Richmond's First Presbyterian Church, Bluefields, and the Caribbean Dream Hotel

     A few years ago I was in the Caribbean Dream Hotel arranging with Juanita (see the previous post) for reservations for some family arriving in Bluefields. The office doors and windows were open and I heard the word "Richmond" as part of a conversation going on among a group of people rocking on the front porch.
      Reservations made, I stepped onto the porch and asked...Richmond? Virginia?  And it was indeed Richmond, Virginia that was part of the discussion.  
     It turns out that Richmond's First Presbyterian Church (FPC) has been actively involved in Bluefields since long before I ever heard of the place. Go figure!
   Groups of congregation members visit once or twice nearly every year - and this was part of one such group.  And, of course, Caribbean Dream is where they stay (unless they're at Ms. Freda's house...but that's another story).
     FPC has two ongoing projects in or near Bluefields. One project is their long standing Clean Water Ministry. (I'm one of their customers in Bluefields.)  From the FPC web site: "The Clean Water Ministry team is...an international mission effort of FPC with congregational and pastoral awareness and support with a commitment to...continue developing a network of clean water systems and related education in the community of Bluefields, Nicaragua and other east coast communities."  At the link here you can find a slide show of a water filtration system FPC helped build in Kukra Hill, a small town not too far north of Bluefields: 
http://www.fpcrichmond.org/clean-water.html
     The 'hill' of Kukra Hill is very visible from Smokey Lane Lagoon just short of the entrance to our False Bluff Canal. The photo below was taken as we made our way into the canal.

The other FPC project is the sponsoring of students at the Moravian School, a school on Bluefields' main street which will be celebrating ninety-five years of educational excellence this year. Information on sponsoring students can be found here: http://www.fpcrichmond.org/nicaragua.html
   

Home away from home

     For years, even before I bought and built at False Buff, the Caribbean Dream Hotel has been the place to stay.  Located right on Bluefields' main drag, it's clean, neat, and close to much of what the town has to offer: parks, municipal offices, hardware stores, markets, the museum, restaurants...



     The hotel is a comfortable and convenient place to stay and often friends and family stay there before or after trips to False Bluff. The newest generation in my family's shown here (again) enjoying a picnic on the hotel's upstairs porch...



     ...and then spending some time in one of the hotel's rocking chairs that are on both the up and downstairs porches.

      The best that Bluefields has to offer is its people and some of them are at the Caribbean Dream.  Over the years we've come to know staff members at the hotel and they are, without exception, kind and accomodating.  We've known Juanita for a decade. One day I stopped to chat with her when she wasn't at the hotel - we were both shopping; and I had the opportunity to meet two more generations of her family, one of whom is just about the same age as the newest member of my own family.

    These two generations later came to visit Juanita at the hotel, the babies barely acknowledging each other.

Italia y Nicaragua

     More new neighbors.  He's Italian born and, although she's originally from Bluefields, after she finished her college degree in Europe she stayed and worked there for years.

     Which is where they met - on business trips for their separate companies, somewhere in Europe, not home for either of them.  Ain't luck grand?

     They married, he retired, and now they're home, together, in Nicaragua, splitting time between Bluefields and a piece of property they have purchased to the north of us.

     They stopped by our house at False Bluff after a few days' stay at their place on the beach before heading back to Bluefields with a boat load of coconuts.

     Meeting new neighbors is fun - and it's happening more and more often.

95 to 81

     It's 9:30 p.m. in Richmond on a Friday night and a weather app gives the local temperature as 95 degrees.
     The same weather app gives the local temperature of Bluefields - same night, same time - as 81.
     That means, because we've always got the breeze off the Caribbean, that False Bluff is a degree or two more comfortable even than Bluefields.

     Most everybody knows that it's warmer along the Caribbean in the winter.  That's why thousands of people flee snow and freezing temps for a few days or weeks somewhere in the Caribbean when January rolls around.  
     But I, for one, was surprised as hell to learn it's cooler in the Caribbean in the summer, at least in our part of the Caribbean:  in the 80s almost year round.

The grass is always greener...

     I'm a huge fan of a zoysia grass that grows all over Big Corn Island but didn't grow at False Bluff until I managed to find enough in Bluefields to start it here.  A review of earlier posts will give an indication of just how highly I rate the stuff.  
     One of the reasons I like it is that it doesn't need to be cut.  Here, cutting grass involves a machete...time consuming and not good for a body.  Also it spreads fast, it chokes out weeds, it forms an incredibly tight mat (almost like steel wool) that even snakes can't invade - and of course it helps control erosion.
     But a reason that's real obvious can be seen in the photo below. During the dry season, lack of rain coupled with the hot tropical sun cause a lot of damage to plants and most ground covers wither and turn brown, if not die outright. 
     Not this zoysia.  Bright green, emerald green, is its signature regardless of the season.

     We're planting it at the base of each and every coconut tree, whether the tree was here already or is one we planted...hundreds and hundreds of coconut trees.  

     The grass here has proven to have an affinity for coconut trees and it grows in tentacle-y patterns that radiate from and around the base of each tree.  

     Eventually the spaces between tentacles fill in, forming a spreading circle as is the case of the circle around the tree in the first photo here - the photo which shows just how little effect the dry season has had on it and on the other spreading circles visible in the background.  
     And, of course, over time, the circles around the individual trees join up.

     We planted all but the three skinny-trunked coconut trees that are visible in the above photo. And then we planted this grass at the base of almost each of them.

Municipal market

     The 'main' market, the municipal market, is in the center of town... It's been expanded within the last few years to provide an open second storey for the vendors who sell cooked food - and for the people who eat it.  A meal here is one of Bluefields' best secrets: the food is cooked to order and is extraordinarily well priced.
     But if you're determined to cook for yourself, fresh is the word.  
     You can buy a bowl of fresh-cut fruit at the corner of the street leading down to the market.  The same woman I wrote about in a 2011 post is there still doing her thing, although now she has competition on a few other corners.

     As the photo above shows, you can head north along the sidewalk beyond the fruit bowl lady for fresh fish and sometimes, I'm sorry to say, fresh turtle - despite the fact that killing turtle is now illegal during most of the year.
     Or you can head south past the fruit bowl lady for more fish vendors to choose from (the little plastic bags in this photo hold ice, something you don't find on the fish along the north section of sidewalk).

     And, of course, at the end of this block lined with vendors -  fish on the street side of the sidewalk and mostly vegetables on the building side - is the municipal market where you can load minutes on your phone or buy such things as heavy plastic by the yard in a rainbow of colors, to honey, to three choices of white rice, to dried tobacco by the pound for rolling your own cigarettes, to cookies, to....well, the choices aren't endless - it just seems like that sometimes.

     (By the way, the structure partially visible in the left of the photo above holds a huge water tank, added as part of the renovation to provide fresh water, particularly for all those upstairs vendors who cook and serve food.)

Shopping for oranges

     Early morning when the boats come in is the best time to be at any of the markets.  These photos are from the municipal market, the big one in the center of town.  Venders are loaded with fresh picked fruit...oranges are what I'm after.
     You can buy them "off the shelf"...

     or directly off the boats.  

     Either way you get to pick the specific oranges you want.  Cost?  They might run you ten for about a dollar.  

FY

      My thanks to a recent visitor for this panorama video of our house and FY (front yard).  False Bluff extends both north and south of the FY along the Caribbean although not all of what is part of our False Bluff has been cleared of scrub and planted. 
     The day of the video was windy, tossing around the laughter of children; and the sea was rough, churning up sand as the water rushed to the beach. 
     Our house, visible in the distance at both the start and end of the video, sits in the northern third of the property among some of the young coconut trees we've put in, many of which have begun to bear.  
     And the house is close to the canal that provides calm-water access for us and now for most of the other people who own land along this lovely stretch of beach...and, of course, for the increasing number of visitors and prospective owners.

     So far, the area nearest to the house and canal is the part of False Bluff that we use the most and is what we call the front yard - although, of course, the video shows much more than False Bluff and its front yard. 

     It's an incredibly beautiful place to be during any season, dry or green.

Snack time

     We have two types of papaya trees at False Bluff. The type that produces huge papayas and the type that doesn't produce huge papayas.
     This tree is loaded with the huge papayas, easily larger than a football. The one at the bottom of this scrum has just started to turn from green to gold - a clear sign it's ready to pick.

     Peeled and sliced..... 

     this papaya, about the size of a watermelon, makes its way into bowls for snacks in the middle of a hot day, snacks that are hard to beat.

Jacinta's tea: the product part

     I've had the tea that came from flowers that were grown at False Bluff and it is delicious!

     It's also a bit different in both color and flavor. Because the flowers have retained much more of their red color - I think as the result of being dried naturally in the sun - the tea reflects that drying method and is a lovely red. 

     Below shows the color I've become accustomed to with the store-bought hibiscus tea. I'm not at all discounting the flavor of the store-bought tea, though it doesn't taste as good as what's being grown at False Bluff.

     
     
     The tea grown at False Bluff has a subtle citrus flavor which is really nice and which I haven't tasted in any hibiscus tea I've had from other sources. I have no idea what causes that - and I sure can't get a picture of it - but it's a real bonus.

Jacinta's tea: the harvesting and drying part

     A previous post introduced Jacinta, a critical part of my False Bluff family, and of the "nuevo negocio," or new business, that I have encouraged her to begin building with False Bluff as its base. 
     As critical as her part in this new endeavor is, so too is the part played by other members of her family, especially that of her husband Jose who is shown below with their daughter.

     And the other two who are critical to this part of bringing Jacinta's tea to the public.

     Jose and his son and a brother are processing a day's worth of flowers that they've just collected. Somewhere in the world there's a machine that does all of this work, but right now things are pretty labor intensive.

     After harvesting the flowers they are separated from the seed pods, one at a time. 

     You can see in the picture below how stiff the calyx is. As the drying progresses, the last remnant of green (such as the occasional leaf and what looks like a little crown partially surrounding the calyx below in Jose's hand) falls off. One of the additional chores involved in the process of bringing the raw ingredients of Jacinta's tea from bush to brew is picking out leaves and other greenery from the important, tea-making, red parts of the flowers that are drying.

     And the next crop, in the form of seeds, is carefully put aside.

     Then the flowers are put to dry in the very hot, very bright, Caribbean sun - a process that takes about five days. 

Day one of five

Day two of five

    

Jacinta's tea: the growing part

     Although it seemed to me that the crop of hibiscus sabdariffa that was planted at False Bluff for 2015 was plenty, as I wrote in the previous post the 2015 crop is being harvested primarily for the seeds...and the next planting will be much, much larger. 
     Nonetheless, there has been some dried hibiscus flower tea packaged and sold - the "waste not, want not" result, of course, of harvesting the seeds. Currently in Bluefields the tea is used mostly during the Christmas season when the tea, usually served hot and infused with fresh ginger root, is an important part of local holiday tradition. But the stuff's so good, either hot or cold, that when it's available during non-Christmas times, it's snapped up pretty quick.
     The picture below shows part of the 2015 crop awaiting harvest. Turns out the right-of-way that the electric company cut is perfect for this stuff which is grown anew from seed after each harvest and never gets tall enough to threaten the wires that run overhead.

     An earlier post showed a hibiscus sabdariffa plant at False Bluff not yet in bloom - none of them was in bloom at the time I took that picture. So I pulled a picture off the internet for that post to show what the stuff looked like at harvest time.  Actually what gets harvested are the calyces, or sepals, of the flowers: they wrap around the seed pod and are tough and leathery feeling.

     The part that's harvested, the part that makes the delicious drink, the calyx or sepal, is what the flower - which is small and totally insignificant - becomes. (Yes, that small white thing in the center of the picture below is the actual flower of the hibiscus sabdariffa... ho hum.)

Jacinta's tea: the retail part

     The label on a bag of hibiscus tea that I brought back from Managua a year ago has lots of information, first and foremost the title "Jamaica Tea." The tea's well known in Buefields as "Jamaica Tea" though the plant that produces the flowers that make the tea is certainly not grown only in Jamaica. In fact the tea's enjoyed all over the world and although it goes by many names, most people in this part of the world know it as "Jamaica Tea."  I have no idea how this great drink got stuck with that name.
     Whatever!
     Hibiscus sabdariffa - the hibiscus variety that provides the calyx that makes the tea - grows like a weed at False Bluff and I've encouraged one of my staff to take full advantage of that fact and go into business.  And so the mom in my False Bluff family, Jacinta, with my full support, has begun growing, drying, packaging, and selling hibiscus sabdariffa.

     It's actually turned into a family endeavor, with dad Jose, and Jose and Jacinta's son, and a brother of Jose's doing the harvesting and drying (see a post to follow). 
     Jacinta, however, is in charge of the retail part of the process. 
     My friend Silvia Fox found two sizes of clear sealable bags for us in Managua and so far Jacinta has sold her tea to friends and family about as fast she's bagged it...certainly before the label goes on (I bought an unlabeled half-pound bag to give as a gift to a friend in Bluefields). I haven't even seen the label but I know it will say that what's in the bag was organically grown and sun-dried at False Bluff; and I know what it won't say - that the stuff inside the bag is Jamaica Tea. 
     I thought the number of plants at False Bluff was huge, but I've been told the 2015 crop, while providing some tea to dry and sell, was primarily to provide seeds for the next crop!


     

At the end of the day.....

     or at the beginning of the day or any time in between!

A dog and his grass

     Lemongrass isn't really a grass.  It's an herb, both culinary and medicinal. We use it for landscaping and for really good hot tea.
     Domesticated dogs are known to eat grass for all sorts of reasons. Dogs in the wild eat fruits and berries.  Our dog at False Bluff gnaws on lemongrass for some reason including maybe that he just likes the taste. I don't think he swallows it.  Lemongrass is really fibrous and it's difficult to eat.  I've tried.

Fresh ginger

     .....and I mean really fresh ginger. Not what just got delivered to Walmart this morning, but what came out of the ground five minutes ago. 
     Ginger is another thing that thrives and grows well at False Bluff and we take full advantage of that.  These two bunches were just dug. Some will be used here, some will go to Bluefields.

Eddie Bauer

      ...and a gaggle of girls.  Actually, not disorderly or loud at all, but having a lot of fun.  We pitched a tent just north of the house and in full sight of the grownups, one of whom I think ended up in the tent.
     These kids are the daughters and nieces of some recent visitors to False Bluff.

     Some of these youngsters were in the previous post welcoming a new day. 

Long shadows

     Early morning at False Bluff....the calm Caribbean draws some young visitors to welcome a new day.

A picnic

   Recently my ten-month old grandson visited Bluefields and False Bluff. For a while he and his parents stayed at Hotel Caribbean Dream which is on the main street of Bluefields in sight of all sorts of goings on. The hotel's been our way-station off and on for a decade.

     There's a restaurant in the hotel but this kid liked picnics on the upstairs porch.

Diplomacy: a Richmonder and a big red truck

     A city of Richmond (Virginia) firefighter recently visited us in Bluefields and at False Bluff - and while in Bluefields he introduced himself to some of that city's firefighters. 
     People can share common ground most anywhere in the world.  And when you share a working knowledge and understanding of big, complicated, bright red trucks that are designed to help save lives and property, the common ground can be pretty easy to locate. 
     The sort of interaction that results is surely the most effective kind of diplomacy there is. 
     Here the Richmonder checks out a fire and rescue unit that was donated by Russia to Bluefields, the small port city on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua just a few miles by water from False Bluff.
     

     On arrival, the big red truck didn't fit into the Bluefields' firehouse as the building was...so some alteration was made to the building front, as you can see below, that enabled the truck to be moved inside.      

     Firefighters from different countries and different cultures joined in common appreciation of a job and its equipment.

     Can you claim "busman's holiday" if there aren't any buses involved? (That's a purely rhetorical question. I know the answer already.)