I ask her about what she thinks about the influx of foreigners into Nicaragua. By foreigners, I mean North Americans. In Nicaragua, ‘North Americans’ refer to people north of Mexico City. Nicaraguans call themselves Americans – nobody in North America ever knows that North America ends in the plush jungle of the Darien gap.
"I heard this wonderful story," Terry says. "A woman was getting old and almost time to face that big question; which retirement home to settle into. But this one old woman, she was ninety years old; she told her children she wanted an adventure. They moved her to an apartment here in Granada. What, it's the right climate, they can hire a woman to take care of her, much better prices than in the states. This community, they'll take her in."
In the hotel’s small courtyard, there's these two age-ripened Canadians feeding the hotel's pet parakeets. They had lifted them onto their table, to let them peck at their butter and jam. Margaret, who was wearing a medic-alert bracelet, lit up a cigarette.
Is it rude to smoke in front of parakeets?
She says that Toronto, where they are from, "is all gone bad." She says, "First it was the West Indians. Now its the Orientals with their gangs."
"That's why we live part of the year in Costa Rica," the husband says.
"What brought you up here to Nicaragua?" Jane asks.
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