I love ajo

I’ll tell you why I love ajo. The first night in Sabana Grande was trying. We live in a little house that is separate from our host family, about 50 yards up the hill from them. Our house has 2 rooms; one small bedroom and a good sized main room, which I don’t know what to call yet. They call it la sala. The house was originally intended to be a house for the mother-in-law of the family, but after it was all complete she didn’t want to leave her own place deep in the mountains. I’ve gotten the feeling that the house has sat vacant for a good while. The walls and ceiling were covered in spider webs, there was an old beat up piece of furniture that must have been a dresser in the past, a bed and basically nothing else. I guess it was what we were expecting but none the less it was a bit shocking for Jenny and me. Marcio, our host dad, brought up a table and two chairs for us, which made it a little more homey. After dinner Marcio reluctantly offered us a moskitero (mosquito net) and I accepted, once I deciphered what we were talking about. At the time Jenny and I had no clue how important a moskitero is. Our first night we found out. Thank God I said Si to the moskitero! It was all too similar to that hotel commercial where the guy imagines that he and his wife go to a hotel with a mosquito net and they wake up in the middle of the night to find that it is just covered in bugs. Yes, that does happen. I didn’t sleep well our first night. In addition to all the bugs, there were a few times when I swore that I heard, and felt, something like a bird swoop past me. Jenny dismissed it as nothing and I would turn my focus back to my “new food” stomach cramps.

The next night was even better. I was mentally prepared for the bugs our second night, and they did not disappoint, but that was no big deal, especially with our awesome moskitero. What I was not mentally prepared for what woke me up at 1:45 am. I heard a bunch of rustling and a loud series of chirps, gargles and squawks. I decided to get up because, amongst all the new noises, this one just seemed too close to be outside and I suspected that some kind of critter was getting into our bags. I grabbed the mega-bright manly mag light and searched the sala for the culprit but I found nothing. Then I looked up and there was a large clump of mercielagos (bats) hanging upside down from the ceiling. I had no idea what to do so I turned off my trusty mag light and climbed back into bed. Of course, Jenny asked me what it was, and I made the biggest mistake ever, I told her. I had no choice but to walk the 50 yards to my host dad’s house (with Jenny because there was no way she was staying in the mercielago house) and ask Marcio how to get rid of the bats. He said that they “no hace nada Jenny”, they won’t do anything Jenny, just go to bed and we will fix it tomorrow. We bravely marched back to our bat cave and after some consoling outside Jenny was ready to go back in and get what ever sleep she could muster. The bats actually behaved themselves pretty good for the rest o the night. None the less, Jenny and I were huddled together clenching each other under our most prized possession, the mosquitero.
The next morning Marcio told me that we would get the bats out of the house then rub crushed aho all over the area to keep the bats from coming back. Believe or not aho is garlic. Yes, I too thought that this was only for the vampire movies, but so far so good. We had a wonderful night’s sleep last night—the best I’ve had since arriving in Nicaragua and no more mercielagos. I love ajo.