एंड थें वहत हप्पेनेद?एंड टी

वेल थें and then what happened? Imagine violins and more violins.

Returned very late from the clinic and the trip is trecherous with Brigitte at the wheel of the TOyota FOrrunner with no headlights. Even in this darkness, people are walking along the roadside with sticks bundled on their heads. How many miles did they have to walk to find sticks? They will be sold for $.25 a bundle in the market tomorrow or used to warm their beans tonight. A days journey for whole families...even babes... for a bundle of sticks and returning home so late on such a dangerous track. From my hotel on the hill you can see over the landscape and the hills are stripped bare outside of the town. Ten years ago the landscape was a fantasy jungle with mahogany, ebony, teak of astonishing porportion....i know because you see one now and again...but the lumber giants of the world cut/stole virtually all of them in just ten years...now they are going after the atlantic coast of Nic and then environmental minister of Nic has asked me to help. they "attack" from boats off shore...puttling roads into the Misquito peoples' wilderness and haul out the wood and slip away. piracy of another kind. I am hoping to get on to this soon. the mosquito's 200,000 acres of ecologyical tapestry need an international champion...hoping the nature conservancy or tpl will have an interest.

back to the night. mural done and i could not sleep ..a feeling not unlike when peter and merrill were born. my nerve endings were so stimulated i did not sleep for many days. so i was up writing, thinking of things to share with and learn from V about art, mural work and life. loved the sleepless time and the exhilleration of creating and the time to revel in experience and freedom. Do I reallyu leave tomorrow?

My last coffee in the garden with my spanish work sheets and the birds and flowers and the gracious gentle staff and proprietors babies at play. Morning stroll...V and I explore/share favorite haunts - mine being the saddle-making shop which you reach by steep stone steps so narrow and inside dim but the aroma of leather and the fine tooling, stitching and craft absolutely lovely. Warm hand shakes and my elemental spanish conveys my appreciation and admiration. How i honor the work, textures and craft...V is deeply involved in craft conservation internationally...

Oxen, horse carts and pulsing humanity fill the streets. the L'englasia - church and cappucino, exploring learning, feeling so one with this life and these people. i want to be part of this fabric where there is interdepencance yet every one closes their own loop....from earth to table to earth,...the responsiblity for each element is one's own here...everything has a purpose and meaning.

COnvergence at hotel of Help for Nic and G and P and Javier. I am off with Brigitthe for play time and pleasure time together. She is 29 and I am older than her mother yet we have spent the most delightful week together with shared passions, easy dialogue, insights that make communication so rich...love her so so much. We dine with her mom and sister on the sizziling beef and onions that i so love in the traditional nic,style on the plank.,..a few beers and we are so so happy and fulfilled/

B goes to collect my gear while i linger in town and drift toward the park where a ceramic collection has caught my eye these past days...A tidy elderly lady is selling piggy banks. Her story: she lives in the mountains. there she gathers clay (and there are NO shovels...so how does she do this?( and carries it to her casa and mixes it with sand with her feet in a pit and then expertly crafts these charming crittters hen, ox. goat. pig...some painted...some just fired and natural...all alive with her energy.., she fires them in a kiln of her making with heat from wood she collects and them when the multi firing process is done she hauls them to a road to catch a bus to matagalpa, because the roads are so ragged, over fifty o per cent of her art is broken by the time she reaches matagalpa. wherer she sets up shop on ths sidewalk. she sleeps here on th sidewalk next to her wares..they are easily five pounds each...big and she sells them for 2.00 each.. imagine...

मिशन accomplished

working until dark on a night when thick mist and wind transformed the landscape into something out of nightmares.....yet the parrots still squawk and the congus monkey still howl.----- with Brigetthe´s help the the mural is done and is a masterpiece of love and energy and hope.. if i were a techie i would attach a photo....it is 16 x 10 and full of life of nic. oxen, textures of rainforest and fields of carrots, cabbage and corn....the sky is alive with stars and children dance and jump at play. horses and goats water and wind...all the textures of life are represented....so much fun. up and downt the ladder a thousand times a day mixing paint, imagining the work in my dreams...so saçd to finish but tomorrow i leave this moutain wild and return to managua for home... we´´ll meet francisco and javier for dinner...

today i went to the mçhome of the woman who made me the tortillas yesterdy. she cleans the clinic. in her dirt-mud really - floored home of 26 years.. with a corner buring wood and drying corn, with 15 chickens as guests and with her three daughters...red headed with freckles...we ate squas, fice and cheese in tin plates in a windowless shack....the kitten and dogs, one adorable grandchild and on fresh cotton tablecloth on a rough plank i dined on sumptuous food. they have NOTHING. it is so wet tonight, and my clotyhes feel wet and they live with this with no closets, so linens, they sleep in a hammock (tiny) and isaw one twin sized surface that may be a bed. no plumbing. no toilet. no latrine. they grow all that they eat, they have no electricity so at 6 when darkness comes...they are in the dark and wet and dankness. but the kids are so bright and clung to me at the mural project and proudly showed me the jumble of plants that make up their life and sustenance. the coffee i drank. the tortilla i ate, the beans i savored all were produced here. on her great grandmothers matate she ground the corn and it will be passed on to her daughter. this is poverty and thety have nothing. the pen i gave Kadkan was a treasure. pictures i copied to inspire my mural were treasurtees too.----they y have nothing.

i imagine our consumption compared to theirs... how can i comapoin about the rainfores diaappearing when my consumptioj in a moment surpasses their consumption in a year...is this poverty or living within our limits. remember these children being educated without books or paper or pens...perform better than our own US educated students-.-

the book i gave them with photos for my mural was handled likde a jewel.----had they ever seen a picture book before?
due to the holes in the recycled tin on her roof....the flooer was wet and with the huge rains of the past month icannot imagine the mysery - or is it misery when they have love and duties and survival together....i do not see these stick shacks as poverty any more...i cannot yet get my mind around what it really is...

a fascinating man met this A.M as i was loading my water filters into brigetthe´s truck.. had i done this any other day tghis trip our meeting would not have happened- i am all a flutter. we walk the same path but his is at a scale i cannot even fathom....with art, culture. environ,emnt and philanthropy we speak one language....miracles unfolding...we drove together to the clinic so he could see the mural as he is a painter of import in the U.S- it was hard to part...i wonder what the future will hold---but i am dizzy with feeling.

matagalpa

It must be Monday today????? No sense of time. just teh parrots waking me n the morning and eating when only starving....otherwise too busy with creation...i finish tçup on the mural after seven hour blitz - not stopping to eat, drink or pee. i is so gradifying and intense....and when i finally settle after dinner with friends or a cup of rum...the ideas flood in as to how to improve or what to create in it tomorrow...my mind is skipping miles ahead to consequences and opportunities of creations...

My favorite reading is autobiographical accounts of the wanderings of adventurers...i read them not so musch s a voyer any more but more as a compatriot....for i too am an adventurer. squishing and slipping our way through wet tracks in the matagalph highlands dodging precipeses, pigs, oxen and ramdow horses....ababies and laboring babies...this is true adventure travel....if those loking for adventurif only the tourists of the world knew of this gem....perhaps the economy here would take flight...as it is - it is a wonder that people thrive because they live with nothing - zero and only thru the resourçsefulness , generosity of family and neighbors and the wealth of natural gifts from the forest, they would perish...cahews, bannanas grow wild.

i eat from the the weathered little lady living in the tiny house of sticks for dinner last night. she grew the wheat in her patch of cleared rainforest. she harvested it, cleaned it, boiled it, dried it, ground it with her crank grinder, then used her stone matate and stone pestle to grind it yet again into a fine flous and then adding water - she formed a round and patting it against her thigh - made y tortilla which she then roasted over a charcoal fire and added a chunck of cheese made frmo the mild of her ox....and i eat this astonishing succulent food with gratitude and wonder.

back at my hotel above the village, i enjoy cream for the coffee comes out so thick and foamy it is as if the huge oxen that produced it are just outside the door. so with my coffee and cream i will recount the past two days of magic:

But first - the word ¨third world¨completely fails to describe nic. cic is bathed in the light of the first world. connected to the earh, one with community, absolved of stress from anything but survival. i fell like i am chasing the real world rising before dawn, waiting for the sunrise, capturing color and shadow, seeking weathered of baby smooth faces with their fepth and warmthtrapping the crescendo of light on film and camera, the evolution of lives and contrasts. the wold so richly dimentional and marvelous...marvel...surprising and rich with hujmor and delight. observing the incredible detail of things. be it the texture of a simple door..carved from an ancient mahogany tree, the weave of a panama hat, the wear upon an ancient tile, the melody of converstyion (and it is >NEVER with anger or tears or hurry) i´ve watched the orange ball of the sun disappear behind the royal blue mountains with mushroom clouds heaving and swelling like liquid. All sense of space and distance vanish in the comfort of the senses or that sated feeling when senses are saturated at last.

what does the town center resemble in nic.? like a cavavan of a huge circus - clolorful, noisy, music, busses, trucks mounted with speakers belching propaganda and song, all moving in concert - pedestrians, busses, taxis, bikes, carts, horsemen, hortsercarts, oxen carts. i love to stop at the corner before the climb to my hotel and purchase roadted corn on the cob from the slight woman with the delicate fingers who rasted it over coals all day...eaten like crispy nuts from the cob and wrapped in the husk when she offers it to me HOT for only 20 cents an ear....

the busses are brightly ornamented and colorfully painted and decorated with ribgons, flowerts, slogans and family decals. on roof racks, furniture for market, a thousand pounds of oranges in 100 pond bags, coffee in sacks larger than most women and this is the <¨trucking industry of ic. roady like a slimy roller coaster and folks only waking from the boxes of sticks they inhait without lights, swetrer or latrines and no land for production of any food so out of necessity they prey upon the forest and its rich bounty of congus monkeys, parrots and wood.
What i want to do in my life and the life i am living are utterly intertwinded here and when traveling freely. the the kids restrained me so in africa....i look forward to meeting africa on my own terms in may....for here i really understand the libertate....letting the free spirit soar.

I underatnd that most people never get anything close tho this in their lives. They do not seek it. Why do >I? I care so much about what i am doing each day at home in auburn....However - what i am doing these past 14 days setting my own pace, drining in all that my soul can grasp. i feel that i am in a realm of boundaryness where i believe only a rare few feel secure. When i see the sundown silouettes of children, men, women carrying caskets on their heads these are the images that cause me to send down roots. there is a humanity in the ¨third world¨tht the rest of the world has lost touch with.
Drifeed into a saddle making shop...furnitre shop, i order tables for my new house from a man who can create the m and matching chairs in a shop ith no machinery - only hand toold and wisdom. the horses prance with a high step and cowboys with their traditional hads adorn them with silver saddles and ribbons of lrather. the child pauses to reat near me when i am negotiating a rattan furniture purchase and i ask to shoulder his load...i cannot even lift it. concrete? well over 100 pounds and he only 8 maybe 7-....

coming home from the mural project at the end of day...sometimes i work late and it is dark and sillloutes on the road side are peasants carrying loads of wood on their heads...they have stripped the forest to nothing ut grass within four hours of towm so they muyst use their day walking for wood and returnng at nigth....creating more distance to travel for tomorrow....

it will all be gone is ten years,,,,maybe less. then what? many babies, exhausted soil and no more wood....

the mural is pulsating with life and character. can´t believe i executed this! Brigetthe...my friends, clinic director and most beautiful woman in the world is also an artist and i have forfeited my ownership of the ribbon ovf water and let her paint it but it pains me and i wish i could do it all my self..-...but i would never have gotten it done...so little compromises but overall it is glorious...
today we may finish....sky, middle ground of an oxen, rainforest and a ditant farm....little details and i may have to say goodbye to it.

letting go of art is like sending a child off to college,....the child comes back tho...the art is gone forever. the creative process creates more ownership and it does not have it´s own life path to take...but the possessiveness is similar...strange....
with joy...i close and today we pack up the rest of the water filters for the villagers. we´ve decided to give them to the schools and we´ll see what happens to the rest. like the problem created with sending clothes to africa....who get and who doesn´t. the injectin of the clother(water filter9 CREATES AN ARTIFICIAL IMBALANCE IN THE COMMUNITY. GOOD INTENTION MESSING UP AGAIN....

BRIGETTHE AND I HAVE A SUCH WOMDERFUL COMPANY ---TOGETHER WE ARE AT EASE AND THO WE´VE BEEN SHOULER TO SHOULDER FOR A WEEK....IT IS JUST SO RIGHT....LOVE HER...

matagalpa love

Gotta mean something wonderful to walk out of your hotel room and have a 7" moth floundering on the floor and when you scoop it up and take it out to the garden it flutters away. good omen!

i am awaiting my morning coffee delivered in delicate china with warm thick milk and tiny spoons by gracious staff. the service is getting addictive....hotel living when you are about the only guest with views, gardens and moutain aire....too good.
I needed to report on the Granada twins - children of cousins so sadly born blind. i met them on their morning stroll in the plaza with their nurse. one is a prominant psychologist and the other - the nations most famous pianist - performing on internatonal stages....ah nicaragua.

also in granada i neeed to report on the night of screaming from 1800 when the indigeneous people in agony and frustration over the spanish assault and brutality gathered in front of the church and collectively screamed.....need to research this..what a way for the powerless to be HEARD. also the indigeneous quit reproducing to be sure that their babies were not victims and the population dropped to 10 or less percent of the original sixe through that kind of passive agression...

also needed to report that lovely young women are apparently guests at the finest hotels taking tricks...because in the non economy 70% unemployment - that is the only way to fund their university education.

but on the the immediate story of tçyesterday...i am in the mountains of matagalpa this week -having left granada with Franciaco the director of new projects for that multi national corp....name excpes me at the moment.

Here in matagalpa the air is mountan fresh and the rainforest home to trees 10 feet wide of mahogany, fig etc...

the coffee grown here sparkles in the sunlight under a canopy of bannana ...shade grown coffee still requires the destruction of the rain forest. altho with francisco perhaps my great idea ' to give more ¨certified points¨to growers who protect some percentage of their wilderness and more points in the acreage they protect links up with an adjoinging farmers´protected land....see i can make a national impact...third world is managable..

violance against the rigged election is continuing but not here. mario, genie, francisco and all other friends here chaffe under the sandinista control.-..corrupt, ineffectual and thank god the nic people are so resource full and good to eachother... the biggest victim may be corporations who are blackmailed to even stay in business and profit...well ' that´s another story.

so - the mural is glorious. who would have thought i could do this. i paint from a tall ladder climb down to get a visa perspective on the work and wonder who in the heck painted that ? it is so good and the mountain people come in to watch ' fan me with card board and it is really very satisfyintg.

the mountain people grow beans corn squash cabbage and other lovely veggies and NEVER eat it. they do not know how to use these things. the children have a diet (after nursing one year) of ONLY beans rice and coffee. the reslt is dull minds, listlessness, but the huge eyes and gentle manner is so endearing....brigetthe the director of the clinic is going to start teaching them how to cook and eat the veggies tehy grow...it will be like us learing to eat beetles in aftica....totally culturally foreign

there are also many flower growers in these hills and at the roadside stands,,,,i bought a dozen red roses,. four bundles of exotic and glorius flowers 0 six bunches in all plñuis a huge bundle of sword fern for only five dollars. brigetthe,s car was full of flowers we looked like a car going to a funeral but for our incessent laughter and joy

my spots fro the no see um bugs from granada are all over my torso. the nurses at the clinic where i am painting the mural are caring from me like one of the babies....
´

wine and dreams off my terrace last night with mario and genie and their two kids. the out to dinner at a downtown matagalpa spot = everything looks like it is ready to collapse but we went upstairs on the balcony and had organic beef layed on in slaps on a 5 foot long wood platter organic meat as the cows just eat grass in the hills. the roasted meat surrounded by the sweetest onions and chiles you have ever eated....pico de gallo, salsas, limes, cheese as only nic can make it,. tortilla, ,,minty sauses like pesto texture and i ate enought for six people....traditional nic food....cowboy food...back to genie and marios house for the evening . mario is the old nic family deposed with the first sandinista wave and now back to their coffee operation --esperanza coffee...check it out on the web. cowboys on horseback with their 10 gallon hats all through town on the little cobbled streets.

so off we go now back to the clinic - hoping to nearly finish today.....well maybe on monday....

we need to drive a truck down here for use by the clinic. you or any of your friends want that assignment¨¿´

how i love this place. it is so like africa....but closer. same lovely people. same joy amid poverty...same latitude on the globe.....same love....same music to eniven the soul..

loving every minute here meeting with diplomatic sources tonight on social and environmental issues,.

love you both so much. hope you are happy and i think and talk about you every day

much love

matagalpa

when you are on the road it so hard to imagine ever again getting used to normal domestic life. there is no common ground between nicaragua and coming home to complaining about an appointment i´d tather not keep or traffic in downtown auburn or laundry that cries to be folded. HELLO? In the meantime here in nic. a woman nine months pregnant is being kicked by her husband like a downedhorse because the 100 pound sack of coffee beans she was carrying down a So amid houses of sticks - not logs, not boards but literally little sticks ' i work in a clinic where the wall iscarefullly prepared for my work and the mural looks fantastic - huge and so fun to work BIG!! while i hear the chopping like a thousand woodpeckers as the rain forest falls and dozens of 13 and 14 year old mamas sweetly bring their babies in for check up or colds and share with me in my broken spanish that the father is 24, 28 .....criminals i say and they smile....fathers raped as children and raping as adults....boys and girls.. nightmare amid vistas too glorious to describe. tho the woman in the tny house of sticks not 6 feet by six feet and hardly roofed....sharing the house with her 4 baby girls. offered a fine, block, secure, wind proof house by the clinic if she will just have her tubes tied....but she declines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!impregnant me again?? squeeze another child into this world, into your matchbox sized space?

But the mural is alive!
we travel together up roads too miserable to describe and all the worse forthe killer rains of the past month.

i am so absolutely joyful.....we are doing what we can do.. passed out one of my water filters to a tiny school today. 30 chldren working with one teacher in a 8x10 foot space on the edge of a dusty path with no electricity and only recently a latrine.

my filter for clean water? uuuuuHHHH NO CUPS! how could i have been so oblivious? they drink like little doe eyed deer from the filthy streams...running with pesticides, sewage and trash...but the jungle -what remains - is a true wonder of sound, shadow and color.....

bless this place. it calls to me.

matagalpa

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Flag this messagegranada and matagalpaWednesday, November 12, 2008 5:17 PM
From: "Leslie Warren" Add sender to Contacts To: leslie@wizwire.comif i were in a theatre film. i would have watched the character leslie with wonder and awe today. another miracle. after goodbyes to my family and sweet valeska i flagged down a taxi a few blocks from the house and in perfect spanish directed him to the house where we loaded up all art supplies etç and after several stops to visit friends, drop off his son at the universidad etc i made my way to the escuela and marlo and commenced the trip to managua al the while playing with words both enlish and panish with marlo and enjoying exploding volcanoes, trotting ponies and lago vistas. in a snazzy office franciwsco escorted me through his vast staff and expalined the work of his muti national corporation which is a major player in the vçcoffee market in nic. we hit it off immediately and i found the ride to matagalpa wityh him so rich with insightful conversation and philosophical talk that i was mesmerized by this man.we stopped at vbefverly´s house to caravan to factory where filters are made and fired with the ancient and exquisirte exotic woods at juyst çthe right temp to be impervious to the myriad of toxic and bacterial threats in teh water supply. the work is done by hand with a press that is a converted bycycle pump. this is the model for filters distribed to gutat, india africa and asia. ron was killed setting up the program in nigeria. beverly is lovely and bound to be a new friewnd promising to heop me set up house in nic and with her daughters wedding coming in december ' another good reason to come fro the closin. with the truck filled with filters, my art supplies, treasures etc we head up to the matagalpa hills with stops for fruit, lunch and vistas. the forests are disappearing and wood producat and scavengers are everywhere. little delicate ponies grazing and huge oxen pulling carts. this place is a fantasy of thired world. the issue of being so eçimpoverished rçneglects to register the gbatrer economy and the tendency of people to take good care of one another. francisco and i explore so many intelllectual arenas ....i am enhanted with his mind. mario is at the mill protected by gun toting guards. we forfeit our passports and get admission and settle in to lovely coffee sipping at the mill and sharing of opportunities thru francisco and the international project development team he leads to bring the farmers out of poverty,,.,,while i learn the complexitie of markets and politics and manipulation of markets . expenanza coffee is small but 700 growers would be affected tçby the irrigation programs, paradym shifting educatio programs that help farmers see beyone the way they are bareley subwsisted for generatons to understanding the world market.,..it is t¡çlike taking my vw van to eçthe moon but mariona dn francisco think it is possible. we need to identify >ç$300 millon dollars in funding and i am given contacts internationally to raise the funds. francisco´s program will matech çdollar for dollar. mario is the character i fondly remember and the stories he tells of ortega, vote buying by forgiving thousands of mortgages, giving beow market loans for investment çna dlater caling in debt through voting is really frightning. makes you see how dangerous competing with him for loyalty might be we leave mari and continue uip to matagalpa town...rugged, ponies and carts, palms and mahonçgany, parrotson the road side, captured, wings clipped nad painted bright colours to sell off sticks on the gighway tragic...st the market in masaya yesterday >8before the salsa class) so manty animals stuffed into awful poses.....masaya market with john so delightful! traveling with a kid my son´s age a blast and he the inventor of ninjatravel and a gillionaire.... beer and lunch at the villa on the mountain top and my room a sunny delght overlooking the city cradled in many mountains. down into town to meet with terry.<<< who runs an ngo funded by swiss and swedish non profits and offers women refuge, families clean water filters like those in my truck . they will come to matagalpa with me and help train villagers how to use these ceramic life savers >(210.00 and i wil contribute to reduction in infant suffering and mortality> for 12 families and 5 villages...) good bye to francisco ' he will be my host for dinner on nov 18 beore i fly out of managua. i buy sizzilling toasted corn on the cob from a corner vender using charcoal from the forest and a pot lid to fan it. conversation with local boys and hike u pthe near vertical calle on cobbles to my villa for rum and relaxation of my terrace. the sun goes down behind volacnoes and billiowing clows and warms a little city in the hills. tomorrow i begin my mural and brigetthe will meet me here at 7 AM. spectacular and the film theater goes dark till the am. off to finally shower and relish the joy that is my life

ग्रानाडा goodby

last day in the colonial village ' from bus and shop windows i see and visit with friends local and international. it does not take long to find a sense of home here. many folks tell stories of coming staying and never regretting what is left behind. my day on tuesday so indicative of why it is best for me to be a solo traveler

up at 5.

meeting with realator at 7 to reinspect houses

negotiation and offer to spanish owner

off to school

three hours of study

school outing to cigar making shop ' we have our smokes and enter world of senses not previously known

carla and i split off to go to san francisco church and museum. man cleaning floor speaks four languages dutch eng span and german. he takes us underground to see indian shaman burried under chuirch. catholics routinely built their churches on top of native grave sites

museum with treasures dating back to 1300 b.c. wonderful womb urns and stone carvings reminiscent of easter islan but more detailed and magical...these unearthed on the island in lake nicaragua. must study this culture

as i twrite the heat is sescending adn the sweat sets in!!!!!!!!!! i am a wash rag wet gal most of the time....getting used toit tho

from muuseum to beer stop and meeting with hotel alhambra chief re litter issue and employment. folks that are poor litter because it gives them a sense of being äbove someone .... as street cleaners pick up after them...i can understand this.

meeting with contractor, family realtor and real estate manager to discuss dillema in my family, cancer,,,poverty.,...valeska...renovationof their casa or not. we decide it best if i buy a small place and they enjoy part of the profit of the rental income for watching voer the casa and etc. if i hafve a 300 per month profit ' they will get it. ihope to give them an income stream of at least $300 extra

John and i pick up bus to masaya. 30 minute trip and shopping spree for me amid smells and sights that thrill...i will NEVER tire of markets! so alive. there is really not aloternataive....and it is the heart of the community. how completely free nic is from the mall...it is 1850 still alive and will be forever

back at 4Ñ00 and deal approved'acceptecd for house! contract signed. meetings with manatger - helen who is bound to be a new friend here.

meet with attorney ' power ov attorney executed....sign all papters translating from spanish!

joff to my schuela for dance lessons in salsa, maragne...goodbyes from co students ' landonm felix and christa and johm

wlk home with my packing carton and stop at cafe to buy torte for goodby party at home. meet dave ' miami boy ' living in costa rica until last year....preppy what is this guy´s story? i have gelato ' he dinner and i learn he is looking for a year long lease on a place in granada .....destiny????????? perfect!


we agree if one does not jump at opportunity life will pass youbuy.

antiqua is Çcooked¨ toast
guatamala perople hard

more later must catch taxi to man

ग्रानाडा 4

never having stayed in one place overseas for so long....it is just so hard to stop and relate the layers of experience as one develops a depth of knowledge of a place....the mrechants tht say hello with my name, the routes that i select becasue the architecture and tranquility is preferred and especial. that my thinking is a bit in spanish...that i can communitcate with my professor, hop the bus to rural locals, travel the streets at night with comfort and security....that i have friendships and share intimacies with nicaraguans....that i am deeply involved in the outcome of today´s election and see the many ways that our government impacts the life of the people here.

sitting at hotel alhambra overlooking the plaza and the horse carriages a chance meeting with Gioconda and kyle....leaning ' historical excursion through town with architectural students at 6 AM till noon, meetings with leading families in the cmmunity to discuss the trash problem and the hunger problem and views on remedies,...rendezvous with Giaconda in the evening and tea in the calle...

masaya, the laguna, my family and our laughter and pleasures. how they spoil me with surprises and how i am working to address their economic travails....just such a rich integrated experience.

Carla my teacher and i empty a whole bottle of wine during a post class class, and the evening fabric of the town is so rich....geckos on the walls here and pleasures of being so free.

shopping from the artisans in the plaza ' my favorite an argentinean girl flashing eyes and curles of black making her way around the world selling her jewelry ' so unique creating art from string and full of visions of magical islands and unstoppable...

a lesson in real estate today....homes here selling for 50% less than a year ago.,...and if ortega.s cronies win tonight more losses for all expected,. he is shutting down exemplary organizations OXFAM and i wonder if my my rendezwouswith Beverly, javier and fernando will even come to pass on wednesday...

no anxiety...just wonderment....and pleasure in this moment this day.

ग्रानाडा 2

granada
granada

the plane from huston was brim full. seemingly all enroute to nic for the same purpose and all of it good. Many doctors from the Doctor without borders program and my seat mates' working on life sklls )atlanta gang and the others amazingly importing firetrucks which they plan to drive to the border with honduras!

my little aspirations seemed small ' but what is it about this place that draws folks back again and again to chip away at problems that only grow from day to day_

Babies are everywhere and seemingly too poor to afford the uniforms necessary to get into school. So they play in the narrow streets and dodge the scrawney ponies that pull carts. they outnumber the cars and are ever so charming ' but for the tragedy of the skinny little ponies. the carts have wooden wheels and no tires...frames joined with pegs. it is really quite primitive.

my home here is with three generations of women. pastel on the outside. flat faced on a curb that is at least five feet high. stair from the street help you reach the door...like the little stone steps over the hedge walls in england. i think the lake down the road floods and that is why this town is built on high heels.

my school is very organized and the professors ' as they young teachers call themselves ' are only spanish speakers. it is sink or swim. I am game for this and am finding that my grasp of spanish is not so bleak...

the market is the usual wonder of people and smells ' set in a moldy victorian era arcade. architecture here is a bit of new orleans and antigua-old mexico combined in a very. very moldy and very naturalle stew.

little families in their costumes play on the corners with chldren on acordians and guitars.


It is wet muggy and a beer sounds so delicious. draft 11/6/08 by On Adventure's Trail with Leslie Delete
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granada

day of wonders.

thunder to shake the world. thunderheads like marching giants siluhetted against the volcano. school clan in good humor and such progress! Carla my professor is endlessly patient. massage after musicl chairs at the school and claudia my massus is a wonder with massage amid art and a german yoga teacher transplanted to Managua and many insights into the arts community here. the art in ceramic and textiles so tempting. with 70 percent unemployed and many of them invisible so hard to spend on luxuries and arty impulses. nearly arrested a gent whipping his tiny pony with over 20000 pounds of rice in a cart behind. the merchant in the cane backed chair across the path commiserating and pantomimeing throwing hand cuffs on the wretch. his eyes are all aglaze....can-t be normal and put such a delicate cavallo to such a test. my heart aches for these scrawney ponies.

cab and pate at the lovely lovely hotel on the cathedrañ square. so many wow inspiring inns ' gardens and carved beams and uniformed staff so elegantly attentive. i sit and contemplate cigars while horse carts trip to and fro...

music in the cathedral by a vocalist to rival carerras...with guitar, acordian and rattles....my heart fill with tears and the devoted offer their homage too....we meet at 3 for a boat tour of the isletas ' tiny jewels off shore from granada on the endless lago....so abused. we reach the boats via one of the horse carts right out of the trolly fairy tales. our driver ' not the demon i presumed as he shares the history of this little city. segregaton of indigenous from espaniol, walker and teh torching of the churches.,...the tunnels that run below groung to connect churches and offer sanctuary of the locals from that american napolean of years past. trash and trees girdled. people do not understand what is at risk as they are scraping thru the trash for survival.

mansions, monkeys and rockwork to awe on little island jungles.

carla and i meet at the grandest of all the hotels and order cab to ease our last two hours of study. we just converse and one sentence leads to a lesson or new area to discover. sociological, political personal....we cover it all and learn thru it.

home late and my little family is concerned. they are puttng their home up for sale because their little shop of convenience foods is failing. not owning a dime on this sweet place ----little veronica´s college reserve- in spanish we explore what it will take for them to hold the place. convert it into a duplex and rent our the half that i now enjoy.....$250! that is it! can i do anything but ofer my help to fund the necessary bano they need>

how is it that this always happens----

joyful independent free spirited and vividly alive...huge rainstorm, fresh air today and body wonderfully worked by claudia. i´ll be back monday for another massage and somehow pack these miraculous treasures for the trip north...çç

walk in the night and i wisk thru alleys with a sence of knowing this little place like my own in just a few days. travel feeds life...

granada

granada

the plane from huston was brim full. seemingly all enroute to nic for the same purpose and all of it good. Many doctors from the Doctor without borders program and my seat mates' working on life sklls )atlanta gang and the others amazingly importing firetrucks which they plan to drive to the border with honduras!

my little aspirations seemed small ' but what is it about this place that draws folks back again and again to chip away at problems that only grow from day to day_

Babies are everywhere and seemingly too poor to afford the uniforms necessary to get into school. So they play in the narrow streets and dodge the scrawney ponies that pull carts. they outnumber the cars and are ever so charming ' but for the tragedy of the skinny little ponies. the carts have wooden wheels and no tires...frames joined with pegs. it is really quite primitive.

my home here is with three generations of women. pastel on the outside. flat faced on a curb that is at least five feet high. stair from the street help you reach the door...like the little stone steps over the hedge walls in england. i think the lake down the road floods and that is why this town is built on high heels.

my school is very organized and the professors ' as they young teachers call themselves ' are only spanish speakers. it is sink or swim. I am game for this and am finding that my grasp of spanish is not so bleak...

the market is the usual wonder of people and smells ' set in a moldy victorian era arcade. architecture here is a bit of new orleans and antigua-old mexico combined in a very. very moldy and very naturalle stew.

little families in their costumes play on the corners with chldren on acordians and guitars.


It is wet muggy and a beer sounds so delicious.

granada

oh my gosh! sitting out fron of my little home with ! the truck blasts me with a white cloud of toxic smelling mosquito spray! the whole street the whole house is flooded with this toxic gcloud ' we choke and i am stunned, whipped up in a subdued fuss! i am going to get cancer as are all the other innocent folk blasted with this toxic mass...........give me maleria but hold the poison!

my nose is still all a flutter
enough panic. things are really desparate in nic. and ortega is as bad as our friends at
here in granada ...but for the spray which may be an ortega conspiracy to rid the country of reactionaries like me,,, all seems peaceful ..tho many are hungry.

rice and beans. and my beer. simple. and the water is cold in the shower but the humidity is so high that i would opt for cold even if warm were available!

i am roughing it. making my flash cards and becoming moment by moment part of this family and part of the communtiy ...in my own mind at least. this is like going thru the magic wardrobe in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.....but Narnia is narley!

On Adventure's Trail #1

Hello friends through the cyber world filter:

Dears - As tomorrow is election day and i will have a phone glued to my ear most of the day getting out the vote at the demo headquarters and celebrating thru the night - i am writing tonight to test my new "blog" and let you know that it is here for you to see if ever you wish. I jet out in the wee hours of Wed. to Managua, Nicaragua.

Of course, there a few jitters about the journey before me - so - this is my safety net. in the event i am somehow swallowed up in the Nicaraguan rain forest - you can follow my trail through these notes.

I will be in Granada at language school from the 6th to the 12th. On the 12th I will meet folks from Potters for Peace, Esperanza Coffee Company and Global Reach in Managua - (about 100K from Granada) and with a truck full of water filters, art supplies and energy - head on up to Matagalpa, the med clinic and the villagers it serves.

From the 12th thru the 18th - I'll be painting the mural, distributing water filters and negotiating - designing(?) a program to support the needs of subsistence farmers.

Join me! Keep me company! Keep me in your thoughts!

I'll be on the road home on the 19th.

So - when you finally get to let go of the image we have tenderly been holiding - of President Obama - because it is finally a reality! - and you have space in your visualization library - do put me in it and keep me in your veil of care; because it's been a long time since I've hit the road to somewhere so remote and exotic - all on my own. The freedom is exhilarating - but the world seems very large too...