Granada was hosting the annual horse parade "Hipica" and the Carnival this weekend.
Typically, it is the weekend with the most people being pick pocket of the whole year.
Thieves come from Managua and other cities just to steal as much as you can.
One of our guests was pick pocketed three times on one day.
Fortunately, we had warned everybody beforehand, and nobody lost anything at all.
Some notes in a sock still works best!
I am happy to say that, so far, I haven't heard yet of a Chavalo that got involved in stealing.
I did meet dozens of people that lost their cell phones, money and even keys and handkerchiefs!
Here and there, there were some small repairs, like Evin, whose knees were wounded.
I gave him some band-aids with antibiotic ointment, and I was almost shocked to see how jittery his hand motion is.
Nothing one would expect from a teenager. He makes an OK living shining shoes and selling chewing gum.
Unfortunately, most of his earnings go to buying glue.
This morning, I heard of another sad case of child death.
One of our neighbors at the farm lost his little girl.
She died in the hospital in Managua, and he needed the money to get her back in Granada for her to be buried close to her family.
Not only didn't he have the money for decent medical help (why do they come here when it is too late?), he couldn't even bring her body back to Granada. So sad...
Poverty is rising (or falling!?). It just gets worse and worse.
Thieves stole the metal that supported a bridge in one of the main streets.
Of course, the bridge collapsed, and this has a big influence on traffic going in and out of the city.
They probably got a hundred dollars or so on old iron, but the cost to repair that bridge is just humongous.
Such a waste, such irresponsibility, but what do you do when you have a sick kid or a hungry family...
Fliki is back out of jail and demanded food again.
I told him that he could have food if someone didn't show up, or if one of the Chavalos would move back to Managua or another city. He's on the waiting list! I don't know what he did, I think he's a good guy in a bad situation.
People ask if I have any news about Diego Manuel. No, I haven't.
I tried calling him every day, but always get his voice mail.
It might be that he pawned his cell phone to pay for some medical costs, or for food.
As soon as I hear from him, I will let you know how he is.
Thank you for asking, though.
Today, I went to the electricity company to pay the bills.
Unfortunately, they couldn't attend because.. they had no electricity!
One of our guests was circling in the air above the airport because they had no electricity there in the evening.
They were there well over an hour! One would expect that an international airport would have a generator.
This weekend, I read in the newspaper that Nicaragua received $162 million on their account. A gift from Venezuela. Great, I thought, they can surely use the money. Most schools are in trouble. Barrios need paved streets, ... But then, further on, I read that Venezuela had sent almost $500million. Somewhere on the way, the rest got missing. I hope that those newspapers are wrong.
In the meanwhile, the hungry kids come and pick up the used bars of soap so that they can go wash in the lake, and the empty soda cans which they can sell for almost $0.50 per lbs to buy some rice and beans to survive!
Keep on coming back and see if any of the offers on this page are interesting for you.
They are for us! Have a great day!!
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