COLUMN

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

previous columns:
Lesson 1: This might get dirty
Lesson 2: It ain't over when the fat lady signs
Lesson 3: If you're checking title, you might get the finger
Lesson 4: Take it to the bank OR X marks the spot

Lesson 5: Francisco, a fence, and a Ford I could afford
BY MARIE MENDEL

“First you need a fence,” said Francisco, the short, muscled, bow-legged man I met while machete shopping. “Then you need to pick out the spot for your house. Then we clear the property.”

I share Francisco’s advice, as it is relatively sound, but in my case, first, I needed to buy a vehicle to transport myself and supplies back and forth to my new property. And so, I took my last bus ride to Managua.

Upon arrival I called a cab driver named Cesar. My dentist had recommended him. We had become friends and went through hundreds of little adventures as he showed me the secret corners of Managua. And on this trip that included looking at all used car lots, as I was now in no position to buy a new one. After hours of searching, I was about to give up, when sitting on a street corner with a coke in a plastic bag and snacking on Quesdillas con cebolla, I remembered meeting a German a couple who ran Auto Bosh on Carreterra Massaya. Even though they only sold spare parts, I thought, maybe they could be helpful.

Sure enough, the dishevelled, sausage-lipped German man offered to help, though something about him struck me as suspicious. He called a friend. The friend called a friend. And an hour later a black enormous truck pulled up. And I bought it. I am not sure what it was that made me decide to buy the car, the heat, the sickness of being in busses or that the car owner, Roberto, was a very handsome guy.

(My instinct about the German later proved to have merit: He, his sister, and her husband were later convicted for trading with fake license plates.)

I drove back to San Juan with a whole new perspective. Instead of gazing out a bus window at the Volcanoes in the lake, I was fixated on the potholes, the suicidal cows, the crazy cab drivers, the people lying on the the asphalt, the fugitive chicken, and the overloaded bicycles. At one point, a motorbike, driving very slowly, appeared in the middle of the lane right in front of me. I tried to overtake, but the driver always moved towards the middle line. He appeared to be carting some kind of glass container on his gas tank. He tried to hold on to it and drive around a corner and failed. He fell. An aquarium still filled with water and little blue and green fish smashed on the street. I think I killed at least three fish and missed the driver by about an inch.

There were dead fish, but at least I was driving my own truck. A 1991 Ford 150.

Next morning I was very proud of my purchase. This was before I tried to light a cigarette inside the car. I pushed in the cigarette lighter in the truck and found out the hard way that this is the secret kill switch, I barely remembered Roberto talking about when he had explained the eccentricities of the truck. The Ford made an annoying sound. It wouldn’t stop, until I ripped the cables off the battery. Long story short, I got the car to run again, but never again the kill switch or the lighter.

Regardless, I was ready for Francisco and the fence.

Across the street of Hospedaje Elisabeth was s a small hardware store where I bought rubber boots and machetes. Behind a wooden table sat an old woman, who always wore a ruffled white apron in which she hid her life: Cigarettes, matches, documents, money and pocket knives. The wooden building was covered with tools, nails in plastic bags, plates, forks, batteries, Knorr Instant soup and an impressive assortment of machetes..

He wore a long sleeve shirt and worn out jeans. Francisco, was there, in his worn out jeans and long-sleeve shirt. He explained the advantages and use of each type of machete. Just to be on the safe side I bought one of each: long with no bend, short one shaped like a half moon . . . Francisco seemed pleased with me.

On the way to the property, along the Chocolata he told me the story how he had come to San Juan as a boy. “I was walking right along here,” he said and pointed at the overgrown side of the road. “It was dangerous, because the trains came by here all the time.”

“So you were on the train between San Jorge and San Juan?” I asked. He shook his head, “no, we were too poor to afford the tickets, we just walked along the tracks.” Now there was no more train. All that is left is the deteriorating water tank, so sadly Francisco would never get the chance to take the ride.

We arrived at my property. Francisco walked the land appraisingly, grunting, nodding, and kicking the dirt. I tried to explain that I would like to leave most of it as it is, just to clear a bit of land to build a small house. I believed in not taking too much from Mother Earth, just as much as I thought I need. Francisco wondered from what planet I came from, shaking his head and making faces.

We agreed on the fence, and I asked where I could buy fence posts?

“From me!” he yelled.

Of course, from whom else? We finished our walk and went back to the truck.

“Ill find you in a couple of days,” he said and disappeared into the woods. I wondered how he was going to find me. He knew my name and my car. That was it.

Sure enough, three days later, there he was sitting in the bed of the truck. My plan for the day involved sitting on the beach drinking beer. He was ignorant of my plan and astonished me with his insistence that we go load the fence posts. I capitulated.

We drove up the mountains behind San Juan. I am still not sure if it was an overgrown road or just the fastest way to get to the fence posts. I drove over small trees, chased cows and disturbed a young couple kissing. Thousands of insects died on my windshield.

Then we arrived at the spot to find the most crooked, gnarly, and knotted fence posts I had ever seen. Francisco and his only son loaded them, and we drove off to the property. When we arrived at the property I was surprised to see twelve women waiting.

“Francisco, what is going on here?” I asked.

“Oh, those are my daughters and my wife”, he explained, “they will help with the fence posts, you drive back to town now and get the barbed wire!” he ordered me. I had briefly thought about a white picked fence, but was told that I would loose it to termites. Again, I gave in. That was the beginning of trend. Over the next ten years Francisco would debate these things and met somewhere in the middle: I gave in on clearing the land and the fence and he gave in nothing. And of course Francisco was right about most things, especially the termites, which later moved into my ecological house with me and ate the whole thing.

 

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.