raista

the way tom explained it to me,

raista seems like the most archetypical old school miskito village i came across.

at the center of the village, william bodden and his wife. he's old, he sits around and carves oars, and talks in bits of english to tourists.

around him, in roughly a circle, are housed his children. around them are housed some of their children - single family circles.

what's non-traditional about this village is the seamless tourist operation:

eddy runs a finca de mariposas (butterfly farm)

many tourist operators bring their visitors buy

they stay in his sister's thirty year old bat and lizard and wasp infested wooden large family house-cum-hospedaje

the outdoor well water and bucket shower was my favourite of this sort in la mosquitia - the open roof, the sound of the sea, open to breezes, heightened the ordinarily spiritual bathing exercise.

they all eat at his wife, elma's kitchen, a clean and evident comedor.

there are other places to eat, but you'll have to leave bodden territory for belen. they charge you 20 lempiras for everything, whether it's eggs, fried bread, and beans (typical breakfast), or coconut fish soup (rare lunch one sunday). they sometimes make refrescos (kool-aid) upon request.

stay here long enough (like two nights in the rainy season), and you'll run across other groups of tourists. they were without fail interesting, and quickly stereotyped. i met the eager young churchers, and the bootless blow pipe fanatics at elma's.

other than that, you can do your laundry on the board on cement blocks in the laguna. i wanted to swim around there; the kids do, but there's quite a number of outhouses on it. disinfect your leg cuts afterward wading through.

la vida es tranquila aqui.

many nances, tiny superbitter yellow fruit, falling in mid-july 1997 when i was there. and they harvested the hospedaje sister's coconuts for her (she was living in ceiba) while i was there, they gave me one and didn't take any money from me. very rich, that straight fresh coconut. whew.

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