Never a Dull Moment

I spent last week at a “project design and management” workshop organized by Peace Corps in the northern mountains of Nicaragua in an area called Matagalpa. For the first time in my 19 months in this country, I felt cold and not because I was soaked by rain. It is amazing to me that in a country as small as Nicaragua, there is such topographical variation. Where I live, there are palm trees, monkeys and humidity, in the north there are pine trees, raccoons, and cold winds at night. It felt great to wear a sweatshirt and socks, take a hot shower and wrap myself in blankets in bed. The workshop was great too.

On my way up to Matagalpa (a trip that lasts about 15 hours), I stayed at my friend Darling’s house. She is the accountant in the mayor’s office in my town but her entire family lives in a large city called Juigalpa about 9 hours away. She was visiting her family as well because Juigalpa was hosting their annual patron saint party or fiestas patronales. Every city in Nicaragua has a patron saint and once a year, the city celebrates their saint in the form of a week long party. I once heard that you could travel around Nicaragua continuously, hitting all the fiestas patronales, and never stop partying for an entire year. I haven’t been able to test this theory but I don’t doubt it is true. Nicaraguans like to party.

Normally, I am not a huge fan of fiestas patronales. They imply many drunken men, loud noises, sweaty crowds, and scary old carnival rides that are way past their expiration dates. Juigalpa is the city that serves the Nicaraguan cowboy population and as such, the fiestas also included a rodeo/bullfighting ring. I luckily bore witness to this dangerous and bizarre mixture of American southern and Spanish cultures from a rickety wooden stadium. On the field were dozens of drunks sitting and waiting with red banners that had varying messages from local businesses and politicians. Every ten minutes or so, a bull was released with a man riding it until he fell off. Then, all the drunks with their red banners would tempt the bull to gorge them. While I don’t agree with Spanish bullfighting, it is an art and can be beautiful. There was nothing at all artsy about this show and in fact, two men were killed by bulls earlier in the day. All I saw were a few dragged off in an ambulance to the hospital.

At night there was a huge fair with an impressive stage complete with a big panel tv above it, on which a Nicaraguan group played. There were stands selling food, beer, and other goods. I snagged a necklace made with a coin minted during the post-revolutionary rule of the Sandinistas, which I am pretty excited about. Like I said, I don’t really enjoy the fiestas but I always like to see the Nicaraguans enjoying them.

After the workshop, I got to briefly visit my friend Carrie and see the Peace Corps’ new office in Managua before heading back to my site. The trip back was nothing short of action packed and disgusting. Leaving the bus terminal in Managua, a drunken woman boarded and sat kitty corner from me. It wasn’t more than forty five minutes before she began puking and made the entire bus smell like cheap liquor. Not the most pleasant way to spend 8 hours. I made it to my friend Ashley’s site and spent all of 9 hours there before getting on the 6 am bus. All I wanted to do was sleep but the very talkative woman sitting next to me wouldn’t allow me to doze off. She kept telling me over and over her reasons for traveling and asking me the same questions. “So you’re headed to Boca de Sábalos?” She would ask. “Yes,” I would reply. “How much does it cost to get there from San Carlos?” She would ask. “55 córdobas,” I would answer. “55 córdobas?” She would ask. “Yes,” I would answer. “To Sábalos?” She would ask. “Yes,” I would reply. The line of questioning would continue like this without her ever asking for any new information. Normally, I love how friendly and talkative Nicaraguans are on public transportation (and in general). They just sit and talk with complete strangers for hours on end. But after having traveled 12 hours the days before, all I wanted to do was put in my head phones and close my eyes. Eventually I did just that but I wouldn’t be surprised if she just kept on chatting.

When we were finally about 15 minutes outside of San Carlos, we were told we all had to get off the bus and walk across a pegadero (really muddy area in the road where buses can’t pass) to where another bus would be waiting to take us in the rest of the way. Well, it turns out there was not only a pegadero but also an enormous pit in the road where they were doing some sort of construction. In order to cross this pit, we would merely have to walk across two thin muddy wooden planks, in the rain, with everyone pushing. Another amazing traveling idiosyncrasy of Nicaraguans is their impatience and rush to get on or off public transportation. They are never in a rush in any other aspect of their lives. And I can guarantee that they have no place to be. As soon as they are off that bus they will take their sweet time doing whatever they need to do or going wherever they need to go. Normally, the impatience and pushing just annoys me. When I am balancing precariously on slippery planks across a large pit in the rain, it scares me. Fortunately, I made it across without incident and rushed with the crowd on to the waiting bus.

There next to me, wouldn’t you know it, sat my friend from the other bus only this time she was not talking but rather had a washcloth held over her mouth. When she removed it, her tongue was protruding and she couldn’t control it or close her mouth. She tried to talk to me and to another woman but only muffled sounds came out. She stood up to get off the bus and fainted in the aisle. The people rushed her off to get some air (the bus was packed and suffocating) and I have no idea what happened to her. Luckily we were very close to a hospital; I just hope she made it there alright. I arrived a little freaked out in my site a few hours later and am happy to be back in Sábalos and in my routine without bulls, bus rides, vomit, plank walking, or ill women.

I do miss the cold weather, though.

Sunday Juice

Today was Sunday, the only day of the week on which I don’t work and don’t feel guilty about it. Sure there are other days when I don’t work because school is suddenly and mysteriously canceled or because it is a national holiday but even on those days I try to work a little, perhaps prepare materials, read up on the next charla topic, or write up results from a project. Not on Sunday. Sunday is my day. I usually wash laundry, paint my toes, pluck my eyebrows, do a face mask, eat whatever fun snack I can find to indulge myself (usually jello), have a cup of chai tea, read, and escape a bit. In the afternoon, I usually pay a chavalo a cordoba to row me across the river that divides my town to “the other side” where my good friend Rosa Elena owns the surprisingly (for this area) beautiful hotel. There we sit and chat and I lounge in the hammocks on her large porch looking out on to the Rio San Juan and pretend just for a bit that I’m not in rural Nicaragua as a development worker but rather on an exciting vacation in an exotic locale. When I’m in my site for long stretches of time without leaving to visit more developed parts of Nicaragua (like right now…it has been two months), I believe it is my Sunday ritual that keeps me sane.

This Sunday was made even more funday-ish by the arrival of a package from Greg. Instead of jello and book reading, today was spent snacking on skittles and perusing Vogue and Elle magazines while Charlie Parker played over my portable speakers. I think I truly forgot where I was because at one point, I even wrote down the name of the designer of some bracelets I liked from Barneys. A little outside my Peace Corps budget I think. But there’s nothing like Nicaragua to jolt me back to my current reality (and the reality for most of the world). In the evening, I went to visit my adoptive family to eat dinner with them. I had told them about deviled eggs and promised to make them for the family to try. As I sat in the kitchen watching my good friend/Nica sister Jhasshua prepare the rice, beans and plantains the eggs would be accompanying, she told me this was the last of their rice and beans and that they wouldn’t have anything to eat tomorrow except for plantains and coffee. They don’t even have sugar. They’ll just be eating fried plantains and bitter instant coffee. All nine of them, including a two year-old and a one-year old. Here I was, just hours before worrying about how I was ever going to have enough money to buy all the pretty designer clothes and beauty products that cover the pages of the magazines as a returned Peace Corps volunteer soon to be saddled with law school debt, and some of the people who I care about most don’t have the money to buy rice and beans. You can take the girl out of upper middle classdom but you can’t take the upper middle class out of the girl.

The fact is, no matter how long I live here, no matter how many times I go out into the communities on horseback through knee-deep mud, use latrines, live with rats, have to purify my drinking water, bucket bathe, and sweat ceaselessly, I’m gone after two years. I recognize this. I’ll have had my adventure, I’ll have learned how the other half lives, and I’ll be back in the comforts of northern Virginia. I already know from my quick trips home how easy it is to fall back into my old routine and how after a few hot showers, all memories of cold bucket bathes wash away.

However, my two years won’t have been spent in a vacuum and I won’t simply make a photo album and pack it away in the attic to one day show my children the time mommy “roughed it” and promptly forget about all I experienced in Nicaragua in 2005 and 2006. That would be impossible. This is the stuff you carry with you. And although the plan was never to stay any longer than my Peace Corps issued two years and three months, the plan has always been to continue working in development or public interest fields. I just won’t be doing it in rubber boots and I’ll be drinking the water out of the tap.

Anyway, enough development guilt, back to Sunday. While for me, the big news of the day involved the return of leggings (what?), for everyone else in my community, the big news revolved around what happened in Buena Vista about an hour away. According to what the rotund police capitán has told me, two men were drinking when one realized the other had stolen two of his horses. At first, this did nothing to deter the men from their Sunday ritual of downing moonshine but soon enough things spiraled out of control. They left the bar and went to a little store where the former horse owner ordered two bags of juice (everything here is drunk out of clear plastic bags: juice, soda, etc. The baggies are cheaper than disposal cups) and loudly declared, “I want two juices. I’m going to give one of them to this son of a bitch before I kill him.” Then the man turned and shot the horse thief four times. The thief died and the killer fled. When the police capitán finished this story, I couldn’t help but ask, “So he (the thief) never got his juice?” The capitán who was smiling and slightly laughing during the entire tale began to laugh much harder, slapped his knee, and replied, “No! He never got his juice.”

Chocobananos

Education can be a thankless task. Especially health education with children you only see once a week. Sure, they can tell you all the times their hands should be washed but are they actually putting the soap and water to good use? Maybe they know that their latrines, food, and water barrels should all be covered when not in use, but does that mean they are? When you are a health promoter, the hardest part of the job is not teaching the material, it is effecting behavior change. The most disheartening part is knowing that many times, when the children go home, they do not put into practice what they learned that day. The most mysterious part is not really knowing if your education efforts paid off or not. Realistically speaking, a child of eight years old won’t take the initiative or have the resources to find a cover for the seat of the latrine. What we tell ourselves as volunteers partly because it is true and partly because we often need a reason to keep on going, is that we are teaching these children for the future. Maybe at eight they can’t cover their latrines. But at twenty eight when they have their own homes, we hope they will remember the lessons they received, cover it up, and prevent cockroach and fly infestations. Most of the time that hope is all we’ve got.

But on a few rare occasions, we’re given a little more to go on. And a little positive reinforcement goes a long way. This week I was waiting in the health center to talk to the director about a condom awareness campaign he wants me to head up, when a woman from a nearby community where I also give health charlas started chatting with me. She had her six year old son with her and apparently since I started teaching in his class in February, he’s been coming home and talking about me. The woman told me that the first time, he came home and excitedly told her about the skinny, pretty, white woman who came to his class to play with the kids. I was flattered but a little let down, the problem with playing fun games and singing songs and dancing with the children is that they often only remember the “fun stuff” and not the actual material, although I try to make that as fun as possible too. However, she continued to tell me about how every night before he heads to bed, her son tells her, “Alexis says we should brush our teeth before bed,” and then he brushes them. My face lit up when she told me this. They actually listen to me and remember what I teach them! She kept right on, saying that before every meal, her son washes his hands because, “Alexis says we should wash our hands before we eat.” My heart soared; I’d really gotten through to this child! She put the icing on the cake and truly made me the happiest Peace Corps Volunteer ever when she finished by telling me that whenever her son does forget to wash his hands, she simply has to remind him, “what does Alexis say?” and he runs off to do it! Ahhhh, it was a good morning at the health center.

Not quite as blissful was my first meeting with the youth group I am facilitating with a doctor from the health center. The Ministry of Health encourages each health center to have an adolescent youth group and teach them about life skills, family planning, STI’s, etc. After not really complying for over a year, my health center finally put me and a social service doctor in charge of forming and running the youth group. With the help of several teachers, we selected and invited 16 students to come participate. Now, Nicaraguans are notorious for showing up late (half an hour is the norm and to be completely expected and planned for) but when the designated hour of the meeting came and went and only four kids had shown up, I got a little worried. Finally, after half an hour, seven had shown up. I considered rescheduling but the kids that came really wanted to have the meeting, so we did. It went well aside from the sparse attendance.

I later found out that perhaps part of the reason the other adolescents didn’t show up was that our meeting was held on Athlete’s Day or Día del Deportista. I didn’t realize it was Athlete’s Day probably because I’ve never heard of such a thing. But I wasn’t surprised. There are days of the year to celebrate every single type of person you can imagine in Nicaragua. There is obviously Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but there is also Child’s Day, Teacher’s Day, Nurse’s Day, Sandinista’s Day, right on down to Athlete’s Day. Athlete’s Day, it turns out, originated when Denis Martinez, a Nicaraguan baseball player who made it to the MLB, pitched a perfect game while playing for the Expos in the 80s. Perfect game pitched, national holiday announced.

I also finished an amazing history of Nicaragua’s revolution and the entire Sandinista decade called “Blood of Brothers.” The author lived in Managua for five year during the 80s as the New York Times bureau chief and tells an incredible tale. Unfortunately, the book is out of print but can still be found in online bookstores and I highly recommend it to anyone interested at all in Nicaragua or anyone interested in reading a great book. I’ve often commented that my Peace Corps service has made me more emotional. Perhaps it is a result of being so far away from all my loved ones or living in a society where sappy and cheesy music and television shows rule, I don’t know. But I cried about four different times while reading this book. I also cry while watching commercials now though, so it doesn’t take much…

And finally, the most important recent development: chocobananos are back! Here, many women for lack of employment, skill sets, money, or money making husbands, sell food on the streets or out of their homes. This food is usually quick, cheap, and unhealthy, the Nicaraguan rural equivalent of fast food. One of my favorite snacks that doña Esperanza sells on the street are buñuelos: fried ground yucca and cheese balls covered in honey. But the menu isn’t limited to buñuelos, pretty much anything that can be fried and fit into a clear plastic baggie is sold. Slightly healthier options are the chocolate covered frozen bananas women often sell out of their homes (and freezers). No one has been making chocobananos for a while now but one of my good friends, doña Cecilia, just bought a fridge and has put them back on the market. Now, for about six cents, I can enjoy a frozen chocobanano everyday! And when you live in a world devoid of air conditioning in which you start to sweat profusely as soon as you dry off from your bucket bath, this is music to the ears. Even more than, “Alexis says wash your hands.”

Mona Gente

I’d first like to thank everyone who wrote me concerned emails after my last blog. Luckily the sun has come out and it is amazing how a bit of heat on the skin and brightness in the sky can makes things seem that much better. I really do appreciate knowing that so many of you were concerned and that so many of you read this blog!

About two weeks ago, I returned from a weekend in San Carlos where we held a goodbye party for Greg, the small business volunteer who has finished his service there, to find two dead rats in my house. At last the rat poison worked! But how the hell was I going to get the little stinking bodies out of my house? Well, whenever you don’t want to do something yourself in Nicaragua, whether it be bringing up a heavy suitcase from the dock to your house, running down to the nearest little store to buy matches, or sweeping out the rat corpses in your house, you call for a chavalo (little kid) to do it for you. The little chavalo errand runners are quite possibly my favorite thing about this country. They make life so much easier. Of course you pay them but I can assure you the cordoba (equivalent to 6 cents) you spend is well worth the service.

I have my favorite errand runner, Kevin, who lives right across the walkway from me but if Kevin isn’t around, all I have to do is stand outside my front door and call out, “who wants to do me a favor?” and I have about five small children at my service. Of course it was the morning when I found the first rat, so Kevin and all the other chavalos were in school. Always one to quickly problem-solve, I called out to Kevin’s 11 year old sister, Rosa Elena, instead. She quickly came over, laughed at my squeamishness and swept the rat out of my house and off my porch into the vast weeds that lie below. For this job, which I considered very valuable, I paid her thirty cents. About ten minutes after she left, I found the other rat beneath a bucket underneath my sink. This one was bigger and smelled a lot worse and there were ants eating it. I was immediately disgusted and ran to the door to call out to Rosa Elena once more but something stopped me. The revolting task turned into a personal test and I decided I had to go this one alone. I would sweep the reeking rat body out myself. After all, I’m tough, in the Peace Corps, and it would only require a few quick flicks of the broom.

After five full minutes of mental and physical preparation coupled with deep respiration, standing with the broom in my hand, staring at my task, I decided I was ready. I began to drag the body out. I have never smelled anything that awful. And I live in a land of latrines. Turns out, those flicks of the broom? Not so quick. With every flick, the rat just did a little log roll. So, along my floor we went: me broom-flicking and letting out small groans of disgust, it log-rolling. Finally, I got it out. Mission accomplished! I wasn’t as proud of myself when I graduated from college.

In the school, we talked about diarrhea, which is always a fun topic with small children. I ask them what bad health practices can cause diarrhea and they shout out, “Mangos!” “Sweet milk!” Well, that too. In the Casa Materna, I taught the women about their reproductive organs using the felt body and felt cut outs that the previous volunteer, Keisha, left me. They are a great tool; the only problem is the vagina, the birth canal, is enormous. Without really meaning to, I made the women die laughing when I told them that the felt woman’s vagina was really, really wide. It took a while to calm them down afterwards.

I also had my third meeting with my high school girl’s youth group. It is a small group of just 5 friends between the ages of 13 and 15. I am forming a much bigger, more formal group with aid from the health center as well but with slightly younger adolescents. With the smaller group, the idea is to be more casual and provide them with a mentor of sorts, someone older in whom they can confide (me, because I had the ideal adolescence!). This meeting we baked banana bread, talked about self esteem, and the latest on the telenovela. During our gab fest, my elderly neighbor knocked asking for the usual bucket of water. The new water system still isn’t functioning but I collect enough with all the rain to spare him some. As soon as he left, the girls starting talking in low voices about how he is a mono, or monkey. I am always extremely amused when the topic of mona gente (monkey people) comes up and play the fool and ask as many questions as I possibly can all the while containing my disbelief and laughter. Most Nicaraguans believe (and this includes relatively educated ones) that there exist people that can turn themselves into monkeys in order to steal things from others. They run from roof to roof at night and the next day, are converted back into humans. Most Nicaraguans have seen them with their own eyes or at least know someone who has. And everyone knows a story about the one time when their uncle Pedro caught a mono, managed to cut it with a machete on the arm before it fled, and then saw an alleged monkey person walking around as a human the next day with a cut on her arm. I am not kidding and neither are they. I would also like to clarify that while there are monkeys that live near me, they do not inhabit trees in populated areas. There are no monkeys walking around the streets much as I would like them to. No, apparently they are all running across the roofs of Sabalos at night, robbing everyone blind!