Gonna Make You Sweat
On Visas:
I was suffering under the delusion that I speak Spanish. I could have sworn I could, at least somewhat. But no. One trip to Nicaraguan Immigration, and I am more than usually certain that I don’t understand word one of Spanish. Fortunately, Danelia accompanied me to get my visa renewed. She was wonderful and led me by the hand through the whole process. My visa was successfully renewed for another three months, but I am not looking forward to my future encounters with Immigration. I mean, for goodness sakes, they made my buy a pen to fill out their stupid form (which they also made me pay for, on top of the fee for renewing the actual visa…). Grrrrr.
On My Camera:
I may have mentioned this before but Semana Santa is godawful hot. I think I am actually getting used to the feel of sweat dripping down my back, even while I’m sitting still. Anyhow, Friday, I went swimming! Glorious pool of cool, refreshing liquid, how I love thee!! But while I am singing a little love song for the swimming pool, I must also sing a sad elegy for my camera. It was a nice camera, it took really good photos, video too, but sadly had the ill luck to be located in my boyfriend’s pocket when he got pushed in the pool. Now it is D-E-D, dead. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Becky for giving me her old iPhone, so I am not completely bereft of the ability to take pictures, which, after all, is a large part of my job here. Thanks Becky!
On Frightened:
The whole country basically shuts down for Semana Santa; schools close, just about everyone gets at least part of the week off of work. In the spirit of this, I took a few days away from the casa in Loma Linda to spend more time with Elí and his family. The important part of that information for the purposes of this story is the fact that I didn’t have internet access from Wednesday to Sunday.
On Saturday, we were sitting on the couch, channel surfing, when I see the words “St. Louis, Missouri” as the caption on CNN. Obviously, this caught my attention as that is where my parents live. The news was showing video of the devastation left in the wake of a violent tornado. It was the end of the story, so I didn’t hear too many details, just the newscaster at the end of the story cheerfully relating how the last time the airport was shut down indefinitely was the blizzard of 1982. What!!! They shut down the airport? That is not terribly far away from my parents’ house!
Enter Panic, stage left.
It occurred to me, as I was pacing the hall, trying not to borrow trouble and picture my parents’ house as a pancake, that no one really knows how to get a hold of me in case of emergency. There are provisions in place to notify my people should something bad happen to me, but not the other way ‘round. Keep in mind that I had no internet access and couldn’t check face book or e-mail to, ya know, see if my folks had off-shuffled this mortal coil or anything.
It took us a while to figure out how to get my Nicaraguan cell phone to make international calls, but I finally got through to my mom. Thanks be to God, Mom and Dad are fine, no damage to their house, everyone I know in STL is OK! I can make light of it now, but at the time I was profoundly frightened.
After I hung up with Mom, I was so relieved, I put my head down on my knees and a few tears leaked out of my eyes. This nearly gave my boyfriend a heart attack as he didn’t understand any of the conversation I had just had in English and feared the worst. I assured him that everything was just fine. And at that moment, a mango fell out of the tree and nearly gave me a heart attack.
It was the tastiest mango I have ever eaten.
I was suffering under the delusion that I speak Spanish. I could have sworn I could, at least somewhat. But no. One trip to Nicaraguan Immigration, and I am more than usually certain that I don’t understand word one of Spanish. Fortunately, Danelia accompanied me to get my visa renewed. She was wonderful and led me by the hand through the whole process. My visa was successfully renewed for another three months, but I am not looking forward to my future encounters with Immigration. I mean, for goodness sakes, they made my buy a pen to fill out their stupid form (which they also made me pay for, on top of the fee for renewing the actual visa…). Grrrrr.
On My Camera:
I may have mentioned this before but Semana Santa is godawful hot. I think I am actually getting used to the feel of sweat dripping down my back, even while I’m sitting still. Anyhow, Friday, I went swimming! Glorious pool of cool, refreshing liquid, how I love thee!! But while I am singing a little love song for the swimming pool, I must also sing a sad elegy for my camera. It was a nice camera, it took really good photos, video too, but sadly had the ill luck to be located in my boyfriend’s pocket when he got pushed in the pool. Now it is D-E-D, dead. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Becky for giving me her old iPhone, so I am not completely bereft of the ability to take pictures, which, after all, is a large part of my job here. Thanks Becky!
On Frightened:
The whole country basically shuts down for Semana Santa; schools close, just about everyone gets at least part of the week off of work. In the spirit of this, I took a few days away from the casa in Loma Linda to spend more time with Elí and his family. The important part of that information for the purposes of this story is the fact that I didn’t have internet access from Wednesday to Sunday.
On Saturday, we were sitting on the couch, channel surfing, when I see the words “St. Louis, Missouri” as the caption on CNN. Obviously, this caught my attention as that is where my parents live. The news was showing video of the devastation left in the wake of a violent tornado. It was the end of the story, so I didn’t hear too many details, just the newscaster at the end of the story cheerfully relating how the last time the airport was shut down indefinitely was the blizzard of 1982. What!!! They shut down the airport? That is not terribly far away from my parents’ house!
Enter Panic, stage left.
It occurred to me, as I was pacing the hall, trying not to borrow trouble and picture my parents’ house as a pancake, that no one really knows how to get a hold of me in case of emergency. There are provisions in place to notify my people should something bad happen to me, but not the other way ‘round. Keep in mind that I had no internet access and couldn’t check face book or e-mail to, ya know, see if my folks had off-shuffled this mortal coil or anything.
It took us a while to figure out how to get my Nicaraguan cell phone to make international calls, but I finally got through to my mom. Thanks be to God, Mom and Dad are fine, no damage to their house, everyone I know in STL is OK! I can make light of it now, but at the time I was profoundly frightened.
After I hung up with Mom, I was so relieved, I put my head down on my knees and a few tears leaked out of my eyes. This nearly gave my boyfriend a heart attack as he didn’t understand any of the conversation I had just had in English and feared the worst. I assured him that everything was just fine. And at that moment, a mango fell out of the tree and nearly gave me a heart attack.
It was the tastiest mango I have ever eaten.
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2 comments:
I am looking forward to those tasty mangos! Also, I have your phone number in case of emergency--perhaps we should give it to Pam also!? Love, Mamita, aka Aunt Jo
I'm glad to hear that everything worked out! That is quite the scare you had!
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