cuharacters okoo
Airport chaos sneezes and queues, as the news spreads.
Why Germany.
We had left a SA in crisis, ongoing.
Covid.
Johnson
Covid
Ukraine
More people
My hot radiator
My students -bio, coffee, gas, electric bikes.
Eliana had left Nicaragua when the Sandinista militia threatened her safety.
I was at college, but they forced me to go and work in the forests harvesting coffee. Then I had to go to the fields to plant rice. I could not refuse. Then they would say I was counter-revolutionary.
So I decided to leave. I walked to the border, through land that was controlled by the two guerrilla groups. I walked north 21 days with my brother.
After that journey, everything was easy. We continued north, through Mexico and into the USA.
I will always be grateful to Ronald Regan. He said all Nicaraguans were welcome.
On the hilltop there are meadows of grass with fruit trees. The trees are spaced ten paces apart in parallel lines. The meadow grass grows high in the sun and rain of April and May, and then it is cut.
Wild pigs tear up the ground in places, leaving patches of bare soil in the meadow.
Stretches of woodland run through the meadows. They are arranged in parallel rows. The first is a collection of young oak,
Beyond that the woods continue, but now they are enclosed by fences, with entrance gates fastened with chains and padlocks. There are two woodland gardens within. I can see lawns, big trees, and neatly laid piles of chopped wood. Each has a summer house. They are tidy and cared for.
The next line of woodland is overgrown. There are fruit trees within, and flowering laburnum, but the entrance gate is hidden behind towering bramble and tree fingerlings. Ten years of growth here, since the gate was opened.
Close to the water tower, there was a broken gateway and traces of a path, now overgrown. I followed it through waist high saplings of hawthorn, stopping under a fallen pine tree to reach a plank shed. Beyond was a riot of brambles, but there were also Berberis.
There was an area of soil surrounded with stones, as if it had been an enclosed bed. Carpet or matting had been laid down in front of the shed. Fallen pine leaves covered the matting. Further on, there was the remains of a gas barbecue, a plastic chair, and a pile of cut logs, all overgrown with brambles.
I took to sitting there and exploring, discovering new plants as the year progressed.
There were high brambles rising from the earth
The second garden
The third garden
The fourth garden