Things that Creep & Crawl

Entomology 101

It feels as though we haven’t stopped moving since the holidays began, and yet as I review the pictures for the blog, they all seem to be of various insects…two of which were found on Ometepe Island, and the third, nasty thing, landed on my skirt up at Laguna de Apoyo. But more about that later.

We returned to Ometepe twice in early January. The first time so Pat could assist in the installation of an on-demand propane-fired hot water heater at our friend Cindi’s house and so we could take a leisurely (ha!) bike ride around the southern volcano, Maderas, with Cindi and her professional cyclist boyfriend Brian. Ok, maybe he’s no longer an active professional, but he is very serious about bicycles and biking, which was a good thing for my poor abused bike as he took one look at the gears, cringed, took a deep breath, and tackled them head-on. As a result, they actually shift again, beyond the three or four gears I’d become accustomed to using. This turned out to be a very good thing indeed once the ride began, and rather than the coast-hugging dirt road we’d imagined, it was more like one of those mountain bike parks, with actual inclines and occasional declines, dips, bumps, holes, crevasses, gravel, sand, puddles, and of course the usual collection of cows, chickens, pigs, horses, kids, drunks, and the odd cat or two. Oh, and stunning views of the lake, the volcano, the mainland… About one hour into the four hour ride, as we bumped our way down one of the rare descents, Pat’s front tire hit a coconut husk and over he went, ending up with the right handle bar more or less lodged in his chest. Or it would’ve been had his end caps not been firmly in place. As it was, he had a hell of a bruise, but it didn’t keep him from climbing back on and continuing the ride. I stopped at the next ‘pulperia’, or little shop in someone’s home, and asked the woman if she had anything for pain. She looked blank and said, “Que?” I asked again, rewording the request a bit. “Que dice? (What did you say?) No Inglés.” I was getting frustrated, but fortunately there was a local couple also waiting at the window, and the man said to her, “She needs something for pain. She’s speaking Spanish!” The woman looked skeptical, but went to the back and returned with two small reddish pills labeled “Dolofin”. Since the word for pain is ‘dolor’, and the word for end is ‘fin’, they seemed promising. Pat gobbled them down and professed to feel less pain (until the following morning…)

The rest of the ride was uneventful if a bit challenging, and we were very happy when we finally arrived at El Encanto, a local guesthouse run by an Aussie/El Salvadoran couple. We’d stayed there a couple times, and were well acquainted with their excellent alternatives to standard Nicaraguan cuisine. Nothing like a chicken curry after a long, hot ride!

We returned to Ometepe just a couple days later, this time with the Scotts and Amanda in tow. (You may recall from the last blog that one of the Scotts and Amanda are newlyweds; the other Scott was a best man.) We had the pleasure of riding the big new ferry again, and once again were left shaking our heads as this massive craft “docked” on a spit of sand. We then met our pre-arranged minibus to drive us out to Cindi’s place, about 1.5hrs south. (The island is bigger than you’d think, plus the roads on the southern end are wretched.) In the afternoon, we thought it might be fun to rent kayaks and head up the Rio Istiam, a river supposedly loaded with indigenous birds and beasties, including caymen. We ambled over to the restaurant/kayak rental place only to be told they had just rented out their last four kayaks. This news was met with more elation than I’d have expected—turned out everyone was relieved to have an excuse to just relax for a change. After finishing lunch there, Pat went for a wander and returned to the table clutched in the pincers of a gigantic beetle. A slight exaggeration, but not much. This beetle he found was about the size of my cheapie non-flip cell phone, and weighed four times as much. I’ll let the picture speak for itself here. Even the guys who run the restaurant were surprised by its size, and almost everyone wanted to pick it up and take its picture. After blinding it with flashes and traumatizing it with curiosity, and after it did in fact nip Pat with its pincers, he scooped it up and carried it back to an undisclosed location.

The next morning some of us went on a hike to and through the property of another expat couple, where we encountered a form of thorn tree, swollen with the rains of a long wet season, and many platano (plantain) trees dropping their huge, erotic pods. In the evening, we wandered down the road to a tiny restaurant where Pat and I had had an excellent traditional Nica dinner last year. They often have fish as well, but on this occasion, told us they only had chicken. What they failed to specify was that they meant that literally. They had a chicken. Just the one. For all seven of us. Yeah…I got the back. I didn’t immediately realize it was the back as it was creatively covered in a mass of sautéed onions and tomatoes. I kept trying to cut off a piece of actual meat with no success. When I finally scraped off the sauce, I beheld a fragile skeleton of grilled bones, and a bit of skin. This is very unusual! In all the many, many, many chicken meals we’ve had since arriving in Nicaragua, there has been a broad range of flavors, but there has always, always, been meat. Other people chimed in after I voiced my dismay. “I think I got the ribcage.” “I got part of a wing and something else…” “Ha! I got a leg!” Whoever got the breast was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Fortunately the rest of the meal was plentiful and delicious; gallo pinto (red beans and rice) being a hell of a filler.

We left the island on one of the smallest ferries, a first for all of us. Other than the noise of the engines, it was a good ride. Fast, not too rough, and the seats from the old US school busses were comfortable enough. Once back on the mainland, we took them on a whirlwind tour of our place out in Tolasmaydas, to Jim’s restaurant for burgers, and then we piled into the jeep and headed north, to Laguna de Apoyo and our friend Fred’s place. It was here I encountered the evil bug. We had been told in November to watch out for a certain type of caterpillar: large, bright green (sometimes with spots of other colors), and very fuzzy. Their fuzz is coated with something extremely toxic, and any contact with it results the skin turning bright red and massive levels of burning, stinging pain. Pat came across one out by the house one day and the kids immediately slaughtered it. More recently, we were told their season was over, and I was sorry I never got to see one. Umm hmm…so we are all standing around out in Fred’s courtyard, and I am talking to Carmen, his wife, when I feel something on my skirt, just below-right of my left hipbone. I brush at it absently, too dark to see, and in the middle of a conversation. It doesn’t move and now the last two fingers on my right hand hurt. I turn into the light and look down—and there it is, firmly attached to me—a 3” bright green furry thing. Carmen screams, I jump back, Fred rushes over and begins furiously prodding it with a stick until it falls off at which point he stomps on it. “Wait!” I cry, “Let me at least get a picture of it.” I dig out the camera and manage to get a shot in before Carmen grabs Fred’s beloved cane walking stick and begins bashing the hell out of the crumpled wad of green slime. Fred grabs the cane, tells Carmen to calm down, and stomps on the beastie a few more times. “It’s like trying to stomp on a piece of rubber,” he announces. By now the backs of my two fingers and the adjoining knuckles are burning and throbbing. Carmen hands me a tub of ice, and I immerse the afflicted hand. It brings some relief. I keep my hand in the ice for the next hour, off and on, until I fall asleep (where I dream of butterflies), and when I awake the next morning, the pain is gone.

We deposit the Scotts and Amanda at the Managua airport, worn out from their trip but professing to have enjoyed every minute in Nicaragua. Grabbing a detailed map of the city, we head out on a search for shower tile. Our options seem limited to either hideous generic shiny white or faux-hand painted ceramic, or insanely overpriced, imported from Italy glass. We are rethinking the shower. The ceiling, however, is coming along very well. Pat and Daniel have finished the bedroom and have begun work in the living room. It has been a more complex job than anticipated as the cane is highly irregular and the wood needed for the frames was tweaked and bent. But in spite of the obstacles, it looks beautiful. Once it’s done, Pat will begin work in either the kitchen or bathroom…at last, the end is in sight.

On the political front, I attended the swearing in of the new mayor of Buenos Aires last weekend. (Pat had planned to go until he found out there would be no food, no drinks, and no shortage of long speeches.) We’d been invited by a guy we call Sandino, after Nicaragua’s early-20th-century hero, and from whom the Sandinistas took their name. His real name is Orlando, but once he learned of our nickname for him, he became even friendlier. Apparently he’s a guard for one of the big plantations out here, but his heart lies with the FSLN, and he seems to play a role in each administration. One night we were up at Rancho de Pancho with Edwin and Reyna and he sat down at our table. That he’d already been drinking for a while became clear as he alternately accused me of working for the CIA and quoting me the poetry of Rubén Darío, Nicaragua’s foremost poet. “Ud. es C-Uh, no?” (You’re CIA, right?”) That their pronunciation of CIA is identical to the word for chair (silla) made things a bit confusing at first, but once we were on the same page, I began with denials, but eventually gave up as he didn’t believe me anyway, and at one point as he was telling me he knew I was CIA because there was no other reason for me to be in Nicaragua if I wasn’t a missionary, I reached down, pulled off my flip flop, held it to my ear, and said, “Si, si el está aquí. Si, está hablando de asuntos…” (Yes, yes, he’s here. He’s talking about matters…) He just stared at me for a minute, eyes wide, mouth agape, and then began to laugh. At least as of this writing, he hasn’t brought up the CIA again.

As for the swearing in, it was about as expected. A few hundred people gathered, speeches were made, a local woman danced. The new mayor apparently thanked me in his speech, something about gratitude toward the North American woman who had become part of their small community and hoped to make a difference. I missed it as at that moment I was trying to salvage what remained of Milagro’s ice cream cone, the majority of which had relocated to her lap. Still, it did explain why at one point all these heads turned in my direction…

Finally, the big news: the Sprout office and newly opened Alaska English School are in business. I found a place to rent right on the main square in Buenos Aires, next to the Police, across the park form City Hall. A friend and cousin of Edwin’s painted the signs (although he didn’t quite finish due to a powerful hangover that had him show up at 1pm rather than 8am the day of the 3pm opening), and we had a small open house last Sunday. I hired a neighbor to do the cooking, just hors d'oeuvres, finger foods. For this she told me she’d need a lot of toothpicks. I brought two boxes that claimed to have 250each. She called me later to tell me she needed more. “How can you have used 500 toothpicks, Mari?” “No, no,” she explained patiently, “the 250 refers to how many pointed ends there are! So each box actually only contains 125 toothpicks.” Since a box costs roughly 40¢, I’m going on the assumption this was not a crafty plan on her part to exploit my generosity…nevertheless, Pat was so bemused by this account that he bought another box and sat in the jeep counting them. He found 250.

Too early to tell how many students I will get, but there does seem to be interest. On Monday I stopped by the main Rivas Police station and after wandering through its maze-like hallways for a while, eventually found the 2nd in command. He was very interested, and talked of pulling together a group of 20 cops, ten from Rivas, ten more from the five main cities in the district. I am hoping this works out, as it would be a solid regular class, and also, it never hurts to get to know your local police force. Sprout is doing great as I mentioned in the email; with any luck the economy will rebound and charity giving will once again become a popular activity.