Chapter 6… Manuela and eternal love

     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. It may be, that she did not use these other languages with the people of Choluteca, she grew up with, or perhaps, neither at León, where she lived after she married and for the rest of her years. However, she did have a library, and it was impressively well-stocked. There was a variety of books, covering so many different subjects, and in all three languages. This was the fountain, where she would calm the thirst of knowledge and her deeply rooted love of reading, so typical of her personality.

     Before dawn, at five am, when the bells of the cathedral were barely tolling, Grandmother would already be completely bathed, dressed, and sitting comfortably, as she drank her coffee, while she savored those quiet moments, in the company of one of her books.

     Because of the war, my father, who at the time was an official in the Sandinista Forces, was forced to spend most of his time, in the northern parts of Nicaragua. His headquarters were at Esteli City, where the armed conflict and the air strikes had grown to alarming and devastating proportions. Consequently, my mother found herself alone in León, in the company of (up to that moment) her three children (I was the eldest of the three, to be followed by Daniel, a year younger than I, and the last of us was Angelica, who was, almost, a year younger than Daniel).

      Thanks to the occasional and totally improvised, clandestine visits my father would pay us, whenever conditions allowed, the family kept on growing, until slowly but surely, my parents were blessed with the total grand sum of ten children to call their own. By Nicaraguan standards, it was neither a small nor a large family.

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