Horse and cart

The horse and cart belong to Carlos, who is the guardian of the second plot of land. He gets first pickings from the fruit trees among other things, and has 11 children! We're just taking some blocks to build a wall inside a house, in the first development of houses. A family left the house and went to Costa Rica (without telling the charity) in search of jobs presumably. The house is going to go to the Doctor that works on sundays for free in the Clinic, which is an interesting contract!

Thats the last week in La Prusia for me. The welding school has started since I arrived, which will bring recognised qualifications to about 10 teenagers this year. The words, a community are not built with blocks and mortar, are probably true here as the houses don't seem to be the most important factor, it's moreso the ownership of land. As Sandino (an early 20th century revolutionary) said, "first you get the land, then you get the freedom!" [as he chopped of an Americans head]. The engineer who visited was not even sure if the new houses could withstand an earthquake (which is due) anyway, because of their shape in plan [the concrete frame is stronger with a square or recalinear plan].

On leaving Nicaragua we passed through Leon and Estelli, which are not as "polluted" with tourists as Granada [theres a saying "we're not tourists, we're travellers!" which one of the volunteers always said but I still don't know the difference]. I didn't get hassled for money so much in these cities. Also Estelli is the Cigar rolling capital of Nicaragua, so did a tour and basically got 20 Cuban standard cigars for $27 in a cedar box [many Cuban cigar manufacturers who were exiled went to Nicaragua with the tobacco seed]. Its an interesting and delicate process and well worth a visit, if you like smoking fat cigars for a hour or two. They also had a zoo with tocan, parrots and a jaguar, which is the guard dog . .

In Honduras we're staying with a couchsurfing (http://www.couchsurfing.org/) [like the hospitality club] friend who has shown us the downtown area of Teguci, but you can't really walk through much of the city as its too dangerous, we have to get taxis everywhere. He knows a lot about his country which makes for a more interesting stay as in hostels you just meet other gringo tourists. Its more expensive here as there has been some inflation, so the limpira buys less melon here than in Nicaragua.

Thats all folks