Chapter 6… Manuela and eternal love

     In the heart of the downtown area, of the tropical city of Choluteca, the extreme heat could be experienced like in no other city in Central America. For many years the city had held, for better or for worse, the highest temperatures between Guatemala and Panama. In the long afternoons, as it finally began to cool, the streets would gradually fill with passers-by. They would fill the streets, as they enjoyed the more agreeable hours before dusk. At that time of the evening, Manuela´s mother would open the doors to her famous and well-known restaurant. For the last four generations the restaurant had belonged to the family, and most importantly, the recipe to the famous Mondongo Soup, made out of beef innards, had remained as the family’s heritage, a closely guarded secret.

     In the same block as the restaurant, lived a French widow. She had a daughter Manuela’s own age. She paid her generously as well, to teach Manuela to talk, read, and write in French. She would also give the neighbor’s daughter all these delicious sweets and desserts. There was a condition and that consisted in that they talked as long as possible, but in French, of course!
“… because if it’s a matter of talking to Manuelita in Spanish, between the townsfolk and myself, we do it all day long. Especially the people from Choluteca, they talk to her all the time, so much, that anybody would think that she belongs to them.”

     That explains how, since she was a young girl, Grandmother learned, not only to talk, but also to speak and think fluently in three different languages, as if they were her own.

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