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.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Beans and Rice
It turns out that despite what the books and volunteer materials say we don’t actually just eat rice and beans here. We actually get to eat a pretty good variety of foods. I have found that as a middle class American with all that processed food, I wasn’t eating as good as our Nicaraguan host family who live off of about $150 a month. It is amazing how mystically fresh watermelon is on the table for breakfast every morning, fresh avocado every day, chicken 4 times a week, unlimited beans, 60 eggs a week (I don’t eat them all myself), fresh off the vine fruit juices, and the best darn fried plantains I’ve ever had; and they all come from the ¾ acre piece of land the seven of us are living on. Even more amazing than that is Marcio is a carpenter and Alejandra has 3 children to take care of and is involved in just about every organization in the community, so they aren’t even farmers! But the variety doesn’t stop there, they have offered us mango, papaya, (which I don’t really eat), tomales, french fries, and tomatoes and cucumbers are a staple along with potatoes and corn tortillas. We get to eat a pretty good amount of foods other than beans and rice but it is definitely a carb loaded diet. Sometimes I have pasta, refried beans, crunchy homemade tortilla chips, and potatoes for breakfast. Needless to say, we are still taking our vitamins every morning—so don’t worry Mom. The funny thing is that amongst all the variety that we are offered I can honestly say that one of my favorite things is the signature beans and rice dish called Gallo Pinto, and we get to have it daily.
Defining our Roles
For the past two weeks (since the solar culture course ended) C.J. and I have been assisting with the construction of solar cookers with the ladies from Sabana Grande. The mayor of Esteli ordered 22 cookers, and the women have been working every day to get them finished. They are all done now, and are awaiting transport to their new owners. In the future, the cookers are expected to be a major product of the Solar Women, but they definitely have some problems to work through first.
On Thursdays, we also help out with construction of the workshop at the Solar Women´s Center. In the future, the Women´s Center will have a store, a restaurant, and other ecotourism attractions, but the workshop is where they will make their solar ovens, dryers, and other products. The workshop is made of traditional Nicaraguan Adobe and is a very open, free flowing space. There is a lot more work to be done there, so all of the volunteers have been helping out.
After several business meeting this week, Susan and I have started to define my role for the upcoming year. For the most part I am going to help with the management of the Women´s Center workshop construction. Right now, they are having trouble keeping the plans, budgets, and schedules accurate and aligned. So, I´ll be able to help out, and teach the current PM some of my management and tracking techniques. Hopefully we´ll get it all organized and the construction will be completed the way we need and want it - on time and under budget (ha!).
On Thursdays, we also help out with construction of the workshop at the Solar Women´s Center. In the future, the Women´s Center will have a store, a restaurant, and other ecotourism attractions, but the workshop is where they will make their solar ovens, dryers, and other products. The workshop is made of traditional Nicaraguan Adobe and is a very open, free flowing space. There is a lot more work to be done there, so all of the volunteers have been helping out.
After several business meeting this week, Susan and I have started to define my role for the upcoming year. For the most part I am going to help with the management of the Women´s Center workshop construction. Right now, they are having trouble keeping the plans, budgets, and schedules accurate and aligned. So, I´ll be able to help out, and teach the current PM some of my management and tracking techniques. Hopefully we´ll get it all organized and the construction will be completed the way we need and want it - on time and under budget (ha!).
Making a Home
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.
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.
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.
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