Getting Ready for the Jump

It's spring again, and time to take off for another adventure. Hitting the gym, getting ready for my trip to Holland. I have been spending some time at 'Skydive Toronto Inc' prepping for my next trip. That's parachuting. I am scheduled to attend the National Dutch Parachute Centre to complete the Dutch Military B Course with the Pathfinder UK Parachute Group. Looking forward to it. I'll write more as it occurs. 'Clear skys, soft landings'.

Boots

Now that I am finally home, I can reflect on my trip. The CENAC Spanish School and their instructors were excellent, the police officers, prison officers and lawyers I meet were very professional. I respect the Nicaraguan people as they are resilient, resourceful and have purpose in life, that is to make a new and productive society. Most of the 'norteamericanos' and Europeans I met were nice, some misdirected, but had most had good intentions, others had an excellent sense of Nicaragua and the people, kudos to them. The university staff from Michigan were doing an excellent job of innovation and assistance, I liked what I heard and saw. Unfortunately some of the people I didn't like were overbearing, full of themselves gringos who could not make it in their own country so they came down here to try to be a big fish in a little pond! My only advice is - 'go home'. Things that work in the first would may not be suitable for the 3rd, Nicaragua needs Nicaraguan solutions.

As I sit hear in my kitchen drinking organic Las Diosas coffee I reflect on what I saw and heard. Nicaragua has a good future, education will help, the children and young people are their future, I guess I do have to go back to see how things will turn out. For now I have to clean and blacken my combat boots, find my uniform and get ready for training on the weekend. At least all summer I will have the best coffee on base!

Airborne

I had to get ready for 1 am in order to leave the city of Esteli to be at the Sandino International Airport on time for checking in. I packed all my bags (lots of coffee!) the night before and I was supposed to get some sleep but of course that never happened. Roman was picking me up and we needed to take our time driving to Managua as the roads are treacherous at night. Lilliam got up at 1 to say goodbye. As I was getting my bags outside ready for pick-up the house hold dog ran through the door after a cat! So after tracking the dog 2 blocks in the middle of the night and carrying her home I was ready for the drive to Managua!

The drive uneventful but slow. As we wound our way down the mountains we came across all sorts of people still up from partying the night before. I was surprised at the number of cars still on the road at that time of night and we only had to detour around one dog, one cow and a drunk in the middle of the road! After 3 hours of driving we arrive safely at the airport. Surprising I meet a number of Canadians returning to Canada, some after a vacation and others to visit family and friends as some of them had previously moved to Nicaragua. One guy was rescuing a young pup and taking him home to Calgary.

The flight was relaxing even though it was delayed by an hour, but the Miami airport was a nightmare., I must have walked for miles to get to passport control, then I had to pick-up my bags go through customs and then drop them off for transport to Toronto. By the time I found my gate, the entire process took two hours and I had one hour to eat and rest before continuing on my journey. The fight to Toronto was full and we had a little turbulence but it was fine. I caught up on a little sleep. My daughter, her girlfriend and my granddaughter met me at the Pearson Int'l Airport and I am always happy to return home from my trips.

I drove from the airport to Burlington and kept thinking that the grass is so green, the roads very clean and the van was driving on a surface of glass as the roads were very smooth compared to Nicaragua, however there was a twinge in my heart that said it was not the same and something was different or missing. So after my summer of military training I guess I'll have to go back! :)

Saturday in Estile

I woke at 5am, still tired from the night before, but I have a lot of stuff to get done. I decided to go out shopping early at 8:30, the sun was already bright. I was looking for a specific store, do you think I could remember where it was and which street, or which end of town! Finally after wandering around for about two hours and doing some shopping I came across the store. I was pretty well sunburned bu 11 am Saturday. The sun is really intense. After lunch I went to the Internet cafe and sent some e-mails t. I got home just as it started to rain. It rained real hard, literally a lake in front of the house and a raging river on the side street. It never really stopped raining on Saturday. After Lilliam got home from University we went out for dinner to a small cafe downtown by the 4 corners of banks, cannot remember the name, but the chicken sandwich plate was very good and I had the best coffee I have had in Esteli all month. Even though it was still raining it was a good evening. Afterwards I decided to get some sleep around 9 pm to get ready for Sunday which would be a long day.

Saturday 23rd 2009 Esteli

It rained hard yesterday, real hard, I had to wait about an hour at the school before I could leave and had to take an alternative route home as my street for the most part was literally a river. And it figures I left my umbrella at home!

Last night was fun, a few of us went out to Mocha Nana Cafe for the Friday night concert, it was a type of Cuban music. Very good. I had dinner there as well as a couple of ¨Tonia´s¨. I think the girls had a good time. I would recomend this place to anyone.

Today it´s real hot and it looks like it will rain shortly and that should cool things off. In the central park there is a fesival today and there is dancing by different girls groups from the surrounding country side I guess and some of the songs are based on the revolution. The 30th anniversary of the revolution is coming up shortly in June. It´s just another day in Nicaragua.

Earthquake

This morning’s paper reported an earthquake in the magnitude of 4.7 with an epicenter only 7 kilometers from Managua this morning. Good reason to live in the northern part of Nicaragua as the volcano range is still very active. Apparently you can enter the volcano mouth but you take your own life in your hands. Exciting, I need to do that next time!

Volcano Momotombe

As I was driving through the valley of volcanoes I tried to get as close to the volcano Momotombe as I could as I was told you could climb it. On one of the volcano's you can snowboard down. Most of them are still active. I followed a road to where the turn off should have been but there were no signs, so “in for a penny in for a pound” as they say, I decided to follow it. Shortly thereafter it turned into a dirt track that was very rough and lots of ruts. After about an hour we started to see some Fincas and a few haciendas (rather like shacks). People were far and few between. I was not sure if I was on the right road but I kept the one mountain range to my left and headed towards the volcano. The area was very dry and I would not want to be strande3d out there without water or fuel. Fortunately with a diesel engine it uses very little gas. After a while I came across a hitch hiker, an older gentleman with a 50 pound bag of rice. So I gave him a ride in the bed of the truck. We must have driven for almost an hour before he signaled he wanted out to walk down a side road. Who knows how far he really had to go. Shortly thereafter we came across a young boy about 10 on horseback herding some rather large bulls by himself. I have to say the Nicaraguan people are hardworking and very resilient.

We carried on towards the volcano until it was starting to get dark. So instead of driving up to it on this trip I decided to try to find the main road that would lead ups back towards Estelí. I was sure we were headed in the right direction. We came upon a small farm that had a lamp post outside so I knew we must be near a small town. After another 45 minutes we came across a few boys on bicycles herding cows down the road. We followed them until the outskirts of a small town. It seems that every town is laid out in a square pattern, and if you can find the church you can determine direction as the entrance is always facing west. So after some trial and error we found the main street and followed it out to the highway that lead us back to Estelí after about another two hours drive. After we got back to town I decided that our success of travelling to the Pacific Ocean and back deserved a dinner at Dough Pizza!