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...