March 24 – April 1, 2018

The drive to the small town of Jalapa near the border of Honduras and Nicaragua took us through several small villages.  The road was so much better than the ones in Honduras….it was made of paving stones and we came across a few crews working on repairing sections of it along the way.  All along the road, power poles, traffic signs, trees and boulders were painted black and red with the letters FSLN painted on them, a reminder of the recent civil war in the country and the highly political nature of life in Nicaragua. Very often, even peoples’ clothing seems to reflect this colour combination with red shirts and grey pants or skirts.

FSLN painted on the back of a road sign.

We arrived at our home for the next 8 nights, a place called Hotel El Pantano where we had reserved a little cabin for the week of Semana Santa.  We were looking forward to getting out of the camper for a while and El Pantano’s website listed a lot of activities available in the area.  We had visions of long hikes in the hills, hanging out by waterfalls, visiting fincas and wandering through the town, maybe finding a few favourite hangouts for the week.

Upon arrival, we saw that the narrow road to the property was blocked by a delivery truck.  A woman and her small son waved to us that there was another entrance, but it looked very muddy.  I motioned that we would drive around the block to get to the gate, and she nodded, and then her young son started to run ahead of us, waving his hands to direct us along the narrow alleys, as I am sure he has seen village men do when helping a truck back up in tight spaces.  We arrived at the gate and Derek thanked him, asked his name (Chris), and gave him 20 Cordobas (about 1 CAD).

We relaxed for a few days, caught up on some chores, then decided to see about booking some tours.  As it turns out, some of the tours that are listed on El Pantano’s website are no longer available.   Others, we were advised, would be unavailable or overly crowded due to Semana Santa.  And the town of Jalapa?  Well, we did walk around it one afternoon, and it is a dusty, somewhat poor village, with little in the way of diversions.

And so we played Scrabble…and crib…and backgammon.  We watched Netflix.  We played more Scrabble.  We drank beer.  One afternoon we walked to a nearby restaurant for a late lunch.  We grocery shopped.  We played more Scrabble.  I asked Derek to cut my hair (I know, scary, but I always wear a hat anyway, so if it had gone really wrong no big deal, but he ended up doing a pretty good job!)

A few days into our stay we were out by our camper and spotted Chris, the boy who had directed us around the block, hanging by the front gates.   Later, there was a knock on the door of our room, and there was Chris.  He had a drawing he had done of us, Piper and the truck.   Later another knock with a drawing that his sister had done for us.  Early one morning I was making coffee for us in the camper, and there was Chris, wanting to have an extended conversation in Spanish.  I told him that I needed my coffee and some breakfast before I could attempt Spanish and that we could chat later.  Later, he said that because his sister is disabled, she wasn’t able to come visit, so would I come see her…I said okay, then met his sister, his baby brother and his parents.  I remarked about the pretty flowers in the yard, and then moments after returning to our room there was a knock on the door and there was Chris with a bouquet of flowers for us.

Chickens and all!  Poor Derek looks like he is getting dragged by Piper!.

There was one more bouquet that arrived later that I didn’t get a photo of.

Awww, how cute, you might say, and yes, it was sweet.  But it did get a bit tiring for us kidless types.

Then one afternoon Chris showed up at our door and said that his mom wanted to make some soup and needed some money for tomatoes and milk (or at least, that is what we think he said, as we didn’t catch all of his Spanish).  We gave him a bit of cash, and he left.  A few hours later he and his mom showed up with a large pitcher filled with soup for us….and then a few hours later a note showed up from Chris’ mom, explaining that the soup was a traditional Nicaraguan recipe and thanking us for helping out their family.

The next day, Chris told us his mother wanted a tour of the camper, so I told him, once we had had breakfast that they could come over.  We showed them the camper, they took our pictures so as to be able “to remember us”, and eventually we told them we needed to get packed up as we were leaving later that morning.  A few minutes later, there was Chris with more food his mom had packaged for us.  So we sent him home with a bag of quinoa, beans and some sardines that we had in the camper.  About 15 mins later, one last visit from Chris, telling us that for 60 cordobas (about $2 CAD) that he would be able to get a new battery for his cell phone…..well, what can I say, it was so little money and we are softies… It was all friendly and harmless but it really reaffirmed to us how close to the bone people live in this part of the world. At the same time, if we extended even a small generosity to everyone who asked or needed our help it would be impossible to keep it up. We like very much to say yes and quite often we do but it is very different when your generosity is directly requested than when it is a considered and detached contribution to a third party that organizes it.

Chris and his family.  His sister Sierra suffered from hydrocephaly, had leg deformities and some developmental issues, but always had the most beautiful smile on her face and Chris was obviously a very caring and driven little soul.

And so, we had a long week in Jalapa but one we won’t readily forget. We also got to practice our Spanish quite a bit with Chris, who was very patient with our limited vocabulary and with our inability to always understand what he was trying to tell us.  The huge, heartfelt hugs we got from Chris as we were leaving made it very worthwhile for us to have involved ourselves with this little family.