Freshly squeezed OJ

The link below should bring you to a page with pictures of the house we are renting. I would have taken pictures myself but as you may know our camera is broken.

http://www.gpsnicaragua.com/renthomes/casalucia/

We are settling in to life here the following are some of the major differences. The quantity of bugs in the house is hard to get used to but we are shifting our perception of "normal" and coping quite well. There are lines of ants in our kitchen. For those of you that are in love with ants like I am you kmow they are mesmerizing. I keep on killing entire tracks but the ants seem unoffended and have their trail rebuilt in a few minutes. The home for the ants is a tiny hole in one of the wall tiles. They are lines to the sink (water) to the counter ( food crumbs) and to the tv which I can only guess is for entertainment. I have no problem with the ants as they are clean and not poisonous. We have at least 20 geckos in our house. They scramble on the walls and make weird noises that sound like someone is at the door. We kept on opening the front door until we figured that one out (Emilie excluded). The is always a plethora of dead bugs on the floor. Some dead from our lumbering feet, some burn themselves alive on the light bulbs at night and some probably die from old age but it's hard to tell. The cockroach room is the only real offender. The problem was that the light in the room wasn't working and cockroaches had been sighted. I had two cockroaches running about my feet when I was showering. Luckily the house has been fumigated and the house was bug free for a couple of hours.

We are slowly acclimatized to the heat. Apparently its takes approximately 2 weeks to become accostumed to the heat. I haven't stopped sweating since we got here. Even the breeze is hot. We have arrived in central america in the hottest time of the year. The rivers are dry, roads and trees are covered in dust and the land aching for the rain that is coming soon.

A few promising things in Granada are the women who walk up and down the street selling fresh fruit. We have been buying oranges, papaya, canteloup, watermelon, banana and carrots from these ladies. The fruit is locally grown and is delicious and the juicer has been working overtime. My favorite is carrot juice and Emilie likes the orange juice. There is a kids library across the street that Maia and I went to this afternoon. All the kids know Maia now and scream her name when she arrives. She is taking the fame in stride. We read "A case of the stripes" which is about a girl that wants to eat lima beans. Another convenience here are the taxis. They are not beautiful and they don't have shocks or seatbelts or doors that shut BUT it does cost only 1 dollar to go anywhere in town.

Hope you enjoy the photos of our house,

Adam out.