Once again, I am offering the sequel to
My Worst Thanksgiving Ever for free until February 26th.
Desperately Seeking Cereal takes off where "Thanksgiving" ends: with me chasing the thieving landlady Claudia out of the house. You can download it at the title in this text or at the Amazon link on the right. This is an excerpt from the first chapter:
Adios San
Juan
After chasing the
thieving landlady Claudia out of the house, I decided it was time to leave San
Juan del Sur for good. I first limped to my attorney’s hostal and asked her to stop working on my license to practice in
Nicaragua. We were about ¾’s of the way done with the process, just waiting for
more paperwork to arrive from Rivas, the capital of that departmento (state). I told her about getting mugged five times in
Managua, Benny's abduction under the direction of the American embassy, and my
five day imprisonment in the detention center. It was a sad story to tell, made
even sadder by the realization that my dreams were grinding to a stop.
I couldn’t carry
everything Dueña Claudia still
left at the house so I packed all of our books into a large box and donated
them to a local library run by a non-profit group from the U.S. Most of the
rest of our possessions such as clothing and costume jewelry I donated to the
women I worked with at Barrio Playa
Proyecto. I even stuffed Angie’s “massager” into the middle of the bag,
figuring that we no longer had any use for it. I can only imagine the looks on
their faces when they found it. But by then I would be gone.
After my donation
to BPP, I headed back to the house that had been our home in Nicaragua. I
stopped first to tell Abuelo and his
family the bad news. Abuelo was
recovering nicely after his brush with death. He developed septicemia from a
kidney infection and his doctor had prescribed the wrong antibiotic. I wasn't
licensed yet to care for patients there so I told his son to purchase some ciprofloxacin
at the nearest pharmacy and try that instead. Much to everyone’s pleasure and
relief, the new regimen worked.
After giving them
the news, I crossed to the other side of the brick-paved street and looked in
pastor Richard’s yard for my dog Rasco. No sign of him. Ben had taken the dog
there the night before we left for the Thanksgiving dinner in Managua. Since my
solo return the Saturday afterwards and again since returning from my forced
captivity, I had stopped at Richard’s place several times to find Rasco. No one
ever answered the door or my shouts. In fact, one kid ran into the house on my
arrival and locked the door. First muggings, kidnapping, theft of our household
items, and now dognapping?
When I got home I
finished packing my backpack. Essentially everything I owned which wasn’t in
storage in Wisconsin or in our car in Dania, Florida I was either wearing or
carrying on my back. I clipped a camping pot into a carabiner on the back of my
pack, grabbed my hat and bandanna, and stepped outside. I left the door wide
open and told the kids across the street that they could have anything left in
the house. Since everything still there was Dueña Claudia’s, I smiled at their happy shouts as I walked one last
time to the parada in San Juan del Sur.
