Some Work and Play

A couple of weekends ago I went with friends Katie and Pedro to Laguna de Apoyo, the largest crater lagoon in Nicaragua. It’s a 2 km descent through jungle to a lovely beach area with places to eat. The water was beautiful...so I had my fill of swimming.

Last week I spent 3 days visiting clients. I spent one day following Rebecca Ramirez, a MiCredito Credit Officer, with my video camera. The other days I collected a number of client stories and more video footage. Again, it was a great experience! I visited a mirror maker, baker, vegetable vendor at Mercado del Mayoreo (Wholesale Market), butcher, piñata maker, electronics vendor at Mercado Huembes, seamstress (specializing in children’s underwear), tortilla maker, and a lady who owns and operates a pulperia (mini-mart). I especially enjoyed meeting Eneyda Duarte, the seamstress. She was so friendly and welcoming. She showed us a room at the back of her house where 5 sewing machines were humming away. She began 6 years ago as the only seamstress, and later taught her children how to sew. They sew children's underwear from 6am until 6pm, and everyday she takes a shipment to the market. They sew 200-300 dozen pairs of underwear per week. She had a digital camera and took photos of us—that was a first!

One of our visits took us to Mercado Oriental. It looks like the Wal-Mart of Managua—you can find anything and everything in this 60 acre sprawl of market vendors. It’s considered one of the city’s most dangerous areas so my “team” (loan officers and translator) kept a watchful eye on me. Actually, that was my second visit and both were good, but I wouldn’t risk going on my own. Anyhow, we strolled through the food section and I witnessed poor iguanas being slaughtered. Talk about fresh…there are live iguanas tied up in baskets waiting for doom’s day. Not so nice to see but I’m told they are a delicacy.

This weekend I took in another ball game, this time between Managua and Colombia (Managua lost). It was lively but there were less people and fewer distractions. Saturday I went to Granada, a city located on the north shore of Lake Nicaragua (the largest lake in Central America). Granada is the most touristed city in Nicaragua. It’s a beautiful colonial city with wide boulevards, lots of palm trees and a parque central packed with vendors. I definitely hope to go back and do more exploring.