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
Lesson2: It ain't over when the fat lady signs

Lesson 3: If you’re checking title, you might get the finger

Cows don’t surf, but if they did, things may have gone much differently.

This I discovered when, with a property title in hand, I tried to take the necessary steps to make certain my recent property purchase was legitimate, or as legit as it could be. The history of the land, entwined as it was with the history of Nicaragua, awaited me.

In 1927, during the second presidency of Adolfo Días (1926-1929), a certain Señor Gomez had bought the land between Playa Marsella and Playa Majagual, reaching all the way back to the hills. After his death in 1934, his wife inherited the property. In 1937, with Anastasio Somoza García now president, she passed the property on to her son, who, I found out later, wasn’t even born yet. After he was born and grown up, the land was taken under the land reform programs of the Sandinistas, who had taken control of the country by force in 1985. The Revolutionaries gave the land to the family, from whom I had purchased it. Cause for alarm? It should have been, but I was blissfully unaware that a pre-Sandinista owner, could have made a claim to regain title. (A future column will explain.)

When Arnoldo Aleman was elected president (1997) the family went ahead and split the property. The men, all farmers, insisted on the prime grazing land, flat with wells and green grass. The only woman in the family got stuck with the oceanside -- land seemingly useless to her brothers, given the well-known fact that cows don’t eat sand yet alone have any appreciation for a good beach break. The brothers’ slight lack of foresight would become a point of contention in the family when later the men discovered that even though their bovine buddies might not dig a good sunset, a newly arrived herd of Gringos took a peculiar amount of interest in the oceanfront and were paying amazingly large amounts of money to own little pieces of it. This too is another story.

For me to discover each chapter of the land’s history, I would have to go to Rivas. And so, upon the shuttering old school bus I sweated my way up the road, stopping to pick up chickens on strings, people with milk buckets and a preacher, who stood next to the driver competing with meringue blaring from the abused speakers.

The preacher sold enlightenment and dusty herbs in tiny plastic bags. The first, God would provide for a little ayuda (bribe); the second would help with all the other problems in life. One Cordoba later, I hoped my donation would help me get through the process of finding out what I am supposed to do with the copy of the land title.

The volcano grew on the horizon, white clouds sitting on its flattened top. The bus took a sharp left turn, missed the lake and a truck full of cows by some millimeters, but hit every pothole. Chicken feathers flew through the air mixing with spilled milk. The pregnant woman next to me puked right on my document, which was luckily wrapped tightly in a plastic bag.

If the going was slow, it was about to get even slower. The preacher and the bus driver got off the bus and started talking to a farmer with a horse on a leash. The farmer tried to convince the bus driver to give him and the horse a ride. They agreed on pulling the horse. The farmer got on the bus, sat down, the preacher handed him the rope through the bars on the window and off we went.

Finally, I stood in one of the potholes that pock all of Rivas like asphalt acne. I had the typical labyrinthine directions: To find the land title office, go to the Policia Nacional, go a block toward the lake, and then half a block west. I asked a cop. He looked at me, pulled up his blue shirt, and showed me his rotund belly and gave it a contemplative rubbing. This seemed to produce at least a portion of the directions I needed. He pointed to the right and I eventually found the police station, which occupies a whole block.

Next, where is the lake? Couldn’t see it, couldn’t smell it. I circled the blue and white building twice, seeing a hand painted sign that proudly claimed the entrance to the prison, along with the fact that the local police are sponsored by the good people at Knorr Instant Soups. Then I walked by a bunch of bicycles leaning against a wall which read that no bikes are to be leaning against the wall. And then I found the two-storey building, which contains the court and the Catastro Civil (title office) on the top floor.

A dozing watchman allowed me up to a long hallway filled with arguing people and the smell of sweat and baby shit. Behind a small wooden table sat a young girl fully occupied with painting her fingernails. She smelled me before she saw me, alerted by the remnants of the pregnant woman’s breakfast. She questioned the air like a curious dog, head back and nostrils flared, until her head followed the scent to me, where her eyes came to rest with the glazed frustration of a woman interrupted. I gave her the paper. She took it. She scanned it. She handed it back wordlessly gestured to a small officious man across the room who used the only finger on either of his hands to point me toward the exit. “Pagar”, he said. This meant I would have to go to the bank, stand in a line that moved like a comatose anaconda to finally pay the single-digit fee of two Cordobas for the pleasure of his assistance.

When I did return, I was told to leave again. “Come back in 20 minutes,” said the man. Needless to say it was just before lunch break and I had to wait 2 hours and 20 minutes just to get back into the building. By then the girl was occupied with her eyelashes, and the little man scoffed and send me to a chair with a harsh movement of his head. There I sat. Sweating.

He produced one handwritten page of a book containing the history of the property. Now, there was only one simple task left for the man with one finger. To type it out.

Dispense with the clichés about watching paint dry or grass grow, and put yourself in this small stifling office watching a man with one finger type like a finicky chicken at a smorgasbord and you will have a hint of the paragon of surreal boredom.

At long last, I was done, or so I thought. In fact, all of this was merely the prelude to the introduction of what would follow. For that, you’ll need to check back for the next column.

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.