July in Nica Part I

I know I´ll probably get some guff from some people (Jessica Scherzer) for not having a witty blog title, but I´m just all out of wit right now. Deal with it. :)

I am officially in Nica for my 12th trip, and the fifth one in the last twelve months. It feels more and more like home every time I´m here! So, the recap...

Per my usual (of late) bad luck with flights, my flight from Orlando, which I was all responsible about and checked in for super early, was delayed by one hour to 10:30. No biggie right? Except that my connecting flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Managua was supposed to leave at 11:30. So I started to worry until the airport people kept saying that it was okay, all connections were fine. So that made me wonder and I went online to check it out, and sure enough, my second flight was delayed until 3:30. in the morning. awesome. So, I did my usual ´find a decently clean enough space on the horrendous floor to sleep in 20-minute cycles until the plane may or may not leave at the new schedule time´drill. I´m pretty good at it now. Luckily it did indeed leave at 3:30 and also luckily, Jorge and the entourage (his brother and the guy that drove them) were actually there to pick me up at 4:00 local time. Yes, that´s right. I went back in time. The drive home was super quiet, since I just slept as much as possible. We got to the house around 6:45, when the whole town was basically up or waking up, so my internal clock was such a mess, being that it was 8:45 to my poor exhausted body. So we slept until around 10:00 and then got up and got ready to go eat, as Jorge had to work at 12:00. I was also starving, since my last meal had been at 5:00 pm the day before, and I was virtually awake for more than 24 hours. We ate at La Parrillada, where we eat a lot. I had my delicious rice, beans, queso and a chicken in a delicious sauce with vegetables (carrots, green beans, onions - the tolerable ones :)). Then Jorge was off to work and I was off to the house to crash for another three hours. Jorge works long hours and it´s definitely something different I´ll have to adjust to - him not being here with me 24/7. But as I told someone before I left, that means I´ll definitely be more faithful with blogging and emailing, because usually I hurry because he´s bored out of his mind waiting for me to type my novels.

After catching up on my sleep, I went to go see Liza and the baby! The good thing is that they are staying at her mom´s house for ten days, which is right down the street, so it´s super convenient for me to go see them. Liza looks great and feels great, aside from normal c-section discomfort and pain. The baby is beautiful! She weighs only 6 lbs. and is very long and skinny, for now. She already has big feet though. The little heels on her socks are actually on the balls of her feet instead of on her heel, so Freddy´s already got it in his head that she´s going to go to college on a basketball scholarship :). Anyway, motherhood just suits Liza, as we all knew it would. I have watched her for five years oodling over everybody´s baby, because she just loves them so much, and she feels so humbled and blessed to be chosen as this baby girl´s mama.

For those of you who don´t know, the path to parenthood was very difficult for these two. After three miscarriages, Liza got pregnant in the fall of 2009 and was supposed to give birth in July of 2010. In early April, though, her blood pressure was dangerously high and they had to deliver the baby at just six months, and he only lived for two days. Amazingly, through the power of prayer and faith, Liza and Freddy managed to get by and continue to live faithfully, believing that God had a wonderful plan for them, and that if they were meant to be parents, they would be. When Liza announced that she was pregnant again in the fall, everybody was sort of nervous, understandably. This time, though, they were more prepared and Liza saw a specialist from day one, who had her on all sorts of medication to help her blood pressure, including having to get an injection every day. They had to sacrifice a lot in order to be able to afford these last 9 months, but of course it was worth it! Once they got past the 6 month mark, they started to breathe a little easier, and when it was time to deliver, they were calm and confident. They did a c-section on Tuesday, the 28th, and little Lisa Anaiah was born. After running all sorts of tests and undergoing observation because of the medication her mama was on for so long, the doctors declared her a perfectly healthy baby girl. Now, the name: Freddy and Liza deliberated over the name for some time, and decided that they would each get to pick one name. Freddy originally wanted Dolores, which was his grandmother´s name, but Liza didn´t like it, for more reasons than the fact that dolores means ´pains´in Spanish. Liza had originally picked Adelita for the first name, which is her mother´s name, but her mom begged her not to use it because she says she has always disliked her name and that one day their daughter would ask them why they named her that horrible name! I actually love the name and think it´s adorable, but Liza complied and decided upon Lisa, with an s. It means ´dedicated to God´. Freddy picked Anaiah, which comes from Hebrew and means ´God has responded´. Both names are so perfectly fitting.

I visited with them for about four hours, and of course held that baby as long as she´d let me. A couple friends came by to visit her and see the baby though, so I had to relinquish her to them. It was so wonderful to catch up with my sweet friend, and to see her the happiest I have in years. She is so blissfully happy and so thankful to God, and just so in love with her baby girl, as is Freddy of course. I don´t have a picture to upload now, because the one thing I forgot at home was the cable to connect my camera to the computer, but don´t you fear. I´ve gone high-tech now and will start to take pictures with my phone instead, because I did remember to bring that cord.

By that time I had a monstrous headache due to overtiredness and not enough caffeine (Liza´s mom did give me a delicious cafe con leche but I think it was too late - the caffeine-withdrawal damage had already kicked in. I went back to the house and waited for Jorge to get home from work. Just a few minutes before he got home, I went outside and sat with his mama and chatted with her, and I was actually a little cold! Oh yea, I forgot to mention it poured (like level 2 hurricane poured) for about 3 hours! Jorge came home and we went to get food at La Casuelita, which is just down the street. They make this to-die-for chicken in jalapeño sauce (remember Jess?). On the way there we passed by my friend Karla´s house and got to see her, Sara and Talia. I love that it´s a small enough town here that I can see several people I know no matter where I go! We took the food to the house and ate. I think I ate it anyway. It was gone so fast I hardly have any recollection of it :). We then watched a really bad copycat of Step Up, one of those ´people off the street turn to dancing instead of being in gangs, and then they compete with each other´movies. I tell you what, this boy has terrible taste in movies. and music. but that´s a whole other blog post... And we finally were able to just sit and talk and relax, just enjoying being around each other. With his new work schedule, I feel like we have barely talked, I mean really talked, for the last month or so. I can´t even explain how good it feels to just be here and be able to just be. I feel so, happy, just being with him. Okay, sorry about the momentary mushyness.

This morning we woke up and got ready to go have breakfast before Jorge went to work at 9:30. We went to On The Run so that I could go to the ATM too. I had, and am still drinking, my cafe con leche, and also about half of Jorge´s frappuccino, and we both had a croissant. On the Run is expensive, but sort of worth it for how tasty it all is. Then he was off to work and I was off to the internet cafe, where I have been now for about an hour! The game plan is to go buy a cell phone (I´ll put the number on here in case anybody feels like paying to communicate with me), go back to the house and clean, as I´ve been here just over 24 hours and the place is suitable for pigs right now. Since I´ll be here an entire month (yay!!!) I am going to actually unpack my suitcase and actually organize things. Then Jorge will come home and we´ll eat lunch together, and then I´ll go visit Liza and baby again. I´m not sure yet what the night will hold, but tomorrow Jorge is off work and we have baseball games (sarastic ´yay´!). His team gets to play in the big stadium which is cool, except that means I´ll be sitting alone in the stands, unless I can convince someone to come with me. Then in the night we´ll go to church and we´re thinking of going to Rosti Pollo afterwards to celebrate our one-year anniversary! I´m not much of an anniversary-celebrating person, and neither one of us knows the exact date we got together, although we know it definitely was more in the middle of July than this early on, but either way we know it´s in July, so we thought we´d celebrate.

That´s all I´ve got for now! and oh yea, because this is usually the first thing I´m asked - yes, it´s hot. Although right now I´d say it´s probably not any hotter here than it is in Melbourne. and I´m in a tiny cubicle in a non-air conditioned internet cafe, drinking hot coffee. You know me though, I´m practically Amish. So I´m good :).

More to come in a few days, including pictures, hopefully! I hope everyone´s doing well. Enjoy your 4th of July! There won´t be any firework shennanigans here like last year, because I´m the only gringo around that I know of, but I´ll be thinking of you all in brush-fire city.

Adios!