The Weekly Photo Challenge is Nostalgia.
Living on Ometepe Island, Nicaragua is tranquilo and nostalgic. It is like living in the 1950’s where the quality of life and cultural values are revered. I see happy everywhere with neighborhood communities reminiscent of my childhood.
Bicycling vendors sell ice cream and fruit cups from their carts.
A traveling bra salesman even sold me a bra while I was cleaning my beach! I never have to leave home. Vendors selling bread, nacatamales, vegetables, pots and pans, and herbs pass by my house daily.
Delightful country roads wind through our island, and fruit trees drop their treats on the road for those passing by.
Fishermen cast their nets into our sweet sea from their homemade boats, hoping for a bountiful day.
And a bountiful catch provides a fisherman’s family with money, as well as feeding many island families.
When the carnival comes to town once a year, it is a big deal for the island children.
The children lead simple lives and always do their chores like feeding their rabbits or chickens.
Graves are dug by hand. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust exemplifies life and death on the island.
Most tools are handmade. Nothing is ever thrown away. Instead it is recycled into something useful and practical.
My lime tree is loaded with limes. Recalling and reminiscing about my mother’s famous Key Lime pie, I had a strong hankering for the mouth-watering pie of my childhood.
Life on Ometepe Island is a daily feast of nostalgia.
I see happy everywhere reminiscent of my childhood.
I miss you and your beautiful island. I must come back and visit again!
We miss you, too! Come back soon. 🙂
Terrific post. Made me nostalgic for our time in Nicaragua. One of the best things about living there were the vendors that came to our door with fresh coconuts, cashews, fruit, fresh fish, the shoe shining guy, the knife sharpening guy. Such old fashioned good service. It was definitely a treat!
Lovely pics of beautiful Ometepe.
Peta
Peta, the old fashioned life style suits me well. It is a treat. Come back soon. 😀
Beautiful Debbie! You and Ron have built a very happy life there! 😊
Well, Nicole, it can be challenging at times, but we love the tranquilo aspects of life on the island.
🙂 Hope your knee is getting better Debbie~
So lovely, your memories. I remember growing up in the Caribbean. I used to make lime juice drink from our own trees for lunch. Throw in abit of Angastora bitters. I went to an upscale restaurant recently here in Canada, she offered me an organic lime juice drink, which tasted everything like the one I used to make, then she offered me another. The bill was twelve dollars. Imagine. Funny, when we had all the islands limes to take for free. There was one prolific lime tree that belonged to my dads friend, Eddie. Called Eddies lime tree. He kept good track of that lime tree, just outside his door. It seemed to be the most prolific. He carried them in his pocket. Anyway, great memories. I would love to live on Ometepe. We were there in 2001, just after my mom died. I need to get back there. love.
Awww, thanks Laura for sharing your memories of the lime trees. The fruit trees are so prolific here. We are always experimenting with the fruits.
I love R&R in Nic!!
I am looking forward to my move there in January. (Original plan was this month but…)
Now, January for certain.
Thanks so much for your writings and all the photos!
Barbara
Welcome to Nicaragua soon, Barbara. Your life is about to change drastically. Where will you locate?
Beautiful story and the photos are lovely.
I remember my time there last June and I loved it!!
I was looking to perhaps relocate there but my path led me to another country .
Its a wonderful area and I liked it way more than Granada .
En joy ….blessings to u both!!!
Heidi, thanks for your lovely comment. We each have to follow our own paths, and it sounds like you choose a path that is perfect for you. Hugs.
Nice sentiment, great pics. But… your reference to the 50s does not make me feel nostalgic, on the contrary. I, too, was a child in the 50s, but not all our childhoods were peaceful. For me, living behind the iron curtain, in the highs of Stalin terror and post Stalin revolts in Hungary and my home country of Poland, evoke a memory of tanks on my street firing at buildings at random in June of 1956 (the Poznan worker’s revolt), evoke memories of childhood filled most of all with terror. Yes, there was a grinding postwar poverty, lack of food and goods, a dress, made from seven pieces of different clothes from scraps left over from before the war dresses, long, looooong lines tu buy bread, milk and other basic foodstuffs, but mostly terror: adult family members conversing among themselves in a foreign language at a dinner table, so that kids would not be able to understand or misunderstand and repeat outside the home what was said, endangering their parents and relatives… Far from nostalgic.
Maria, I am at a loss for words. I can’t begin to fathom what your childhood was like. More stories like yours need to be published for the world to see. I assume that everyone has nostalgic moments in their childhood that they enjoy recalling. It certainly makes me appreciate my circumstances as a child.
You have given me a lot to think about…nostalgic moments in our lives are not always pleasant memories. Thank you for your heartbreaking comments.