Si, si, si

OK, I’m a little late but finally finding a minute to write about Nicaragua. I’m doing this from Reno, where I am spending the week of Zippy’s softball tournament.

We got here on Wednesday and will be here until Wednesday, then I have one more weekend in Florida before I leave for North Dakota. My time is fleeting.

But Nicaragua was awesome. We took a team of 12 or 13 players (depending on if you counted Chris as a player or coach) and seven others. One of those was a girlfriend of a player and another was Chris’ wife. One was a dad of two players. Two worked with Scott, who organized the trip.

A dozen of the guys were straight-up players, mostly from a Christian college in Lakeland. Most of the others had played for Chris, who coached at several levels in Tallahassee. They were primarily between 18 and 22, with one having his senior prom the day after our return.

That guy, Alec, was a trip and a half. We got him to play David in our David and Goliath skit and he nailed it. (Miming only; we had a Spanish translator doing the narrative.) Part of what made Alec so funny was that we met his brother from another mother there – this guy who worked for the mission was *exactly* like him.

Lester was also 18, had the same slight frame, same facial features and mannerisms, including wearing his hat backwards. More than once I mistook one for the other, even though one was white and the other incredibly dark-skinned. They were a hoot together. They really were the same person.

All the guys were, really. I felt like I was some kind of team mom. I and the other adult woman (with apologies to the wife of the player, who was 23) were called upon to fix the teams’ boo-boos. And since they were playing on the roughest fields imaginable, there were quite a few.

The fields. Oh, man. Unlevel, with grass here, hard dirt there, weeds there – I am not sure how the team (Real Florida) managed to escape serious injuries. We did have a couple of tweaks and some big time strawberries, but overall we were really lucky in that aspect. Heck, we never even had anyone get sick to their stomachs.

The games were pretty cool, too. I’m not a futbol fan, really, but I got into the games. Our guys, playing at a disadvantage most times, did really well. They won a couple of games and lost a few tight ones, including one to some international championship team.

The non-players did a lot of entertaining kids, blowing bubbles, making balloon animals, playing limbo and the like. We did a sort of Vacation Bible School with a David and Goliath skit (the dad played Goliath) and then had the kids make puppets after.

Holy cow, the kids. We visited several venues and were overrun with kids. For the most part, it went great but oh, man. Visions of my dar chebab in Morocco.

What made this different was that instead of being just an after-school activity, what we took part in was a bonus activity during the normal feeding time. The organization we worked with, run by a guy named Oscar (cachphrase: "Si, si, si!"), feeds 10k people, mostly children, every single day. We went to about five different venues, from a dump to a church celebrating its first anniversary, to help make the food, provide some entertainment and then feed the children.

I delved out I don’t know how many hundreds of portions to kids, the only meal most would eat that day. This organization works with a nonprofit to feed them, and it’s mostly rice. On the first day, we helped unload a truck of two months’ worth of rice. (Two weeks later, I still have a six-inch bruise on my leg where I dropped one of the 1,400 boxes weighing 30.7 pounds each on my thigh. It’s still ugly.)

Because we were there and infused a little more money, we were able to go to the market and buy vegetables and meat to add to the usual rice mixture. And by “meat,” I mean chicken heads and feet. This grossed me out so much, especially since I was one of the volunteers to chop the veggies. One day, I finished the veggies and got a handful of chicken feet to chop up. This is TMI, but I had to whack off the tips of the chicken feet, with the nails. To me, it was nasty, but to the kids, it was a piece of meat, a rarity.

A lot of the players hadn’t traveled internationally and were stunned at the conditions in which people live, especially the dump, where 250 families live. They have little shanties and what the guy’s organization wants to do is build homes there. Currently, they have built two permanent homes, for $5k each. That’s amazing. The one we saw – belonging to the pastor of the church there, where we also installed a toilet – was no bigger than my apartment in Jakarta, but it was a home for four people.

We had one half day off and went to the beach, the Pacific. (We were in Leon, on the west coast.) A couple of the guys surfed but most of us just enjoyed the sand. I know I did. Finally, I got to wade in the ocean. I really needed the toes in the sand.

One of the incredibly bizarre things we did, at least in comparison to the US, was similar to what happens in Morocco. We did some promoting of our group and essentially walked up to a high school, knocked on the door, then went into every single classroom to speak, hand out flyers and then spend a class period entertaining the entire school, unscripted, on the futbol field. This is just not possible in the United States.

We stayed at the home of the guy who runs the organization. It was amazing. Not that the home was anything spectacular, just that we weren’t in some dorm somewhere, or a hotel or hostel, but were in his home. Last October, Scott had gone with another team down there to scout the organization and brought a builder, I think, with him. That builder later came and added several rooms to the home, which will allow teams in the future to come and visit. I think we were the first. It was just so strange to be sitting in someone’s living room, all 20 of us, and eat at his table. (Or tables – we took up three.) So hospitable.

The food was pretty darn good, too. We had these amazing juices with almost every meal. Fresh squeezed, and it was always some kind of mixture. My favorite was purple, although I’ve no idea what fruits were used. The second best was some kind of strawberry banana.

We only went out to eat once, which was the day on the beach. We were right on the beach, too.

I didn’t take pictures but am hoping to filch some from June, who was our official photographer. I was the reporter and am due to write a story to submit to the Democrat.

And now I need to get on the stick on that one.

In the meantime, here’s a YouTube link to the space shuttle Endeavor’s last power down. Laurie is featured at the beginning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BClxk1QyKH0

Welcome to the Miami International Airport. Now, Get in a Different Line

I'm back from Nicaragua but still not in Havana.

Laurie met me at the airport in Orlando and we went directly to the kids' camp out, which was at Disney. I had thought it was Saturday night only, but it was Friday and Saturday.

Like my last trip to Fort Wilderness, it rained, but at least yesterday's weather was good.

Their Scouts den leader works at Disney and arranged the trip, which helps them earn a couple of badges. We went to Animal Kingdom for so they could research their naturalist badges and also took a ride on Mount Everest.

I still have yet to report on Nicaragua, and that'll come once I'm back on my own computer. Right now, I am using Chris' in an effort to catch up on a backlog.

We arrived safely Friday after a fantastic trip.

The Managua-Miami flight back was just fine. The Miami-Orlando one, though, even at only 30 minutes, was the most turbulent one I've ever been on. It was thunderstormy so I understood some, but the climb ... oh, the climb. We went up and down so many times I was about sick, and some people screamed.

I wanted to in the Miami airport. THAT place is a nightmare. We got in and only had about an hour and a half between flights, which is cutting it close for customs/gate change in any large airport.

But Miami isn't just any large airport. It's worse. Holy God, was it worse.

After the 20 of us gathered, one discovered he'd left his wallet on the plane. He, his wife and the one person who didn't have to make the connection ran back to the gate and the other 17 legged it to immigration.

There, hundreds of people stood in lines waiting to get in. Never has "Everybody's Got a Cousin in Miami" rang louder in my brain. People were everywhere, only they weren't US citizens. The first lines were for foreigners, so our group, now of 17, ran to lines 8-12, where the lines were for US citizens.

And they weren't moving. We stood for 15 minutes until I heard some announcement saying something about lines 1-12 being for US citizens. I was in line 9, and I'd noticed line 8 was moving more quickly than lines 9-12's not at all.

Turns out, there IS someone behind the curtains -- or wall, in this case. There were seven other lines moving rapidly, but you couldn't see them from where everyone else (and not just our team) could see them.

I ran over and got into line 1, with most people following. Then I got through with just a "are you traveling alone?" as a question.

Went down to baggage claim, where I found two guys had gotten their checked bags and just left the others sitting there. We'd checked five, assigning them to different people to avoid any charges.

I sent the two guys into the LONG customs line to save our spots, then grabbed the other three bags myself. By then, others had arrived and we determined the long line was for everyone, not just those with checked bags.

By then, all but one of us had made it through customs. We were missing one guy, and, after dispatching the rest of the group to stand in the every-growing line with our earlier guys, I waited by the elevator.

After about 10 more minutes, he made it down, saying the woman in charge refused to let him leave his line 9, even though others were and it wasn't moving. Insane.

It struck me fully, like it did in LA, that the American workers were totally rude at the airports. Our Managua airport personnel were so nice, but immediately after landing on US soil, the attitudes changed. Rude, rude, rude.

Anyway, our line of 19 now -- the lost wallet couple had already gotten the wallet and headed through and the other guy caught up with us -- slowly inched up, eying the clock the whole time.

The line was organic. The sucker kept growing. Picture your average-sized gymnasium, the kind high-schoolers play basketball in.

The line wound around from the front corner all the way around, to the point where, by the time we got up to the front, the back had begun to snake around a second time.

Once we got through that, though, it again broke into smaller, quicker-moving lines. We still had issues, though. Holy cow.

At one point, our two brothers realized they needed their customs form, which was with their dad, who was about five people back, in the neighboring line. We pulled him up to them and my God, some man who worked there took exception and yelled at us, saying we were cutting. Uh, no. We're all in line here. You can take the two boys our and move them back two steps and tick off everyone behind them, or you can bump the dad up five people, wave a blue piece of paper and move on.

We muddled through that, then had the issue of rechecking the five bags. There were no signs, though, and people kept going everywhere. In one case, the guy went too far down a hall and got yelled at for not knowing he was supposed to be somewhere else. Hello, you could have warned him as he walked by, you know?

It ended up we wound up re-checking bags in three different places. We couldn't hang around as that was against some rule, although there appeared to be nothing preventing people from coming in from the outside world and sticking something into our checked bags.

Speaking of the outside world, Miami is one of those stupid airports, like LAX, where international passengers have to exit the terminal completely and go again through security starting at Square One.

Definitely, passengers need the security -- Manauga hadn't cared about liquids, for example -- but for God's sake, don't make them go through the "Everybody" lines.

But we had to. Our gate being D43 -- and by this time, thank God, our flight delayed half an hour -- we had to go out and come back. The line, again, was out the door.

I showed the attendant my boarding pass, said we left in half an hour, could we go someplace else? -- and she, thankfully, directed me to the next terminal over.. I grabbed the 6-7 people I was with and we ran back the way we'd come, running into a few more people as we went. There were others already deep into the D line but I couldn't get to them.

Finally, we got through and made it, where we learned out flight had been delayed another half hour. Never have I been so relieved for that delay. I'm sure other MIA-MCO flyers were ticked, but for me, it was an answer to prayer that the 19 of us made the flight. And due to the extra half-hour, the guys bought pizza for lunch.

Next time, I'll pay $75 extra and fly Delta out of Atlanta. I'm not doing MIA again.

My airport snack was a Coke. In true MIA fashion, when I went to pay for it -- exactly the same place and register I'd bought one on the way out -- the worker tried to ring it up, then handed it back to me, saying it wouldn't scan and I'd have to go stand in another line.

Nic of time

Arrived safely in Nicaragua and am having a great time with 19 other Americans and a handful of Nicaraguans.

And I managed to learn all their names in record time. Very unlike me, I must add. And I am still having a hard time with one name I can´t pronounce properly, but I know who she is.

My name, of course, is hard for everyone to remember. Thanks, Mother.

We´re finally somewhat acclimated to here and very bruised. One of our first things to do was unload a truck filled with 30 pound boxes of rice for the feeding program. The group feeds 10k people a day and we unloaded two months worth of food. It was about 1,400 boxes.

Assembly line fashion works best, but for some reason, the locals don´t catch on to that. But we knocked it out pretty quick.

Leon, where we are in Nicaragua, is far more developed that I expected. I guess I was thinking of small town Morocco, but this is pretty cool. There is widespread poverty, though, but you´d never know it. Everyone´s all smiles and happy to see us.

Our soccer team, which is made up of mostly college players, is getting used to playing in the heat and on the less than austere fields. (Sorry, Nicaraguan keyboard. I can´t find the dash.) We also only have one sub, which, in 100 degree heat, is a little rough.

So we´re down one game but have three more. We´re also doing Vacation Bible School with the little kids who come to watch, and I´m blue in the face from blowing bubbles.

Today, we´re off to church, and one of the players is speaking. After that, we´ve got another game and it´ll be the hottest one because it´s at 3. No one in this country should be moving around at 3.

That´s all the time I have on the computer now. A more thorough update will happen when I get back.

Wadeing through a mess

Well, I got a shock this past week. My great uncle, E. Gray Wade, whom I’d visited a couple of weeks ago, died last Tuesday.

We were *just* there, visiting him. The first road trip after I got back. Two weeks after we visited, Daddy had a reunion in Monroe and he and Zippy picked him up to visit the hometown.

Even though I got the impression the trip itself was really rough, the trip down memory lane must have gone well for Gray. They visited the land, Don and some friends of Zippy.

Meanwhile, I stayed with Rally and Batgirl, for which I deserve a medal. If anyone thought Kocur was high maintenance, meet those two. Batgirl is more vocal about what she wants and I was regularly cussed in Dog.

Anyway, Z and Daddy arrived to return Gray to Lafayette on Sunday, intending to drive back Monday. But that morning, they found him collapsed by the bed.

By that afternoon, they took him to the ER and by evening he was admitted. The next morning, he died.

I was totally shocked; still can’t believe it. But I had to get out there for not only the funeral but also to clean up the mess, of which there was a HUGE one. I knew, because I’d just been there.

In some really bad logistical reasoning in order to get a decent plane fare (my mother freaked at me driving seven hours alone – go figure), I went to Orlando to meet Laurie. We flew Southwest from there tot NOLA and then rented a car.

Not the most effective method of getting from here to there, but since I leave tomorrow for Nicaragua from Orlando, I can just pick up the car from there on the way back, which will be after a camping trip with the boys but before a week in Reno.

If considering all that isn’t enough to keep my head spinning, then the mess we went through was.

Oh my God. Gray had lived in the house for 30 years and I am positive he never threw away a thing.

Friday, there were five of us cleaning, but Laurie had to leave Saturday morning.

I can’t believe how much Wade stuff I waded through. If Charles can get me the photos, I’ll post them, but holy God, it was amazing. We rented a 100’ construction Dumpster thing that held 12,000 pounds and filled it by Monday.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to be that discriminate. I know there are plenty of organizations that could have used the stuff and a ton of collectors who would have drooled over some of stuff we had hauled off, but we just didn’t have time to sit, sort and make phone calls to see if someone could come and pick up this pile or that one.

We did get three loads to Salvation Army, two to the food bank and two recycle runs, but everything else that was clutter went out.

I’m not talking the good stuff. The house is still furnished, complete with four fridges/ freezers and cable TV.

But the really good stuff was peppered all over the house. We just had to hunt for it.

That entailed me going through those 93 pairs of pants, pocket by pocket. Shirts by the scores – the first closet (of four, not counting all over the furniture) had two hanging each hanger.

Jackets worn by, I think, Joseph’s brothers. He got the coat of many colors, but I found the one with a pocket full of $2 bills, a diamond, two rings and other stuff I didn’t even know what was.

Money was everywhere. Not much, but many little stacks. Quarters here, some $2 bills there, $50 in a cookbook and $1 randomly in an envelope box.

But holy smokes, the money didn’t touch the booze. I knew the one fridge was filled with beer, and there’s a story there.

The AC broke right off and we offered the two service kids some booze. They thought we meant to have one with us right then and they said no, sorry, company rules forbid it. But when we said no, it’s to-go, and opened the fridge, you never saw four bigger eyes. They loaded down THREE coolers full and had a great weekend.

It wasn’t until after that, though, that we found the real stash. Laurie hit on the one hooch and literally spent hours pouring gin, vodka, Jack, rum and lots of stuff I never heard of down the drain.

Yes, it’s a crime – likely a capital offense in Louisiana – but what else can you do? Seriously? I don’t think the food bank accepts hard stuff. Not a good idea.

But even after that, we kept running into alcohol. In every room, literally. (And this is in addition to the four brewing kits that Zippy found.)

There was a mini-stash in the main work shed (mini both in the number of the big bottles and the size of about 10 other bottles) and another in the second storage room.

In the hall closet, along with the drapes ordered when Gray moved into the house 40 years ago but never installed, I found SIX gallons of wine, neatly double bagged in Wal-mart bags. The new logo, too, so it wasn’t that old, unlike the home brew (in IBC root beer bottles) that gathered dust or the Molson  bottles that predated Hockey Night in Canada.

The hall closet also yielded another surprise: a money bag that didn’t have money in it.

It’s an old-time money bag and I fully expected to find, well, money, in it. Maybe another little pile of Sacajewa dollars or another Kennedy half dollar. Maybe even another handful of WWII-era Japanese coins.

But no. It was the missing sawed-off shotgun, something I’ve never even seen. Gray had apparently hidden it from someone and then forgot about it, because it was one of the things he’d talked about, speculating that someone had stolen it.

In all, we accounted for all five guns. The sawed off shotgun surprised me, but I’d seen the bag so I knew something was in it, even if it wasn’t as marked. It was the .22 that scared the crap out of me because I didn’t know it was there.

I was going through a closet and picked up a couple of sheets and there’s this heavy, huge pistol just sitting on the shelf.

Loaded, of course.