New Shoes

So, before Prince died, yesterday's news was spozed to be all about my new shoes.  I was -- I still am -- so excited, not only because of the shoes, but of how they showed up in my life.

A while ago, I was going to Costa Rica.  Danny told me to get Tevas, as they are a great shoe for the sorts of vacations I like -- one minute you're wading at the beach, or getting drenched in a torrential downpour, and a coupla hours later you're hiking through the jungle.  Tevas and similar shoes dry quickly and allow you to keep moving without having to change shoes.  They're also light enough that they don't weigh you down in water -- if, for instance, you were rafting and fell out of the raft, you could still swim in them.

So I didn't find Tevas the first time;  I found some Clark's of England that were made very similar to Tevas.  They are the light brown ones in the picture above, and have seen me on jaunts throughout Central America and the Southern and Southwestern United States.  They're great shoes, but are starting to show their wear.  

So I was thinking how I'd like a pair of Tevas and wondering if Skechers made this kind of shoe (it's basically a closed toe, closed heel sandal).  I looked at the Skechers outlet, but didn't find what I wanted.  So I'm driving back to NYC from Pennsylvania.  I have this random thought that "hey, PA has outlets.  I should stop at the outlets."  I Googled outlets near me, and found that there was one within 20 miles or so.  I went to it, and saw that not only was it an outlet, but it was also a casino.  At that point it occurred to me that there was nothing there for me, but I said, "well, there's a shoe store.  Let me see if I can find a pair of Tevas and a pair of Skechers like the Tevas."

So I go into this shoe store, and while it wasn't apparent at first, that's exactly what I found.  There was one pair of each left in my size, so I snatched them up!  In the photo above, I'm wearing the Skechers (they're olive green).  They are more comfortable, appear to have a slightly wider last, and have a bit more padding on the insole.  The Tevas (brown, on the right) are a bit slimmer on the last, but they have AWESOME arch support and a VERY firm sole -- they're the perfect shoe for hiking n the rainforest.

So.  I have my shoes, which I'm now wearing to work because I love them, and that's that.  There's absolutely no point to this post;  I'm just happy to have my three pairs of Teva/Teva-like shoes.  In a perfect world, my life would be such that these would be the only shoes I'd ever need....

Trip to Nicaragua, Day 2

Today was a pretty great day.  We started out early in the morning with the scooter guys bringing us two scooters.  They were nice little scooters and they did a preliminary check to see if there was any damage.   Something told me to take pictures but I didn't --  I was so excited to get on the scooter and ride it,  so we had breakfast which was huevos rancheros  -- which was fried eggs,  salsa , some gallo pinto,  something like cheese, and some white bread. The beans and rice tasted like it had grit in it;   other than that it was very good.

After breakfast we took off!  We first went to a little place called eye of water over there Ajo del agua and we swam there until a group of very loud Americans came and made it uncomfortable. There was a guy selling coconuts and so I had a pipa – drank the coconut water and ate the flesh.   Sophie had a Coco Loco which was rum and sweetened condensed milk inside the pipa.

After that we went to Charco Verde. (my notes say” someplace I forgot the name of and I don't remember what we did there either”).  We went into a Nature Preserve and hiked around .  We saw a huge Lake, and  we met a woman at the beginning of it just sitting and looking.  We went exploring, walking around the lake.  We came back and saw the legend of big boy (Chico Largo).  Charco Verde means Green Puddle in English and I think it refers to the lake.  There were two beaches, and while we saw the other one, we had a hard time getting to it.  So we roamed through the jungle a while, and then we came out to the touristy side.  We found a restaurant, but realized we’d never found the butterfly farm that was advertised at the entrance to the nature preserve.

Oh, well.  At the restaurant we had ceviche as an appetizer.  We each ordered one which was a mistake – they were huge and spoiled our dinner.  My dinner was beans and rice,  chicken , plantains and salad.  My notes say Sophie had something similar, but my memory says she had seafood soup.  Whatever.  We took to go bags and left.  Then we went back to Eye of Water (Ojo del Agua) and took pictures of Sophie.  After that we went to the beach at la Punta Jesus y Maria (the point of Jesus and Mary) to watch the sunset. Then we raced home, in the dark. It was hard for me to hold the scooter on the road with the strong crosswinds but somehow we made it.  The boys were there to pick up the scooters.  They claimed we had damaged them,  they claimed we were late,  they claimed we didn't put enough gas in them and so they ended up charging an extra $30.

Sophie was furious but by this time I was very tired.  I realized it was a hustle and I just chose to pay them even though I told them I was only paying them because they were hustling us and I was tired.  It's unfortunate because I should have have taken the pictures as I wanted to but this is what happens when you don’t follow that still Small Voice.

We came into the hotel whose name I still don't remember and then we had a lovely conversation with the  lawyer and his wife Blanca Julia. We talked about the fraud committed by the motorcycle boys and how if we had called the police (As Sophie wanted to do) we would have won. We also talked about being Christian.  The lawyer seems very interested in this and we had a long conversation about Christianity in the first world versus Christianity in developing countries.  It was fascinating.  It's interesting to me that so many North American Christians associate religion with things, with “God loves me because I have a big house,”  or “God loves me because I make a lot of money”  or whatever --  Prosperity Gospel. However I am seeing people who struggle on a daily basis just to exist and these people are no less fervent about the fact that God loves them. Their security is based on their relationship with God and not upon  material things, and I think that's wonderful.

In light of the current American political situation, and in light of the fact that Christianity is growing so quickly in the Southern Hemisphere, and in light of the fact that Christianity there is so different than what is practiced in the Western Hemisphere or the northern hemisphere, I can’t help but re-think what it means to be a Christian, what it means to walk with Christ.  I’m reminded of Donnie McClurkin when he sings about trusting in the Lord, and he says “Will you trust me,Child, Come what may?  What if it hurts?  What if you cry?  What it if doesn’t work the first time that you try?  What if you call my name and don’t feel me near?  Will you still believe in me, or will you fear?”  I see people who believe, no matter what, and it sort of is in contrast to those of us who act like God is our personal genie or good luck charm….

I’ve started editorializing and have left the commentary on the day, so I’ll end here.  These four blog posts were all I wrote from  the trip. I spent a lot of time just soaking up experiences rather than documenting them.  Perhaps next time I’ll seek to balance the two (experiencing versus documenting) a bit more.

Must I be Carried To the Skies?

Must I be carried to the skies

On flowery beds of ease

While others fight to win the prize

And sail through stormy seas? 

No,  I must fight if I would win

Increase my courage,  Lord

I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain

Supported by Thy Word

As I'm traveling through Nicaragua,  which is incredibly poor,  I see and sense a joyous determination in people .  It makes me think twice about Christians who always say  -- you know,  who always sing songs such as the above about the struggle,  about working hard for Christ,  but who also like to surround themselves with luxury hotels and meetings, who are always going top shelf on everything -- and I'm beginning to find these things increasingly incongruent.

We are here doing some vacationing, but it's an ecologically responsible vacation and we're staying in places that fit in with the environment so they may not be as fancy as some other places, but the idea is to blend in with, to preserve and to honor that which God has put on this earth.

I can't help but wonder why some of our traditional African American churches are not more ecologically responsible.  I can't help but think about how some of our African American preachers always have  to have a chauffeur and have to have certain things for them just in order to preach God's Word where I see people who live without material comforts, without all the amenities, who are standing only on God’s Word on a daily basis…

Trip to Nicaragua, Day 1

We left San Jose on a 7:30 am bus.  We were both sleepy and neither of us remembered to bring food.  We didn’t think that would be a problem, but then, we didn’t realize that the bus would be a six hour trip with no stops.  We also didn’t realize we were supposed to have been at the station an hour early.  Thanks to the privilege of youth and/or beauty, the ticket people made concessions for Sophie, and we were allowed to board.

While we were paying taxes and going through all the assorted formalities associated with crossing the border in a Central American country, Sophi was able to go and get a ham sandwich for me.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t eat ham, so she got some chips, and she got water for both of us.  This held us over until 3 pm when we were at the Nicaraguan border and the driver let us get some trail mix out of my bag. 

The border crossing was incredibly tedious.  It was slow,  it was disorganized,  and we were there about 45 minutes.  They collected our passports, then we had to go through customs and get our declaration stamps, then we had to come back out to the bus and get our bags.  Then they took them through an X-ray machine,  then we reclaimed the bags and loaded them back on the bus.  Somewhere in the process they took our passports (something I’m always leery of, but especially in Central America) and then we waited in the sun for about 30 minutes until they decided to come and bring us our passports.

During this time the vendors swarmed upon us trying to give us money to change, trying to sell us phone cards,  trying to sell peanuts,  cashews, and I don’t know what else.  We did buy something to eat that was a tortilla with white cheese and onions in vinegar.   It was horrible.   They had sandals for sale,  they had people driving little rickshaws, all kinds of stuff.  While it was pretty fascinating to watch, it was indicative of the poverty of the region and the desire for US dollars. Quite frankly, I was kinda OD’d on this from the coupla days I’d spent alone in Jamaica.  You develop the ability to deal with it, but it still grieves you in your spirit.  There’s just SO much desperation.

We got back on the bus and rode another 40 minutes or so to Rivas, where we got off. There we were accosted by people with rickshaws trying to give us a 40-minute ride to the ferry terminal for $10. Thankfully we found a Christian taxi driver who decided to take us for $8. We got to talk about the goodness of God on the way, as I began to realize that our Christian jargon is just that, and that I am deficient in that jargon in Spanish..  We drove to the ferry terminal and got off to buy our tickets to the ferry across to the island of Ometepe. Of course there were people trying to be tour guides,  trying to sell us tours and all manner of nonsense. They tried to get us into hotels, sell us packages, and all sorts of stuff.  Had I not been with Sophi (or had I not done my research and known there were accomodations on the island in ALL price points), I probably would have listened to them, but we ignored them and got on the ferry.

The ferry was a very choppy ride, about 45 minutes,  but it was enjoyable and we got good pictures of the volcano. After we got to the volcano we were once again accosted by people trying to sell us rides and this and that and the other.  We decided to go with a guy who had a van and was willing to take us into the island for $5 apiece.  He also took us to a hotel where we got rooms for $10 a night.  The rooms are very basic  -- there is no AC,  there are private bathrooms but I don't know what is going on with the shower --  but it's $10 a night so I can't really complain.  We were going to contract with the taxi driver for tomorrow but instead we've decided that we're going to rent scooters and drive around town so we'll see how that goes.

It is quarter to 9 in the evening and I am exhausted so I am going to go to bed., I just wanted to write (or dictate) these thoughts down before I forgot them.