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Published: September 12th 2008
wrote this on my laptop at the house and saved on usb to paste here in the internet. ahhh no internet everrrrr!!!!
Monday 8 sept
Wow. Okay, haven’t written since Managua and, like, so much has happened. This is gonna be a play-by-play of the last few days….
We left Managua, the capital, on Saturday morning around 8am. Half of the PCT’s went to communities near Masaya, to the south, and the other half of us, the AG group, went a couple of hours north to communities near Esteli.
We drove along the PanAmerican Hwy, which stretches from - predictably - Panama to the USA. Along the way our bus got a flat tire, so that was fun. About 20 of us waiting on the side of the PanAm. Lots of honks. Don’t think they’re used to such large groups of gringos in this part of the country.
Nicaragua is split into three regions. On the western side are the major cities of Leon, Managua, and Granada. The western piece is part of the Pacific lowlands. There it’s generally hot and dry. The Pacific lowlands are bordered by several volcanoes, many of which are still active and all of which can be climbed.
On the eastern half are the Caribbean lowlands. This comprises about 50%!o(MISSING)f the total land of Nica, but only holds about 10%!o(MISSING)f the population. The eastern lowlands are basically swampland and pine forests. A couple of cities, including Bluefields at the Rio San Juan delta, dot the Miskito coast. The eastern shoreline is populated by creoles who are mostly black and who hail from the islands.
The 3rd part is, in my opinion, the best part of Nica, the Central Highlands… which happens to be where I’m living.
Although I live just off the PanAm Hwy, it is waaaay the countryside, or, en espanol, el campo.
I live near 5 other PST’s, and we are two groups of three. I live nearest to Iowa, and VirginiaTech. Iowa studied engineering, lived on a farm, and his family raised hogs. VirginiaTech studied agriculture at - guess where? VirginiaTech and comes from rural VA. So, with these two guys, we are pretty at home here in the campo of Nicaragua. Yay Peace Corps.
I live with a wonderful family, the mother’s name is Ramona, or more familiarly, as Moncha. M’s house… how to describe. It’s fairly large. All made of cement with a tin roof. But there is a porch, a large living room, two large bedrooms off the living room, a large kitchen, and, attached outside, my room.
My room is BY FAR the largest room of any of the other PCT’s. They all have rooms about as big as Harry’s room in the cupboard under the stairs on Privet drive. Mi cuarto, though, is about the size of my room at home in MO. There’s a double bed - with a real mattress! a dresser/cabinet thing, with a full mirror! a desk, and a bedside table. I have the best, fo sho.
You’ll notice I didn’t mention, oh, the bathroom, or the laundry… yeah. None of that. For the bathroom there’s an out house, or a letrine. Now, as far as outhouses go, this one is really good. It’s made of tin, not wood, and the seat itself is cement but very clean. The other letrines of the family’s nearby are… um, scary. Made of wood, which means more bugs… no gap below the walls, which means no air and more stink. Actually, the letrine really doesn’t smell. Ours doesn’t, anyway.
The shower situation is also fun. Down the hill, below the house, there’s a shower room… There’s a cistern of water inside a small house that’s about twice the size of the letrine. There’s a large bucket of water, too, and a small bowl. You dip water out of the big bucket with the bowl and pour it over you. Lather yourself up, and rinse one small bucket at a time. Afterward, you fill up the big bucket with more water from the cistern.
Here in the highlands it gets chilly at night. I usually use two blankets. Oh, and Nica houses have gaps between the roof and the walls. There’s a large overhang and mesh wire between the gap, but there is air moving through all the houses and rooms all the time, partly because they use a wood fire stove in the kitchen. So it gets chilly here in the mountains. However, by the time I get up - usually around 6 a.m., my bucket shower feels great. I can literally see the steam rising off my body as I rinse off.
Every morning Iowa, VirginiaTech, and I have Spanish class from 8am-noon. Four hours. Three students. One professora. We have class at my house this week, out on the porch. Next week at another’s house, and next at the other’s. Then, after those three weeks, we get a new professora. Each afternoon we have assignments. For instance, this afternoon we had to walk all around our community and make a map of the area. Now, “walk around” means take every cow path, every ravine “road”, and also walk along the PanAm, and make a map of our small area, stopping, of course on everyone’s porches for a few minutes so the profe can chat with the woman of the house. Good times.
On most Wed and Fri we all go to the local Agricultural Tech School where we are working with the Nicaraguan students on creating a commercialization project. Today we went out to the school - after walking from 1pm - 4pm mapmaking, and tried to communicate with our new groups. The students and us PCTs are about the same age, so it was interesting with our very limited Spanish.
Wow. Okay. What else.
At my house there are a host of people in and out all the time. Moncha is about 50 years old and her husband about 60? Their sons and daughters live in houses nearby and there is a constant parade of kids and husbands and uncles and who-knows-whom.
There is definitely a 17 year old boy, Isaac, who plays video games all day. Hmm reminds me of another 17 year old I know 😉 He was playing Guitar Hero tonight, Ben. Isaac also studied in the States for a year and speaks English really well. Xilonem is a 12 year old granddaughter. She’s shy. So am I. So we sit and look at each other a lot. But she’s super cute and a big help around the house. There’s a 2 year old loco boy named Metzel who is my amorcito, or small love. The kid is off the walls, but perhaps that’s because he picks up random cups and drinks out of them, the majority of which contain coffee. There is also now a 3 month old baby, Jordan Jose, or JJ as Metzel and I call him,, who is living with us. His mother, Moncha’s daughter, just went back to work… en Costa Rica… for the next 2 months. So we have the most docile, tranquilito 3 month old baby that has ever existed. Seriously, the kid just lays there and stares up at you. The only time he cries is when he’s hungry. Mi papa, his grandfather, absolutely adores the baby; he is always cooing and playing with him and often the two fall asleep together while papa is watching TV at night.
I spend a lot of time sitting on the porch - in one of the three rocking chairs - or in the kitchen studying Spanish. En la cocina, the cooking stove uses cast iron pots and a fire with, you guessed it, firewood. There is also a gas stove, but they use it only to boil water and sometimes fry an egg or a repocheta, or quesadilla.
The cheese here at the house is called “cuajada” which, according to the dictionary, just means “curd”. It’s a kind of dry, mildly potent cheese.
There are two dogs here and a parrot. I think it’s a parrot. At any rate, the minute the sun comes up, even barely, it starts squawking… mi madre says it says “Moncha”, or her name… to me it’s saying WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP….. all morning long. The dogs are guard dogs who are only let out of the cage at night. “Volvi” is the meaner one. My first night Muencha told me that I need to make friends with Volvi, so she gave me pieces of bread and, while she held him she covered his eyes and let me feed him, then uncovered his eyes and had me feed him… he’s still a little scary at night though when I hike up to the letrine…. so I usually just hold it until the morning.
Nicaraguans come in every shade and color. Some are dark with dark eyes. Some dark with very light green eyes. Some redheads with blue eyes. Some white Nicas. And of course black Nicas from the Caribbean coast. Most of the family here has lighter skin and most have light hazel eyes. It is really something to see a black, curly haired Nica with dark skin from behind and then have them turn around and have lighter eyes than mine.
Okay, that’s about it for now. It’s Monday night, and I hope that tomorrow, after class, I can go to Esteli and find an internet café. We went yesterday, Sunday, but most everything was closed for Sunday and then the electricity went off, so no internet.
Oh, also, we are one hour earlier than CST time, as there’s no daylight savings here. So, at the moment, we’re on Colorado time.
They haven’t brought us any mail yet. Esteli is not exactly the easiest place to get to and we have like no free time whatsoever, so during training it will be sporatic… BUT I WOULD LOVE SNAIL MAIL! And I have time to respond!
love to you all,
xoxo
===
Wednesday
10 September
20:30
Not much more to add. My amorcito, the two year old spazz grandkid, and I hunt lizards together… lizards and spiders and beetles. And by “hunt” I mean we walk around the gardens and outside near the house on our tiptoes, fingers to our lips quietly ssshhhing each other when one of us steps on a stick, and when we find a bug or a butterfly or a lizard, Metzelito pounces and proceeds to chase the animalito. If it’s slow moving, he tends to prod it with a stick. He also likes to chase the free range chickens.
One of the neighbors sells honey from bees who feed on orange tree blossoms. Almost every house I’ve been to has a … not a honey bee, but some other small bee that makes a large nest under the porch. We have one right above the front door. The avispas, or the small bees that are like the size of sweat bees at home, are supposed to be good luck. They don’t seem to bother anyone or be a nuisance; they’re just everywhere.
The corn is being harvested now. Moncha is making lots of tamales and corn tortillas. The machete is the most common tool here. Men walk around on the streets with freakin’ machetes. So tonight papa went out to the banana plants and cut some leaves down so Muencha could make corn tortillas, which, if cooked directly on the cast iron pan like the flour tortillas, would burn to a crisp.
It kind of sucks at the moment because I have some photos of these people and places, but they’re on my laptop, where I’m writing this, but I haven’t found a café with wireless in Esteli yet. So this was just saved on a USB and hopefully the interweb places let me use it.
Okay. 9pm. Exhuasted. Time for bed. Usually wake up around 5am and sleep lightly until my alarm at 6:30… which means I get up at about 6am. Tomorrow, Thursday, there’s only Spanish class from 8-noon and from 1-3, so most of us are planning to go to Esteli tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully the power won’t be out so we can actually use the internet, which we didn’t get to on Sunday.
Friday and Saturday we spend all day at the Ag Tech School in the fields. Monday is Nica’s Independence Day, so Sunday there are parades in the city. I believe my family is going so I will go with them. The country is on holiday for Monday and Tuesday, but are we? Nope. The Peace Corps never stops. We have class, as per usual. Which is probably best.
Okay, bed now.
buenas noches
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Mom
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THANKS FOR THE UPDATE!!!!
Molly, SO SO good to hear from you! Yes, the internet has totally spoiled us with its totally "instant" mail! Do you have a new mailing address, or do we all just send to the address in Managua and let them forward it on to you??? You've got your BD coming up on 9-29 --- guess we should've mailed your card in, like, July?? HA! Been starting to worry, so so so glad to hear from you that things are good! WE ALL LOVE YOU!