juigalpa

12/03/03

I came here last year. I know my way around. The bank. The internet. The central park. I must be the only foreigner here. The older woman walking along with a broom handle for a cane. I thought I would spend 2 nights. Get some money from the ATM. Cheap and quick internet. Get my roots done. But all except the hairdresser were easily done in a couple of hours. The salon, though was closed. Tthe girl is in university classes Friday afternoon. So early Saturday morning I present myself at her door. Still closed. The friendly shopkeeper next door calls her boss who says she will be here soon. She is eating breakfast. She shows up at nine. The salon is a narrow nook between the different stalls. There is room for one barber chair facing the small mirror. She rinses my hair in the back at the stone basin where they wash the clothes. I bend over and she pours water from the reservoir over my head.She and her friend spend much time blowdrying and styling my hair. I say, don't bother. I am going on the bus and it will all be blown out in a minute.

The taxi drops me at a bus stop on the highway. Across the way is a local cafeteria. A few chairs under a tin roof. The senora gives me a great plate of beans and rice, local cheese and small salad for $1.20 I buy tangerines, a grapefruit and then a popsicle for me and a young boy sitting by me. The bus should get here soon. Looks like it will be a chicken bus. Onto unknown territory.