17 Sleeps Left.....

This little girl was playing peek a poo with us shyly as we worked her alley in service this week. She was beautiful. I gave her some cookies that I had brought in my bag for Nikki.

Christmas is a huge celebrations here...and obviously they have no pine trees. So this week we saw them "installing"one in indepance square. They string up metal in the shape of a pine and then slowly wind greenery onto it. This one is still missing it's top. Hilarious.

This is Granada's town square, the meeting place for everyone. I originally thought it would be an awesome place to sit with a coffee and people watch but the reality of it is very different for a "chele". I don't exaggerate in the least when I say that every minute you would be approached by someone selling something or aggressive beggars. Still, I enjoy walking through and feeling the atmosphere.

This is our life right now. We have no TV and are down to one computer, our only contact with the outside world. We are on it constantly and frequently bicker over whose turn it is with it.....

We woke up this morning, looked at each other and said "17 more sleeps"! Last night was a challenging night, we almost left and went to stay with friends. The two rival political parties had demonstrations through the day in Managua. All our meetings there were cancelled and people were warned to stay in doors. Granada was the meeting place for many to travel in, and travel back from the demonstrations. So many were in town. Gary called me in the morning and warned me not to come out in service. We stayed in for the day even here in Granada. But then last night noticed a crowd of young 20 somethings in FSLN (political) shirts starting to gather on our street, in front of and off to the side of our house. The ladies across the street even closed their doors (which they never do). We started to worry. We called friends who said for us to give the word and they would come and get us.....but we decided we were best off the streets (the US consulate here had warned it's citizens in the country to not travel around if possible). We shut our house down and headed out into the back of the house for the night. Everything was fine for us, we don't know why they were there or what happened later, but we were fine. It reiterated to us the smart move of leaving. Things are going to get much worse over the next year.

All our stuff is now sold. Everything. The last batch of stuff is going to a lady who has just built a rental apartment that will be ready next month so she just paid us a set amount for all the odds and ends we had left. We can use them till we leave (like our coffee maker, thank goodness). We were at the meeting this morning and had some tearful conversations with some of the local friends who we are sad to leave behind. Not fair that we can just walk away but they can't leave. We don't mention our safety concerns though, only my mental issues....:)

Speaking of which, at this point I have come to a happy dosage of meds that seem to be keeping me stable but not dopey. I can even think about flying with out my heart racing which is a really good sign.......Just no more wine for me....you know I am desperate when I am willing to give up wine. As soon as we are back in the States, no more meds (once I am weaned back down) and lots of wine! Funny thing about these meds though (which I understand from Mom I would never have been given in Canada) is that they take away some of my mental agility so unfortunately, but sometimes funny in hindsight, I say what I am thinking straight away, when normally I may wisely choose to temper my words. Poor Gary has to keep giving me looks to shut me up while I merrily shoot my mouth off........I'm surprised he answered my hand at all today in the WatchTower!

So tomorrow we are off to Masaya Market one more time with a final list of gifts to pick up. Then Tuesday a friend is taking us into Managua so that we can pick up our Exit Visa's (we can't leave the country without them as we are residents now). Then it's only 2 weeks...........

We have now booked our month in South Carolina too. We are very excited. The place we found is a new condo complex right on the ocean, complete with two pools, a lazy river, hot tub & exersize room. And we will not have to share a room with Nikki...heaven. You can see it at avistaresort.com. Because it is off season there, it will end up costing us for the month about what we spend here anyway so it will be a nice way to avoid the extreme cold in Canada, but still slowly adjust to cooler temps (it's only around 11 degrees there that time of the year). We are there from Dec 30 (we didn't want to travel around New Years for safety reasons) till Feb 1. Then....home James......or Gary....whatever your name in, the pills made me forget :)

More to come....we have no TV so this is my entertainment.....when I can win a wrestling match to get it off Gary or Nikki :)