Easter week is the busiest time of year to cross the border, so I got up at 3:30 and missed the worst of the crowds. I befriend a ´Nica´ on the bus from Liberia (in Costa Rica) and was able to join some of his friends further ahead in the line.I spent four hours chatting to him and his friends as we waited. They were also able to help me with currency as I had been foolish enough to think the immigration office would accept Costa Rican or Nicaraguan money. I have since learnt that in Nicaragua most things are paid in US$. Interestingly the government pays its employees in Nicaraguan Cordobas but then people must pay their taxes in US$. Consequently changing money appears to the be profession of choice.
I went swimming in the crater of a volcano with some people from Spanish school. It is big lake and is used like a beach. It is usually very busy during Easter week but a young man had drowned the day before - apparently he was a 19 year old who went to save 2 younger kids who could not swim. So there weren´t too many people swimming. When we came back from our swim we saw a kid lying on the ground and heard that he also drowned. He was 15.
The home-stay house I am staying in for a week is a sprawling one story house. There are two small outdoor courtyards and I don´t know how many bedrooms. The front door leads into an enormous room - the nicest in the house - a little used sitting room that feels like a shrine with plenty religious paraphernalia. There is a certain sadness to the house, perhaps because the big house is now very empty. The pride of the family is that the sister of my host is a nun in Managua (another sister who is a money changer also had an honourable mention).
Although big, the house is by no means luxurious. The bedrooms don´t have proper windows - just patterns of gaps between the cement blocks (without glass) facing the central courtyards. There is no hot water and to no washing machine (so I get to use a corrugated surface to wash my clothes by hand). There are no ceilings, just high roofs made from a patchwork of aluminium, tiles, wooden blanks and some bamboo. The first day I was in the house I saw what I assumed was a bird flying above the bathroom, beneath the high roof. The second day I saw the same creature flying around my bedroom. I looked more closely and when it stopped I noticed it hung upside down from the roof and was in fact a small bat.
I have a new favourite phrase of ´Spanish gone wrong´. Replacing ´I am going to Columbia for 3 tables´ and ´Can you change 4 rooms for 1 pain?´. A guy at the school thought he had been telling people that he needed exercise but discovered he had actually been telling everyone he needed exorcism.
