Changes

A few of my friends came down from the states this week. Vincent "Vinny" Rosinni, the founder of Frontier Horizon, came down to check up on a few projects he's working on here. Bob and Graham Young, father and son, came down with a group from OrphaNetwork to do some business, including building a big team house on the Casa Bernabe Orphanage land to be used when big teams come down. It should be ready for the big Spring Break trip if everything works out... but it is Nicaragua remember. Vinny got in on Monday and I went with him to a farm project where they have 38 "manzanas" (manzanas are about 1.3 acres of land) of sesame seed plants. We also went around with Abdhie and Keren, the translators, to different places to look for computers to purchase for the internet cafe that Vinny is starting in Vera Cruz, in the house next to Abdhie and Keren. We talked about the project, and I told Vinny that i was looking for a job with him, whatever he had for me. He said that was great because he was looking for someone to run the internet cafe. So, i got a job for $5 an hour, monday through friday from 8 to 12. that'll be about $400 a month, which will allow me to really live well down here. Good thing, too, because that motorcycle just about took all i had. As soon as i got the job with Vinny, I told my english teaching job that i was finished with them. I enjoyed working with them, but i was only working saturdays, and was making half the hourly wage that i'll be making with Vinny. And with my job at the internet cafe, i'll be working with the kids teaching an internet class for school. I can't wait to build relationships with all the kids of Vera Cruz and the Casa Bernabe orphanage (the orphanage has a school on its grounds where all the orphans study as well as kids from the surrounding town Vera Cruz. There is also another school in Vera Cruz called Corazon de Jesus, where many more kids will come from to learn the internet).

On Tuesday, I spent the morning in Vera Cruz, and visited some friends of mine. First i ran into Amanda, a beautiful girl who's only 15 and getting married in December. I've become good friends with her and her family over the course of my trips and it's so sad to see her make that decision. She was doing well in school, but now she just dropped out of her third year of five years of high school. She says she'll start up in February and try to finish, but now she has to repeat her third year that she had almost finished. I don't think she'll finish high school, but she tells me that she and her boyfriend-fiance are serious about school. I said goodbye to her and went to visit my friend Delma, a girl i met last summer and have been hanging out with since i've been here. She's also 15 and beautiful, but don't worry i'm not dating her or anything. She wasn't home, so I just hung out and talked with her mom for a while. it was really good spanish practice. I told her i'd bought a motorcycle, and she said that her son (Oscar is his name) could help me learn to ride it. She said that he also is the captain of a soccer team in Vera Cruz and that i might be able to join his team. He's a really nice guy, about 24 and married. I then went to Amanda's house to hang out with her and her sister Irana, as well as her mom. I helped them sweep their back yard and we waited for Graham to come over, who'd gotten in late Monday night. Graham came over at about eleven, and we hung for a while, then i went back to my house in Managua to wait for Roger. Roger is a friend of mine who lives in the house next to Abdhie, where the internet cafe will be. He came over to my house and drove me on the motorcycle to the police department to get everything squared away. I got everything paid for, but the license plates wouldn't be ready till the next day, and i still had to have it pass inspection before i could have the plates. So, we drove it to Vera Cruz (he drove) and got soaked in the rain on the way. When we finally reached Abdhie's house, we turned into her driveway and Roger didn't know there was a foot brake, and we didn't slow down enough. We barely missed the driveway, came to a stop, but we were turning and off balance, and we fell into the mud. It was pretty funny actually, and there was no harm done. We got a little dirty, but it was such a slow fall that the bike didnt even get a scratch. I changed clothes and went out to dinner with Bob and Graham. At dinner, i got invited to go with them to Montelimar, and even though i had plans to learn to drive the motorcycle, i just couldn't resist spending a day with the kids at the beautiful resort.

So we left around 9 then next morning, and arrived at 11. We spent the day swimming in the pools, as well as driving four-wheelers on the beach. I had an 11-year-old girl riding on mine with me, and I let her do some of the driving. They weren't very fast, but she had a ball. The lunch was excellent at the resort, but we left just before dinner (an unexpected letdown). I then went with Abdhie to dinner with Vinny. We presented him and some of the people visiting with him with the new Frontier Horizon shirts that I had designed and had made in Granada, about an hour away. He liked the shirt, new logo, and everything, but they weren't very well printed. The good thing was that the shirts were a grand total of about 4 bucks a piece.

I got invited to go to Montelimar again with Vinny, but i really wanted to learn to ride the bike. So, i stayed at my house Wednesday night and left for Vera Cruz around noon. I left with Esmir, because he wanted to learn too, and we decided to take a bus to the market and get lunch first. We ate, and he remembered that he had class in the afternoon that he couldn't miss. So he left for the house, and I was on my own to Vera Cruz. I bought a new type of Churros on the bus ride, which might be my new favorite style. I forget if i've explained what churros are, but they are essentially fried bread with cheese inside. These ones had sugar on the outside, and were much like those fried sugar donuts that everybody likes, except with a slight cheese flavor. It seems like an unlikely combination, but it's amazing. I also like Pico, which is a big triangle instead of a fried stick of bread. It's also filled with cheese, but also with a sugary syrup. It can have sugar or some sprinkled cheese on the outside. Delicious, all of it. Anyways, i got to Vera Cruz, and Roger was building a new cememt driveway for Keren and Abdhie's house. He had plenty of time though, as the cement was setting, and he started her up. He showed me how to put it in first, and said "Go ahead." So i got on and slowly eased off the clutch as i accelerated. It wasn't the smoothest first ride, but i did a short circle and came back to Roger. He hopped on the back and said, "Let's go!" I was a little unprepared, but we went, and he explained as we drove. I shifted into second more smoothly, and then we ventured out into the less busy side of Vera Cruz. I got her up to about 45 km/hr on the good parts of the road, but was constantly slowing down and downshifting due to "policias acostados," or "sleeping police." They have more speed bumps than they know what to do with here in Nicaragua. It was a blast driving. I could feel every bump in the road and felt the texture changes from cement to gravel to dirt. We did a couple loops of the town, and then he took me to a dirt road with car-sized pot holes and puddles. "All-terrain," he explained, was good to practice on. So i took it slow, weaving the puddles and bumps. After that we hit the highway for just about a kilometer or so and went back to the house. I then took it out on my own for a while, and got a phone call...

"Brad, are you coming to the meeting today?" said my buddy Isaias from High School Musical. It turns out we had another meeting for newspaper photos. I said, "Yeah i think i can make it there in an hour." I turned the bike around and sped back to Vera Cruz. I grabbed my backpack and helmet and asked for a prayer from Abdhie's mom. I made it safely back to my house in downtown Managua without stalling once. A success. I took a taxi to the photoshoot, and then hit the sack. I was exhausted.

Now i'm just about ready to take the bike out for some more practice. The police transit is closed today due to a holiday "the day of the dead," not sure what it's about. I'll go in monday for my plates and license. Can't wait.