The day started with a lot of tension. I am administrator of our neighborhood website, snowdenoverlook.com. Our web site host provider decided to move our site to a new server while I was on vacation. This morning our site was moved. I had to make a few changes. But every time I tried to do something, the program I was trying to use decided it urgently needed an update. In the mean time, our ship had docked and right outside my window was a very loud, very enthusiastic, and not very good band. I’m sure it was a nice welcome and quite colorful, but what I needed was an internet connection that could at the very minimum download those updates just a little faster. All’s well that ends well, as they say. So far as I can see, our website was migrated successfully.
Our visit to Nicaragua was an eye opener. I’m sure everybody reading this knows that there are countries that aren’t as rich as the US. But Nicaragua’s poverty was an incredible shock. It was even more of a shock when our tour guide told us that the country used to be the richest in Central America. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a country that relies on horse drawn carts for some of their transportation. And the horses are emaciated. If a citizen wants a taxi, they are likely to take a 3-wheeled bicycle powered by a strong young man. This is a country that if a young couple, both employed, gets married and shares expenses, they can’t meet their basic living needs. It’s a country where only 70% of the children go to school. I was too embarrassed to ask what the literacy rate is. (It’s 97% for Costa Rica.) We saw a house without plumbing. These houses have a well, typically 40 to 60 feet deep. They put a bucket on a rope, hook the rope up to a horse, and have the horse pull up their drinking water.
We visited Leon, which has a very nice square. I would have a better picture, but pointing a camera at an individual is an invitation to offer tips. One of our first stops was at the Cathedral. We were delayed at the steps while children performed a “traditional dance”. The idea was to make fun of the Spanish. But there’s no doubt the children were more interested in the tips than in the authenticity of the dance, or any other part of their history. When we gained access to the roof of the Church, we had to remove our shoes because they had just painted part of the roof.
After visiting Leon, we visited a school run by the Cohen family, This is one of the richest families in the country. Their estate, if you can gain access, has beautiful horses, any one of which is worth more than the entire residence of 10 average families. As it turns out, the Cohen family is enlightened. They run a school that educates poor children and includes a pre-Colombian art museum. (That’s one school for the entire country. But hey, they also contribute to the cost of “one computer for every child”.”) Our tour guide was a very self-assured 14-year old female student who had an amazing knowledge of pre-Colombian artifacts. She doesn’t speak English, so our bus tour guide had to translate. One of the many things she explained was that the Spanish were very interested in gold when they arrived in South America. This was very confusing to the natives, because they valued jade over gold. Only royalty could own jade,.
I wish the best for our nameless tour guide, and for the entire country. I hope this finds everybody doing well
