Today we shop again.
Due to a drop-out, Marlo has a last-minute opportunity for an adventure: a five-day boating trip on the Rio Coco, a river that separates Nicaragua and Honduras. He’ll be traveling with CRWRC (Christian Reformed World Relief Committee) on an inspection tour of northern Nicaragua agricultural projects.
It’s the chance of a lifetime, several Managuans are telling him.
But he needs a couple of items for roughing it, so Emily and Angie take us to Juembes mall. It’s a Nicaragua version of a Phoenix flea market—a jumble of tiny open-air shops that are as jammed as its parking lot.
The open window rattles and lets in exhaust fumes as we navigate the cobblestoned boulevard. We pay to enter the parking lot, are directed to an open slot, and turn down an offer to wash our vehicle.
We navigate the narrow aisles, past pots and hats and trinkets. An ancient street singer croons to a Latin rhythm, Bible open on the shelf before him. Aisle vendors offer us food samples. Shop owners jabber and point to their wares.
At four separate shops, Marlo locates a sun hat with drawstrings-$3, a couple yards of rope-50 cents, two AA batteries for his flashlight-$2.50, and two reinforced waterproof flour sacks to function as makeshift boots-50 cents. (In Nicaragua, he has no more chance of finding boots his size than would Shaquille O'Neal.)
I locate dental floss at a tiny Farmacia. (I’m staying in Managua, and we will no longer be able to share floss.)
We probably could have bargained for lower prices, but we don’t have a heart for it.
Emily buys three stackable, red plastic storage units, and we return to the Angie’s car. Marlo pays the guard who watched it for us, and says wryly to Emily, “I think the entire Nicaraguan economy revolves around security.”
We exit the Juembes parking lot just half an hour after our arrival—a much better shopping record than yesterday. Apparently, not all Nicaraguan shopping experiences are created equal.*
*See yesterday’s shopping saga for Side A of the story.
This story was heartening to me. In Budapest security seemed to rule the day -- could not go through the grocery without TWO guards posted to be sure we didn't...what? Shoplift asparagus? I attributed this to their history under communism. Maybe it's more of a third-world thing and I have more to learn.
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