Nicaragua (Part 3 of ?)

Interjection in the chronology to talk about the toilet. Because let’s be honest, who doesn't love some good potty talk?

Latrine: Pit toilets are the simplest and cheapest type, minimally defined as a hole in the ground.(Thank you Wikipedia.)

A hole in the ground. A hole in the ground with a little concrete platform and raised area that one could theoretically sit on if one so desired. A hole in the ground with a concrete seat out behind the house a good 10-15 meters. A hole in the ground with a concrete seat out behind the house enclosed by four metal walls and a metal roof…in the tropics.

Nothing will constipate you faster than the simple knowledge that that is where you have to go. On the plus side, even mosquitoes couldn't survive in there…or had enough sense to stay out. Either way, my hiny is duly thankful.

Thursday. March 28.

We woke up with the rest of the house. Dogs shuffling around, Norvin the 9-year-old actin’ a fool, water boiling for instant coffee…It was somewhere around 7.

*Central America gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “time is relative.” Time might as well be booted out on its ass and replaced with something more useful like a rocking chair with a cup holder or a watch that tells you the weather instead of the time. For example: “Vamos, ahorita” does not mean “we go right now.” It actually means ”right now we are thinking about, and maybe even acting towards, the act of leaving. So even though it will probably be another hour and a half, we are practically leaving right this second.”

So anyway, we got up. We had some coffee and a breakfast of homemade bread/cookie things called ‘rosquillas’ on the front porch. We walked over to the neighbor’s house to visit with another family Sarah knew. They were packing up for a day at the lake. (This was after all the big holiday of no work or public transportation.)

The whole time we were wondering when exactly we were going to go try to find Myra. I’m not really sure when we finally figured out that someone had sent a note with the milk truck that morning (in fact I’m still not really sure that it happened at all) but Sarah and I finally managed to understand that if Myra got the note somehow, she would then be able to hike to a place where there was cell service, and then call us and…tell us where she was? And despite the practical non-existence of time, this phone call was supposed to come between 11:30 and noon.

We waited. We walked down into town for water. We sat around in the living room and visited. We eventually ate some lunch…

So until this point (I think) it was understood that if Myra called then Sarah and Roberta and Vanessa and I would go with the taxi driver to either a river or a place called “the river” where we could maybe meet Myra? That made sense. Why was the whole family loading dishes and food and hot water and instant coffee and dogs and children into a giant trashcan though? And why was it 12:30 with no word from Myra? And were we going back to Granada tonight or tomorrow morning? And if we went back tomorrow we would need to communicate with our hostel somehow and let them know that our reservation was still good for Friday night. And why did it take 3 phone-calls to actually communicate that information?  And why wouldn't Norvin sit down and stop touching things? And why, no matter how many conversations we had, did no actual useful information get exchanged?

The three gringas were getting tired and irritable. Finally Sarah talked to Roberta’s sister who explained things a little more clearly. 1. Myra was not visiting her grandmother. She was visiting her godmother which is why no one actually knew where exactly she was or how to get there. 2. we were going to the river (an actual river)  because it’s the closest place to Myra’s godmother’s where we could hire a horseman to go with another note to try to find where exactly the house was. 3.The reason the whole family was packing up was because they were having a picnic by the river (we found out later that the picnic was an impromptu thing thrown together because it’s expensive to drive a truck all the way out there so we might as well make the most of it.)

So finally, sometime after 12 or 1230 (what difference does it make?) Myra’s family, the taxi driver’s family, the 3 gringas, and the tiny little dog all loaded into the milk truck and set off for the river.