We've had such a good day today. God has given us some fun things to do.
We got up early and caught the bus into León. It comes down our street and honks at various stops. Then is goes to the end of the road and waits for people to come to the bus stop. Then it comes back down the road past our house again. We scurried out to the little stop closest to our house.
The buses here are mainly old school buses. They are in various stages of disrepair, but they seem to make it where they are going. There is no air conditioning, but it is quite pleasant with the windows open, as long as we are moving. We hopped on the bus and road it to the end of our road, back past the house, down a little road to a small town near us that is also along the beach called Las Peñitas. There is an inlet there and I took a few pics. We then headed back to the highway and started toward León. We made quite a few stops on the highway. There are some designated stops with a little roof and concrete benches. Other stops are made if someone is standing along the road and flags down the bus.
Once in León, we got off at the main stop on that side of town. There are many vendors there selling snacks and produce. We took some pics there, too. Then we walked about 7 blocks into town to Pacheco's English school. As we were walking along, we would look in the open doors of the buildings. Most all of the buildings come all the way to the street and are joined side by side. The door opens up into a store or directly into the living area of a house. As we walked past the open doors, we took pics if it was a business. The stores are usually one room, either big or small, with everything on shelves that go to the ceiling. We past some variety type stores, pharmacies, bookstore/office supply stuff, a TV repair shop, a shoe repair shop, a beauty shop (with one stool, a chair for waiting and shelves with 'product' on it), a gym with workout equipment (Mary got one of the guys to pose showing his muscles!), a Taekwando studio, a preschool, etc. I tried to get pics of a lot of the places.
There is also a place near a street corner that we noticed before that has some scarecrow-type dummies that look like old men. They set them out on the street corner sometimes. We asked German about them and he said that they are for sale. There is a custom on New Year's Eve to set one of the 'old men' out and fill it with fireworks (they LOVE fireworks around here) and at midnight, you blow up the old man. hummmm
We walked past our famous stoplight where we always meet the translators. This light does not work, but is a good landmark at which to meet people. We made it to the English school and were welcomed in to the classroom with the more advanced students. They ranged in age from grade school to high school ages to college. Juan had us sit at the front of the class and talk. The students told us who they are, how long they have been studying, about their families, what they would like to use their English language skills for, etc. They also asked us lots of questions about our lives, families, life in the US, why we are in Nic, about our ministry, etc. We have a great time with them. German met us there and joined in on the discussion. Juan is one of our translators when we have teams in and German is his boss during those times. German shared about when he first met Juan and about being translators for VOH. 2 of the students are wanting to become translators someday, so Juan had them translate for me and Mary. We spoke like we do when we are working at Fiestas and witnessing, etc. The students were our audience. The 'translators' did very well. We got to share our testimonies with the class and about our walk with Christ and our call and lives as missionaries. When the students were first telling us their name, age, etc, one of the them (Jered) mentioned that he is a Christian. I thought that was great that he feels that being a Christian is an important part of who he is. We took a few pics with the class and wished them luck with their studies. They asked if we could come back again. We are going to try.
After class, I asked what time it was and found that we had time to go to one of our favorite restaurants. We have to get there first thing to get the good stuff. We hurried there and I got to treat us all to a yummy lunch! I so love it! Then German and I did 'numbers' which is what we call our bookkeeping tasks. We got it all figured out and everything felt very settled. We ran to a used book store that German knows, but it was closed. So we found this man on a street corner who has books of all kinds spread out on the sidewalk. Mary found a used paperback mystery in English. With German's help they negotiated down to $2. Mary said her daughter wouldn't believe she actually paid $2, since she won't pay over fifty cents in the states. We then stopped to exchange Mary's white-out pen (that she had bought yesterday, but it didn't work) for a regular bottle of white-out. Then we had German drop us off at the bus stop. He offered to drive us to the house, but we told him we had fun on the bus and at 10 córdovas (about fifty cents) it's cheaper than driving the van out there and back. So we told German goodbye and found seats on the soon to be overflowing bus.
The trip home only took about 35 minutes and we had fun looking at stuff out of the window. As we passed over a bridge that crosses a river, we saw a man standing in the water casting his fishing net. I wish I could have gotten my camera out to grab a pic. Oh, and Mary had previously spied a mobile home at one homestead. That's the only one we have seen here. Most homes are either concrete, stucco, wood, tin, cardboard or plastic. We made quite a few stops on the way home to drop people and their purchases from town off at their homes. We enjoyed the ride very much.
After we got home, we sent Saturnino home for about 5 hours. I laid down for a nap and Mary read a little bit and dozed. About 4:30 we went for our sunset walk on the beach. We start out to the south and walk to the rocks with the big cross on them. Then we double back to the north end of the beach where the fishing boats come in to an inlet. Then we double back to our house. It takes between an hour and hour & a half at a leisurely pace. By 5:30 or so it is starting to get dusk. By 6pm it's dark. On our walk today, I found a good sand dollar. Mary is going to dry it out and take it home. There were just a few people on the beach, which is normal. Quite different than Wednesday, when it was a holiday, and tons of people were out.
We came in and got our showers. The waves are so strong that they 'throw' sand at you and it ends up inside your clothes. We got hit by a few waves on our shorts. Just getting splashed leaves a wet spot with sand stuck to it. Kind of like the waves had spit-up on you.
I talked to my sister Pam tonight and she sounded like she is feeling better. Still sore and tired of sleeping flat on her back, but her voice sounded so much better. I know she is glad to have her surgery behind her.
I guess I better get off of here and read some more. I need to hit that Spanish verb workbook, too.
I'm loving my time here. We are going to Joe's church tomorrow and we have a feeding at the Dump on Monday and other ministry to do the rest of the week. It's so good. I love it! God is blessing my socks off! oh yeah, I don't wear socks down here! HA! God blesses me much more than I deserve. I love Him so.
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