Thankful Sunday

Last Monday we had a sad day. . . we had to give the car that we'd rented for the month back :(  It was so nice to have a car and be able to run and do whatever we needed to but the couple we had rented the car from were coming back on Tuesday so late Monday night (yeah I procrastinated as long as I could) I took the car back to their house.  I called my taxi friend Clemente once again (haven't seen him for a month) and he followed me out to their house and brought me home. 

The first few weeks in Nicaragua we were without wheels and we survived so I figured we'd be OK and started planning our week of riding shuttles and taxis.  Through the week we've struggled to get where we need to and we've survived but it has been hard.  Much harder than the first time because we've now gotten used to the convenience of having a car.  More than once we sat waiting for taxis and or shuttles for 20-30 minutes.  Last week as we got ready for church we couldn't find Carter's Sunday clothes anywhere.  I'm pretty sure they didn't make it home from the lady's house that does our laundry.  Since they were WAY small on him I thought we'd just look for a place to buy him some new ones anyways and then if they showed up it would be a bonus, if not it's no big deal.  For a whole week I've tried to find time to go out shopping for Sunday clothes, one day I even found a place that carries them but our shuttle came to get us right as I found it so I've planned to go back ever since but haven't made it.  Yesterday we had about 30 minutes before we were leaving to go to the beach with the McBrooms (bumming a ride with them of course) so I called a taxi with the plans of running in to town looking for some clothes and running back.  He never showed, when the McBrooms called and said they were ready to go I called him back and told him not to worry about it.  Today we planned on taking the bus to Rivas for church- we were kind of excited about the idea of riding the "chicken bus" at least one time while here and even though that meant getting up way earlier because the bus would take more than twice as long to get us there we decided to do it.  Last night while talking to a friend and asking the bus schedule she let us know that today was election day and that in the past she had been cautioned that election day can sometimes be dangerous as people get pretty heated about politics here and that it was better not to travel on this day.  This and the fact that Carter didn't have anything to wear to church made us decide to just stay home today. 

By Thursday of this week I was having "one of those days" and wishing I was home.  I recognized it as the same feeling I'd had several times in the first few weeks of being here and after thinking about it for a while I realized the reason was that living here without a car makes life really hard.  Everything we want to do takes so much planning and time and some of the most simple things before are exhausting now.  Grocery shopping, laundry, going to the beach, going out to eat are just a few of the things that are much harder now. 

This has made me realize how spoiled I really am.  Very few Nicaraguans have cars.  Some have motorcycles and it's very common to see a whole family of four riding on one motorcycle.  Even more common is to see someone on a bike with a passenger sitting on the cross-bar and sometimes another passenger standing on the back.  Most of these people don't have any thoughts that one day they might be able to buy a car, some of them can't afford to take the taxis that I complain are "such a pain" and so they walk everywhere with their kids in toe behind them.  They aren't complaining about the fact that it's hard to get from their villa to the beach, they aren't complaining that when they go out to dinner with friends they have to walk up the street and pay for a taxi to get them home.  These things aren't options for them.  So today I'm grateful that I live in Palermo which has a free shuttle into town every hour, even if sometimes the 10:00 shuttle leaves at 10:30.  I'm grateful that I have made friends with many taxi drivers that if I had had a car the whole time I would have never had the pleasure to meet, I'm grateful that I have made awesome friends who squish their family of six and my family of five into a car that should only fit eight in order to get us to the beach with them which totally pulled me out of my "funk" and got me back to a good place.  And yes I'm grateful that for the month of October Corey and Ryan were nice enough to let me rent their car from them at a price that made it possible for me and I was able to enjoy that freedom.  I hope once I'm home and have the luxury of owning a car I remember that it is a privilege and not a right and every time I run to the grocery store to grab something that I forgot to get when I was their earlier I will appreciate the ease in which I do so. 

Life in Nicaragua is good, even without a car, we're enjoying our last few weeks here.  The thought of leaving makes me sad, the thought of coming home makes me very excited.  This week has made me aware that I'm not nearly grateful enough for the things that I have and in this month of thanksgiving I plan to change my focus.

This lady spent the day running errands on her bike with her two kids while we surfed with friends, enjoyed the hammocks, watched a beautiful sunset over the ocean and ended it all by eating pizza on the beach where a guy came along and did a flame throwing show after which he let all the kids try it out.  Life is good, we are blessed beyond words.