The Little Things In Life

(sorry about the lack of pictures peeps as we're still without internet but here's a quick take on life in Nica)

The Little Things In Life

Funny how it takes a third world country to help you appreciate the little things in life.

So when you think times are tough, take the time to appreciate it when you go to have a shower or use the kitchen sink and can choose between cold and hot water, instead of  cold being the only option.  

(Actually I'm adding this one for the benefit of those who couldn't imagine life without hot water but given the lovely warm weather and as we've done it before it really doesn't seem like too much of an inconvenience any more.)

Or for that matter when you turn on the tap on, appreciate it when water actually comes out and it’s not a game of ‘wait and see’.   (This one isn't much fun!   Although one plans ahead and has lots of containers full of water set aside for such contingencies so showers under a bottle are often the go.)

When you go to bed at night, appreciate that you don’t have to share your bedroom with three resident bats.

When you turn on your computer, appreciate that you have the internet and when your computer shows that you’re connected to the internet really appreciate it when it also has the ability to load web pages and send and receive emails – this seems not to be a given in all places J

When you hear a dog bark at night, appreciate that there’s only one of them and not thirty and when it stops barking – really appreciate that it doesn’t carry on all night.

When you get on a bus; appreciate that you will likely have a seat or at least you will have breathing space.

When you use the toilet; appreciate that you can put your toilet paper in the toilet and when you flush, everything disappears never to be seen again.

It must also be said though that living in a third world country has its benefits – where, for instance, in a first world country can you run out of gas, make a call and ten minutes later have a gentleman turn up on a bicycle and for $8 have your empty bottle replaced with a nice full one?

Where in a first world country could you cart building materials, domestic animals or your latest harvest on the bus with you for no extra charge and with hardly a second look from your fellow passengers?

And I certainly haven’t come across a rum that sells for around $5 or less a litre in my home neighbourhood or a place where I could buy a corona for a dollar.

And I haven’t begun to mention the delicious local organic fruits such as ten perfectly ripe mangoes for twenty cents or a papaya the size of a giant marrow for about 60 cents.

So as with many things in life it's swings and roundabouts but I have to say that I'll enjoy being back on the internet at home from next week.  Being able to sit in the comfort of where we're staying, taking my time to write a blog and add images, instead of hurriedly sitting by the side of the road with my lap top on my knee trying to sending off a quick update - now that I will appreciate!.  ;)

Monkey at the Meeting

Nicaragua So Far

Well we've only been here for a month or so but we've squeezed a lot into our time and it feels like we've been here for ages.  I feel like I've had my throat cut not having the internet for the past couple of weeks apart from the odd time that I pop in and hijack our friend's wireless (thanks Pete & Hayley) - amazing how little I actually know and how much I rely on Google to provide me with the answers to my endless questions at just a few taps on a keyboard!  Scary!

When we first moved to the house where we're staying (about a 20 min walk out of town) the walk was a bit of a novelty and didn't seem that far but when we seem to go back and forth two or three times a day it just doesn't seem quite as much fun.  So I've decided that I need a bicycle at the earliest opportunity.  I haven't ridden a bike in a while so stay posted for the adventure that that will be.

I love the way the guys in Nicaragua ride around with their wives or girlfriends (or sometimes their whole family) balanced on the bar of their bike or occasionally on the handlebars.  I hope Porl is up tot the challenge and that his balance is better than mine (not hard) ;)  When we went to Rivas the other day (a bigger town about 40 mins drive away) I went looking for a bike but have since found out that we unfortunately just happened to go during the owner's 2 hour lunch break.

We had a little adventure the other day with a baby monkey.  One of our neighbours had  rescued this cute wee monkey that had (open quotes) fallen out of a tree (close quotes) but was finding it quite expensive to feed and wanted to sell it.  I was very tempted but decided it'd be like having a baby so probably not something I could take on right now.  Anyway a lady in town, an American who arrived here on a sailboat about 10 years ago and never left attends our meetings and is studying the Bible with one of the young sisters in the congregation.  She is quite eccentric and has a big monkey that she's owned for a number of years.  She makes her living by taking it down to the malecón (promenade) when the cruise ships come in and letting people have their photo taken with the monkey for a donation.  Anyway, she decided that her monkey would make a good mother for the baby and she wanted to buy it.  She doesn't speak Spanish so she asked us to go along with her and translate for her which we did.  She ended up buying this cute little baby for $US45 (although I'm sure it'll soon earn that back) and her name is Suraya.  On the way back we stopped at the pharmacy and got her some formula and a baby bottle - meanwhile she managed to wee and poo all over me, charming! (But cute enough to forgive.)

Because Suraya is so little, Beverley or BJ as she likes to be called has her with her all the time tied to her and takes her everywhere.  And I do mean everywhere lol.   It's not every day that you get to see a monkey at the meeting!  I don't think there's been any bonding between the big monkey, Cindy Lauper and Suraya but she has survived so far at least :)

I've been having a lovely couple of weeks in the ministry.  I have a Bible study with a lovely young mum called Yorlenis who has a cute little 7 year old daughter called Franchesca who also wanted her own study.  We have had three studies now and her cousin Orlando has joined us for the second and third study which they both seem to be really enjoying.  I love spending time with the kids because they're not too shy to correct me when I make mistakes in Spanish and I can always pick up some useful phrases from them too.  Franchesca is sooo cute she comes with me every Sunday to the Spanish meeting and is trying to build up the courage to answer.

Speaking of meetings the boys have been really busy at the meetings, Porl is taking the Watchtower and Chase and Kieran are helping with the mikes, the reading and the sound which has been great!

Upsie, internet time is up, gotta run, sorry peeps - chau for now!!!

Hot weather and no internet

Hot Weather & No Internet

Well this is week two without the internet.  Tonight we've popped into our friends Pete & Hayley's place as they're kindly letting us download our emails and post a quick blog.

It's not until you don't have the internet that you realize how much you use it.  But anyway here we are with a quick update.

It's very hot, we've had a few scorchers in a row here so, I didn't think I'd ever say this but we're actually appreciating the 7.30am groups.  

Sunday after the meeting we headed to the beach for a little party for the kids so we all had a nice cool down in the ocean and had fun with some ball games.

It was all fun and games until Chase kicked a buried rock and lifted his whole toenail off - eeweth.

Well it's taken half and hour to upload those three photos and it's getting late so I'm going to have to keep it short and sweet tonight (hmmm maybe not quite so sweet, looking at that toe) but on a totally unrelated topic I thought I'd share this kewl photo of new technology meets tradition :)  Cell phones and oxen - nice :)

Hasta la vista, amigos :)

Moving house & Ziplining

MOVING HOUSE & ZIP-LINING

Hi all, 

Here we are with our new roomies, Joe & Lisa.  We've actually left their lovely abode now but it was great for the 5 days that we were there.  Thanks for having us guys!

Ah well someone has to do it.  This is the pool in the complex and it 's straight across the road from the beach, pretty sweet!

Sorry that there haven't been so many updates lately, we have moved house and we are now living a little way out of town.  This has its benefits, one being that in 2 weeks time Semana Santa (Holy Week) begins, apparently 4,000 extra people turn up in the town centre and everything goes crazy, so it'll be good not to be right in the centre of all that.  

The downside is it's a bit further into town, not too bad, about a 20 minute walk but when the group is at 7.30 am (yes you read right, 7.30am!!!) that makes it a little harder.  They are obviously morning people here but although I'm not it does seem to be working out ok, it's so hot that it's nice to get started early before things heat up too much.

The other downside is that we don't have internet so it's not so easy to keep in touch.  But next month we should have it set up at the actual apartment that we're going to rent so that'll be good.  Then I should also be able to organize some online teaching too which'll help with topping up the coffers.

As planned we headed off for our zip-lining adventure on Sunday and it was awesome, it was with a company called ‘Da Flying Frog’ – there are 17 zip-lines covering about 2.5 kilometres through the treetops of the forest canopy.  We got picked up in town .....

I would really recommend the company, there were about 13 of us and there were 5 guides.  The equipment was heavy duty and the guides were safety conscious and very professional.  The cost was $US30 and included pickup and drop off.

You could get some good speed up on some of the ziplines and we saw quite a few monkeys in the trees as we whizzed by which was awesome. 

I also got to see a sloth sleeping in one of the tree tops which was the highlight of the day for me.  If you didn’t know it was there you would have missed it but as I’d been asking the guides if there was any chance of seeing one when we arrived at one of the platforms they pulled me back up the line to hover over a tree where they knew one was and we hung just a few of metres above it  so I could get a good look.  It was all arms and legs dangling all over the place, such a groovy creature.  I had sent the camera ahead with Kieran so wasn’t able to take a picture.

It was Chase’s dream to see a sloth while we’re here in Nicaragua so he was one happy chappy when the guides took him and a few of the others back to see it too.  He got a shot with his telephone, it’s pretty hard to make out but here it is.  Although it blended in with the trees and was wrapped all around the branches you could see its cute little face and long gangling limbs.

And that was zip-lining!

Teaching English & Stolen Phones

The days just seem to be blurring one into the other lately but here's a wee a catch up .....

..... seeing as the English group is part of the San Juan Spanish Congregation the brothers thought that some of the Spanish speakers might also like to learn or improve their English and join us sometimes for the English preaching.

At the moment we do about half and half.  Some days we join with the Spanish congregation and preach in Spanish and other days we preach in English.

We thought half a dozen or so in the congregation might be keen to learn English and the brothers asked me if I'd be happy to help teach.  I love to teach so I was keen.  When the night came for the first lesson we were amazed and so pleased to have about thirty Spanish speakers turn up for the lessons.  Along with the English speakers who came to help with the practice parts of the lesson we were about forty and it was awesome fun!

I think another young sister from the States and I are going to take turn about each week preparing and teaching the lesson so it should be fun.

The brothers and sisters were so lovely, they are all at different levels but most couldn't say more than hello but they all tried so hard and seemed to really enjoy themselves.  I tried to keep the class nice and lively so there was lots of moving around and practicing.  It was great fun and I'm looking forward to the next class.

On Saturday Porl and I joined the Spanish group and had a lovely morning witnessing locally.  

I learnt all about the Tamarind Tree which has these groovy looking pods.

They dry out and fall off the tree so can be picked up off the ground.  Just make sure that you find pods that have no holes in them, then you just crack the shell and inside are seeds covered with this delicious sticky tamarind paste - they're very moorish, kind of like a citrusy toffee or sweet sticky dried apricots.  Yummy!

We have our English meeting on Saturday afternoon and Porl gave the talk this week that went very well.  A group of us headed to 'The Black Whale' for dinner and we had a great night, I took on the giant burger and won and even got to play pool which was great.  The evening unfortunately ended with me finding out that my phone had been stolen :(  which is a shame as I had been able to use it a lot to take photos without being too obvious but ah well, it's just a thing, no lives or limbs were lost.

The next day I went to the Spanish meeting too because during the week I'd met a lovely little girl called Franchesca whose Mum is studying the Bible and they asked me if Franchesca could come with me to the meeting.  So I walked up and collected her from her house at 10 am, her Mum said that she'd been ready since 6am lol.  She also wants to have her own little Bible study each week so I gave her a Bible Story book and I'm going to visit her on Wednesday's after school so that we can study the book.  She seemed to really enjoy the meeting and the brothers and sisters were very welcoming, she also spotted a little boy who attends her school but she was too shy to say hello :)

Yesterday, Sunday was our last night with Joey and Lisa so we took them out to dinner at Colibri.  It's a lovely little restaurant and the meals were excellent, we had a bit of a splurge and I had a fillet steak done in a vodka cream sauce.  ¡Qué rico!

Today we're moving to Mel's, the brother who has kindly offered us his house while he's in the States for three weeks, and then this arvo we're going zip-lining on a tree-canopy tour so hopefully we'll spot some monkeys and Chase's dream will come true of seeing a sloth!

We'll let you know how we go, watch this space!

Time to settle down ....

RIVAS AND SAN JUAN DEL SUR

Ok, so you may be thinking it looks like there's lots of adventures and touristy activity but how about some preaching?

Well never fear we are getting our fair share of that too.

Every Tuesday and Friday everyone in the English group heads over to Rivas (a town about 45 mins away) and as this is a new group there are some maps that have been made but a lot of the work is still canvassing.  Seeing who in the territory speaks English and if they have a Bible interest.

We pack as many people as possible into the two available cars.  Porl found it quite a challenge to get out of the car when we arrived.  The group really needs another vehicle, we didn't budget to get a car or to run one but once we're in our own place we're going to see if there's any way we can help.

We had a funny experience, Lisa and I were just waiting on the street, between doors, waiting for Chase and Blake when a gentleman walked by.  I greeted him and he returned the greeting and kept walking.  But when he got a little way along the road he turned back and asked us what we were doing.  We explained that we were witnesses and that we were part of the English group so we were looking for English speakers today.  

He went on to tell us that he loves the Bible and learning from it but he also loves English so he asked if there was any way he could combine the both.  Of course we let him know that we offer free home Bible studies and if his English was good enough he could study in English.  He was keen so we arranged to visit him at his home later that day.  I took Porl back with me and it was sooo random lol.  The man, whose name is Alfredo, sat us down and when we showed him the 'What does the Bible Teach?' book he asked if Porl could read it in English and I could read it in Spanish which we proceeded to do.  But as soon as we started reading he brought out this little recorder and recorded us both, lol.  He said he wants to listen to it over and over again so that he can get really good at English and then he can help preach the good news.  Cute!  I think he's in about his seventies so if he's serious we're going to have an elderly Nicaraguan preaching the good news with a broad kiwi accent jeje.

This park is in the town centre of Rivas.

...   and a church across the road from the park.  A beautiful building falling into disrepair.

The next day we were back in San Juan preaching up and down some of the hills which gave us some lovely glimpses over the bay.

The bougainvillea putting on a lovely show in San Juan.

 

Kieran with some young bro's witnessing in San Juan.

Then it was Friday and back to Rivas.

It was another cosy ride, with Candace, Blaze, Emma, Blake and Kyle in the back of Pete and Hayley's 4WD and another 7 of us on the other seats.

Here are our new roomies.  As we have a gap between now and when the house we've found is available for us to move into Joe and Lisa and their son Blane have kindly taken us in for a few days.  We're having a great time with them, they're awesome company and great fun to be with.

Kieran & Jovany hanging with Blane as they re-live their childhood

Here's some of the crew from Friday's witnessing trip to Rivas.

The Ranch Skate Park & Playa Yankee

Having missed out on a surf on Friday and Saturday being far to busy to fit one in (we had witnessing then a meeting re teaching English to anyone interested from the Spanish congregation and then our meeting) the boys were keen to head to the beach on Sunday.

Alas, this was not to be the case, we woke up to gale force winds ripping around the town which would be no good for the surf :(   So instead we decided to head to 'The Ranch' just out of town, Porl had read about it and it was meant to have a skate park open to the public so we rang them and they said they'd be there to pick us up in half an hour.  The pick up was free but they said we'd need to take a taxi home that would be about C100 for the four of us ($NZ5 approx) - it sounded like a deal so we headed off to check it out.

The boys were stoked, it does indeed have a great skate park there, entry is free and if you but a drink or something to eat at the resort you can also use the pool.  We met the owner, a young guy from Canada who seemed very friendly and said to come and use the park whenever.

Porl showed that he's still got it going on .....

Giovani had a couple of nice tricks up his sleeve ...

... as did one of the young locals

Kieran quickly found his way around the park ....

And although it was still very windy and rather overcast the boys finished off with a swim in the pool.

When we were ready to go home the owner kindly arranged for his driver to take us back to town, he was going to pick some guests up so when he dropped us off he told us we didn't owe him anything which was a nice bonus to end the afternoon.

The next afternoon Pete & Hayley kindly invited us to Yankee Beach with them ....

so the nine of us all piled in their 4wd and off we went.

Those mountains you can see in the background are Costa Rica.

The landscape near the beach was a kewl combination of cacti and frangipani.

And some neat looking dried out trees.

The waves weren't big but the boys still had fun ....

The girls made the most of the sun, here's lovely Vinita and Hayley.

And the it was goodbye Playa Yankee.