Christmas in Guisquiliapa

Merry late Christmas everyone! Well, this past week marked my first Christmas and birthday away from home, and I'm happy to say that I couldn't have asked for anything more. I spent the week back in my training town with my host family, and loved every single second of it (as expected.)

On the 24th, we spent the entire day making nacatamales, a traditional Christmas food here. Basically, in part of a banana leaf, we put ground corn (masa), rice, seasoned pork (fresh from the newly killed Christmas pig) fresh cut veggies, potatoes, and raisins. Then the banana leaf got folded neatly, tied shut around it's contents, and thrown into a giant vat over the fire to boil for the rest of the day. We made about 230 of them! This means that I woke up at 6 to go to the market with my host sister to buy the veggies. By 9am I had already peeled a mountain of potatoes, and chopped up tons of onions, peppers, and tomatoes all with a knife the size of my forearm. Next, I moved on to tearing banana leaves as the women in my family started putting together all the nacatamales. It was so much fun!

Ooops, I forgot to mention that the night before, they killed the pig they had been feeding for Christmas. Therefore, every single part it was cleaned, chopped and prepared the night before – some parts for the nacatamales (delicioso), others for the chicharron (fried skin and intestines, mmm), others for the consumido (combination of the innards and brains?? I don't even know what was in that, but BLECK!)

That night, we stayed up until midnight, just hanging out with family and whatever friends happened to stop by the house. I also got invited to the celebration at Katie's host grandma's house, which was equally “alegre.” 

Back at home, at midnight, it all began. There were tons of fireworks in the street (many of which were being set off out front by my host brothers), and we placed the baby Jesus into the manger scene they already had set up. People from all over town came to sing to the baby Jesus, and on their way out, they received a delicious nacatamal! After all the craziness, my entire family sang “las mañanitas” (the traditional birthday song) to me! It was the best!

Then on the 25th, we headed out to where my family's farm is to attend another Purisima (celebration of Mary.) Afterwards, when we got home, my host sister-in-law had already begun cooking my birthday dinner. They invited Jessi and Katie over and the best part was that whole family sat together at the table to eat for my birthday! I lived there for 3 months and had NEVER seen them all sit together to eat. It was so so special, and the food was amazing!! They even bought me a cake and ice cream and they all had gifts for me! They sang again before the cake too. It was the perfect birthday!

Oh and to top it all off? There was a DJed party in the town that night, so Katie and I headed out to dance with our host brothers/friends all night. Sure I woke up with a terrible cough from all the dirt we kicked up while dancing, but it was way worth it. 

Thanks so much to those of you who called me on Christmas and for my birthday! It was awesome getting to talk to everyone and see that I wasn't completely forgotten about on Christmas. Can't wait to come home and celebrate with everyone next year! Love and miss my fam <3

I Get Around

I've been here for just about four months now, and it occurred to me yesterday, while sitting on the bus in the station buying a plastic baggie of cacao fresco (an awesome drink in a bag – that I've finally figured out how to drink through the little hole you have to bite in the corner) that back home in the States, it is not a normal occurrence to purchase such a treat from a lady who walked onto the bus with her basin of homemade drinks on her head. Entonces (therefore), I decided I should probably share some stories about what it's like to travel city-to-city and campo-to-campo here in Nicaragua.

Taxis: We'll start off small by discussing the taxis that are available in pretty much any town that's big enough to have at least a few paved streets. Basically, picture the broke down hoopty you drove in high school...got the picture in your head?...now, add to that at least one window that doesn't open, one that doesn't close, a door that's tied shut with twine, an empty gas tank, and a door that you can only open from the outside. Oh, and a cracked windshield if you're feeling particularly rickety today.  And if your car in high school happened to be one of those huge old boats, then you'll have to adjust your thinking to something more along the lines of Civic or Corola sizes. Now, throw in a few rosary beads and bumper stickers about Jesus being your guide, and you've got the typical Nicaraguan taxi!  Of course the picture is not complete until you factor in how many stops you'll make on the side of the road to pack in just a few more people. You've got to arrive at your destination with at least two people in the front passanger seat - which is tricky when the driver is driving stick - and at least four in the back. The upside? The driver will usually play whatever kind of music you want, and you'll rarely be charged more than a US dollar to get where you need to be (unless of course you're in Managua where they charge you an arm and a leg). It's also a really great way to meet people and laugh about the complete lack of personal space between the two of you!

Expreso Buses: There are two types of buses here in Nicaragua. Expressos are the ones that supposedly don't make stops between city destinations (although they are nice enough to drop people off at different parts of the main road – which is perfect for me considering my town´s location.) Generally, these expressos are “astro-vans” or mini-buses, the ones that have a sliding side door with 3 or 4 rows of bench seating on the driver's side and a single seat in each row on the passenger side. You know, the church vans. We'll say the ones with four rows are meant to accommodate 18 people plus the driver. Here though, you can expect at least 25-30 including the person that collects the money and hangs out the window calling out the bus's destination for those who are walking and might be looking to squeeze into an already packed bus. Again, these little buses are great for meeting people, and since I've been lucky enough to not have to stand hunched over in the isle thus far, I consider them cozy. It's also such a team-building activity when it breaks down and everyone has to get out and push! (Haha that only happened to me once, but I've seen it multiple times. Don't worry, the guys here are super chivalrous and never let us ladies get our hands dirty haha.)

Rutiero Buses: These are converted school buses that make stops all along the way between cities, which makes for a long yet interesting trip. The buses are all super decorated and newly equipped with bars along the ceiling to hold onto, because of course there will always be people standing in the isles for the duration of the trip. I have had the pleasure of standing for more than two hours on the way back from Managua, but I happened to be standing between two extremely beautiful guys the whole way, so I sucked it up haha. Most rutieros have baggage racks put in above the seats, and when they don't the people in the seats always kindly offer to hold the bags of whoever happens to be stuck standing in the isles. Oh my and how could I forget?! The roof racks! While fixing up the buses, they always add a giant roof rack that can be accessed by the ladders built onto the sides of the bus. Now the best part of that is that when it's time for you “bajar,” or to get off at your stop, the guy that rides on top with the stuff gets your bag down for you while the bus is still rolling! (Somehow he remembers who's getting off where and which bags they will need.) He then helps you off because the bus never comes to a complete stop, and after wishing you a good day, he runs alongside the still moving bus and climbs back up to the roof.

Ahh yes, the rutiero. Here we are, back where I started, sitting on a converted school bus in the station in Rivas, ready to head out to the beach with one of my school directors. We decided to take the rutiero because it´s cheaper and wayyy more fun! In the station, which is located right in the middle of the mercado, all the people selling things are free to walk onto the parked buses and sell to the people waiting for the bus to leave. This is PERFECT if one is heading out to the beach for the day and needs some “comida” to stuff in her backpack for the day! I for example, bought that awesome fresco, as well as homemade cookie/pastry things, and two oranges. What could I have bought though? Earrings, flashlights, batteries, watches, razors, medicine/vitamins, fried plantains with salad and chicken (tajadas - in a baggie of course), candy, bananas, apples, water, chips, tortillas...the list goes on and on! I couldn't believe how many options there were! And we were only parked for about 20 minutes before leaving! That's the bonus of leaving from a bus station in the city as opposed to a bus stop or entrance to a town. 

I hope that none of this sounded sarcastic or cynical because I have to say that the bus rides are half the fun of traveling here, and I actually don't mind them at all! And don't worry, if you come to visit me, I'll accompany you on any bus ride you might have to take.

PS The last rutiero I was on had more than 108 people on it, based on my calculations of at least 5 people sitting in each of the 12 rows, and 4 people standing in the isle between each pair of seats. There's a very good chance this is an underestimate.

Scrub Scrub Scrub, Rinse!

There are few things more satisfying than watching a stubborn grass stain disappear from your jeans as you hand wash them out in the sunshine with a cool breeze blowing and tropical birds chirping in the background. Hahaha I realize that sounds hilarious to those of you who know me and know how much I despise any kind of domestic labor, but I really mean it! I actually find it relaxing to spend an hour hand washing my clothes here! It's an hour when I'm visibly occupied, and therefore don't need to justify where or when or why I'm going to be doing something. Depending on the hour, I either get to listen to the birds playing in the trees, or the neighbors blasting their reggaeton, or to the kids playing baseball in the street, but sometimes I just tune everything out and let my mind wander.

After my first one or two times hand washing, I started to get the hang of it thanks to my host sisters patience, even if they did laugh at me as they taught me. I didn't really start to like it though, until recently. Now, I continually impress myself with my ability to really get things clean. It's true what all the women here say, hand washing really does get your clothes cleaner than using a washing machine!

For those of you who are having trouble imagining what it's like to hand wash clothes in an outdoor lavandera (clothes/dishes washing contraption) I will try my best to explain it for you. Here's a picture of the one in my new host house, which is in my back porch area.

Generally, the right side is used to wash dishes, and the left side is used as a drying rack, as shown in the picture. In order to do laundry therefore, one must simply remove the dry dishes, and voila! a space for washing clothes! The water is (obviously) stored in the pila, or sink basin in the middle, and in order to use it, one must use the tupperware bowl to scoop and pour over the dishes or clothes. It then drains out of the drain in the corner, unless one is washing clothes and therefore plugs the drain with either a corncob or an old sock, depending on who's house you're at. For soap, there are a variety of options, but my families have both used powder detergent combined with bar soap, for those harder to beat stains. Then it's just scrub, scrub, scrub and rinse! Oh and then hang your clothes on the barbed wire in the backyard of course.

Side note: It's important to note that laundry is only enjoyable for me now because it's dry season. I remember despising it during rainy season because nothing ever dried, and it just wasn't fun spending an hour outside dealing with suds and water when it was rainy and miserable. There are still plenty more months left in dry season though, so I plan to enjoy it while it lasts!

What To Do When There´s Nothing To Do

When was the last time you had nothing to do? I'm not talking about an entire day with nothing to do, because we all know those are hard to come by, especially during the holiday season; but I mean, when was the last time you had a half hour truly to yourself? How did you spend it? You're obviously spending a moment of your free time reading this blog right now and will surely spend part of it on facebook or checking emails, but what do you do when you're not online? When there aren't any people around to socialize with, and there is really nothing that you have to be doing, what do you do? Is there ever a time when you don't automatically reach for something to distract yourself? When was the last time there was no ipod/internet/TV/book/sudoku/phone to turn to? What did you do then? Cook? Go for a run? Crochet? Are these all just distractions too? Not to get all deep on you, but when was the last time you just sat in silence with your thoughts? Where did they take you? It's probably hard to answer that because we are all constantly distracting ourselves with other “duties” or pastimes or other people's problems and we so rarely, if ever, really just stop. I've privately journaled about this before – about how we never allow ourselves time to analyze our lives, our hopes, our dreams, what we want to become, where we want to go, who we want to be – because we're always reaching for the next distraction. That was one of the many journal entries that led me to finally finish my Peace Corps application among other things.

I'm by no means on my way to saying that I've overcome this need to be constantly occupied here in Nicaragua. Don't let yourselves believe that just because I'm living in a developing country, that there aren't just as many distractions here. When I have downtime, which I've had a lot more of lately now that I'm out of training, I have plenty of ways to spend it. I can read, listen to music, practice in my Spanish workbook, prepare recycled materials projects, blog, go to the cyber, watch TV, plan out my weekly schedule...

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this, but it occurred to me this morning that I never quite know what to do with myself during those awkward moments in between distractions. It might just be because I'm not the most laid back person in the world, but I always feel like I need to at least look occupied when I'm doing nothing in someone else's house. Right now for example, my host father and brother are painting the house, a job that they won't let me help with, and my host mom is doing paperwork in her room. I therefore have turned to my laptop to make it seem as though I too have something I need to be doing. I've already done my laundry for the week, made about 5 different kinds of friendship bracelets as examples for my youth group kids, and planned out my next English class, which I won't be teaching until Tuesday. So, after my last bracelet and before typing this blog, I walked out of my room to see what everyone else was up to (even though I already knew), so as to not seem antisocial. In doing so, I proceeded to make awkward eye contact/exchange awkward smiles and small talk for about 3 minutes then hurried back to my room.

I think my original point in writing this was to address how hard it is to make myself go out and do things, when there is in fact nothing that I have to do. (It's summer vacation here.) It's actually really hard to walk around town without a purpose, which therefore makes it difficult to meet new people. If I don't have someone to walk around with, I'm generally too shy to just wander. I'm just not used to doing things without having a clear cut reason to do them. Sit in the park alone just so that I'm seen, hoping that some more outgoing people will come up and talk to the gringa? That seems so awkward! Maybe I'm just an awkward person? Ugh, I don't know.

I realize this blog jumped around like crazy and isn't very coherent. Sorry about that; I really did start out with what seemed like concrete thoughts worth sharing. I wish someone would just come invite me somewhere for the day so I'd have a reason to be out and about!

***OK NO LIE...I SWEAR to you all that not even ten minutes after writing this, one of my 21 year old host cousins came over and asked me why I wasn't at the fair in the park! (I responded that it was obviously because no one told me about it...ughhh I hate that my host mom never feels the need to tell me about anything going on in town.) So then I happily followed her there and bought some organic compost for the garden I have yet to start (maybe next week), ate some AMAZING fair food and drank some super refreshing cacao frescos...mmm!! All to the tune of a sweet Marimba band of course!
Maybe I really should just force myself to wander around at least once a day to make sure I'm not missing out on stuff like that. It's really way harder than it sounds though.

La Griteria – Dec 7th, La Purisima

December 7th here in Nicaragua is day filled with excitement and fun for those who practice the Catholic Religion, which is the majority of the population. At 6pm, the celebrations begin and they go up until midnight of the 8th, the day of the Immaculate Conception, a national holiday here in Nicaragua, which means no one works and everyone gets to rest from the prior night's celebrations (aka I get to blog on my laptop, but not post it because the cyber is closed).

Living in Belen is great because from what I've heard from other volunteers, our celebrations here were slightly more exciting than in the smaller villages. I guess I'll start by explaining what exactly goes on the night of the 7th. If I were to cheapen it and compare it to American celebrations, I'd say it's an awesome combination of Christmas Caroling and Trick-or-treating, followed up by 4th of July Fireworks. Basically, there are a bunch of houses that have altars for the Virgin Mary, or la Virgin (pronounced beer-hin) Maria, out front and the rest of the people in the community walk from house to house in groups and wait in line to sing to Mary. After singing, they get a treat and then move on to the next house.

Luckily, I got to participate in the hosting activities because the grandmother of my host family always hosts “La Griteria” at her house. This allowed me to see basically everyone in the community, without requiring me to walk and sing all night! The way it works is those in town who feel they want to “host” the celebrations put a statue of Maria outside their front doors. All of the altars I saw here in Belen were decorated beautifully with flowering branches of the national tree and different kinds of lights and other adornments. These families then prepare something to give to the people that will come to sing to their Mary. This means that we spent four or more hours combined on the 6th and 7th filling goody bags – and when I say goody bags, I mean the biggest variety of goody-filled-baggies I've ever seen. Some were just filled with cookies and candies, but others had amazingly cooked rice, or homemade frescos (I know I still owe you all a blog on frescos), fruit cocktail, whole bananas, corn on the cob, and even some with a shirt, or skirt, or little stuffed animal! It was so much fun! Although I must note that not every family that hosts has the means to provide such a wide array of goodies, it seems to me that this is a day for those who “have” to give to those who “have-not.” It was really a beautiful thing.

So at 6pm on the 7th, people all over the town set off their firecrackers (the ones that only make noise) and the celebrations began! Immediately a line started to form at the house I was at, and I, along with three of the other cousins in the family, was assigned the duty of handing out goodies to the singers. It was so fun to hear all the different songs, and by the end of the night, I basically knew them all since it went for 6 hours! Luckily, my host family has friends that play in an awesome Marimba band with a guitar, two cool kinds of drums, and an awesome wooden xylophone thing (I know that was a horrible description, but I'm not really an instrument person), so for about 4 of those hours, the singing was drowned out by some great Latin/tropical music that gave us and the people in line something to dance to.

At around 11:30pm, we ran out of goodies to give out, and the people started congregating up the block around a float with another Mary on it. Then, at midnight, the mini parade to the church started. Once we got there, there was an awesome fireworks display and we all made our way back to our houses to clean up and turn in for the night. The band even stayed and played for us while we cleaned up!

I have to say it was a pretty cool holiday, and everyone had a really great time. Now I'm down to two weeks until I can report on Christmas in Nicaragua, which I will be celebrating in my much smaller training town with my training family! Merry December everyone!

New Adventures Down Every Dirt Road!

Well, it's been just about two weeks here, and I'm finally starting to adjust to and almost like my site. The first week was really hard, what with having to adjust to a completely new house all over again, with new family members and new personalities. Then of course there was the fact that I'm the first volunteer to live here for the past five years, so we'll just say I get audibly noticed everywhere I go. Before getting placed, I thought this “stand out factor” would make my job much easier, and I'm sure it will eventually, but right now it just makes it impossible to walk down the street without bracing myself for stares and comments (even though most of them are friendly and harmless.) On top of all of that, my site is much different than my training town. My training town was a tiny 3 block by 3 block community made up of mostly farming families. There were only two buses and a handful of taxis in and out, and there wasn't even a secondary school. My new site however, is huge compared to there. I live in the “centro urbana” which means I have to walk pretty far to find the farming families with kids that will be willing to get dirty with me in my gardens. There's a Mayor's Office, a police station, two secondary schools and two primary schools, a huge church, a health center, a bunch of little commedors (smaller than restaurants, but places to eat) and even bars! Not to mention more buses and taxis than I've been able to keep track of thus far. Many families in the centro have motorcycles and some even own cars. There are still obviously tons of bicycles, and even a few horse or cow drawn carts, but far fewer than in Guisquiliapa.

I think some of my problem the first week was that I was resenting Belen for being so different than the other home I had come to love so much, but now that I'm adjusting and getting to meet some more people, I like it more and more everyday. There are tons of little towns on the outskirts of the centro that I've recently found out about. These “comarcas” have tons of awesome adventures to offer, such as rivers to swim in and mountains to climb! Yesterday for example, one of the professoras from one of my schools called me up to invite me over for lunch at her house. She came to my house to get me beforehand and told me to pack something to swim in because we were going to head to the river after lunch! So, we did just that. After the biggest bowl of soup I've ever had, she and I and two other guys from her part of town headed out to the river with her adorable five year old son. We walked a few kilometers out of the centro and followed a very hilly dirt road all the way to the river. It was just as beautiful as the other river I blogged about, but nowhere near as peaceful lol. There were a bunch of boys playing in the part that we arrived at, so we went a little farther until we found an awesome place to swim under a little waterfall! It was a perfect swimming hole (and yes, to those of you PCVs reading this, I realize I risked getting leptospirosis by swimming in a river that I saw a horse chilling in. I even went under! I was living on the edge haha).

After swimming for hours (with the younger boys that followed us from the other part of the river because there was “una gringa en el rio!!!”), we headed back to town. On the way though, we decided to take a detour because one of the guys said there was a sight that I just had to see. So in flip flops, wet shorts, and all – not great hiking attire, but who cares? – we hiked up a huge knoll (this is the direct translation of “loma” which is what we scaled.) It was super steep and covered in tall grasses and awesome wild flowers (some with thorns), but the view at the top was worth every single cut and scrape. From the top we could see all the way to Ometepe, the volcanic island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua that will get it's own blog, and all the way to Mombacho, the volcano in Granada. In the other direction, we could see the church in the middle of Belen, and all the way to the city of Rivas. It was gorgeous! AND the sun was setting! All in all, it was the perfect day...lunch with someone that reached out to me, swimming under a waterfall, hiking a (small) mountain, returning home that good kind of tired with Professora Francis who insisted that I stay for dinner as well.

A bonus? I had my first youth group meeting today and 12 kids showed up! They were great and are so enthusiastic that we have a whole schedule mapped out for their summer vacation.

Yeah, it's going to be a great two years.

A Breath Of Fresh Air

“Y que significa 'Mata de Cana?'”
“Es donde yo vivo! Quiere ir a mi casa?”
Translation for Tante:
“And what does 'Mata de Cana' mean?”
"It's where I live! Want to come to my house?”

Just when I thought I'd never meet anyone here in my new town, a fourteen year old student, Dayana, (who I was sure was at least 17) invited me out to her town to meet her family and get to know the area! I was so excited that someone reached out to me, especially after realizing my counterpart was not going to be so helpful in terms of introducing me to people in town. =/

So, after her last day of Saturday class (she works during the week, and therefore can't go to school everyday), we got on the bus together and headed out to her part of town.

The Bus: There are two types of buses here in Nicaragua, and they're definitely worth dedicating an entire blog to, but in the mean time, we'll just say that the bus I was on was an old school bus from the US, and it was extremely crowded. We were on it for an hour passing through tons of little towns, or “comarcas,” on the outskirts of my bigger “centro urbana.” It was so gorgeous passing through the hills and farms, that I didn't even notice when we started to cross the river. This may sound perfectly normal, a bus crossing a river, but I should probably mention that there was no bridge! We literally drove through the shallow part of the river - which was running pretty forcefully - in a school bus! Dayana, told me that during the rainy season, it's completely impassible, which means they can't get to school, or work, or anywhere aside from the “pulperia,” a corner store that's run out of someone's house. BUT, they're currently building a bridge, and since rainy season has just ended, they'll have plenty of time to finish it! =D

Anyway, once we made it to her house – yes the bus dropped us in front of her house on the only dirt road in and out of the town – we walked up to the front porch and she introduced me to her mother, grandmother, and uncle (none of whom had any forewarning that a random gringa was going to show up at their doorstep since there's no cell phone service there.) They were so welcoming and immediately pulled up a chair for me. Turns out though, Dayana had other plans. We only had an hour before I had to catch the bus back, so we hurried off to see the river. A short walk from her house was one of the most tranquil and beautiful places I've ever seen. We got to the river and found her two cousins on their way back from swimming in the deeper part. They were excited to show me where the best spots were, and I was happy to follow them. The icing on the cake?? There were MONKEYS playing in the trees right above our heads! They were literally swinging from tree to tree on vines like in the movies! I was able to get a few good pictures, but was trying not to ruin the moment. It was so so awesome!

After hanging out by the river for a little bit, we went back to her house where she insisted on making me an orange fresco. Ahh frescos...there will be a seperate blog about those too...but for right now, we'll say they're amazing drinks made from whatever fresh fruit happens to be around, water, and sugar. So I helped her get the water from the well with a bucket, and gratefully (yet nervously) drank the amazing fresco she made me. So far so good on the lack of side effects from drinking possibly not so sanitary water lol.

All in all, I'd say it was by far the best day I've had in site, and it ranked among the highest I've had here in Nicaragua. It was such a simple, carefree, relaxed day, and it came at just the right time for me.

Random aside: Watching Polar Express in Spanish tonight made me literally ache for home and for the holidays. Somebody send me some Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, and snow!
NEW ADDRESS!!
Krista Blasch
AP #129
Rivas, Rivas
Correos de Nicaragua
Nicaragua, Central America