Dear Claire

Dear Claire,
It's raining outside, so i'm taking a few minutes to write again.
I'm in Leon, Nicaragua. So far, what I've seen of the country is really different of what I saw of other countries in central america.
As I walked the streets of Leon this morning, I've notice that even if the town looks like any other latino town, there's little differences here and there that explain the general feeling of being somewhere else totally.
Sharing the streets with old cars and half-destroyed taxi and the usual street vendors are the horses. People are going on with their business on horseback on the cobblestone streets, and most of the hardware and material is carried by horses.
A few kids were asking for money beside the big lady selling slices of watermelon and mango on the sidewalk.
The street smelled a mix of fresh fruit, rotten meat from yesterday's market and smoke coming out of the old mufflerless bus. Curiously, these bus are the only thing that are making real noise around, Leon is surprisingly quiet for a latino town.
A couple of days ago, my small calculator died. I'd bought it in a dollar store in Montreal for about a dollar and a half. So as I walked the streets toward el centro, I kept an eye open for vendors of all kind. After a couple of minutes, I passed a woman selling tortillas and another one selling some kind of strange little green fruits. A young woman was putting together a little table in the sidewalk to sell jewelery. At the corner, there was a cell phone store, looking brand new and advertizing some new package. Looked totally out of place to me.
I crossed the street, eyeing another girl selling watches. Beside her, a light brown dog was sleeping. no particular race, the average dog, but this one has a really bad wound on his back, only half healed and I could partly see a bone pointing from the wound. It doesn't seem to bother the dog that much, though.
The woman didn't have any kind of calculator, so I continued. I had a view of the Cathedral and the Parque central, so I was roughly about four blocks from the center.
A taxi honked while passing me, it was empty, of course. Taxi here tended to honk at gringos all the time, trying to get our attention. Another chicken bus passed by and filled the street with dense dark smoke which lasted for a couple of minutes.
A young woman with her trhee kids passed in front of me, all tighed together on a small bicycle. The oldest kid, a boy, had a old little backpack with Winnie the Pooh on it. I passed by a kiosk in the sidewalk selling CD's. Strangely enough, his sound system played a song by Avril Lavigne. Made me smile to remember i saw her show in Vancouver a few months ago. From here, the memory seemed to come from another life entirely.
I was now at a corner and I crossed the avenida toward some more street vendors. More fruits, more watches, some razor blades, daily paper, little source water bags, live goats, and now, small calculators.
I asked to see the smallest one, a simple yet perfect little calculator, sunshine powered. I tried it, asked for the price and bought it for 20 cordobas, which is about a dollar and a half, an interesting enough price for me and a good price for the woman who sold it to me.
I reached another corner, now two blocks from the centro, ans was standing in front of La merced, a huge church. A couple guys were working the front with fresh white and blue paint. I took a couple of pictures, not that sure it was real great shot, and I stood there for a while, just watching the guys repainting the church.
As I was deciding for another shot, from beside the church, I realised that the sky was darker now. I haven't noticed before, but dark clouds filled in really quickly.
I decided to go back toward my hostel, since I haven't brought my umbrella, and I had to wtop by some kind of agency to sign up for a volcano hike that i wanted to do. The guys at the agency are all volunteers and all the money that tourist spent for the hike is going to help street kids.
After a couple minutes, I reached the agency and signed up. Then, the rain hitted. Hard. I was maybe three minutes by walk from my place, way too long if you don't want to ended up soaking wet.
So, passing between horse carriages, I jumped inside an internet cafe trapped between the supermarket and some harware store that use the typical horse-delivery system. And I tought that I could write to you my friend.
So I did, and I will, again, soon.
With love,
Hugh
xx