COLUMN

A bi-weekly online column by MARIE MENDEL covering stories and facts on Real Estate in Nicaragua.

previous column: Lesson 1: this might get dirty

Lesson 2: It ain't over when the fat lady signs

It has crossed the mind of many potential investors in Nicaraguan property to seek better deals and higher potential returns by buying directly from local landowners, be they fishermen or farmers. The commissions and mark-ups earned by San Juan Del Sur’s agents can add significant sums to any purchase. Should finding and negotiating a direct purchase be of interest, be advised, if you skip the middle man, you might end up with "the fat lady."

But first you’ll have to find the fat lady, and that will take weaving your way through the idiosyncratic fabric of the local cultural, trying your best not to trip upon some heretofore invisible nuance of names or language.

My story was such: The courtyard was very small and long. Marlon swung in the hammock. I sat next to him with my third cup of bad instant coffee. (Espresso machines were still far in the future). At the time, he was the only English-speaking man in San Juan del Sur. With short black hair and beautiful brown eyes, he explained to me that the landowner’s nickname was La Gorda, which literally means “the fat lady.” Marlon then got out of the hammock and left to attend to what he assured me was an extremely important business deal. I felt I was getting ahead. I knew the codename, now I would simply have to find her.

I stood in front of Hospedaje Elisabeth, where we lived in a small room in the back with a leaky sink and the claustrophobic heat of May. I asked myself. “Who would know La Gorda?”

Dona Gloria in the small supermarket would know. I wandered across the street, dodging the stuttering old school bus farting its way to Managua. I slipped into the shadow of the rusty zinc roof of the market, escaped the banana saleswoman and turned the corner, where I met the owner of the ice factory, who yelled at me. Apparently my dog had shit in her compound. This seemed less than friendly considering I didn’t own a dog.

(Incidentally, some years later, during the Great San Juan Ice Crisis, when Union Fenosa had turned off the power to the ice factory, I did have a dog. Luna, my German Shepard, who by some form of instinctual justice, did leave some sizable and fragrant timber right in the middle of the ice lady’s office floor. Good puppy.)

Don Pedro had his “Radio Pollo” going, which greeted the market, the town, the district, the country, all of Central America. I waved to him and continued to Dona Gloria’s shop at the end of the market. A drifting cloud of shoppers screened through underwear, canned food, squeaky bread, strings, cigarettes, and rum, which weighed on the overloaded shelves. I stood patiently in line, preparing my sentence. I asked for a pack of cigarettes and for La Gorda’s whereabouts.

Dona Gloria wore a big smile with her crazy hair and pink fingernails that screamed against the bright yellow dress and green apron. “La Gorda?” she asked astonished. She then took a deep breath, shook her disbelieving head and with indulgent patience explained the system of the Gordas of San Juan del Sur. There is La Gorda China, La Gorda de las Delicias, La Gorda del Barrio Chino, La Gorda del Pavo (Turkey), etc . . .

“Do you know her husband?” she inquired.

I shook my head, and said that her cousin’s name was Julito and he had a car. (In those days it was special to own a car. There were around ten beat up vehicles on the bumpy streets.)

“Ah,” she said, “LA GORDA! Why didn’t you say so?”

I was confused. That was my question to begin with. “Who is La Gorda?” Apparently the original La Gorda -- perhaps the most gorda-ish of the Gordas -- was a woman who lived to the right of La Entrada.

I asked for more specific directions. It was explained to me that La Entrada is from the turn off to La Chocolata road, all the way to the little shop of La China. And, if I looked across the street from the house on stilts, there is a little bar in a green wooden building. This is where I would find the fat lady I sought.

I was excited. I had a name and an address, of sorts. By small matter of incidence, I forgot to pay for the cigarettes.

I walked and turned right at the tortilla store -- a wooden shack leaning against a rotten wall. (I am not sure if the shack held the wall or the other way around.) I continued up the street, turned left, passed the Centro Salud and the empty lot, where later the Texaco was build. (In those days gas was only available in the port, if the filling station attendant was sober.) I discovered the green house and knocked on the open door.

La Gorda appeared, barley fitting in the frame of her door. “Ah, La Gata Verde,” she said. Rumours might be the only things that happen fast in San Juan and it seemed the word that I was looking for her had travelled the hot streets faster than I had walked. Not only this, but apparently I too, like the fat lady, had been bestowed with a none-too-flattering nickname. La Gata Verde, the green-eyed witch.

She asked me into her cool house. Sat me down and named her price, as I watched Marlon escaping through the back door. “Extremely important business, indeed,” I thought.

I tried to negotiate the price. La Gorda was firm, but as you will learn, there must be some form of negotiation, to not bend a little one way or the other, could be taken as an insult. So to demonstrate her high Nicaraguan benevolence, she conceded and told me that the price remained but I could also keep the snake and all the monkeys. A deal!

We shook hands. She gave me a copy of the land title and sent me on my way to the real jungle -- Nicaraguan bureaucracy, which, in future columns, you will discover, has many snakes and monkeys of its own.

Marie Mendel lived in San Juan Del Sur for ten years where at least one bar still bears here name. She is the author of the German-language book "Badenixe Sucht Mehr." She currently lives in Vienna.