León was the city of rocking chairs, no doubt, Renata was enchanted and wanted to try them all.

“They remind me of my grandmother and Santo Domingo!”

Two weekends ago, Renata, Den and I travelled to León on a Friday afternoon, with no plan other than relaxing, wandering around and spending time together. And so we did. And had great food. And made a lot of jokes. And met some fascinating people who invited us to their homes, told us about their ambitions and shared their pride in their background. I took a walk by myself to the Central Market where I met a mother who had hung up a mini-hammock for her three-year-old son, Darwin, to hang in while she was selling bananas all day, every day. A young man with impeccable English was fixing watches as life in Texas had become too difficult after the economic crisis and because he had never managed to feel integrated even after living there for more than 20 years.

León struck me as a very religious city, where almost every house had a little (or huge) altar, and a church could be found every three blocks. One of the most interesting places we found was the small game court where kids and adolescents were playing soccer, skating, riding bikes and hanging out. We took a seat watching the big group of quite talented 9-22 year-olds as they were taking turns in using the five skateboards. I had a talk with one of the boys as he was waiting for his turn, 14 years old with a beautiful afro and great skating skills, the boy was studying during the days and working at a car wash in the weekends and evenings to save up for a new skateboard.

“My old board broke so I have to work for three months before I can buy a new one. The skateboards here are very expensive, they cost at least 45 Dollars, but it’s great that I can borrow my friends’ boards to skate for a couple of hours every evening. At least until 8pm, if I stay longer my mom gets angry and comes to pick me up. Haha”

On our last day, Den and I managed to get hold of Daneff and have another one of our Skype reunions. It was great fun to have a talk all three of us again, and then Den, Renata and I took a million photos and laughed our heads off. All and all, we had good fun together and I felt that we were getting along really well as our preferences were always so aligned and as we all are so used to being independent, yet warm and open. It was really sad to leave Den in León and go back to Managua, and the next morning Renata took off to the airport as well. Seriously, I can’t wait to see these two happy-faces again.

Love you, girls! “We so funny!”