POST by LIZ: Walking in a Leaky Wonderland...

Jocasta with kids from Capital Edge Community Center

Blurry eyed, my head turned towards my bleeping alarm clock. I slammed my hand heavily on the snooze button and groaned - I knew it was time to get moving, but my body still demanded more winks after the flogging it had received the day before.

I shook off the desire to nap for a while and eased myself out of bed. It had been a heck of a day: full of heavy traffic jams, long, LONG queues, dashed hopes and slaughtered dreams all round. Yet, I couldn't help but release a random chuckle as the scenes from yesterday flashed through my mind.

We had returned from a big day out. I could, but I won’t turn each experience into a blog post of its own. Why I could take the time to explain all the "fun" we’d had dealing with Nicaraguan government officials, waiting in non-air conditioned offices at temperatures WAY above 96 degrees Fahrenheit, driving in Managuan madness, being told "NO, we can't process this or that unless...", having to deal with bratty teenage-boy attitudes, and being left slightly hoarse, after having had to yell all my conversations on account of the newly made hole that decided to appear in the muffler. But I won’t... ‘cause you get the picture. It was an action packed day!

So we returned only to find a large projection of water, due to a leaking pipe, the size of the fountain on Canberra's very own Lake Burley Griffin. Someone had taken the time to dig up and smash our buried water pipes.

And I know what you’re thinking… Didn’t they have this same problem just a few months earlier? The answer? Yes, we had this very same problem a few months earlier and consequently buried the pipes for protection. The icing on the cake with the overly red, delicious, plump cherry on top was that they had also entered the property and drained our two water tanks of precious H2O!

I had planned to have a relaxing night of quality time with Sez and Billy, my plans being swiftly overturned into a night of fighting back gushing water with a stick and then driving madly through Managua in search of an open hardware store.

Nestor and I were about to lose hope - the Sinsa store we were sure would be open was shut, and the workers were happy to be turning the key... "POR FAAAAA VORRRRRR" I pleaded... "I'll pay double, triple, cuadrupleeeeeeeeeee... just PLEASE let us get the materials we need..." But it was no good... they said that everything was shut and there was nothing they could do…

However, one of the greened shirt guys took pity on us, and explained there was another Sinsa opened until 9pm... "WHERE, WHERE???" but time was a ticking and I didn't have the time to listen to Nicaraguan directions of one block to the lake and then 3 to the south, past the broken glass bottle of coke and then a turn to the left... so I interrupted asking, "Do you wanna just hop in the car and show me? Pretty please?"

He nodded and jumped into my rust-bucket of a vehicle. I know, I know… stranger danger and all that... but I was DESPERATE!!!

We made it to the store and I offered to pay for his taxi home, but he said he'd stay and help me find what I needed. (FYI for any peeps living in Nicaragua: The Sinsa, near Rotonda Jesus Cristo, stays open ‘til 9pm every night)

And so into the store we did enter. He knew everyone and before I knew it, he had the whole store running around collecting the bits ‘n bobs we needed for "operation - there's a leak in the dam"

It was at that moment, as I was walking through Sinsa's plush aisles, that I suddenly heard the squeek squeek squeeking of my wet shoes, and it dawned on me that I was wearing white pants - WHITE pants!!! Argh! I was soaked through.. WHITE PANTS and WATER can make an embarrassing combo!

I scanned the aisles looking for the curtain and blinds section to go hide in - but then caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrors section (on sale might I add…) and was relieved to see that the crisp white pants I had started the day wearing, now totally drenched, were no longer the crisp white-as-snow pants from the morning.

Oh no, my pantalones had turned into the same awful, glorious colour of the muddy brown dirt from the banks of my barrio. Whilst I had fought with the gushing water utilising my trusty stick, alongside our faithful security guard, Nestor, my pants had been transformed from elegant ladies’ wear into crocodile fightin duds.

The Sinsa employee we had "picked up" had done a marvelous job collecting all the things required to resolve our leaking problem. I grabbed some pool products and asked if he could receive the commission on the whole sale. He smiled. I then offered him taxi money as a thank you and he refused to accept it...

WOW… I was impressed - it gave me hope again that there were "nice" people in the world... I wasn’t living in a land with only water pipe smashers after all.

I dropped my new friend off at a taxi/bus route and before he could shut the door, I shoved $5 into his hands and said "please take this" then before he could hand it back, I yelled out "thanks" put my foot on the gas and allowed the noisy muffler to kick in – Operation “patch up pipes” could now be achieved, thanks to this guy who took the time out to help us get the goods required for such a mission.

Waterpipe Crisis Resolved

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POST by RENZ: My Right to Blare Alarms

Aben & Lorenzy

Sunday´s are most of the time very relaxing days for us but last Sunday was insane and sort of scary. It started out really fun. My sister and I went to the German school because they were having a fair and some friends of ours invited us to go with them. Once we got back we swam and had fun and decided that at night time we would have a movie night.

A friend of mine (our neighbor) came to our house whilst I was making dinner. She asked me to go to Covanic; a place that is a university; a home to some people; it has offices, a library, and things like that.

She needed to do some homework and print some things so a few of the Trickster boys, my sister, my friend, her brother, and I went walking because it was just down the street.

When we got back two of the Trickster boys had gotten into trouble for smoking in the casita where they were staying. They had to move into the shed bedroom for a week because of that, but Rene got mad because he said he didn´t smoke in the casita but had let others smoke in there.

One of the other Trickster boys also got mad because Rene had disrespected my mum and so Aben and Rene got into a fist fight. I went outside to see but they had already finished fighting.

Rene went into the casita and then went inside the main house. I followed him because I wanted to talk to him. He walked into the kitchen and got a drink of water, then he grabbed a big knife and went running to the gate to go outside. My mum grabbed his shirt and tried to stop him.

Rene y Lorenzy

I stood next to him and grabbed his arm which had the knife and with my other hand held the gate shut. He was swinging his arms around and he almost stabbed me so I screamed and let go of him and so he went running to where the others were.

I went running the other way to where Fran and my friend were and told them what had happened and that he had a knife but it was too late, Rene and Aben had already started fighting again.

Luckily, Aben had kicked him and so he did not get stabbed. Jamil, who worked for us but now works in the army made them stop fighting. Then my mum came out and told Rene to go inside.

She first talked with Aben and left him. When she went inside she told Rene to go into her room with her. When she came out she locked the door and we started the movie but she went outside.

In the middle of the movie Rene got out by the window but none of us saw him get out. Then Beycker came inside and told my mum that Rene was outside. And so she put him back in her room and he was in there for the rest of the night.

Rene y Aben