Yesterday I was compelled by my grammar teacher to ask a few of the staff members three questions. This being an exercise in using the subjunctive case, and since it was Friday, one of the questions was: “What do you prefer you students do over the weekend?”

The two teachers I asked said their students should take it easy and relax over the weekend, but the head of the school gave me an earnest and in-depth treatise that started with phrases like “have fun” but wound around through hours or study and asking ten questions of any Spanish speaker you can find.

While I appreciate and respect the opinion of Senor Marlin, head of the Mariposa school faculty, I think I kept closer to the advice of the two teachers.

Today we went to La Boquita, a beach about an hour away from the school. We set up camp in one of the restaurants on the beach, then hit the waves. The Pacific was warm and wavy today. We spent hours in the water.

We also ate a lunch so expensive that we had to clean out Lanie’s wallet to help pay for it. Even though $54 is very steep for these parts, even for a family of five, the restaurant did not charge us for access to the beach or for use of the tables and hammocks. So that factors in. The food was good, too, if not exactly what we thought we ordered. (These days the mere presence of meat earns a meal a few extra stars, but Zoe’s bisteca smothered in onions was truly very excellent.)

Jen and Nadia with their carne asada?

Nope, this is the carne asada. The other stuff was the tostones the waiter thought Lanie and I ordered.

And just in case Senor Marlin ever finds our blog, I did converse with several Spanish speakers today, including our waiter, the night watchman at the school, and today’s driver Jose. Thankfully, it’s all about the trying, because I had varying levels of success (take, for example the fact that I thought I was ordering torta con carne and instead Lanie and I got carne and queso con tostones). I did manage to coax Jose into the water — he was on the fence about swimming. Actually, it might have been the five or six international college coeds on our excursion who had more to do with Jose going into the water. He swam more with them than me.

Here is what I learned from talking to Jose:

• Like many people here, he says he would like the experience the cold of a North American winter some day. (Given that he thought the water was cold today, I don’t know how well he’d hold up.)
• He learned to drive when he was 15, and he started with a motor taxi, which is rather like a cross between a moped and a Winnebago, of you can picture that. I’ll try to get a photo of one, but I don’t expect we’ll ride one.
• He has a son and a daughter, aged 2 and 4 months, whom he helps care for when he gets home from work.
• He drives or he used to drive a bus route between La Concepcion and Managua.
• Even though the owner of the Mariposa School says he doesn’t have to, Jose takes great care in cleaning the microbuses. While we were swimming today — except for the time he himself was coxed into the waves — Jose was detailing the bus, inside and out. I shudder to think about all the sand we brought into the van he’d just cleaned.