Dolor de Cabeza

Have you ever had a severe headache for 36 straight hours, an unrelenting pain that medicine did not alleviate? If you answered yes, did this same headache drive you nuts to the point where you almost lost sensation in your scalp? And now one final question…was this headache self-imposed?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, then you have almost definitely had cornrows (braided hair that looks like corn rows; trenzas en español) at one point in your life. And these same cornrows were probably a bit too tight. And your name could be Avi Richman. Yes, worldwide fans of www.avirichman.com, your favorite author got his hair braided into cornrows on last Thursday morning and they were a bit too tight.

During the two hour braiding session with a friend of a friend, I felt no pain and carried on a nice conversation. Fyi…I actually have a high tolerance for pain in the scalp area meaning that you could pull my hair as hard as you wish and it does not bother me (pulling hair as hard as possible is exactly what happens in a braiding session for those interested to know this little cookie of information). So I left my braiding session with a huge grin that can only come from doing something completely against the norm, found my friends eating breakfast, and showed off the cornrows in all their glory.

We left for our road trip to the northern part of Nicaragua an hour later and then I began to become uncomfortable. Those little rubberbands pulling out my hair and scalp were starting to annoy me. They were too tight! Another few hours passed and the annoyance was elevated to the point where alcohol was needed to deaden the pain. Alcohol did not even work and I went to sleep that night, hoodie protecting the braids, expecting a less painful tomorrow. Woke up and there was less pain but the pain remained.

So finally on Friday night around 9pm, only 36 hours after receiving my new look,  I could no longer tolerate the rows. I was tugging at the braids with hands, fingers, knives, and scissors trying to release the pressure. And oh it felt good when I finally was able to rid myself of the rows. You know the feeling after you have been ice skating for a long time and then you take off the skates….remember how good that feels on your feet….well multiply that by ten and imagine how good it felt for my head.

In conclusion, cornrows one time, good times, cornrows twice, one time too many.

The Path to Freedom….

is what I refer to as the past two weeks. I am as of 4:23pm Nica time I am now about to start my Semana Santa (Holy Week) vacations. A quick preview of the next ten days….I am currently waiting for Owen and Patricio to arrive in Granada and tomorrow morning we will head off to Ometepe where we will spend a few days. I will return for the Passover Seder on Wednesday night where I will eat matzah and then head up north with Owen and some other Managua friends IN A CAR where we will go to Somoto Canyon, some nature reserve outside of Esteli, and enjoy the cold temperature up north. Have I mentioned yet that it is ridiculously hot here?!?? I am talking upwards of 100 degrees hot and it is not cooling down at night anymore so at this point I am just surviving and waiting for the heat to pass.

Before I continue any further a big FELICIDADES to Mr. Philip Watkins who has not only gotten into many top MBA programs but yesterday was accepted to the Harvard MBA. After talking to him last night, I am pretty sure he is going to Harvard and if he does, well that means at least someone in my crew will be making money someday and can support my goodwill efforts. Phil, I will drink tonight in your honor.

So let’s get back to the path to freedom and how it has led me to be sitting here today in a hotel where I use free internet in my shorts and sandals, smiling, and excited for the week to come. And for this post I am going to use free form writing because I only have 30 minutes left until I need to pack up my bags and meet up with Owen and Patricio in the park.

The last few weeks have been more or less good weeks. I have met with my community libraries and am now starting to feel more excited to be helping them and working with them and I think major progress can be made in the next year. Speaking of which, if you have any old books (in Spanish) that you want to donate or know of any good sources, let me know. I have also been working with my bamboo people and a week ago we took a trip out to Laguna de Apoyo to check out a site where we can grow bamboo and cultivate it for FREE. This could be a tremendous help to the bamboo couple in generating income by selling the bamboo, providing a steady source of bamboo for their products, and contributing to the forestation of Nicaragua. I have also been helping the firefighters of Granada to organize their fundraising processes and their administration. During the last week we have put together a big thank you note campaign for all those that have donated and have been delivering the notes personally in order to raise awareness of the precarious situation the firefighters are in (meaning no money) and allow the donors to see that the firefighters are now organizing themselves more efficiently…..bueno more on the firefighters at a later date.

Um lets see….the other day I kept on hearing this meow coming from various parts of my roof and then the meows continued into the next day. At this point I asked my neighbors if they were missing a cat. Turns out they weren’t missing a cat, they were missing a newly born kitten. And as the story continues one of the necio (naughty?) neighborhood kids threw the kitten onto the roof. So we began the rescue effort without a ladder. When the little kids climbed up close to the roof they could see the kitten but also couldn’t reach it. So we (meaning I watched while they did it) took at the broom and started to try to sweep the kitten off the roof and then catch it or let it fall on a bed. And we all agreed that kittens land on their feet so she/he would be okay. We went to sleep that night in failure but the next day the kids were able to sweep the kitten off the roof….and the kitten is absolutely adorable. If it were ugly it may not have been worth it but it is adorable and thus way worth the effort.

I paid my first electricity bill. I got my roof looked at again and am going to try to convince the house’s owners to put up some dough to redo it. We will see. It did rain the other night (we all think it just got so hot that it HAD to rain because it never rains in April) and there were no noticeable leaks. I also got curtains made for the bathroom door which involved some ugly orange fabric and a sewing machine. Oh and I got a table for the house so now I can eat on a surface!

I went to visit the family again in Masatepe. Did I tell you this the last time? They are doing well, aren’t moving to Guatemala like they once told me they were, and I will hopefully see them again soon.

Let’s see…I started playing basketball again, same team, new league. I pretty much suck now…my skills have diminished greatly…and it is a very sad thing to watch. I cant shoot, cant make quick cuts, and cant jump…but other than that I am great!

I feel like so much more has happened but right now I just cant think of everything. Oh I booked a flight home to Jacksonville yesterday and will be there the last week of May. I am very excited to see that and it will be more than a year since I have seen my house, my room, my bed….wait is it still my room….i don’t know.

I would now like to apologize that this blog posting was not the best and I promise to do better next time. I do now need to go and will try to post something again on Wednesday before the Seder. Much love.