random pics on my camera

Here's me and Orlando, our bus driver in Nicaragua, and the person I talked to all the time. We got along super well, so I would just tune everybody else out and he and I would chill.

I looked at this pic and I was like, "What the hell? You aren't smiling!" "Because I'm so sad you're leaving." Ahhhh ...


This is a pic of banana & cane workers. They were camped down the street from a presidential building to bring attention to their plight - that they were poisoned by Nemagon sprayed in the fields when they worked them, and the government allowed that to happen. The last president signed an agreement to provide them with disability and the like, but this president (the same one as in the 80s) has been refusing to stand by that.

This was interesting because it started with one guy talking and his two-man posse, and all of us crowded around. And then the crowds came and surrounded us, which is when I started snapping pics. And then I started wandering around talking to people individually which was far more interesting. Super nice people. Lots of them from the Chindega area in the north.

The tall blond guy in the crowd? Our translator. He really did an amazing job with the translations - he would do it for hours and hours and keep such accuracy.


And this is of course the HOT HONDURAN HANDYMAN, with his pants falling down (he forgot a belt today). (I would have made fun of him for that, but I've done that far too many times.) Fixing my weather stripping for the fifth time because I'm totally a perfectionist about it. This time he said, "So, after watching me all these times, you could go out and put it in professionally." "What makes you think I couldn't already? Don't you think this is really about watching you?" [That's as flirty as it got. I suck at the games.]



Here's my neighbor Dodo (pronounced doo doo). [Ashton thinks that the funniest name he's ever heard in his life, so when I was visiting them I'd just say, "What's my neighbor's name?" and he'd bust out in laughter.] After I took these pics of him, he came back with a posse and I told them to stop thinking I'm a child (like neighbor Carolyn acts like with them - playing with them and such) and treat me with the respect they treat other adults. Which is to say, when my door's open, that's for wind and not for them. Dodo will seriously meet me on the sidewalk and say, "I'm bored." As if I'm his personal plaything and am supposed to wind myself up and entertain him. No way. I like them all fine, they're sweet kids (and Dodo is seriously one of the very smartest kids I've even known - he recently told me he wants to be a cop when he grows up, which I find interesting since his dad's in prison) - but they're kids and they need to play as kids. The best activities I ever had as a kid were completely unsupervised, from my own imagination and that of my friends. So, I've stopped being a teacher, officially, as of this moment. No more supervising or herding or guiding. Go be a kid and figure out yourself a good time.


Clotheslines in the backyard. I was way proud of myself for making them work.

[What I wish is that I'd taken a picture of the UPS man who just stopped by to give me neighbor's package - he was so incredibly fine, but just as I looked up into his incredible eyes and tried to think of something charming to say besides my name, which he just asked for, the mailman interrupted and said, "Let a real deliveryman through!" and they jostled and made me laugh as I got my mail, but I lost my opportunity to meet the most beautiful man I've ever seen.]