Granada 2

I had a fun weekend in Granada, thanks to my host family.
Saturday, the son of the senora of the house I'm living in, invited me to watch him play soccer in an adult league. He's a very enthusiastic soccer fan and player so it was fun to watch him play.
We walked fifteen minutes to the soccer field. Like most everything in Nicaragua, the soccer field reflected the Nicaraguans' great intentions but lack of resources. The soccer field was a dirt lot at the edge of town. There was literally no grass. The surface was very rough and uneven. In the background were half a dozen horses grazing. There were numerous piles of horse poop on the field itself, together with enough trash and garbage that could fill 2 large plastic bags.
There was no shade whatsoever. Fortunately, the game started at 9 a.m. By 10, it was pretty unbearable. I fled to the one and only shade tree, which still provided a view of the soccer field. The players definitely knew how to pace themselves in the heat. Due to the "conditions" of the field, they also took special care to make sure they didn't fall down. At half time, each of them downed a couple of liters of water.
Also at half time, the little old lady with banana fries showed up and the few spectators deluged her. Also making a big hit was the guy with the block of ice and sweet syrup. He would shave the ice with a metal scraper/scooper thing and pour syrup from large jars onto it, making a snow cone.
Sunday, the whole family and I, together with family friends and other hangers-on, went to one of the over 300 little islands that cluster right offshore from Granada on Lake Nicaragua. All of the islands are privately owned by rich Nicaraguans and gringos. Each island is only an acre or two with a rock mansion on top of it. Very impressive. We went to an island, called Nicar. It doesn't have a mansion on it, but instead it has a restaurant and 2 pools. The pools were small: about ten feet by 20 feet. They're a few feet above the water level of the lake, and the water from the lake is pumped into the pools. The water in the pool is the same color as the lake: brown. It's opaque; that is, you can't see 6 inches into it.
Most Nicaraguans don't know how to swim. So the pool is about 3 to 4 feet deep. Many also don't have swimsuits. So the kids swim in their underpants and the adults in long t-shirts and shorts. They don't "swim" as such, as much as sit in the pool and try to cool off.
I couldn't shake from my mind the fact that only 20% of the houses of Granada have septic systems. All the rest dump their untreated sewage straight into the creek that feeds into the lake. Fortunately, there's a government plan afoot to build a sewage treatment plant one of these years.
So, I decided to pass up the opportunity to go for a swim. I'll wait until this coming weekend when I can return to Laguna de Apoyo, which reputedly is the cleanest lake in Central America, to go for a swim. Instead, I sat at one of the tables with a couple of other Nicaraguans, sipping rum and Coke (the drink of choice here in Nicaragua) and relishing the slight breeze that blew in off the lake.