En casa

(My room in El Porvenir. My dog, la Pirata, on vacation.)

Back in El Porvenir I was talking with one of the teenagers who was an english student of mine back in the day, and somehow I wound up telling him that my ¨jaña¨ (girlfriend) is buddhist. To my surprise, he knew exactly what that meant and then went on to tell me about other religions that fascinated him. He learned this from a book his brother gave to him, and right before I left, he shows up with book in hand. I´m guessing he doesn´t have many books, and there he was with a huge smile on his face eagerly handing over the book. Honestly I was thinking about how much I wanted to read it, and so I graciously ripped it from his hands.

These random acts of giving and kindness have happened to me all over, but most frequently in Nicaragua. It has happened to me a lot in Nicaragua and it seems as though it´s just part of the culture. My second week in Nicaragua back in 2005 on a bus I was given a brand new book of poetry by Ruben Darío, national hero. Last time I visited in June of 08´I mentioned that I liked my friend Tello´s FSLN hat in El Porvenir. Right before I left, he had washed it and gave it to me. Chris and I were picking up a bunk bed of all things in Managua in 06´, and she complimented the clerk for his nice bracelet....he gave it to her. And so on. The trend seems to be, that if you express a liking of something material, often times it is given to you. Having so little and being very willing to give it to someone, to share and make that person happy, is just really special, and one of the many reasons why I love Nicaragua. So I share that with you. (Soy puro pinolero!)

So, where am I? Panama City! Figured out that I´ve now traveled for over 7.5 days on train and bus. Kiiiiind of taking a toll on me, as is the lack of diversity in diet. Still eating loads of eggs.

Quick re-cap of how I got here:

From El Porvenir I visited my friends at the Center for Development in Central America, based in Ciudad Sandino. It was SO great to reconnect with the amazing people who hosted me in Nicaragua back in 05'-06'. One of the newest members of the CDCA, Becca, has two beautiful children who I believe have US-Irish-Nicaraguan Citizenship, and at 4 years her oldest daughter already speaks better spanish than me. Very interesting people. My visit was too short, but I was able to make it to my old stomping grounds at the clinic in the barrio of Nueva Vida. I ran a small sports group with the local kids for about 90 minutes. In the picture above, we are just about to start another game of Big Lemur (fomer PODER collegues know this as the most popular game ever! Basically it´s running dodge ball. I left the clinic having delivered at least 10 back of the head shots).

Two longs days of travel from Managua to Panama City, but with beautiful scenary. Right before leaving Nicaragua, I was treated to a bag of cashews by the stranger sitting next to me....¨gracias y mucho gusto¨. On my way from San Jose, Costa Rica to the Panama border, I was chatting with a Costa Rican gentleman when he mentioned that Nicaragua is the way it is because of ¨militarismo¨. He continued saying that kids at the age of 10 in Nicaragua all know how to shoot AKs. This is obviously not true, and speaks to the unfortunate and totally unwarranted discrimination suffered by Nicas living in Costa Rica.

Panama City has been great so far. The architecture is definitely different, and where I´m staying in Casco Viejo, it almost has a New Orleans vibe. I´ve later found out that as opposed to the areas I´ve come from where the old world influences were dominantely Spanish, in Panama there is also a large French influence.

LASTLY, the spanish is VERY hard to understand. Also, some Irish people are very hard to understand. Yesterday I was in a small room full of Panamanians and Irish people, and understood about 50% of what was being said. I probably caught more of the spanish than english.

Tomorrow I leave for South America. Really tried to make the boat thing happen, but it´s just a bad time of the year. Seas are really bad so not many boats going out. SO, I´ll take a flight from Panama City to Cartagena, Colombia.