Talking to my security guard at home:
“So, I need this thing.. it’s a tool.. that you grab and twist things with.
*making the movement*
I need it to close a leaking water tap in my patio. You know, you usually ise it to grab, turn, and tighten, or open, things.”
“Hmmmm.. grab, twist.. tenazas!”
“Maybe!”
“Let me get them for you.”

Today, my dear friends, I’ve learnt the word for pliers in Spanish. It’s tenazas.

No more leaks within my hearing range!

Suddenly there was a very loud noise coming from the roof above my room. It sounded as if somebody had jumped down onto it with both feet. I woke up immediately, and half asleep I imagined somebody from the US SWAT team in full gear who had just jumped out of a helicopter, or a clumsy cat woman styled thief who wanted to get in through the roof ‘mission impossible’ style, or was it maybe a ‘Donnie Darko’ airplane engine?

The sound that followed immediately forced me to dismiss all of my entertaining and far fetched theories. It was a fast “roll, roll, roll and splat” down onto my patio. I heard the nightly breeze play around with the big tree just above my house, and then there were one, two, three smaller airplane engines rolling down from my roof into my patio.

Right, the mango tree.

And the sound keeps waking me up every now and then, and makes my heart jump when I’m in a quiet mood or away somewhere far into my thoughs. Falling mangoes are very loud!

But then I have this in the morning, and life is super sweet again.

“And a mixed fruit juice, please.”
“Sure!”

Suddenly my mind very cautiously whispered: “Caroline, you probably don’t want to see this..” And I was like: “Wait, what? Why? Well, now that you say so – I definitely have to see this.”

So I stood there, curious to see how these juices could be so tasty, watching as the girl threw a banana into the mixer, and big, nice pieces of mango, and some papaya, and some freshly squeezed orange juice..

My heart was going: “Yum, yum, yum delicious and colourful vitamins!” As she threw in some pineapple.. a little bit of strawberries..

..and then a huge cup of wite sugar.

My slowmotion “nooooooo!” wasn’t fast enough, the sugar ended up in the mixer. And I realized I had been drinking sugar camouflaged by fruit for a week. Everything else than the “healthy” I believed I was trying my best to be.

That was in the beginning of my Managua reality, now I always ask them to exclude the sugar when ordering my juice, and they always roll their eyes about me not wanting to drink a glass of lies.

The photos in this post are of a scale standing in one of the small supermarkets here in Managua. People don’t always have bathroom scales at home and you can find these in pharmacies and in various random places in the city. For 0.02€ you can check your weight in pounds, compare it to the “size” scale, get this week’s lucky lottery numbers, and be reminded about the fact that you are always special.

So, I might have gained a kg or three due to my cookie and sugarjuice diet, but I’m still special!