The Tank's Tread

Christmas is getting mailed off a little early this year since anything mailed from Honduras will never make it, so a fellow teacher, heading north for a wedding, will hand carry and deliver the package. So Christmas shopping to the quaint tourist town of Valle de Angeles was the new cars first destination.

I couldn't get it in gear. Started the car in neutral, rolled backwards out of the puestos parking lot, and couldn't get into first, second, third or forth. There is no fifth. Do I need a new gear box? I restarted it in gear and we continued on. Trouble shifting but no problems.

The truck is slow, but really, that's a good thing around here where the road has no lanes and often cars go three wide to pass on a blind curve with on coming traffic. I won’t be passing much. But, then again, I can't pass much either. Hence, the tank. Slow, steady and tough.

Oh, but tanks have treads. I didn't. Heading through the capital on the way home, drivers wave me over, flash their lights and honk to let me know, "Hey dumbshit, you have a flat tire!" only it was in Spanish and I'm on the equivalent of a two lane highway with no shoulder on an uphill slope with a car I've only been driving for a few hours.

There are four of us, and luckily my roommate Ted is strong and I have some experience changing tires. So we bust it out, figuring out spares and jacks as traffic veered around us, taxi drivers, dressed in silk and slacks, offered help or rides, a bicyclist passed us, old school buses honked, and the daylight slowly headed behind the hills. We weren’t robbed, mugged, harassed or bothered in any way. Perhaps 4 gringos and a flat isn't that exciting on a Saturday night. Everyone was probably already heading out for another exciting night in Tegus's hottest hot spot - Appleby’s (no joke).

So, the drive back to the Zamorano valley was in the dusk with the clouds glowing over the hills, 20 buzzards flying overhead, a chill in the air as I'm wearing my new sweater my aunt made me buy for $4 and I resisted for no reason. The truck ran smooth and took the bumps, as the road turns from pavement to dirt and back again, with no problems. Relief as I pass our local gas station. It's only 5:30 but the headlights are necessary and bump along the dirt road that heads to our houses. I drop off one teacher. It takes two hands to get the shifter out of gear. I have to restart it with it already in reverse or the gears just grind. I stop and restart again in first gear to head off home. Ted opens the gate, the only gear I can get it in is 3rd. It works and I park and finally breathe.

So maybe I'm not the best at buying cars, but the problems of fixing it is not overwhelming.

When it came time to tighten the spare tire I did it by hand so that even Ted couldn't tighten them any more. I wasn't going to let it become a big problem, just something that had to be done, and doing it is easy. Grandpa taught me that.

Tank

If you're going to own a car in Central America it had better be a diesel and it had better be a tank. So, here it is, my tank, and the beginning of a lot of new adventures. Registration - check. Bribe money - check. CD player - broken, but maybe if I hit a bump just right,..... looks like I'm ready to hit the road. Hasta!

Bugs!

This morning a beetle (the size of a baby turtle, that’s what I first thought it was) landed in a bowl of water. It’s actually the catch plate from a potted plant, you know, but he was stuck and couldn’t climb out. So I grabbed some trash that has blown into our yard and helped him. He crawled up the Styrofoam plate and off into the grass. A happy beetle.

Not all bugs are so happy. Thursday night the ants were feasting on a dead tarantula in the doorway to my roommates room. The ants were happy. They are those really small ones that are always first to the scene of the death. The tarantula was flattened, like the life was sucked out of it and it had been stepped on. Only, no one here had stepped on it, or sucked the life out of it for that matter either. So who did?

The first question asked is what is big enough to kill a tarantula. Well, I have to admit that we could only come up with a scorpion. One just killed one of our student’s dogs, but it was a loud whinny dog that no one liked so people around the neighborhood were pretty content with the scorpion. But that was before it was in anyone’s house killing tarantulas.

The next question is, of course, is the scorpion still in the house? Maybe the scorpion has been following the tarantula for days on some epic adventure, only to have to two come to head in the doorway of my roommates room. The triumphant scorpion, fat and happy, trooped off to save the neighborhood from other unwanted pests. There are bats in another house that poop down on a teacher’s computer. Maybe the scorpion will go there next.

Or, maybe he is in my shoe.

The final question, what do we do in a house with tarantulas, scorpions, millions of ants, several geckos, beetles, crickets, cockroaches, termites, bats, spiders, moths and other unidentifiable animals that crawl up your leg from the shower drain and you have to realize that feeling isn’t water running up your leg? That rest in the couch and above the kitchen sink? That crawl across the floor as you’re trying to walk barefoot at night in the dark because the light burned out but the ceiling is 14 feet high?

Call it home.

Late October

The weather is changing as we come into what the northern half of the continent would call fall. Mornings are almost cool as the clouds lie low in the valley and glow in the morning sunlight with the mountains peeking over the tops. There is a gentle breeze that blows through the late mornings, which brings in the clouds. Instead of the 10 minute downpour, we now have long rains, sometimes a drizzle, sometimes a storm. But it lasts for hours, sometimes all night, and the drainage ditch along the edge of our dirt road fills up into creeks and the mud puddles become ditches and it becomes almost impossible to drive faster than 15 km/hr. So I bike instead.

In the mornings the kids come in sweaters and stocking hats. They say it’s cold. I say it’s in the low 70’s. They are off by first recess and lost by afternoon. People in Honduras have to buy a lot of sweaters.

There are four kittens. Their eyes are open and they stay quietly under their bush which keeps them dry. I took a picture of them but my camera died. I’ll get the new one out soon. Maybe when the kittens are out walking.

Prior Propper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Today is the day I knew would come eventually.

My camera died.

Error code E18. The lens wont open or shut. It is eternally stuck in that mid-closed position. Frozen.

But, no worries! Before heading south I said to myself, "Self", that's what I call me when I'm talking to myself, "You should get a back-up camera." So, the day before flying out I ran all over town looking for a new camera. And I got one (full price! I should have thought of this earlier) and brought it with me, but have not touched it knowing that someday, (alas today) my camera would break and I would want a new one.

Good for me.What could have been devistating is just no big deal.

cats

The problem with befriending stray cats is that they don't know anything about sitting in your lap when you're sitting on the front porch reading a good book or watching the rain.

Sunday Morning

There are some stray cats that I feed. There are three, sometimes four. All white. Today, or late last night, most likely, the older female had a new batch of kittens. She showed up for breakfast looking rather thin, and after eating and chasing away the other cats, I followered her to the odd looking bush around the front of my house and there were her five little kittens, crawling up to her belly, their eyes still closed. Only one is white, the others orange and grey. Odd genetics around these parts, but they all look healthy and happy (well, except mom who just looks tired and annoyed)and i have a feeling in a few weeks my cat food budget is going to double. So much for savings!

The Masaya Market, Nicaragua

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Nicaragua 2

So I´m in Nicaragua. I like the sound of it. It seems foreign, even dangerous. There are still buildings with bullet hole in it, and numerous war (revolution) memorials around. But in reality, Granada, and the parts of Nicaragua I´ve seen are a lot more touristy and main stream than anything in Honduras (except the islands). There are more ex-pats (not to mention post cards) and more English spoken here then anywhere near home. It´s ok to walk around after dark. The locals even drink the water. All in all, Nicaragua seems way more up and comming than anything Honduras.

So, like Sarajevo, we need to get the reputation of a place that we held from childhood out of our heads and accept a place for what it is now, not what it was. We really should do it with people, too, but do we?

I suppose it´s harder to see a person than a city.

Granada, Nicarauga

It´s hot. At 6:30 in the morning I´m already moving into the shade of the buildings trying to hide. And with the heat comes another slow day. The shoe shiners are setting up in the town park, under the trees and the cathedral. Men and women alike are sweeping the porches and the streets. Horses and carts are already making their rounds around the city along with the bicycles and cars. But everyone moves slow.

The time changed back an hour today, presumably for day light savings time. Honduras moved back my first week here, in August. I think time is like holidays. They know, roughly, when they should be and the government chooses a day sometime around that date and lets you know the week before. For example, this is a four day weekend for me. Monday is Francisco Morazan´s day, who was like the George Washington of Honduras. Tuesday is for Columbus Day, here callled the Day of the Races (or is it the end of the races?). That is on the 12th I think, but they moved it. Fine by me. I´m in Nicaragua!