word)___¨ to one of the boys. Of course, the boy didn´t understand. When we asked what he was trying to say, he said ¨I don´t know, it just sounded right.¨ Of course, we all couldn´t stop laughing.

We had a great time and were sad to say goodbye to them on the 19th! Man, we hadn´t laughed that hard, so often, in a while. It was great comic relief! We spent our last night in Nicaragua, being spoiled once again by Rodney. He dropped us off yesterday morning at 6:30 am for our bus to Costa Rica. We arrived in San Jose around 5:30 last night. We barely slept and instead watched the Disney movie ¨college road trip,¨ which the bus driver put on repeat. Finally, he stopped the movie and we were then entertained by MTV music videos from the 80´s and we were surprised when the Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans knew the words! We were relieved to get to our hotel after a long day. The guy at the hotel informed us they no longer had a room for us because their door fell off our room. So much for a reservation! Luckily, we found a new hotel and slept like rocks last night.

We´re off to the airport right now to pick up Bobbie Wrenn. We´ll post about our trip with her next week!

See you soon,
Nina and Paul

Update...Oh So Belated!

Beautiful food at Sally's 70th birthday:


Dear Faithful Blog Followers,

We would like to first apologize for the extreme delay in updating the blog. A few weeks ago, we were finally the victims of crime down here (we got robbed...blind), and that took some of the wind out of our blogging sails. Don't worry, there was nothing traumatic involved like knives or guns. We just let our guard down for a few minutes and left our backpack unattended in a car in Managua. Somebody broke in and took our backpack, complete with laptop (with many important files, including all pictures from the trip!), digital camera, iPod, Nina's glasses, and other valuable stuff. It was bad, but we're over it. We would like to give a shout out to our Nicaraguan "Tio," Rodney, who spent days investigating the matter, shaking down police and security companies, offering rewards, and literally doing everything humanly possible to help us get our valuables back. He is the best.

Anyway, without the camera and computer, we have been slightly blogging impaired. Therefore, there's way too much information for one post. I'll give some highlights, and we'll save the next post for info on the trip with Nina's parents (in progress, and hilarious).

We had a great visit with Sally and Manny Debono, and their daughter, Becca (Our sis-in-law). Sally was born in Nicaragua, and came to visit for her 70th birthday. Sally and Manny stayed at Rodney's house (her first cousin, thus our excellent connection) and we stayed nearby with Becca. We had a birthday party for her with her Central American family, toured a volcano, went to the beach, went to more parties, hung around Granada, hung out at Rodney's place, ate Rodney's food, slept in Rodney's hammocks, mooched off of Rodney, and tons more! We all had a great time, and as usual, Rodney was the perfect host. It will be very sad when we have to say goodbye to him next Thursday!

The past month in Granada has consisted of finishing our volunteer work with La Esperanza. We finally finished our somewhat cumbersome uniform and school supply project, and after that we began teaching art and PE in a local school. However, the biggest thing that we accomplished had to do with Nina's little buddy, Junior. As we approached the end of our stay there, Nina became more and more frustrated with the fact that Junior would not get the services that he needs after she leaves. School started at the beginning of February, and after we saw his school in action, it became clear that we wanted to send Junior and Whitman somewhere else. Nina spent many hours online looking at schools, and found a great one in Managua. However, moving to Managua was going to be very difficult for the family, so we started looking for new schools in Granada. Nina finally found a place that is a dramatic improvement over their current school. We paid their tuition for the year (a pittance compared to US private schools) and got them ready to go for the year. We plan to stay in touch with La Esperanza in the coming years so that they can continue to go there for school. We hope that they will both be able to focus and learn at the new school, since it was clear that these things were very difficult at their old school.

Currently, I am writing from a beautiful mountain lodge in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. We are having a ball with Nina's parents, and cannot wait to give you all an update about this adventure! Thank you all for continuing to check the blog, even though we stopped updating. We'll get better, so stay with us for the next month! Here are a few more pictures from the Debono's visit, and around Granada:

The Debonos at Masaya Volcano:


Pictures from the culmination of our uniform and school supply project in Granada:

We miss all of you and can't wait to see folks back in the US in less than a month!

Love,

Nina and Paul