Beautiful Mountains, Smiling Children, and Skinned Cats. That's Waslala.

Last week we spent three glorious days in Waslala, Nicaragua, a beautiful town in the mountains of northern Nicaragua. Unfortunately, shortly after this trip, Alisa's camera, and the vast majority of our photos from these days and our time in San Jose, Costa Rica, were disappeared. A huge disappointment but also an inevitable event . . . sometimes life happens and things get disappeared . . . we move on. So these are the few photos we have to show.

In Waslala, we stayed with an incredible family and met loads of entertaining and generous people, none of whom we have photos of. So, just close your eyes and imagine. Take a few deep breaths. Let the stresses of life fall away. You deserve this moment. We live overstimulated lives, anyway. We're sure that your incredible, individual creativity can do much better than our photos.

Nonetheless, here are some vignettes:

Vomit.
The bus ride to Waslala was absolutely brutal. 5 1/2 hours on incredibly twisty, bumpy roads with no bathroom or food stops. The bus was packed full of women, men, children, chickens, and all of their belongings. The smell of vomit filled the air and the sight of it covered the floor.

Searching.
We finally arrived in Waslala with no clue as to what we should do next. We knew that our friend Meaghan had a friend Virginia who we should find. We walked up and down the main street asking people if they knew "Virginia." Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your perspective), no one knew her. Luckily, a very old man who we could barely understand took us under his wing and led us to the radio station. Just as he was about to get on the radio and send a call to action to the entire town, a young man announced that he knew Virginia. Apparently she worked just 20 feet away, across the street. Long story short, Virginia housed us for the next two nights (even though the electricity was out!), took us to work with her (she is a public health worker who worked for Red Cross during the war), and shared her huge extended family with us.

Ancianos.
As shown above, a lot of our experience of Waslala was defined by following people. In fact, that is indicative of our trip in general. We typically have no idea what is going on and simply follow the person who looks like they might know more than us.
One afternoon we visited the local parish run by two Brazilian priests. One of the priests, Father Danilo, said, "Vamos," and we followed him outside. He motioned to a big blue pick-up. Not sure what to do, we crammed out two bodies into the seat that was clearly meant for one. We drove off with no idea where we were going. Eventually we slowed and stopped in front of a small, light blue building. Above the door was painted, "Hogar de Los Ancianos" (literally, "Home of the Ancients"). We walked in and were led to a square room.
The only light came from the door at the far end, through which you could see a couple cows plodding down a hill. In the dim light you could see that every wall was painted bright green. In the room were 6 cots, each containing a very elderly person and all of their belongings. We began sitting and chatting with each one. Although, chatting is probably a misnomer since it was a definite struggle for us to understand them and for them to understand us. But we all enjoyed talking whether or not anyone could understand what the other was saying. Alisa and I rambled on about whatever we could think of . . . where we were from, what we did that day, food we liked, etc. We discovered that many of the people were there because they had no other family left.
Eventually, Alisa and I began running out of conversation topics. At one point Alisa said to the blind woman she was sitting with, "This room is really beautiful. It's so . . . green." The woman smiled and nodded in agreement. There was one woman who, throughout, had been rocking and moaning in the corner. Inspired by her music, and having no other idea of what to do, we decided to sing for them. So, in our awful voices, we attempted to sing "This Little Light of Mine." Amazingly, the men and women began joining in. They knew none of the words, let alone the language we were singing in, but they joined in gusto, singing their own language, rocking, and ringing their hands. The woman in the corner shrieked with delight. We sang a few more songs before we had to leave. It was a beautiful moment and we were very sad to go.


Beautiful mountains and village roads


Smiling children who climbed trees and picked us fresh fruit


Colorful trucks overflowing with people


Skinned cats. Wearing hats. In the Catholic parish. Enough said.