Monkey Men

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Hi. this is mark. I hope this message finds you all in good spirits.
Today, during spanish class, our teacher told us that in the north of nicaragua there are around 7 people that change into monkeys at night in order to steal things and rape women. She was totally serious. Yesterday, we saw some monkeys in the forest near the school when we were walking with her and she told us she was scared of them. Today she concluded her story with, " y esta es la razon no me gustan los monos". Because I only can pick up about 85% of what she is saying, it was a really weird. I had to ask a few times what she was saying.

She said that these hombres invoke the devil and ask him to change them into monkeys...this is how it happens. She said that if they like a little girl, they will turn into a monkey and climb through the roof and make sex with them.

She says that her sister in law has been raped by a monkey man and that she had been told by a person that waited up at night to catch robbers that had been repeatedly breaking into her home that when the robbers came, they turned out to be monkeys. She beat the monkeys with a stick and the monkeys ran away. Apparently the next day or soon thereafter that person saw a man in the town with bruises that looked as if they had been beaten, at which point they concluded that the person had invoked the devil to be changed into a monkey toward the end of more easily entering homes for raping and pillaging.

Later I read on the wall on alist of 40 things nicaraguans believe..." Nicaraguans are superstitious and believe in the devil".


As you can imagine, it is a really different here than what we are used to.

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