Got that WMD

There's nothing that lifts the spirits faster than spying a chubby faced tot behind the dash of a Power Wheel, cutting circles around Estelí's Parque Central's centrally located gazebo. The fact that families pay money to have their kids scoot around in Power Wheels, often escorted by the surly, chain-smoking entrepreneurs, is fun in itself. More fun, however, is the chubby-face factor. Funnier than fat, sausagy fingers -- "chorizitos" -- are kids with faces that look like they're filled full of pus, like a giant wasp swooped down and stung them smack on the cheek.

My most recent resolution is to avoid killing any more goats. Yesterday while running toward Managua on the Pan-American, I startled some goats grazing roadside. The pack of goats proceeded to run uphill, and I continued on for another twenty meters, reaching the halfway point of my run, at which point I doubled back. At which point I noticed the goats sprinting back downhill, chased by three barking dogs. As the goats exploded out from the bottom of the gravel driveway, one of the smaller goaties neglected to look both ways before crossing the street and got smacked by a pickup. He was in the middle of the road, looking quite stunned at the new shapes his body and bones had taken, as I continued on...

Lastly, the true test of a man's passion for his mango is the number of half-inch to inch-long yellowish, fibrous strands snagged and dangling from his front twelve when he drops that mangled, much gnawed upon pit.