when you drop a guitar in nicaragua, it plays "hotel california."

there´s a pastry shop i go to every other day or so, and i always order a rolled-up sweet bread called the cuerno, named for its resemblance to a horn. for some reason it´s absolutely hilarious to the two women who work there that i always order the same thing, as if i were requesting a soiled-diaper danish. today i was finally given the nickname Señor Cuerno.

there´s a guy on calle atravesado who asks for money, usually just putting a hand out as you pass. he is missing his left eye, and it looks like it was removed with an ice cream scoop. two days ago he was clucking - or howling, screeching - just like a wounded chicken.


aside from my work as a teacher in the school, i volunteer a couple afternoons a week with a family of six children, a mom and dad, and a little old grandma who speaks nearly unintelligble spanish. four of the children are adopted and the other two - or three, depending on the day - are related by blood. recently i was walking back home with a couple of the other volunteers as the sun set (gorgeous silent tomato exploding over nicaragau), and sarah mentioned that the grandma was a spy for the sandinistas during the war in the 80s. she would go from place to place in town, hunched as she walked, complaining that she was sick and in pain, and under her apron she kept a pistol and the letters she was sent to deliver.