Day two.
Woke up to the sound of a classical clarinet practicing. Exotic and beautiful. Best alarm clock ever! While I took a shower brendan got dressed and went across to the convention center. Tables not set up working hard but not today. He came back and we went downstairs. Ran into the tafoyas who helped with some translating to get us to pool ocho.
Jorge the taxi driver crosses himself every time he turns left but not right. Maybe because Spanish for left is sinestro the root of sinister? Dk. He gave me a card said to call when we wantto go back. And crossed himself again.
Managua like a lot of third world cities: almost indescribable natural beauty with sad and scary human overlay. Beautiful park with gorgeous flowering trees with a village of 100 or so tent shcks made from garbage bags. Spectacular new construction next door to an undertaker who we could see putting a body in a cheap wood coffin as we drove by. Hot and humid. Lots of street sellers with drinks phone xhargers and candy When we got here the entire Chinese team was already here with a local tv reporter getting film and doing interviews.
Brendan straight to the table running some racks. Have to eat eventually.
Just met Carlos Rivera the owner of pool ocho and the promoter of the event. He has a consultant victor maduro from panama who has helped get this event together huge amount of work in a place where you can't always get things done right or right away.
Victor wrote the first book on nine ball in Spanish, titled "Bola Nueve.". I asked him if he had it translated and he said no the whole reason to write it was to let south Americans learn to beat the nortes at their own game. Retired from working with airlines and freight companies in panama and now travels and plays pool. He was hired by Carlos the organizer to make sure the event goes well. So far they seem to be doing a great job.
Noon
Brendan asked one of the kids from Taiwan to shoot a few racks. The young woman who is charge of their delegation came over and introduced herself. Her full time job paid for by the government is to assist young pool players. Apparently if they finish well enough they get full scholarships to university so this is a tremendous way to get and keep good players.
Turns out the Taiwan government has helped to subsidize the event that's why it's being played on new Brunswick knockoffs from.......Taiwan! I caught a ride back to the hotel to pick up some stuff. Rode in the back of a pickup from the taiwanese embassy. Fun way to get some sun and see the sights. The entire embassy staff is coming to root for their team. Wonder if the American embassy even knows we are here?
My pidgin Spanish is coming back. Managed to call the cabbie and get him to us and them tell him to take us to pizza hut and come back in 1/2 hour. If he shows up and lunch looks close to what we think we ordered we will be on a roll.
We survived lunch with a "hut cheese" (stuffed crust) con salchicha italiana y pepperoni. Actually pretty good but seems odd to travel all this way to eat pizza. Gerald showed up on time and was glad to get the rest of the pizza.
People here are extremely polite and friendly but no ingles much at all. The hotel has a few decent English speakers but pizza hut was an experiment in food terror. I'm trying to explain to Brendan why we should say we are from Canada if someone sketchy asks. Gave up. Just remember we live in toronto,ok? Don't want to be the next American martyr for la revolucion. The locals have been demonstrating at the US embassy for the last five days. Seems that they don't like us again.... So the embassy has suspended all consular operations, which means of you need help don't call us. Great! Oh, Canada!
11 pm.
Brendan still shooting racks now with some of the kids from Nicaragua and Peru. He and Nick Tafoya played some scotch doubles with the locals; no one speaks the others language but the games get played and everyone seems to understand that much. Actually now that I look around B has been here before anyone else in the event and he's now the last one standing. Time to go!