Day 280 Tossing Money to the Wind

Strange place, Nicaragua.  Hot, for sure and the rainy season's been delayed, so it's much hotter than the usual oppressive levels.  I've just got a minute before a dinner of beans and rice in a humble little house of four generations... the secretary of the Parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe wouldn't hear of my sleeping on a bench in the very dirty parish hall (thank God!) and invited me to her home which she shares with her hoot of an octagenarian mother, her own kids and three of her grandchildren.  The delightful geriatric, wearing the local costume for women with an ornate lacy apron, told me that she was sure she had 20 or so grand children and 15 or maybe 20 great-grandchildren, who can keep track.  But she's proud of all of them, she announced.

I noticed right from the entrance to Nicaragua that there was an unprecedented amount of change on the roadsides, even along the dirt roads in this land of lakes and volcanos (two erupting gently nearby as I write this).  I pick it up, of course, to buy some bread that I prefer over the ubiquitous corn tortillas.  Only the large grocery stores will take the small change, the little shops give me the bread for free rather than take the aluminum coins.  Why is this? I've asked a lot of people.  We don't value the coins, preferring paper money. Nonetheless, the coins have value, I insisted to one vendor of bread along a village main street. Please take the money for the dinner roll I wanted.  He took the coins and literally threw them onto the street in front of a mototaxi.  Odd behavior.

Gotta run, but the border with Honduras in another day...