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Published: January 27th 2007
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The Bustamente Brothers
Javier Antonio age 12 and Jafet age 6. They liked my sombrero very much so I gave it to them. I arrived in Managua and made it safely to Chinandega thanks to Manuela´s brother-in-law Javier who met me at the airport along with Jafet, his 6 year old son. We had an interesting time trying to communicate! Until Javier met me, he spoke absolutely no english! He can now say Yes, Thank You, Good Morning and Goodbye and I´m very excited my Spanish is coming back quickly. If I spent a month here with this wonderful family, I´d be fluent! I´ve met all of Manuela´s family and they are very sweet people. The mother of this family had lunch of aroz con pollo waiting for us when we arrived along with the best fruit juice I´ve ever tasted. Some mixture of local fruits and bananas. I still can´t figure out what it is but it´s delicious. Their home is humble but very comfortable and clean and I´ll stay here for at least one night, probably two.
Funny story.... Jafet wasn´t feeling well in the cab to the bus terminal and just as we pulled up next to the express to Chinandega he vomited all over the back seat. I had a bottle of water in my bag from the flight
January 26 2007
Just a few members of the large Bustamente Family. and took him into the shade to see if I could get him feeling a little better before we boarded the express shuttle (more a van than a bus) to Chinandega while Javier and the cab driver cleaned things up a bit. We walked a short distance to purchase a bottle of juice for Jafet and then boarded the shuttle. It was hot (it´s 90 degrees here) and there was no air, only open windows and so I could tell things were going to be uncomfortable for Jafet, who after all is only 6 years old! With some of the remaining water I patted Jafet´s forehead and arms to try to cool him off and suggested to Javier that it might be better for Jafet if he could sleep for the trip and so we propped my backpack between us and Jafet fell asleep right away. For the next hour, every time Jafet would fall asleep Javier would wake him back up. Each time this happened (at least 10 times!) I encouraged Javier to let Jafet sleep as it would be better for his motion sickness if he were asleep and then Javier would agree with me and nod his
Rosita
Showing off in the backyard...there were times she would not stop talking, as if performing for strangers was her favorite thing. head and smile and then just a few minutes later it would start all over again! I started to think that maybe we weren´t communicating properly....it wouldn´t be the first time I´d had trouble communicating with a man, afterall, so somewhere close to the end of our trip when Javier was sweetly look down at the sleeping Jafet and I could tell what was coming I covered Jafet with my closest arm and said ´maybe we should let him sleep, do you think that would be a good idea?´ and of course Javier thought it was a very good idea and so the sleeping Jafet was allowed a few more minutes before we pulled into Chinandega and we jumped off and into a waiting cab that would take us (for the total sum of $1) to the Bustamente Familia´s Casa.
Okay, another funny story.... I´m not sure why I attract birds the way I do, but you´re going to love this one. Manuela´s mother has a pet parrot that lives in the trees outside of her home. The bird´s name is Rosita and she has been in the Bustamente family for 27 years so I rather doubt she´s interested in living anywhere else on earth. Most days she hangs out in the trees in the large backyard, stealing the fruit when it ripens. When they run out of fresh fruit for her, she´ll hop into a neighbors tree to see what they have to offer. Anyway, the point is, she´s free to stay or go as she pleases and most of the time she prefers to stay. So I was in the backyard looking at the fruit trees with Manuela´s mother and she began looking into the trees and calling Rosita´s name and finally the bird appeared and began talking, Spanish of course. She´s quite beautiful and very large and her vocabulary is huge! Most of the time I don´t understand her but shé often shouts out the names of family members when she feels like it. She´s adorable. So after the long trip to Chinandega I was taking a shower and Rosita found me (she was sitting on the wall peering into the shower...the rooms are not divided all the way to the ceiling here) and began chatting with me. So after the initial surprise at finding her standing there talking to me, I began chatting back, since we were alone and nobody could actually see me talking to her...though I suspect they heard us because she is extremely loud! She´s a lot of fun and she gets to go pretty much wherever she wants in and out of the house. I´m getting the impression parrots are extremely social birds.
I hope you all get this newest blog....I´ve been informed there´s a kink in the system somewhere and recent blogs are not getting sent to the email list. The problem is outlined in a newsclip on the main page....but I´m not sure I understand completely. I´m told I have to send the blogs individually and that´s going to be tough since the entire point of this website is so I DON´T have to send individual emails! I hope it gets fixed soon.
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