After the long day working on the website on Sunday, I took Monday morning off, rented a bike, and headed for Playa Marsella. The trip was somewhat less adventurous that my last attempt with Victoria in August, but still memorable. I managed to find my way to the pretty easily (perhaps my Spanish has improved to the point where I can understand directions.)
When I arrived, the beach was practically deserted — people came and went, but at no point were there more than three people on the long stretch of sun-baked sand. I chained my biked to a piece of driftwood, had a snack, and went swimming. As I bobbed in the waves, I watched a blue butterfly skim over the waves and a pelican repeatedly diving for fish just a short distance away.
On the way back I stopped for a drink at a roadside store, where I sipped a Pepsi while watching the traffic pass me on the dusty dirt road — everything from foreigners on off road vehicles to squeaky horse-drawn carts. The store had a pet monkey chained chained out front, and he languidly sat on his platform, occasionally climbing up to the rafters or swinging out to a platform near the road. Meanwhile dogs and chickens milled on the ground.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a bicycle trip in Nicaragua without some sort of mechanical problem. I thought I was doing well when my bike actually had two tires that held air and more-or-less functional brakes and gears. But my faith was shattered when, halfway back, a pedal came off. Sigh. So I began walking, and when an SUV pulling a trailer full of dirt blew by me on the dusty road, I thumbed a ride. There were two men driving. The more talkative of the two was Nicaraguan businessman who spoke passable English and owned a buffet in Rivas (the nearest city of any size to San Juan.) The pair let me off near town, and I limped back with my crippled bicycle, stopping for a cerveza near the beachfront.
After all this, I took a quick shower and ran across town to the Casa Computadoras, the computer lab set up by the Por Fin project (which has now merged with the library.) The lab features a motley assortment of laptop and desktop machines in a tiny room attached to the house of Susan Watson, the organization’s founder. She has also set up solar panels, batteries, and an inverter that power the lab when the electricity goes out. She is hoping to eventually use a similar method to put computers in countryside schools. I took the opportunity to film an interview with Susan and with her head Nicaraguan computer instructor Edwina. The two told me about the training programs have developed over the last five years, and how they hope the library will help them expand their computer literacy efforts in the town and, more importantly, in the countryside.
When I was done with the interview, I dashed back across town to Jane?s house, where she was having a dinner for David Gullette and his group of undergrads from Simmons. Jane knows how to throw a party — the main dish was Nicaraguan lobster tails. After dinner we watched ?Carla?s Song,? a moving drama about a Scottish bus driver who falls in love with a Sandinista woman from Nicaragua during the Contra war, and returns to Nicaragua with her. Not a happy movie, but fascinating all the same.