We seem to be getting quite well known in the town already, people come up to us on the street to ask if we're the Spanish/English girls, rather than "gringas", but today we really outdid ourselves and managed to entertain the whole town. On our way back from food shopping, rather than getting a taxi we decided to take a “caponera”, which is a kind of seat attached to the front of a bicycle. The only one available seemed very small and fragile, and was pedalled by a thin, weak-looking man who insisted that he could manage all 3 of us and our shopping - sin problema - all for the grand sum of 1$! The locals stare at us anyway, white alien beings, but the sight of 3 white girls squashed precariously onto a rickety seat while the man pedalled away behind over the bumpy streets really did stop traffic. People stopped and stared, gaping and pointing and then laughed hysterically, kids went running to tell their friends. If we do nothing else while we're here, at least we made the people smile and gave them something to remember!

Aside from the cong. we're in, we have also been asked to support a little group out in the countryside. The group has only 20 publishers with 3 pioneers but they have an exceptionally receptive territory which they have trouble covering, so we are planning to spend one day a week preaching with them. David and Esther Moore, the local C.O. And wife took us with them on their visit to the group last week to introduce us. There isn't really a village as such, it's more a scattered collection of houses, but it's in a beautiful area with lots of shady trees and pretty rivers, almost like preaching in paradise!

Just in case you thought it was all work and no play over here, today we went to the beach for the first time. We are about ¾ hour by bus away from the beach, so it's not too far really, but that is ¾ hour on a battered old school bus originally designed for 40 people but actually carrying about 100, plus various animals, sacks of grain and buckets of evil-smelling stuff. If you value your personal space, then you really won't enjoy a Nicaraguan bus, you get up very close and personal with all kinds of people/chickens or goats.
We'd been invited to spend the day with a family who have a house right on the beach – yes, it is a hard life. Unlike us crazy foreigners, Nicaraguans fear the sun and do their utmost not to get burnt, so swimming and sunbathing was not on the menu until after 4pm. Before then it was time for the most important activity of the day – lunch. The brother had caught a few fish and they cooked it over the fire. They then announced that the next course would be fish soup......The last time I had fish soup here, I was put off somewhat by the eyeballs floating in it......... and this one was no exception, but it wasn't just the eyes on their own staring back at me, but whole fish heads. YUM!