A small taste...

We have met a man here who started a chocolate factory. It is called El Castillo de Cacao. In English it is called the castle of cacao. Check out their website because it is a pretty good story. The website is http://www.elcastillodelcacao.com/index.html

The following is a picture of my three beauties getting caught eating some of the chocolate I am trying to get onto bananas for a frozen chocolate-banana treat!

Ok, I didn't really feed my baby chocolate, but it makes for a good picture, right?

So, our original business idea was to open an eco-lodge...it has been done here. It will be done again. In Granada alone 28 new hotels opened within the last couple of years. We can't compete. So that business idea has been quashed for quite a while. Our new ideas, well, they are coming...we are working on them. We would like to tell you, but we want to have a better idea ourselves before we commit to one idea over another.

It's coming, I promise. We are working on it!

Love you!

Beautiful Granada

This is a view of our house. The yellow room on the left, with the doors open is our bedroom. This is the Convento San Francisco, located just across the street from our house. It is a very famous church, with a museum right next door.
This is our house. Maia is right out front.Isn't it beautiful!!
This is the view of Mombacho mountain, an inactive volcano that can be seen if you look right from our house.
Here is Adam, working away at the computer at the restaurant right next door to our house.

So, I know that I promised more about our business, but it is still kind of in the works, so I can’t say anything yet. Just to let everyone know though, we are planning on being home in Canada for Lauren and Jamie’s baby’s birth, so we won’t be here after July 20th, and we aren’t sure when we will get back. So, if you want to visit us, please come before July 20th. And please do come if you can because we would love to have more guests.
Granada is what I would like to talk about today. Granada is the city where we live. It is supposedly the oldest colonized city in Central America. It is a beautiful little town, with a population of approx. 130, 000. My friend Jessica just posted some pictures of Spain on her facebook account and I was stunned at the similarities. It is quite evident that this town was settled/colonized by Spaniards. The cobblestone streets, the red clay tile roofs and the interior courtyards all show a Spanish influence.
The people that we have met so far have been really nice, despite our first issues with trusting people. I am really starting to love it here, and would like to stay as long as possible. Circumstances allowing, we will be back to this little paradise soon. The sidewalks are kind of hard to navigate with the stroller, if they exist at all. But, what I love about this place is that even though you have to walk on the streets sometimes, all of the cars avoid you. Defensive driving is in full play here. This is a good thing because we have been caught driving the wrong way down one way streets too many times to count.
Every block has several small stores being run out of people’s homes. These places are called Pulperias. They are sometimes big and fancy and other times they aren’t even advertised on the street. The Pulperias sell everything from milk, eggs and pasta to school books and hair gel. They have an impressive amount of stock, albeit sometimes a little dusty.
The market here runs seven days a week and sells absolutely anything you can imagine. There are fresh corn or flour tortillas daily, as well as a huge selection of fruit, vegetables, fish, meat and various household items. You can buy shoes, hair elastics, and bras all at one little booth. It is busy all the time, except when I get there with Naomi strapped to me. Then, all of the hustle and bustle seems to stop and everyone stares at Naomi and I. People have even asked me if she is mine. She is quite the show here, as is Maia.
In response to my cousin Erin’s inquiry about diseases and the like. We have been pretty lucky so far. All of the vegetables and fruit that we are planning to eat raw, go into a sink full of water that has been treated with a tiny amount of bleach. This kills all the potentially harmful bacteria and has kept us free from traveller’s stomach so far. Also, one great thing about Granada is that you can drink the tap water. We have all been doing so without incident. As for other precautions, we all got immunized before we came. I cut Maia’s fingernails really short in order to avoid any contact with contaminated dirt. Other than that, we just hope for the best I guess.
Well, that is all for now. I have posted some pictures to give you an idea of our neighbourhood and new house. Sorry this posting is so short and kind of vanilla. Next time I promise more juice. Love to youall and thank you Becky for your comments about people reading but not posting comments. It gives us heart.

Returning to "normal".

Naomi and mom on playing on the chair. I just asked Naomi if she likes Granada, I think the smile is a "yes".

Dinner with Michelle at " El Garage". It was a real blast to have a Gill in our pose, it really reminded us of some of our previous adventures.

Bedtime at the Browns. A good book and a cuddle are the prerequisites of a good nights sleep.

This is how it all started......I was lying on the ground in the sun, watching my baby play nearby. Maia was asleep and Adam had gone to work on his muscles. I noticed that one of the chairs just to my right had a big bump underneath it. I never would have seen this bump, if I hadn’t been lying on the ground. This chair was one of a group of four chairs, and none of the other chairs had a bump underneath.
I stared at it for a while.
It started to move.
I jumped up quickly, knowing with certainty, that I had uncovered a nest of scorpions, or snakes, or even worse...cockroaches. I grabbed Naomi, and ran to the bedroom where Maia was sleeping, blissfully unaware of the horrors that were lurking on the other side of the garden.
When Adam returned home, an eternity later, I had closed all of the doors in the bedroom and was waiting with heart pounding knowing that every noise I heard was the sound of the baby creatures emerging from their womb in the chair. I quickly recounted my tale, and he bravely went over to the chair and whacked the cushion. I couldn’t believe his brazen disregard for his personal safety. I thanked my lucky stars that I had married such a courageous man.
When he returned from his heroic encounter with...who knows what...his face held an expression of disbelief. He must not be able to accept my tale as true, the strange bugs that we are meeting here in Nicaragua, I thought to myself. Yet, he was also slightly smirking at me. “It was nothing” he said. “Nothing”, my voice trembled, “you mean, it was nothing you couldn’t handle”? “No” he replied “There was nothing in any of the chairs. You’re going to have to toughen up a little Emilie” and then he mumbled something about cowering in the bedroom. Part of me was elated. No strange lair of animals was living in the cushion. It must have been the wind that created movement in the cloth. Another part of me felt slightly indignant, as I had only been trying to protect my children from unknown horrors. The greater feeling though, was one of shame. My Grannie told me a long time ago, that you should never show your fears to your children, because it will transfer to them. Since having children, I didn’t realise just how many fears I would have to hide. Who knew I was such a scaredy cat?
The intent of this story though, was to introduce the topic of animals. As I sit, in our new home, I can see 5 different birds in our garden. We also have a large frog living in the garage, bats that swoop into our living room at night, many geckos, ants, beetles, grasshoppers and the list could go on. For a squeamish person like me, I have had to come to terms the fact that I live in a world that has other creatures living it in with me. Nicaragua has been a real education in becoming closer to nature. It will take me some time, but I will come around. I already have come farther than I ever have in the past.
As for our new house, well, it is fantastic. It has a swimming pool. Enough said. Come and visit as soon as you can.
Maia loves her new school. She has made some friends and is exhausted by 1:00 when we pick her up. Adam and I have also been at school on the mornings. Adam goes to a non-profit Spanish language school, which uses their profits to house and educate street boys in Granada. I have teacher that comes to my house in the mornings. She is really great. Yesterday we went to the market, and I learned the culturally appropriate way to bargain. It was quite the eye opener actually.
As for Naomi, well she continues to grow and laugh. She is a happy person, who is a delight to be around. We are very lucky parents to have two very wonderful daughters.
As for our business, I know that I promised to tell you more next time, but we don't want to reveal too much, until we have more of it worked out. We have a meeting today with a man who will be helping us, and then perhaps afterwards I will be able to say a little more.
Love to you all. We miss you tremendously. Please send many, many notes!!

Humbly Frustrated

Michelle and Naomi with a water bottle. Naomi really attacks plastic bottles and any type of glassware.

Maia and Mark Anthony having a squat. They played really well together.

Maia found Mark Anthony's markers. Looks like she started with some lipstick then proceeded to the face tattoo.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, that is what I have for everybody....who tries to learn English.

What a feeling of helplessness, not being able to speak the language here. My limited Spanish and theatre training has served as a buffer, but I am certainly not getting into any serious political or literary discussions here. I want to, believe me...Adam and I start Spanish school here on Monday. He will be attending classes, and I will be getting taught in the comfort of my own home. Hopefully, by the end of four weeks, we will be on our way to having some pretty in-depth conversations, about...the weather perhaps. Isn't that what Canadians like to talk about?

Adam, Maia and I have been keeping busy since our last blog.

We went to Leon, and we loved it. The energy of Leon was quite the change from sleepy little Granada. There were many students and lots of action, even with the hot-hot-heat. We even managed to get out to a beautiful little beach called Las Penitas. On the way back into town we picked up 5 university students hitch-hiking. They were really nice to us and we gave them the link to this blog. If they are checking it, a big hello to all of you! Unfortunately, there were no houses for rent in the centre of town. At least, not any furnished ones. All of the houses that we looked at were in the suburbs, and since we were planning on sending our van back to Canada soon, we wanted to find a place that easily accessed the downtown on foot.

So, we were fine with returning to Granada. We have started to settle in here anyway, and it really is a beautiful little town. We have been meeting with many people who have settled here and have ideas about business. In fact, we are meeting the editor of the local English-Language newspaper in about 15 minutes.

The big news here in Nicaragua is the transportation strike. For the past two weeks, all inter-city buses and taxis have been protesting the rise in gas prices. They believe that the government should be subsidizing the cost. While gas prices are similar to Canadian ones, the average monthly income is so much lower, that it makes it quite difficult for people to afford transportation at all. The goverment is washing it's hands of all responsibility, saying that gas prices are out of their hands. It is quite funny (not in a ha! ha! way), given that a similar strike happened when the current Sandanista government was the opposition, and was even financed by them. Now Daniel Ortega is just waiting out the strike, because he knows that the people who work in the transportation industry cannot afford to stay on strike for much longer.

The bus and taxi drivers that line the road, are not asking for money from all private vehicles driving by. This may be a good route to take given that most people in the country are supporting the strike.

On the other hand, the strike meant that our friend Michelle Gill, has been unable to explore the country, the way she had intended too. We had to pick her up from Managua, and on Sunday, we will drive her to the Costa Rica border, so that she can finish off her eight months of travel through South and central America. She's had to see alot more of us than she intended, but she has said that she is getting much more sleep than she normally does. I guess that means that Adam and I don't really party the way we used to....NAW! That's impossible. We're still hip cats...

Next time, we will let you in on our new plan for a business. We are still working it out, so we don't want to let the cat out of the bag before we are certain.

Luckily, Michelle has a camera, so we have been able to get some pics off of her camera. We have bought a new one though, so more pictures and video will follow.

Love to you all...and Stewie, not sure who you are...please let us know. We got both of your messages though.

Ciao...

Slow as molasses

The internet in our home is down and repairs and service happen at a slower pace here in Nicaragua. I am in an internet cafe that is about 5 blocks away. The reason I am here is because the sign outside claims a whopping 2 mps!!!! Whoa...I hope I don't lose my hair! It is a little painful watching this computer trying to download and I will be pleasantly surprised if I can even post this blog.

Em and I are keeping quite busy making new friends these days. We had a fantastic birthday party for Maia at the library across the street. We booked it from 11 to 12 and about 30 kids from the area showed up. There was only 7 kids at the beginning but news travels very fast here considering nobody has phones. A large Pricemart cake and four pizzas were quickly devourved by the horde but the pinata just wouldn't break. The pinata had a clay skeleton and the broomstick handle broke before any candy was extracted. Maia laughed and cried and is very happy to be 3.

Today we were invited to a small pool party at our neighbors house. Some of the people at the party have been living here for 10 years and have thier finger on the pulse of Granada. It was informative and refreshing as the party was cleverly set for 2pm which is the theoretical hottest part of the day. There was a 2 year old boy at the party who played very well with Maia and nobody was hurt until Maia decided to jump into the swimming pool without her water wings. To her credit she did ask Em if she could go in again. Emilie had agreed she could go back in but was expecting Maia to wait for her. Maia jump in and was very surprised to find herself sinking like a stone. Fortunately we were all very close and watching and the result was only mild coughing. Maia insists that she wasn't scared. I told her that being fearless and reckless are not the best combination.

We are heading to Leon tommorow. The ocean is much closer to Leon but everybody is telling us that Leon in unbarebly hot. The weather network reported 43 degrees last week. We are getting used to the warm weather but we will see if we can handle the real heat. Perhaps when we come back to Granada it will be cool and refreshing.

Adam