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<p class=MsoPlainText align=right style='text-align:right;line-height:150%'><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:
Arial'>Letter 6<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>Dear All --<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>Friday (16 feb) I
left the iguana <i><span style='font-style:italic'>a casa</span></i>, her front
legs evidently dislocated behind her back, assuming that Mario would dispatch
it there in the afternoon. But he took it to Doņa Amandaīs house (Anaīs
mother), which has more space for dispatchment, and I figure she has experience
with iguanas. That evening I saw the completed product, the iguana now not
green but red, neatly spiraled above its 33 eggs. (It is when female iguanas
have their almost-ready eggs in tow that they are considered a delicacy.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> But we
did not eat it/them that night. Mario decided that since it might not agree
with me on the eve of our outing to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Granada</st1:City></st1:place>
and the Masaya Volcano, we would eat something safer. But it turned out to be
not that safe. We had frijoles and yucca -- thatīs fine, but the <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>arroz</span></i> was fried in what seemed an
excessive amount of oil. And the cheese was fried. The cheese here is OK,
white and grainy, tasting smoked, but <i><span style='font-style:italic'>queso
frito</span></i> is my idea of overkill. And then, Doņa Amanda, making sure I
knew that she was offering me a bottle of their version of ketchup, poured a
handful into her palm, so I could see, then poured most of it back into the
bottle, licking up the rest. Not wanting to seem impolite, I used some <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>ketsup</span></i> on my frijoles. Who knows the
mysteries of cause and effect, but later that evening I suffered my first
serious intestinal upheaval, which worried me because of the trip the next
day. Possibly having two tall glasses of water with powdered Gatorade didnīt
help, or perhaps it saved me, along with Pepto Bismol provided by Mario, and
Rosauer’s finest preventative, which I started taking at midnight.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> The
next day, a little shaky but solid, I went off with Ana and five school
principals, including Mario. Our trip took us to four spectacular places. As
guest of honor I got the front seat next to a very excellent and amiable
driver, who looked a lot like Morgan Freeman and who was the second person here
to guess that I am German. He excelled at avoiding potholes, whose number is
legion on some roads, and bicyclists, who ride often on the edge of the
none-too-wide roads.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> First
we drove to the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Masayo</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Volcanic</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">National
Park</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>. The Masaya volcano is one of several
active volcanoes in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Nicaragua</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
and you can drive right up to the rim, get out of the car, and walk 20 yards to
find yourself looking down into a crater with vertical walls and smoke rising
from the bottom. Itīs maybe 400 yards in diameter and 300 yards straight down,
and some days, Iīm told, you can see the red magma at the bottom. Iīve never
looked down into a live volcano before. Its last big eruption was about a
century ago. The first Spanish priest who arrived here, in the 1520s, had a
cross erected at the top of the hill nearby, where we couldnīt go because itīs
supposed to be dangerous just now; the cross was to mock Satan, or keep him
down there among the flames.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> Next we
saw <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Granada</st1:City></st1:place>,
one of the main tourist cities. Thereīs no <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Alhambra</st1:City></st1:place> here, but some charming
Spanish-colonial public buildings and a lovely, not imposing cathedral. And
last weekend, I read in the newspapers, they had an international festival of
poetry. Only Bob Wrigley would want to be there more than I.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText align=right style='text-align:right;line-height:150%'><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:
Arial'> Digression: Hereīs a Nicaraguan paradox. 1) It is a nation
that prides itself on its poetry. You see that in various ways, including all
sorts of reference to its great modernist poet Ruben Dario. Friday when my <br
clear=all style='page-break-before:always'>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'>school gave me a
special show for (delayed) Valentineīs Day, interspersed among the dancers were
two students who had memorized and recited poems, and did it very dramatically
and well; 2) It is not a nation of readers. Even Ana and Mario, professional
educators, have no books around the house (unless they keep them in the bedroom).
And the light for reading in the house is minimal at best. There are no
tables where you can PUT a book, except one with a Bible on it, always opened
to the same page except when the wind blows through the room. For a whole week
I saw no newspapers anywhere in town. There is no public library. BUT in
Catarina, coming up later on the tour, there is a public library. Wonder what
it would take, and whether it would be worth it, to create one in Villa El
Carmen.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> Next we
went to the near shore of <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Lake</st1:PlaceType> <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Cocibolca</st1:PlaceName> (also known as <st1:place w:st="on">Lake
Nicaragua</st1:place>), which MAY be (Iīm not sure) the worldīs largest
fresh-water lake, but anyway itīs big and itīs the one with the unique
fresh-water sharks, Chris. We took a <i><span style='font-style:italic'>lancha</span></i>,
a tourist boat, around the small islands, <i><span style='font-style:italic'>isletas</span></i>,
along this shore. Here I discovered what the very rich do in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Nicaragua</st1:country-region></st1:place>: they buy small islands
and build paradisal houses on them. Americans would build bigger but grosser.
For me, though, the main thrill of this trip was the large number of huge white
birds that lined the shore. Herons, egrets?, at least one pelican -- we pass
within 40 yards of them and they pose. Also cormorants and some kind of duck,
but no gulls in sight.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> Finally
we climbed up to Catarina, a tourist town that sits on the edge of a hill from
which you look down to a crater lake whose beauty at least equals Oregonīs
Crater Lake -- is not so round but bigger, just as blue, and you see it from
WAY above. On its shores, just one building. On its surface, just one small
sailboat in all that blue. Beyond the lake, the buildings of <st1:City w:st="on">Granada</st1:City>
and beyond that, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">shore</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Cocibolca</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> On the
drive home, “Morgan” played the same CD of songs nonstop and loud,
and I was in the front seat. But I liked it, for a while, and some of the
songs I liked a lot, especially one called UN BESO Y UNA FLOR, sung by a
Spaniard: you know because when he hits that most common of words in
Spanish-language love songs, it comes out “<i><span style='font-style:
italic'>coraTHON</span></i>.” Nevertheless, three hours is a bit much at
full blast while dodging bicyclists, and I was glad to be nearing the end even
though I knew were were approaching the iguana and her 33 eggs. Ultimately I
ate, without serious damage, one egg (they are half the size of a chicken egg
and have soft membranous shells) and what I thought was a leg. It turned out
to be the tail. The meat is OK, like a tough chicken. I didnīt like the sauce
that permeated the rice, though; it had the taste of lizard, somehow.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> Thanks
for your patience, or your ability to skim.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Arial'> Dave<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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