Tag: Nicaragua

Crabs in a Big Brown Bucket

Meet Rafa. He has lived with all of his life until last night.

We are in Costa Rica wondering exactly what happened. But really we know. It’s gonna take a while to process.

Rafa’s Dad came to live with us over twenty years ago. He was living in a man camp. And kept getting fired from all of his jobs. I met him when a man building my fence asked to hire him. When I saw how Nestor held a hammer I knew why he got fired all of the time. I took the hammer from his hand. ‘It’s OK.”

He came to live with us. He got married. He had two children. We lived here like a family. Many things have occurred. We have been through a lot together.

Rafa graduated high school and wanted to go to college. I believe Rafa is an exceptional person with a high I Q.

His parents refuse to let him attend the University. We offered to pay for his tuition. He is now working as a laborer. He is now a laborer who belongs in academia. He wants to be in academia. I didn’t make this up for him.

His parents have moved to a Nicaraguan “hood”.

There is much racism here in Costa Rica. The general consensus is Nicas are not smart. Drunks. The women are loose. And they will never get anywhere. I have experienced a lot of racism dumped on this kid. And now I have seen it dumped on him by his own parents.

Unbelievable. They sincerely believe he needs to stay out of school. No education for Rafa.

Continue reading Crabs in a Big Brown Bucket

Overcoming Obstacles

Life is full of them. At one point, everything was an insurmountable hurdle. Not anymore. If I’m on the track and I fall on my face, I pick myself up and keep going.

Yesterday morning, I left Nicaragua and headed south to the border.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWe had forgotten to call Rooster’s border contact, so we stopped and asked for help from a man in Rivas. He was very helpful. There are good people everywhere. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI chatted with Domingo, while I watched the truck and waited for Roo to take care of the paper work.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAFinally everything fell into place on the Nica side and we persevered, with what is a grueling task, if I wanted to complain. ~ Things have changed on the south side of the frontera They have a new facility and it is much cleaner. These bus drivers said, “hey lady. Take our photo.” I stopped in the middle of my run to show my passport and snapped and showed. I can’t imagine blowing them off.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThen there was the paper work for the vehicle. That left me once again, taking care of the truck. These innocent looking girls, kept engaging me in a conversation at the back corner of the truck, which is one of the oldest, rip off tricks here. I had to reposition myself and be on my toes every second. The border is full of wolves and you can’t really tell who is who. It’s kind of like surfing, you can’t really tell a surfer by his board or board shorts.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERACompleting that task, we dashed for home. My brain was locked in on my pitt stop, Mussanis. I had an empanada and a cafe con leche. WOWOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWe stopped and bought gas after that. It cost 92 dollars to fill our tank! Another WOW….As we turned the corner to La Huerta, I admired the flora and, with a hint of deflation, accepted the decay of our fence. Pura vida…We’ve been gone for five months.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s all worth it for this.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
*I will add links later…The Shack is closing and I have to go.
*I also want to add that Nica Waves Surf Camp has screaming fast Wi-Fi and is a great place for a working photographer.

(I wrote this partly with an attitude. I can’t believe those boys were scared. – Many people here on the island are scared of foreign breaks and foreign people. It might have something to do with how they treat people. They don’t want to be treated like THAT.)