When the Almond Tree Blooms

It's summer time but the livin' ain't so easy when you're at a year round school and have to go back in mid-July. There's much to gripe about at the beginning of the new school year, but the garden is looking great. Check out the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/rfadam/SummerTimeInTheParkGarden# As usual, there is a lot on my mind, but for now, if you're checking out my blog, why don't you check out the photos and enjoy something nice?

It's a sunny Saturday morning in Fruitvale. A bit of chill still hangs in the air. I take a walk down to Fruitvale and Foothill to find something to eat. I pass a senior citizen outside the Posada de Colores retirement home. He greets me with a nod and a smile as I walk by. At the corner, the laundromat is already open and I see families dragging enormous sacks of clothing inside. The taco truck is still closed. On the other side of the street, day laborers gather in the Kragen parking lot, hoping for some work and a bit of pay to send back to families in Mexico, Guatemala and beyond. Picky shoppers crowd around big crates of corn that have just arrived outside one of the many produce stores that line that stretch of Foothill between Fruitvale and 35th Avenue. A dozen workers breakfast on rice, beans, pupusas, tacos and tamales outside the 'Pupusas Mi Lupita' stand. I go into a restaurant to order a licuado to soothe my hunger and still-unsettled stomach. Back at...

I have put some of my photos from the past two and a half weeks I spent in Nicaragua on my Picasa Web album. Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/rfadam/NicaraguaEnVerde# I returned to Oakland last night after two and a half weeks in Nicaragua. I feel as if I've been gone much longer than that. Traveling a lot certainly has much to do with this: we packed a lot into a few days, with many early mornings, long bus rides, new places and many people we encountered along the way. Also, being in Managua for 24 hours before leaving Nicaragua was intense. Managua is an intense place. On my first visit to Nicaragua, I only passed through it on the way to and from Leon, and found it off putting and depressing: dirty, chaotic, noisy and poor. While the city certainly has plenty of these four qualities, I gained more of an appreciation for Managua this time around. Most of this has to do with the wonderful time I spent with Atalanta and her family. They are incredible ...

The noises of cars and pedestrians on the street here in Rivas are a strange shock after having spent nearly all of my time so far in Nicaragua in the campo . On Monday, Rawley and I left Lagartillo on the 6:30 bus (the times I´ve been waking up at will make going back to work seem like sleeping in) for Esteli, leaving behind friends and a great community. We arrived in Esteli, did some errands then left for Miraflor that afternoon. The bus gradually climbed through cattle pastures and forests to the highlands of Miraflor located north of the city. As we gained elevation, moss cloaked trees, small fincas and fields of corn, potatoes and cabbage appeared out of the drizzle. We passed small communities, eventually arriving at Puertas Azules. From there we hiked along a gravel road a few kilometers to Posada La Perla, located at the highest point of Miraflor. We had reservations to stay two nights there at the small farm of Maribel Gonzales and her family. The finca is a rustic sp...

I am here on a cloudy Friday morning in Esteli. I needed to run an errand (get money from the bank) which means taking a 2 hour bus ride across the mountains. On the plus side, the landscape is beautiful because it has been raining a lot, and there´s no dust to inhale during the journey. I just have a couple of things to do so I´m returning to Lagartillo this afternoon. It´s been a week since I arrived in Nicaragua but feels longer than that because it´s been easy to slide back into the routine of life in Lagartillo. It´s a little different this time of year though since sometimes it rains for a few hours and the rains are heavy so everything comes to a stop for a while. Earlier this week it rained a lot, but the rains haven´t been as hard the last couple of days, so things have dried out a bit, which is good because all of my stuff was getting damp. Limpiando frijoles As some of you may remember from earlier posts, agriculture is a big focus of my experience here. Last January I ...