Jan 28th - Week 4 (Part II)

The rest of our week...

Tuesday we were back at Spanish class.  A lot more verbs to practice!  And conjugate!  It is getting into our heads...slowly.  Our teacher is nice, patient and she is getting us to use more Spanish in our conversation.

After class we went to the grocery store to stock up for the week.  We are used to the stores now.  We know where to find stuff, and we know pretty much what we like.  The grocery store run is always a lot of work.  First, we walk ten minutes to the store.  Do our shopping.  Then, we take the taxi back to the house. It doesn't sound like much but, everything is more of an effort.  If we took the bus we'd probably never get our cold stuff home before it melted or was ruined.

Wednesday we were out in service again.  We went to an area know as Sutiaba.  There is a Kingdom Hall there, Spanish only, and an outdoor market where you can buy lots of fruits and veggies.  They also have an area where the fisherman bring in the catch from the night before.  We were on the other side of the street from the market, in a neighborhood looking for people that speak English.  I was able to find two nice women that speak English.  I will be going back to visit them again.  Levi spoke to a man that spoke English, he was in a building that was a church/butcher shop.  We thought that was an interesting combination!

Wednesday afternoon we were invited to Ashlee's house for a little girl party.  We thought it would be nice to get the little girls together to play before the Larsons leave next week.  Ashlee decided we would have a kiddie pool party.  The girls loved it!  She also made some homemade peanut butter cookies, with homemade peanut butter.  The other moms brought some other snacks and I brought some homemade limeade mix.  Everything was delicious!

A little fun in the pool.

Look at that crew!  They were having fun!

And, here's with the moms (and Brie.)  We were having fun too!

Thursday it seems we usually spend the day doing laundry and studying for the meetings.  It's also the day we get to sleep in a little if we feel like it. :-)

Friday we were back in service.  We were on our own that morning but, we had a few return visits that we needed to make.  We were able to find Levi's return visit, a young man that works in a little store.  I told you about him a few weeks ago.  He's a very nice young man and he's very eager to learn more about the Bible.  I'm very proud of Levi being able to teach this young man. Unfortunately, my return visit, a young woman named Darlene, was not at home when we called.  I'll try her again next week.

We've been trying to go to a hostel nearby, to go to their pool.  When we tried last week we found out that when the hostel is full of guests they only allow one family, per day, to use the pool.  Since we were in a lounging kind of mood, and we ALL liked the idea of being able to get in the pool, we called to see if the pool was open.  Yes!  After lunch we got our stuff and took the bus to the hostel.  It's called Hostal Mariposa, run by a French family with one little girl.  It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon.  Josie had a blast.  Especially after some of the kids came out to play in the pool.

Here's my view when I was lounging.

Another view.  Those are little cabanas for guests.  It's a very nice atmosphere at this hostel.

And, here's a few of Josie enjoying the pool.  The incredible flying Josie!

I really like this pic of the San Cristobal volcano.  We took it on the walk back home after the pool.

Levi only stayed for a short while at the pool.  There was another soccer game on Friday afternoon.  Lee walked up the street to our friend M and M's house with Levi.  There's another young man, named Taylor, here visiting from Tennessee.  The two boys were going to meet some of the other friends and head to the soccer game.  They came back to the house after the game to eat dinner with us.  We had a nice meal of fish, shrimp, black beans and rice.

I was feeling especially tired on Friday.  I thought it was just a combination of the heat and dust, and walking so much.  Saturday was when I felt I was actually sick.  We didn't accomplish much that day.  Lee had to work on his talk for Sunday.  We went to get some dinner at a little restaurant called Tip-Top.  It's a little like a KFC, not our favorite but it was okay.  Then we got a few drinks at the store.  By the time we got home I had a little bit of a fever and went to bed.  Ugh!  Don't you just hate that feeling of being sick in the summer?  That's what it feels like.

Sunday was the meeting.  Lee had the public talk in the Leon English congregation.  Unfortunately, I stayed home since I was still feeling sick.  Lots of sleep for me.  Lee said the talk went well.  Afterwards, Lee and the kids went to a local family's home for lunch.  They said it was good.  The brother shared his experience about how he became a Jehovah's Witness.  Lee said it sounded like a yearbook experience.  Maybe he'll share it with you...

So, that was our week.  A great start, a not so great finish with my being sick.  I'm just hoping no one else gets sick.

Much love to you all!
XXXXOOOO
The Bachman Family

Jan 28th - Week 4 (Part I)

(Sorry for the delay in posting...)

Week 4?  Have we been here that long?

It's hard to believe that we've been here almost a month.  It feels like we're just getting the "real" hang of it.  We are comfortable walking, shopping and taking the public transportation all around town.  We even took our first camionetta.

If you don't know, the camionettas are basically just pick-up trucks with an awning over the back.  Some have benches on the sides inside the bed of the truck, others just have room for standing.  I have to admit, I was a little nervous taking one with Josie but, it was nothing to worry about!  The people on the bench slid over to make room for Josie's little bottom and we were off.  No problems.

For the most part, all of the bus guys (there's one driver and one that you pay) have been very helpful with Josie getting on and off the bus.  Most of them will hold her arm or hand, some will even pick her up and put her on the sidewalk.  She only had one little slip off the steps of the bus.  As she says, "I'm ok!" It was a little traumatic at the time though.  It was a packed bus, and extra tall too, and I couldn't reach her hand as she walked down the stairs.  I was still trying to squeeze myself through the crowd.  (Seriously, sometimes you feel like you need to grease your sides and slide through!)  Lee had just stepped off the bus and turned to grab her hand when she slipped off the last step.  She hit her back but, we got ice on it right away and then carried her the 10 minute walk to the Kingdom Hall.  (VERY hot & VERY tiring!!)  She had a little bruise but, she's a trooper.  Not even a complaint after the initial fall.

Monday.  Man, did we have a great day last week!  We planned a boat trip with the family next door, the Larsons and their parents.  We first took a bus to Las Penitas, the southern part of the beach here.  That was a fun experience!  Really all the buses can be an experience but, this one seemed to be extra special.  We had an extra packed bus, lots of stuff in the back and overhead racks, and we were squeezed in through the back door.  Boy, personal space is not an option here!  Lee said you usually feel violated as least a few times on a bus ride. :-0

Waiting at the bus stop:

I was able to take a couple of sneaky pics while still holding on to the bar and Josie too!

Anyway, we got to the beach, found the restaurant we were meeting our guide at and sat down to eat some lunch.  That's another adventure here.  For the most part any time you go out to eat you are going to wait at least an hour before you get your food.  It was probably a little more than that for this particular meal.  Fortunately, the guide wasn't on time either.  We had a nice meal with a beautiful view and enjoyable company.

When the guide, he's a local JW, came we took a walk down the beach to the park office.  There we had to pay the park entrance fee.  The park is on Isla de Juan Venado.  That's John Deer island for you gringos. ;-)  We got a chuckle out of that.

After paying the entrance fee we went to get the boat.  First, our guide had a helper and the two of them were pushing the boat through the shallow water to get it to the spot we were supposed to get on.  He came, we all got on, went a little ways and then it was too shallow again.  So, the boys got out to push.  After a few in and outs with pushing the boat we were finally able to reach the mouth of the river.

It was a beautiful ride!  We saw many different kinds of birds.  Most of them took flight when we approached and gave us a show.  We were also on the look out for caymans.  The guide was in the back of the boat, steering the outboard motor.  He saw a cayman about 6 feet long but, by the time we all turned around he was long gone.

The river runs parallel to the beach.  We went to the furthest point of our tour and stopped at a little beach in the woods.  We followed the path to the beach and we were welcomed to our own private beach.  Wow!  It was breathtaking!  There was an unusual shoreline at this beach.  It looked like sand but, felt like rocks.  There were many tidal pools and crevices for little snails, crabs and other critters.  We probably could have just stayed to play there all day.  But, no!  We were on to the main event.

Path to the beach.

The entrance to "our private beach."

We took the path back to the boat and came back the way we had come.  About half-way back we stopped at another little beach in the woods.  This time there was a little dock.  We took the path, much further this time, to the beach again.  This time we were greeted by an enclosure.  We looked in to see four, maybe five?, iguanas in there.  They are quick and stealthy!  The first time we looked in we only saw one.  By the time we left we had found the rest of his companions.

A little further toward the beach was a hut, and a large covered area.  We approached the covered area and were greeted by a local woman.  She didn't say much but, she didn't have to.  She passed out one latex glove to each of us and we looked into the plastic tub next to us to see this cute little guy.

We all took turns holding him and his sibling.  I was so excited to be able to do this.  Holding in my hand this tiny little creature that will grow so large, live so long and travel untold miles in the ocean just impressed me so much.  We were told that these two had been born that morning and would be released that night.

There were also other nests that were netted to protect them from humans and other predators.  We were told that the people here like to eat the turtle eggs.  (So sad!)  This particular nesting area we were told is run by the government but, the people that work there live off of the donations that visitors give them.

After our brief encounter with those amazing creatures we were back down at the beach enjoying the, again, private beach.

I love this guy!

The ride back after our "dirty feet" kind of day.

Getting tired now.

A beautiful view of the beach.

I know there's a lot of pics in this post so, I'm splitting this week up into two postings.  I'll put the other one up soon!

Much love to you all!
We miss you!
XXXXOOOO
The Bachman Family

Jan 21st - Week 3

Jan 21st - Week 3...

Well, I told you I would tell you about the Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) meeting last time.  Here's the pic again.

It was Wednesday night last week we went to the NSL meeting.  We first of all did not know where it was.  They don't seem to use addresess here.  Well, I'm told the addresses are based off of the churches, even the congregation names are based off of the churches.  So, it's very confusing.  We were given a general idea of where the Kingdom Hall was, a different one than we are going to for the English meetings.  So, we took the bus and started walking in the general direction we thought it was.  As we were walking Lee noticed a man flagging down a taxi and heard him say "Salon del Reino" so, Lee asked him if he was going to the NSL meeting.  He was!  We all crammed in the taxi and off we sped for the KH.  We got there just in time!

The meeting was interesting.  Nicaraguan Sign Language is different than American Sign Language.  We are told it's about 75% similar.  We noticed some signs that were the same except for a letter.  For example, the sign for water in ASL is a "W" by the side of your mouth.  In NSL it is an "A" by the side of your mouth.  That's because "water" is "agua" in Spanish.   Get it? The numbers are quite a bit different in NSL however, the letters are almost all the same except for "T". The ASL letter "T" is a bad word in Nicaragua! Even for those not in sign language!

Some of the time I thought I knew most of what was said.  However, there were a few times I felt completely lost and had to try to catch up.  Lee felt he knew what was going on for most of the meeting.  They are studying "My Book of Bible Stories" in NSL and it is available on jw.org, so we were able to prepare for the congregation book study.  Both Lee and Josie gave answers.  I chickened out at the last minute for mine because I thought it didn't really answer the question correctly.  Oh well, next time...
Here's a link to the NSL on the JW website if you want to check it out:  http://www.jw.org/apps/index.html?option=QrYQZRQVNFVTr&txtCMSLang=E

They do not have the bible in NSL.  They do not get the Watchtower study articles in NSL either.  The brothers here have a lot of work to do for each meeting.  Those of you who were in ASL a long time ago know what it's like!  And, you appreciate how far ASL has come!

As in ASL the meetings are very quiet.  That was interrupted by fireworks going off nearby.  I thought Lee was going to hit the floor!  It was VERY startling.  Another thing that we noticed at the NSL meeting was that they do the same schedule as the Spanish congregations, which is pretty much the same as the English congregations.  So, they have more than one chapter in the bible reading each week.

It was very nice getting to know the brothers and sisters in the congregation there.  There are not many in the congregation.  Only one elder and two ministerial servants.  As you can see from the pic above the sisters are handling the computer and camera for the meetings.

There have been a lot of families visiting Leon English congregation recently.  We have one family of four from Virginia, a family of four from Washington state, and us too.  Then we had one family of five from Canada that was here for a short time.

Now back to this past week. Sorry, I wanted to catch you up with the NSL meeting from the previous week. Okay, let's see what else?  Our meeting last weekend was changed because of school for the elders in the Spanish congregation.  We had our meeting on Saturday and preaching on Sunday.  Not too much to report there.  Just a nice normal weekend.

On Sunday night we had our first company over for dinner.  We invited Nate and Ashlee, with their adorable baby girl Liliana, and Mariela.  I wasn't sure what I should cook them for dinner but, Lee wanted to get some fish from the market down the road.  He went to the market bright and early Sunday morning.  He came back with two medium sized red snapper.  He said they cost a total of $1.50 (US)!! He said that would have cost about $10-15 at home.  And, they were fresh off the boat that morning!

So, we decided to make fish tacos with cabbage, guacamole, plantains (the sweet, ripe ones) and beans and rice.  I was a little nervous making beans, rice and plantains for people that live here since they are staples.  I'm happy to report that the beans were a huge hit!  (I make the Cuban-style beans with onion and bell pepper.)  They cleaned up ALL the beans!  And, Mariela, the native Nicaraguan, said they were the BEST beans she's ever had in her life. WOW!  Of course, everything else was yummy.  We cleaned up the fish tacos too. :-)  We had a great time getting to know them.

Monday we had to catch up on the laundry!  Man, it piles up quick here!  Since you are so hot and sweaty, and it's dry and dusty, your clothes don't last long.  I think I need to do a load of laundry every day.  So, not a very exciting day but, necessary business.

Tuesday we were back at Spanish class.  We still feel like we don't know much but, being immersed in the language during all our daily activities helps us to recognize more words.  Now we just have to work on our memory!  We had our first homework from class.  We were supposed to work on verb conjugation.  Lee and Levi were assigned ten sentences.  She told me I should do twenty sentences!  Practice makes perfect, right?

Here's the boys at Spanish class:

Wednesday we were back in service.  We went out to a very rural territory, called Ruben Dario.  It takes ten minutes to walk to the bus stop, then about 20-25 minutes to get there on the bus.  Then there are all dirt roads and lots of little houses, some more like shacks.  There are lots of little kids playing in the street, one little toddler was naked and SO incredibly dirty.  They all look happy and healthy though.  In our territory we are only looking for people that speak English so, we do a lot of walking trying to reach all the houses and people we see.  I unfortunately wore sandals that day and my feet and shoes were super dirty when we got home.  We tried to find a couple that Lee spoke with the previous week but, they weren't home.  All in all, we had a good time.  Just hot and dirty by the time we got home!

Here's Josie making a friend in the rural territory.  (Don't worry we carry, and use, LOTS of hand sanitizer.  And, we take every opportunity to wash our hands.  And, I don't let her touch the mangy-looking dogs!)

Here's Josie making more friends in the rural territory.  Handing out candy to the kids.

And, when we got home she had more friends visiting.  These two live in the neighborhood.  They are very well-fed compared to most of the dogs here.  The one on Josie's right is named "Lassie".

Wednesday night we were invited to a going-away party for a family, the Marsh family, that was visiting from Virginia.  Well, the parents and daughter live in VA but, their 21-year old son lives in Pennsylvania, where they used to live.  It was fun.  We had some snacks and some dancing.  After our busy morning I was ready for a nap but, I enjoyed watching my kids and everyone else dance.  At one point Levi was dancing with three of the local girls!  Watch out!  Then Josie swooped in and took him away from them.  Smart girl! ;-)

Here's Levi with three of the boys that were leaving.  The one with the grey shirt was part of the Marsh family.

I know it's a bad pic but, count the girls dancing with Levi.  Yup, three of them. ;-)

And, the part that made me smile.  When Josie came to steal her brother away to dance with her.

We get to see many interesting things on our walks to and from the meeting.  Here is a pic of the cows across the street from the bus stop.  Behind the trees is the San Cristobal volcano.  It's been smoking a little but, it's about two and a half hours away from here (I'm told.)

This is one of the beautiful buildings being restored in town.  Our little friend, Ryan, said that it looks dangerous.  Yes, I agree with you Ryan!  I'm going to take some more pics of things that are kinda "dangerous" here, like the streets and sidewalks!

Lee wanted to show you all the condiment packaging here.  Mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup.  I like how there's a pic of a bottle on the ketchup bag, just in case you weren't sure.

Thursday night we had meeting.  It was such lovely weather that night.  Since we weren't sweating to death we took the opportunity to take a family pic.  I thought my friends would be happy to see that Josie and I are  preserving our whiteness.  And, yes we are enjoying ourselves!  Can you tell?

This is my favorite little helper.  She washed a whole sink of dishes for me.  That made me smile too. :-)

I had a little time to relax on the porch over the weekend.  I thought you might like to see the view from the porch.  There's a little house across the yard, and one next to us.  We are very secure with a wall or fence all the way around the yard, and a gate.  And, there's a guard at the entrance to the neighborhood.

Here's a close-up of the bouganvillea for you:

Sunday we had meeting.  Here's a few pics after the meeting.  After every meeting we stack up the chairs.  The kids think that's an invitation to play on them. Ahem...

Here's Josie with a few of her friends.  The tallest is Mercedes, then her sister Sofia.  They are part of the Larson family from Washington state.  They are staying in the little house next door.  Josie will not be happy when they have to go home next week!  In the front is Natalie.  She is from here in Nicaragua.  She's three years old and a real cutie.  In this pic her little face kills me!

There was a family from Canada that have recently moved to Nicaragua, a town in the mountains, I don't recall the name.  They came to visit over the weekend and came to our meeting.  They really liked Leon but, they are in a Spanish congregation and would like to stay in Spanish.  I'm sure the friends here were trying to see if they wanted to move here though.  This is their son, Levi.  Yup, another Levi.  He's nine.  This is where I found him after the meeting.  Reading old bound volumes of the Awake magazine.  We went to lunch together with his family and another sister in the congregation here.  He was very funny.  Such a little boy.  Reminded me of some of the things my Levi used to say.

One of the healthiest horses I've seen around here.

We had more company for dinner on Sunday night.  This time we had Hazel and Francinette, two young sisters in the English congregation.  We asked them to bring their parents who are in the Spanish congregation.  I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.  And, coconut banana bread for dessert.  It was yummy!  And, they all loved it too.  It's a challenge finding things that are familiar in the stores at times but, I've been able to make quite a few things that taste like home.

We had fun playing after dinner.  The kids played with the girls, they are 14 and 21. And, we played Bananagrams with the parents.  Their parents don't know much English, and as you know we are learning Spanish.  So for the game we played English words and they played Spanish words.  It was fun.  And, we got to try to use the things we're learning in Spanish class.  It was a nice end to our week.

So, that's where I'm going to leave you.  I hope you have all had a good week.  Enjoying the snow in NC and hopefully staying safe and warm wherever you are.

Much love,

The Bachman Family

XXXXOOOO

Jan 14th - Week 2, Bad Start....

Week Two - A bad start but, we're still alive. ;-)

A view of the countryside

Monday's plans came to a screeching halt when Josie awoke at 2am vomiting. She was quickly followed by me. About six hours later Levi joined us. Blech! No fun! We've been pretty puny all day even though the getting sick part didn't last long. So, this morning Lee made arrangements for us to stay at the hostel one more night. We will move tomorrow after our Spanish class. And, the beach will just have to wait for another day...

Tuesday we had our Spanish class. We were still not feeling 100%, it's hard to recover when it's so hot and you don't want or feel like eating anything. We managed to work through it with Power-Ade and Pringles. :-) Our class went well, just made us feel like we know SO little. Our brains will get a workout every week!

Then we got to move! We have an apartment now! Yay!! It's really a tiny house with two bedrooms, a jack-and-jill bathroom and a room with a small kitchen, table, couch and TV. As I said last week, it's hard to find a place that is furnished and that includes all the perks we have here. The one nice thing is that we have another family in the apartment two doors down. And, just a few days ago the husband's parents came to visit too. So, we are all witnesses in the apartments, three in a row! The negative thing about being in this apartment is that it is far (about 4 miles) out of town. That means we have to leave an hour before our meetings so that we can take the bus most of way and then walk about 10-15 minutes to the Kingdom Hall. And, the service meeting is at 8:15AM! We are getting a lot of practice with early mornings, and walking a lot.

Our bedroom:

Our living room, kitchen, dining area:

Kid's bedroom:

Wednesday was service. We had a nice group, I think they said we had about 25. The poor brother conducting, Sergio (we call him Big Sergio because there's a young brother Levi's age names Sergio as well,) didn't know what to do with all of us. We were assigned some territory not very far from where we live. So, that means we had to get back on the bus. The territory was small but, by the time we were finished with it, we were finished too! We felt like such wimps! We had a little break for a cold drink. The stand was out of gaseosas (sodas) so we had to buy from the girl with the cooler and the pile of oranges. After our refreshments we decided to walk towards town. It was a lot farther than we thought. The good part was that one young sister caught up to us and brought Levi to a return visit on the way. There was a young man that spoke English she had met before in a little store. Levi was able to share a scripture and the January Watchtower and Awake magazines.  Then more walking.  We called it exploring.

Our break-a for a Coca:

It's interesting, here they have stands with mostly fruit, not a lot of vegetables, all over the place. They will leave you the smallest little sliver of sidewalk to walk on so they can pile their wares for sale. They have oranges that they peel for you (with a knife), then they cut it in half and sprinkle sugar on it. I saw one that looked like they sprinkled powder creamer on top. Of course, they have other fruit peeled and cut as well. It just looks unappetizing to us with the bugs flying around and the dust and dirt in the air. I'd rather just buy the whole fruit to clean and cut myself.

Speaking of fruit. There are so many different kinds of fruit here! We see them in the store, or on the stands, and we think "What is THAT?" We thought it would be nice to try a new fruit every few days to see if we can find any new favorites. So, after a bible study the other day, the sister I was with (Ashlee) saw a tree with this VERY strange looking fruit. It looked a little like the fat caterpillar in "A Bug's Life", minus the cute little face. The woman told Ashlee, in Spanish, that we could have some and that it was very good for you. So, after we walked away Ashlee told me about the fruit. She said it was called Noni. The people here do NOT like it and that it is a superfood with anti-cancer properties and such. She said the woman told her that you should let it get soft and then blend it with some orange juice and strain out the pulp. I thought "Cool! I have an awesome fruit that will make me healthy!" (Side note - Don't they sell Noni juice at home? Isn't it very expensive?) Well, I put it in the fruit basket to ripen. Then I thought I'd do some research on the unusual fruits we find here, including my Noni fruit (oh, it's also called "Dog Dumpling", that wasn't encouraging to me.) Here's a link to a funny YouTube video about the fruits here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crQZdZwDZPs   So....did you watch it? That video made me NOT want to try my cool fruit. Then, the other day we came home and there was a funny smell in the apartment. I located the source of the stink, my Noni fruit. I smelled it (yuck!), then had Lee verify that it was terrible (isn't that what you're supposed to do? "Hey, this stinks. Smell it." ;-)) Lee threw it in the woods. So, no more Noni. And, I'm not too upset about it. I mean, who wants to eat something that tastes "somewhere between old pickles and gym socks"? (Didn't you watch the YouTube link? It's the last fruit but, it's pretty funny.)

Here's a pic of Levi opening a coconut for me:

Thursday we decided we had to do some laundry. Now, we don't have a washing machine here. We have a wash sink with a scrub board (is that what they're called?) attached. I've never washed ALL of my clothes by hand so I had to do a little research on how I should proceed. Google is great!  Now I know a lot more about hand washing clothes. It's a time consuming process, and it gives you quite the arm workout. My poor wrists are sore after every load! (I have skinny wrists that already give me trouble sometimes when I type too much, knit, stuff like that.) Now, we could have our laundry washed here at the apartment at 50 cents a piece! (That's expensive here.) Or, we could take it into town to have it washed. Again, it would cost us and we'd have to worry about the smell, or getting all our clothes back. So, we decided to use the Dr. Bronner's liquid lavender soap I brought (it says on the bottle that it's 18-in-1 soap!) and a pinch of baking soda to wash, with a little vinegar in the rinse water to keep our clothes from being stiff after drying on the line. I'm happy to say it was successful! However, the laundry is never done! There's always more to do. We need to try to get in a good routine of washing so that there's less at one time. I have a load to do in the morning and then we will be caught up...for like ten minutes...

Here's Josie and I doing laundry:

My laundry products.  Who knew it could be so simple?!  Can you see how much soap I've used? I've done about 8 small loads of laundry and it looks like I haven't even opened the bottle.  (You're only supposed to use about 15 drops in each small load. The website said 1/4 cup for a regular washing machine, which is about 40-50 gallons of water.  That equals about 1 tablespoon for 10 gallons of water!)

The highlight of Thursday was, after we hung the laundry, we went to the beach! We have never seen the Pacific ocean so, it was a first we all shared together. The sand here is very dark, and the waves can be strong. We were told to go to a little place called Playa de Roca. There's a large outcropping of rocks that protect a little nook of the beach where it was calm and nice. We explored, just a little, had some lunch at the little restaurant on the beach and then took the bus back home.

When we arrived home from the beach we had no water! It seems that all three apartments share the same garden hose for our water. Not really, it just seems that way.  Not a lot of water pressure. So, when the others are showering, or running the water for laundry, there's a little dribble that comes out of our faucet. We were able to all get showered and clean before the meeting though. And, I used the 'breeze and bus' method to dry my hair. Walking to the bus stop the breeze was blowing strongly and then the bus windows are open for yet some more styling of my crazy hair. Dry by the time I got to the meeting.

Funny story about our shower. When we walked into our new apartment the first day I looked into the shower and thought "Hmmm. That doesn't look safe." See for yourself! (Below) We asked some friends about the hot water heater attached to our shower head and found out they are called "widow makers". Did I say that there's no hot water? Nope, all the faucet handles have cold water.  Lee said it makes the plumbing easy. So, I used the little water heater for my shower the first night and it seemed to work okay. It's not exactly hot but it makes it warm enough to get under easily. Otherwise it's kind of like getting in a cold pool, you just have to get past the initial shock and then you're okay. Lee took a shower and tried to fiddle with it during his shower and it shocked him. He said even though I couldn't feel it there was electricity flowing through with the water. Yikes! So, Lee tried to find out if he could fix it for me. No go. He located some electrical tape (it was only taped with masking tape!) and disconnected the electric from it. He's good with that stuff. And, my head was achy from it for a few days! I probably killed a few brain cells, or electro-stimulated my scalp to grow my hair. Like I need that. Glad we're not going to die from taking a shower though.

Here's our shower.  Can you see the wires poking out of the top??!! It's a nice roomy shower though!

Thursday night we had the meeting.  The fun part was when the power went out.  Wow, it was DARK!  The brothers hopped to action and got a little generator running for the lights. No fans though.  Thankfully the power was only out for a short while.  Then we had the lovely breeze from the fans to keep us cool.

Friday was service again. This time we had about 40 people! Josie and I had plans to go on a bible study with Ashlee (see Noni story above) and her adorable little girl, Liliana. (That was one of the names I had on my list when I was pregnant with Josie but Lee wasn't into it.) The boys went with two different brothers. I'll let Lee tell you about his experiences in the next post.

Friday afternoon we were invited to the congregation soccer game. We traveled with the Larson family (our neighbors two doors down) to the medical University fields. We were the first ones there and we couldn't reach anyone by phone so, we weren't exactly sure we were in the right place. After a little wait we were pleasantly surprised that we were indeed in the right place.

The rainbow after the soccer game.  The main rainbow was a triple and there was another faint rainbow above the bright one. We could see the whole arc too.  Amazing!

This is Ashlee and her adorable baby girl Liliana, after the soccer game. Ashlee and I were part of the wall-o-women guarding the goal on our team.  We were a great offense!

Okay, I'm going to leave you with this last pic of the Nicaraguan Sign Language meeting we went to on Wednesday night.  They need TONS of help in sign language.  I'll tell you about it in the next post.

Much Love to you All!
XXXXXXOOOOOO
The Bachman Family