Unpacking

For the past three weeks Elliot and I have been walking the towns of Masaya and Granada. We only spent a short time in Granada after deciding that Masaya was a much better fit for what we want to do.

It turns out that the idea of a realty office does not exist in Masaya, or most of Nicaragua for that matter and the classified ads only have a very small percentage of the houses that are actually for sale/rent. So we started walking and looking for "Se Alquila/For Rent" signs. We found out that most people don't use those either. They just rely on word of mouth. So we walked and we talked with any one that had time to listen. A typical conversation would go like this.

"Senora, do you know of any houses for rent in this area?"

"No, but if you talk to that Senor in the next house he might be able to help you"

...

"Senor I was told by that Senora over there that you might have and idea of any houses that are for rent in this area."

"Yes I do. There is a very nice one I know of. Just walk to the end of the block, go across the park, go down the street that goes north about 3 blocks, or maybe it was 4, and look for the yellow house with the green gate"

The vast majority of conversations that we had were some version of that. Always a house on the other side of town or around the block. Turns out that addresses are not EVER used here so we were never given a street name and a number. An exact direction for any one house is always based on a distance in meters from a well known reference point. Ej: the store is 150 meters south of the Asuncion Church.

It was a chaotic experience full of frustration, but exciting none the less.

So three weeks into our search we have found a stopping point. We have found a house and yesterday we went to sign the contract and today we move in! Moving in consists of walking in with my backpack on one shoulder and my duffel on the other.

Within a few days I will see the bottom of my duffel for the first time since it was packed over a month and a half ago. I will eat something other than fried street food and the sardine sandwiches that I have been making for myself for the past several weeks. In fact I plan on eating a very large bowl of mashed potatoes accompanied by anything green that I can get ahold of. The real highlight is that we will get to start on the work that we came down to do. I am excited and a little bit anxious but more than anything I am looking forward to sharing more stories as the journey continues.