Ants in my Pants - Thursday, October 21 2010

Yesterday, Thursday, we spent the day out and about.

Oh, but don't let me forget, the fun started long before we left to go out for the day. Charley got up earlier than I did, maybe around 6am or so, and I could hear Wanda talking to him. Voices echo around here, and she was talking rather loudly since she was telling a seriously animated story - and she was by no means laughing about it either.

She got up around 4am to go to the bathroom, and when she got back into bed she felt like things were crawling on her. She got up, went into the bathroom, and turned on the light to investigate and found herself and the bathroom walls crawling with little tiny ants. But these little ants bite! So, she got some kind of spray out and used it all up killing the little creatures. So as I was hearing her tell this story, (and believe me, she was horrified about it all, and upset because nobody else seemed to be concerned enough to help) then I heard her scream again as she noticed that they were all over the kitchen wall and counter too. But she'd run out of whatever she used to kill them in the bathroom. Poor thing - it was rather funny, not that she thought so though!

I did get to experience a little of what she must have gone through. I didn't have my glasses on when I went to the bathroom and it wasn't until I was itching in a rather unpleasant place that I realized that the toilet had ants running up and down it, and some of them had made themselves at home on my behind!!! But it wasn't that many really and only one bit me.

So, once we got all that out of the way, not that we ever heard the end of it all day, but once most of the ants were dead, we had breakfast and headed off to the Nicaragua branch about half an hour later than planned.

It was really cloudy out. This picture, taken on the way to Ticuantepe where the branch is, should show a beautiful view, but you can't see much of it.

We had a nice visit at the branch although we only had time to watch one video. It was about the suffering and imprisonment of the young brothers who wouldn't join the military in Nicaragua back in the 70's I think it was. They certainly suffered a lot.

We did a tour, with Daniel, who did most of the tour in Spanish and then practiced his English on us which was very good indeed. The branch will be closing November 1st, although there will be a small group that will stay to maintain the place and do certain jobs. I briefly met Brother Hunter who is Branch Overseer or somethinng like that! He's from Scotland and I got to hear a little bit of his accent.

We then had lunch with the Robleto's older son, Philip and his wife Luisa. They aren't having guests for lunch anymore, so we ate in their room. They still don't know what their assignment will be. They've been told to stay put for now until they find out. So, they're just waiting, not knowing what their future holds.

Nicaragua Bethel

Louisa & Philip Robleto

After lunch we headed out to Masaya. There is a volcano though, but I had so much fun in the market that we never made it to the volcano. It gets dark really early here. After 5pm, there's no point in trying to go anywhere else because it'll be dark by the time you get there. But we plan on going back there. It's not very far from El Crucero. We got some nice souvenirs in the market. Some of them we bought from a sister whose fleshly sister (Esperanza Guerrero) is in our congregation in Indianapolis.

Esperanza Guerrero's sister, Loli and her market stall

After our shopping adventures, in which I got to do some bargaining, we went to eat and while there it started raining really hard. Thankfully it stopped before it was time to head to the car.

And just when we were 5 minutes from the house, the traffic came to a complete stop. We sat there for about 20 minutes before we found out what was going on. Two semi's were blocking the entire road. It's a main highway, but it's only one lane in each direction. And then a third semi who attempted to help out, got stuck in a ditch too and got into a wreck with a car. It was a mess. But we managed to get by it. I wish I had pictures or video but my camera was in the trunk and by the time I thought about getting it out, we were moving again. There was hardly any room to get past one semi that was across the street. But with lots of encouragement and guidance from all these guys that had taken it upon themselves to be in charge of the situation, we squeezed through without getting stuck in the ditch. It was a rather exciting conclusion to the evening.

So, by the time we got home, I was too worn out to blog. It was about 9pm and we'd been out all day, and it was a lot hotter down in Ticuantepe and Masaya than it is up here in El Crucero so it wore us out.