ine flu testing capabilities!Observations that could make one think this has been a long time coming include: masked airport personnel, symptom checklists for all arrivals, and required hand sanitizing for all Pizza Hut customers. I’ve heard the head of virology here at the Ministry of Health has been under a bit of political pressure, and that blaming the CDC, while accurate, has not been acceptable. The test is straightforward, and one that most of the technicians here perform regularly, but because of the newness and the hype, they wanted to be sure, to learn it again, just in case, and have me demonstrate it.
New digs:
My usual Nica house mom is renting out her tiny spare room to a rather large family (recession?), so I’ve had to live elsewhere this trip. Enter Nicarao: a loquacious, smiley, ambitious, 40-something businessman who’s lived a good chunk of his life in the states (Miami, mostly), and is related to the girlfriend of my UCSF colleague. Nicarao owns a partially completed hotel on a hillside in Managua near Somoza’s old country club, and although the upper story is still a transparent framework, he’s renting me an elaborately-tiled, new-house-smell, downstairs room for 30 bucks a night. This is totally worth it for the A/C alone, a beautiful offset to the consistent, and humid, 95 degrees. Eventually, he tells me, his towering hillside abode will host a restaurant, nightclub, guest rooms, and a pool. He has plans to buy the block (recession?). These plans are worth protecting, so a night watchman is paid to watch television with stray dogs from the skeleton of a top floor.
