poco a poco

We have been here in Nicaragua for nearly 4 weeks now and I am finally getting the hang of this “poco a poco” thing. Poco a poco essentially means little by little and it seems that almost everything here tends to come about in this way. Poco a poco I am getting used to going to bed at 9 and waking up at 5:30 am with the rooster crows. Poco a poco my number 2’s are turning solid again. Poco a poco I am beginning to decipher the enigma of Nicaraguan Espanol that is so different from other Spanish that they call it Nicanol. Where “adios” doesn’t just mean goodbye, it also means hello; where half of the vocabulary I learned in Spanish class is completely foreign to Nicaraguans and therefore useless. Poco a poco I am getting used to responding to “chele”, which is what the Nicas call light skinned people. It is actually a slang word derived from “leche” and basically means “milky” if you translate it literally. Poco a poco I am learning to express myself in Nicanol without a dictionary in my hand. Poco a poco we are learning to do things the Nica way, like washing our laundry, bathing, drawing water from the well, walking in the pitch black night without stepping in the mud, and even how to keep our floor clean. Poco a poco our relatively new, previously unused latrine is stinking more and more. Poco a poco I am falling in love with 70-80 degree weather all the time and a daily rain shower that you can count on. Little by little Jenny and I are getting used to how to deal with all the thousands of bugs and critters that just love sharing our space with us. I actually saw my first live tarantula today and it was just as big and hairy as I imagined it would be, but I haven’t run all the way home screaming and I am actually sitting here quite relaxed afterwards writing this blog entry. Through trial and error day by day we have learned clever ways of how to use the lights in our house without drawing in what seams like half the gnat and moth population of our village. Speaking of moths, I just have to go on this tangent; they have some moths here that are literally the size of bats! They are huge; just as dumb and disgusting as a regular moth but like 20 times the size. This brings me to my next point: poco a poco I am discovering every freaking critter in Nicaragua; from bats to mice, to scorpions, tarantulas, snakes, and just about every freaky insect that I have ever seen on fear factor including those big tree spiders that look kinda like crabs and giant 4” cockroaches. Its amazing I ever get any sleep at night, and poco a poco I am realizing how right I was when I said our mosquito net is our most prized possession.

But there’s also a lot of other good things like we are finally starting to see our roles in the community begin to define; poco a poco we are earning the trust of those we came here to help and behind our broken Spanish they are realizing our suggestions really do have merit. Little by little I am learning to love the thrice daily serving of beans served all different ways. Little my little I am realizing that there isn’t an ailment that Alejandra can’t fix somehow with one of the plants she grows in her garden. Each day I am seeing how our new little brothers and sister cherish every moment we spend with them and they can’t wait until after dinner for us to teach them a new card game.

I have to say that amongst all the difficulties, lack of amenities, chloroqine induced nightmares, and incessant creepy crawlies; I am seeing that the life and culture here can be quite pleasant, poco a poco.