Esteli is about 145Km North of Managua, capital city of Nicaragua. Esteli was one of the places were we were supposed to celebrate FLISOL. I drove the day before the event to be early on the big day. Those that traveled gathered in Hotel La Riviera to talk about the next day. We were brothers on FOSS: Debian and Fedora users. There were concern as people commented about a strike, but we have been told 72 hours earlier that the university will honor the agreement we had.

Early start didn’t help much, as we head for a famous place for breakfast, but it was close. After several tries we end up in “El Recanto”, a small eating place. Amazing rice and beans. Suddenly we were many. Now we had company from those that took the drive early morning. People from openSUSE and friend from Ubuntu joined us forming a noisy party.

We headed to the UNI-Norte, the North extension of the National Engineering University. They are struggling with some issues that I will engage, but the fact is that there were in a strike. Administrative personal and teachers suspended labors. We were invited to a meeting room to heard the history, but nothing changed the fact that we were far from home and there was no event. Sponsorship and personal preparations wasted. How we are going to reschedule a event involving 17 countries and about 200 cities? We had to explain that we may help with an event, but FLISOL was gone.

We were a bit discouraged, but we took over the parking log just in front of the entrance. There we set up a banner, we distributed flyers and media. It was not the same of course, but we did as could. There were students looking if there were classes or not. There were people that show up for the event despite the news about the strike.

We tried again for the place that was closed at morning. “La Casita” is a place for whole bread and gourmet cheese. We exchanged timeless histories about past events and old jokes. Then we started calling other people working at other locations to encourage them and of course to make fun.

We departed, some of them by car, others took the bus, but I decided to stay a bit longer in Esteli, a spend the day at the city. I took a panoramic trip by the surroundings next day before heading back home. Comradely was at peak this weekend, no matter the obstacles we found.