September 30 Wednesday

Spoke too soon. I wore my shoe-repaired flipflops for 15 minutes in the house before they broke again. So much for my good deal. I was lucky I wasn’t walking to school when it happened or I would have been barefoot on the cobblestones. Tomorrow after class I’ll take them back to the reparador and see if there’s any Nicaraguan solution before I take them back to Los Angeles and stoop to paying the big bucks. My housekeeper from 3 stays in Casa Fonseca visited me yesterday. She wanted to see Casa Pilar, she wanted to tell me the story about her husband kicking her out of the house they shared and installing another woman in her place, and then she got to what she really wanted: a C$500 loan, which is approximately $22. She borrowed 500 cordobas from me before. I reminded her that she never paid it back and never mentioned it again (I took it out of her tip). She promised this time would be different and she gave me her cedula (ID card) to hold as collateral (Daniel said, “you should have asked for her phone…what are you going to do with her cedula if she doesn’t pay you?) She says she’ll pay me 100 cordobas each week. She had an appt. w/ a lawyer today. I didn’t ask for more of the story. She was just so pitiful, I had to give it to her. I don’t understand why everyone asks me for money; I’m the stingiest person I know. The circus finishes its run in its present location on Monday. It tried to find another spot on the other side of Managua which is a really big city, but was unable to get a permit. So it’s coming back to Granada. It will do an additional month here. So, even though Daniel will continue working 7 days a week, he won’t have to leave for Managua at 6 in the morning and return to Granada at 7:30 p.m. It means he’ll have a job for at least another month. He’s so much happier when he’s working. And I’ll get to go to the circus. This is the rainy season, up until the end of November, and it rains almost every day. Torrential rain. It rains harder in Latin America than any rain I’ve seen in the US. Night before last it was accompanied by lightning and thunder and wild wind. Electricity is out in the city and Daniel has my phone. I wanted to Skype a couple of people, my Spanish teacher and the purified water delivery guy, but Internet is gone with the electricity.