my morning view in managua

in managua, i'm living in a neighborhood (reparto san patricio) in a small room in a family home with doña alba and her german husband (whose 86th birthday we celebrated last night with a cena in the company of their three rowdy 20 - 30 something grandsons talking about doing business in nicaragua, but that's another story!). the reparto is located at "km 8" along the carretera sur, the highway that leads southbound out of the city. further south along the highway are huge estate-style houses, home to some of managua's elite and empresarial class, several embassies, and also a fairly large U.S. expatriate community. 

in the mornings here, i sometimes bring my laptop to work in "El Coche del Café", a coffee shop with delicious capuchinos, where prices are in dólares and the crowd is a mix of Nicaraguans and expats. for example, this morning i'm sharing the space with a gringo couple and their two small children, a family that reminds me of any young family in portland or the west side of los angeles. at another table is a taiwanese couple probably in their 60s, regulars here, who share capuchinos and cut up watermelon that they bring in a plastic container. they may be one of many taiwanese business-owning families who have set up shop in managua in the last decade or so. on the couch behind me are two young nicaraguan women, one of whom is tutoring the other in portuguese (the brazilian embassy is nearby, as is a brazilian language school and a shopping plaza owned by a local brazilian family). this is the diversity in my managuan neighborhood. and, if i didn't already say it, the $1.50 capuchino is delicious (expensive for local prices, but yum!).

as i walk up the highway in the morning to the café, bracing myself against the blaring horns of the buses and the dust of the morning traffic racing down the highway, the view to my east and north is of lake managua, aka xolotlán, and the volcanic peaks rising up on many sides. it is enough for me to just look out across the lush green landscape and see the morning sun rising in the east to feel a sense of peace in the midst of what often feels like the caos of this city. (equally beautiful are the evening sunsets, when the often cloud-covered sky radiates the pinks, blues, and oranges of the end of another day.)

peace & blessings from managua