The town’s bicycles


Chapter 3… The Chinandegan magpies


Downtown streets Granada, Nicaragua
Downtown                 Granada, Nicaragua

“My honey chile when I was, more or less, your age, I grew up in Chinandega. You could say, I knew everybody that lived in that flea-smitten town (if not, at least, everybody knew about me!). I knew the newly born babies, whose faces were all wrinkled up, and I also knew those, way past their prime babies, with faces covered in wrinkles again. That was the way it was in those times. We all knew each other and sometimes, maybe even a little too well.

“Once the day cooled down a bit (from those sometimes unbearable, hot Chinandegan, tropical days), the sidewalks would fill up with all sorts of chairs: rocking chairs, folding chairs, kitchen chairs, and even boxes or crates. As long as you could sit on it, by definition, it was a chair. Naturally, people would sit outside in the cooling air. They would play cards, dominoes, perhaps read a book, or a magazine or maybe, the gossip in the newspapers. Then, of course you had old timers drinking guaro (rum or moonshine) or a few cold beers to get rid of the heat. Then there were always a few people, why not, spreading some nice, juicy tidbit of a hot gossip.

“As kids, we would spend our time playing our games in the street. At times, we would chase the bicycles down the street. There were all kinds of bicycles: the personal bike for one passenger; then you had the classic lovers’ bikes, the couples would ride by. She´d sit daintily on the handlebars, meanwhile the guy was working up a sweat, as he was peddling away, and in the middle of it all, they´re both making these dumb I´m so in love with you faces, at each other. The family bicycles were also in demand. In these, the father would normally carry mom and a few kids on his bike. Some were quite an act.

 


Versión en español            In the land of volcanoes’ Chapters           Purchase the book


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