I haven´t written to the blog in a while because I didn´t have anything positive or witty to say. The honeymoon portion of the culture shock has passed, and I´m am starting to feel very pessimistic about everything. With that being said, I will try to look on the positive side of how we´re making Nicaragua our home.
Our house, as you have heard before, is full of spider webs, spiders, bugs, lizards, mice, and bats. Well, thankfully the bats are gone, and no mice actually live in there... I´ve just seen a few. Alejandra thinks that I´ll get over my fear of critters after a few months and I´ll just stomp ´em, but it hasn´t happened yet. All the mujeres get a huge kick out of hearing me squeal when things come across my path. I know ¨No hace nada¨ but I´m still freaked by all the critters.
Anyway, C.J. and I have been working to make our house less of a bat cave and more of a home. We cleaned out a few old drawers from a falling apart piece of junk, that was at one point some sort of dresser or armoire, and are using them to put our books and other odds and ends in. We also bought a plastic table from the ex. volunteer coordinator, who also gave us some other misc. items she left behind. The best improvement to our house though, is the gas stove! Alejandra and Marcio had an old gas stove from a previous volunteer that was just collecting dust. We cleaned it off and it works great. Now I can have oatmeal in the morning instead of all the fried goodness that Alejandra makes. We also found out that you can buy American cheese here (C.J. was so happy), so I made him a grilled cheese sandwich and Ramen noodles when he was sick.
Speaking of being sick, C.J. and I seem to alternate days of being sick, with neither of us being healthy at the same time. Right now it is C.J.´s turn - he has a bad cough from inhaling too much paint thinner while we were painting the solar ovens. On Wednesday, I got to find out what it´s like to puke in an outhouse. I don´t recommend it. I didn´t want to stick my head in the hole, which smells like you-know-what, so I hovered about 18 inches up. That was a bad plan... half my lunch ended up all over the seat, my pants, and shoes. To add insult to injury, this was during a business meeting, so I had to quickly clean up and return to the meeting with wet pants. How embarrassing.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
time to be real.
What up everyone. I said to myself that I would only post when I am feeling cheery but I haven´t posted in a while so whatever. I´ll try to keep it fun anyway.
So I am ticked with blogger because I haven´t been able to upload any pics since my first time. Instead, since this is my grumpy entry, I am just going to describe some of the luxuries we have in daily life in Nicarauga.
Our toilet. It is a green metal latrine house the size of a phone booth, 20 yards outside our house. it has a plastic toilet seat with a plastic lid that goes overtop to keep critters from going down the deep dark disgusting hole. Its like 12 feet deep and stinks as badly as you would expect. Its only about 5 foot 10 inside and I have to stand like a hunch back in there. The inside is littered with spider webs and the only thing that keeps me from worrying that something is going to come up and bite me in the but is that I am religious about closeing the lid every time. I do have to say there are some really cool parts about having a latrine. Number one cool thing: It will never clog up and I never have to plunge it. This is so cool for me because I have the rare talent of finding a way to clog any toilet you can throw at me. Number two cool thing: If you have a really nasty stinky one, no big deal. It already stinks and is totally open air with huge gaps in the metal walls at the top and bottom so it airs out with one gust of wind. Number three cool thing: you don´t have to flush. I don´t know why this is cool, but I kind of like it. Although every time I leave I feel like I am forgetting something.
Shower. Our shower is an adobe shack attached to our house. It was orginally intended to be a kitched with a wood burning stove, but we don´t need to cook for ourselves (so awesome!) so we use it as a shower so we don´t have to give a show to the whole village when we bathe. The ¨shower¨is a large plastic barrel with probably 15 gallons of water sitting on the floor. Another component is a medium sized plastic bowl which is used to scoop ¨clean¨water from the barrel and dump over one´s head. After the initial wetting down I then dampen my shower puff thingy and then get it all soapy and lather my self up. I complete the cylce with more bowls full of ¨clean¨water dumped onto myself. This method of bathing reminds me much of washing my car back home. Its not all that bad. The water feels freezing cold in the scourching hot nicaragua weather, but I found that if i shower in the late afternoon it is amazingly refreshing.
Laundry. our laundry machine is a bumpy rock sitting on a stack of old tractor tires. Much like showering, we have a big barrel of ¨clean¨water and some medium sized bowls for scooping water with. i think I hate this more than any of the others. It takes forever to wash clothes. We also let ourselves get way behind because we avoided doing laundry for the first two weeks. So now we have a mountain and it takes like an hour and a half to do a small load. The good news is that Jenny has created her own system for doing the laundry, which consists of a soak period, some scrubing and soaping up, then a series of rinses. It works pretty good and she has gotten good at it with little practice. I help by being the rinser, ringer outter, and hanger while she soaks and scrubs. Even though Jenny does the hard work I still hate doing it. I want to take up one of the locals on their offer to do our laundry for pay, but there is just something weird about having a stranger wash your dirty underwear. I am so lucky to have lovely Jenny here to help me out.
I have to go cause my cafe time is racking up at 2 hours. I´ll post more about our little joys of daily life later.
So I am ticked with blogger because I haven´t been able to upload any pics since my first time. Instead, since this is my grumpy entry, I am just going to describe some of the luxuries we have in daily life in Nicarauga.
Our toilet. It is a green metal latrine house the size of a phone booth, 20 yards outside our house. it has a plastic toilet seat with a plastic lid that goes overtop to keep critters from going down the deep dark disgusting hole. Its like 12 feet deep and stinks as badly as you would expect. Its only about 5 foot 10 inside and I have to stand like a hunch back in there. The inside is littered with spider webs and the only thing that keeps me from worrying that something is going to come up and bite me in the but is that I am religious about closeing the lid every time. I do have to say there are some really cool parts about having a latrine. Number one cool thing: It will never clog up and I never have to plunge it. This is so cool for me because I have the rare talent of finding a way to clog any toilet you can throw at me. Number two cool thing: If you have a really nasty stinky one, no big deal. It already stinks and is totally open air with huge gaps in the metal walls at the top and bottom so it airs out with one gust of wind. Number three cool thing: you don´t have to flush. I don´t know why this is cool, but I kind of like it. Although every time I leave I feel like I am forgetting something.
Shower. Our shower is an adobe shack attached to our house. It was orginally intended to be a kitched with a wood burning stove, but we don´t need to cook for ourselves (so awesome!) so we use it as a shower so we don´t have to give a show to the whole village when we bathe. The ¨shower¨is a large plastic barrel with probably 15 gallons of water sitting on the floor. Another component is a medium sized plastic bowl which is used to scoop ¨clean¨water from the barrel and dump over one´s head. After the initial wetting down I then dampen my shower puff thingy and then get it all soapy and lather my self up. I complete the cylce with more bowls full of ¨clean¨water dumped onto myself. This method of bathing reminds me much of washing my car back home. Its not all that bad. The water feels freezing cold in the scourching hot nicaragua weather, but I found that if i shower in the late afternoon it is amazingly refreshing.
Laundry. our laundry machine is a bumpy rock sitting on a stack of old tractor tires. Much like showering, we have a big barrel of ¨clean¨water and some medium sized bowls for scooping water with. i think I hate this more than any of the others. It takes forever to wash clothes. We also let ourselves get way behind because we avoided doing laundry for the first two weeks. So now we have a mountain and it takes like an hour and a half to do a small load. The good news is that Jenny has created her own system for doing the laundry, which consists of a soak period, some scrubing and soaping up, then a series of rinses. It works pretty good and she has gotten good at it with little practice. I help by being the rinser, ringer outter, and hanger while she soaks and scrubs. Even though Jenny does the hard work I still hate doing it. I want to take up one of the locals on their offer to do our laundry for pay, but there is just something weird about having a stranger wash your dirty underwear. I am so lucky to have lovely Jenny here to help me out.
I have to go cause my cafe time is racking up at 2 hours. I´ll post more about our little joys of daily life later.
ajo stinks
So I wasn´t totally honest with you when I told the bat story. I said we just ¨got rid of the bats¨but that wasn´t totally honest. My host dad Marico eagerly showed up at our house the morning after I told him we had a problem. He took a quick look at the situation and scurried back to the main house for supplies. He reappeared in like 2 seconds flat with a long flat stick, a ladder and a giant knife we all affectionately know as the Machete. I was shocked to see the knife that we perceive as a weapon, but they think of as a tool, and I asked him what it was for. He replied with the ever present smile on his face ¨para matarlos!¨ which means to kill them. I then yelled to Jenny to get out of the house and she scurried around the corner and tried really hard to concentrate on her Harry Potter book. So what actually happened was that I held the flashlight while Marcio skillfully stabbed the bats with the machete through the rafters, then finished them off one by one. We didn´t just get rid of the five bats, we bascially hacked them up with a machete. And I might add that I was totally not in support of this, but I wasn´t about to refuse the service.
The reason why I am letting you know the details here is because we didn´t actually get all 5, one smart bat actually flew away out the space in the roof where they entered. And the ajo did work for about 5 days, but it dried up and the night before last we had our mercielago friend back as a roomie. Marcio was away so my new siblings and I worked as a team to shoo the bat out, then saturated the area with fresh ajo. But aho stinks, yes, it stinks like very strong garlic smell and our whole house smells like an italian restraunt, which is totally cool for a little while. But this morning, guess what, our smart bat roommate came back: with fresh ajo and all. So now I am beginning to understand Marcio´s methods, I think he has experienced this before. He has been asking me every morning for a week if the bats came back. And now the answer 2 days in a row is Si. So I´ll be holding the flashlight for the carnage again this evening and right after this entry I am leaving the cafe to buy some mesh screen to cover whatever gaps in the roof I can. So I am not totally in favor of hacking up all of our pests with a machete, but this bat is like that cat that keeps comming back. I won´t be posting any pics of our bat because that wouldn´t be cool, but I will try to get some up of our amazingly porous house.
The reason why I am letting you know the details here is because we didn´t actually get all 5, one smart bat actually flew away out the space in the roof where they entered. And the ajo did work for about 5 days, but it dried up and the night before last we had our mercielago friend back as a roomie. Marcio was away so my new siblings and I worked as a team to shoo the bat out, then saturated the area with fresh ajo. But aho stinks, yes, it stinks like very strong garlic smell and our whole house smells like an italian restraunt, which is totally cool for a little while. But this morning, guess what, our smart bat roommate came back: with fresh ajo and all. So now I am beginning to understand Marcio´s methods, I think he has experienced this before. He has been asking me every morning for a week if the bats came back. And now the answer 2 days in a row is Si. So I´ll be holding the flashlight for the carnage again this evening and right after this entry I am leaving the cafe to buy some mesh screen to cover whatever gaps in the roof I can. So I am not totally in favor of hacking up all of our pests with a machete, but this bat is like that cat that keeps comming back. I won´t be posting any pics of our bat because that wouldn´t be cool, but I will try to get some up of our amazingly porous house.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Somoto Canyon
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Today we went to Somoto Canyon for some touristy fun. This was our first chance to take a local bus, which is quite different from the express bus we took from Managua. The bus to Somoto was a converted school bus, which basically means that they took an American school bus, slaped some bars on the top and sides, and incorporated a speaker system so that they can jam to their tunes, which sound surprisingly like 90’s pop – kind of a Latino Billy Joel. The bus attendants are quite interesting as well. They man the front and back doors to make sure everyone pays, and let the bus driver know when it is time to get going. The interesting part is that once everyone is on board, or at least partially on board, they whistle and then run to catch the moving bus, grab one of the handy bars and pull themselves up. It looked like a pretty fun job, plus they get cheat the customers out of a few bucks.
When we got to Somoto, our group, which consisted of Tony, Sharelle, Nadia, Craig, Roberto, Karen, Edwin, C.J. and me, wandered around for a little to pick up some lunch and refregerios before taking a taxi to the Canyon. The taxi was actually a pretty sweet deal; since we wanted a ride there and back, we didn’t have to pay until he picked us up at the end of the day. This was all included in our course dues though, so we let Karen handle the logistics of it… I think she may have struck a deal.
After he dropped us off we hiked down a pretty steep road to the mouth of the canyon. Then we crossed a few streams by stepping every so carefully on the river rocks, saw a man bathing himself in the river, and passed some cattle that appeared to be unaccompanied. We reached a small covering where there were a few ladies selling snacks and a pathetic looking dog begging for treats. From that point we took a couple little row boats down the river to where we could start our rock climbing hike. I wasn’t really sure why we were trying so hard to get over these rocks, because we were already pretty deep into the canyon, but we trekked on, and found a nice high rock where we could hang out on for a while. Karen and Edwin waded in the river and somehow convinced Nadia and me to join in. It was really fun though, there were some neat lagoons that were quite deep - more than 6 feet, although I didn’t check lest I get my hair wet.
The way back seemed to go a lot quicker, although the steep hill we went down was now quite a workout to get back up. We were rewarded for our hard work with a classic Nicaraguan downpour, which was quite refreshing after being out in the sun all day. We got back without any added adventure and were able to have our evening free.
Today we went to Somoto Canyon for some touristy fun. This was our first chance to take a local bus, which is quite different from the express bus we took from Managua. The bus to Somoto was a converted school bus, which basically means that they took an American school bus, slaped some bars on the top and sides, and incorporated a speaker system so that they can jam to their tunes, which sound surprisingly like 90’s pop – kind of a Latino Billy Joel. The bus attendants are quite interesting as well. They man the front and back doors to make sure everyone pays, and let the bus driver know when it is time to get going. The interesting part is that once everyone is on board, or at least partially on board, they whistle and then run to catch the moving bus, grab one of the handy bars and pull themselves up. It looked like a pretty fun job, plus they get cheat the customers out of a few bucks.
When we got to Somoto, our group, which consisted of Tony, Sharelle, Nadia, Craig, Roberto, Karen, Edwin, C.J. and me, wandered around for a little to pick up some lunch and refregerios before taking a taxi to the Canyon. The taxi was actually a pretty sweet deal; since we wanted a ride there and back, we didn’t have to pay until he picked us up at the end of the day. This was all included in our course dues though, so we let Karen handle the logistics of it… I think she may have struck a deal.
After he dropped us off we hiked down a pretty steep road to the mouth of the canyon. Then we crossed a few streams by stepping every so carefully on the river rocks, saw a man bathing himself in the river, and passed some cattle that appeared to be unaccompanied. We reached a small covering where there were a few ladies selling snacks and a pathetic looking dog begging for treats. From that point we took a couple little row boats down the river to where we could start our rock climbing hike. I wasn’t really sure why we were trying so hard to get over these rocks, because we were already pretty deep into the canyon, but we trekked on, and found a nice high rock where we could hang out on for a while. Karen and Edwin waded in the river and somehow convinced Nadia and me to join in. It was really fun though, there were some neat lagoons that were quite deep - more than 6 feet, although I didn’t check lest I get my hair wet.
The way back seemed to go a lot quicker, although the steep hill we went down was now quite a workout to get back up. We were rewarded for our hard work with a classic Nicaraguan downpour, which was quite refreshing after being out in the sun all day. We got back without any added adventure and were able to have our evening free.
Our Family
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Our host parents Marcio and Alejandra are both incredibly sweet and they are always smiling. They have three children, Marcel Antonio (13), Jeni (12), and Harold (10). They are all incredibly loving and really go out of their way to make us feel welcome. Alejandra is a great cook, and Susan said she is the most adverturous of the moms in the village. We have been very satisfied so far with the assortment of ways she serves the eggs, beans, fried bananas, fruit juice, rice, and tortillas. Pretty much every meal contains those six things, but they are all very different and tastey. She also gets quite a kick out of our lack of Spanish skills, and C.J.’s humorous antics. Marcio takes really good care of us as well. He is our main man for getting rid of critters - always with a smile on his face and a very sweet disposition. He is also a very talented carpenter and the whole house is basically and extension of his workshop. You can see the fine doors and windows he makes on our cute little casa.
The children are unbelievably adorable and well behaved. When Jeny and Marcel helped us carry our bags home from Marco’s the first night, Marcel took two trips back and forth on his bike AND carried one of the heaviest bags up the hill on his back. And of course he smiled the whole time, showing off his adorable dimples. Jeni helps out her mom a ton around the house, especially with the laundry. When she saw me struggling with ours, she offered her services, but I’m not sure I’m ready to give up my personal items to be hand washed by someone else. Susan says I’ll break down eventually, because it is a lot of hard work. Jeni also keeps us stalked with water for “showering”. She carried two five gallon buckets up the hill on her head yesterday! She didn’t even give us a chance to do it ourselves. We felt kind of bad having a 12 year old girl carry our water for us, but she is eager to please. Little Harold, who’s name we didn’t know for our first three or so days is also adorable, but the shyest of the children, who are all pretty shy. C.J. taught them Yatzee! last night, which gave us a chance to interact with them a little more. They caught on really fast and we all had a lot of fun.
Our host parents Marcio and Alejandra are both incredibly sweet and they are always smiling. They have three children, Marcel Antonio (13), Jeni (12), and Harold (10). They are all incredibly loving and really go out of their way to make us feel welcome. Alejandra is a great cook, and Susan said she is the most adverturous of the moms in the village. We have been very satisfied so far with the assortment of ways she serves the eggs, beans, fried bananas, fruit juice, rice, and tortillas. Pretty much every meal contains those six things, but they are all very different and tastey. She also gets quite a kick out of our lack of Spanish skills, and C.J.’s humorous antics. Marcio takes really good care of us as well. He is our main man for getting rid of critters - always with a smile on his face and a very sweet disposition. He is also a very talented carpenter and the whole house is basically and extension of his workshop. You can see the fine doors and windows he makes on our cute little casa.
The children are unbelievably adorable and well behaved. When Jeny and Marcel helped us carry our bags home from Marco’s the first night, Marcel took two trips back and forth on his bike AND carried one of the heaviest bags up the hill on his back. And of course he smiled the whole time, showing off his adorable dimples. Jeni helps out her mom a ton around the house, especially with the laundry. When she saw me struggling with ours, she offered her services, but I’m not sure I’m ready to give up my personal items to be hand washed by someone else. Susan says I’ll break down eventually, because it is a lot of hard work. Jeni also keeps us stalked with water for “showering”. She carried two five gallon buckets up the hill on her head yesterday! She didn’t even give us a chance to do it ourselves. We felt kind of bad having a 12 year old girl carry our water for us, but she is eager to please. Little Harold, who’s name we didn’t know for our first three or so days is also adorable, but the shyest of the children, who are all pretty shy. C.J. taught them Yatzee! last night, which gave us a chance to interact with them a little more. They caught on really fast and we all had a lot of fun.
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.
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.
Just Call me C-Yeh
So the question was what the heck should I have everyone call me while I am here in Nicaragua. I already knew that it was hard for them to pronounce the hard J like in my name and Jenny’s name. I asked around and figured that I could try being Cris instead of C.J. This worked for about 2 hours. Most of the people around were already introduced to me as C.J. and most of them were other volunteers or bilingual people who could already say “J”. So I just ended up confusing everyone and besides Jenny was weirded about by it because she isn’t used to me being Cris at all. Next I thought about Cristobal, but apparently, as I learned from others around, the only Hispanic person to ever be called Cristobal was actually Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus as we know him). I could’ve been Juan but I just doesn’t feel right, I have never been a John my whole life and besides Juan is just too common in Nica. When Jenny and I met our host family we found out that their 12 year old daughter is name Jenny also! This brought me to the realization that if they can name their daughter Jennifer, then why can’t my Jenny just stick with “Jenny” and why can I just stick with C.J.? Well, it turns out that my original gut feeling was right, no one here can pronounce the hard J. Now I know what it feels like for all the foreigners in the States do when they get their names permanently butchered and “Americanized”. But in the end I’d rather be good ol’ C-Yeh than any thing else. Besides, I think its kinda cute that all the Nicas try so hard but it still comes out as “Yeh”.
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