29 December 2009

Happy Holidays!

I made it through my first Christmas away from my family alive and well, though a little nostalgic and jealous that they got 2 feet of snow in Maryland and now they´re all skiing!

For the 9 days before Christmas, there was mass at 6am, which I thought was unnecessarily early until I learned that it used to be at 4am. I only managed to get out of bed to go twice. My host mom brought noise makers and maracas and had no shame about making as much noise as possible, along with some neighborhood kids. Apparently these masses used to be more fun but since it got pushed back to 6am a lot of people chose not to attend in protest.

My two best friends here, Julie and Jocelyn, who were here with me during training, came back to visit for Christmas so we could all be together. We made hummus, ate a whole pack of oreos dunked in peanut butter and got pizza. We stayed up until midnight on Christmas eve because that´s what they do here. Christmas morning was a little anti-climactic, as Christmas always is. We didn´t go to 9am mass like we were going to because my host mom and sister slept in late. Everyone opened their presents and then we just sat around the house doing not much of anything all day. I got to talk to just about everyone in my family which was really nice. We went dancing at the local disco that night with my cousins - together we comprised about 45% of the people who were there.

In other news, I saw a scorpion on the sidewalk the other day, the big green bird my host mom just bought somehow disappeared, and I just got a haircut for 50 cents.
Tyler, my boyfriend (for those who don´t know), is coming tomorrow!

13 December 2009

Operation Hummus = Success

I finally hunkered down and bought the absolute minimum ingredients to make hummus, Nica style. 2 cans of garbanzo beans, a lemon and almost a whole head of garlic. No sesame tahini or olive oil, and I used the blender. And it worked! Even better is that Nicaraguans have a weird aversion to garlic, so I don´t have to worry about anyone eating any of it.

So last Monday was the Purísima. Several families set up altars of the Virgin Mary in their homes. A ¨professional¨ altar-making guy actually came to our house to help out. He set up a big screen of mountain scenery behind the Virgin Mary statue and put a ton of flowers that were cut down from nearby trees around it. For the past week my family had been collecting food, candy, plastic cups and bowls, little towel, toys, trinkets, keychains, combs, earrings and whatever else they could think of to hand out to the masses of people that would come. At 7pm we officially opened the doors. Groups of 2-10 people came in one at a time, stood in front of the altar, and sang sections of songs dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Before anyone could sing, however, someone had to yell, ¨Quien causa tanta allegría?¨ (Who causes so much happiness) and everyone would respond ¨La concepción de Maria” (The Conception of Mary). After they sang what minimal segment of the song they deemed deserving of their ¨brindi¨ (treat), my host sister or mom would hand each person a little gift, which was picked appropriately and meticulously based on age and gender. For a good majority of the night there was a massive mob of people waiting outside for their turn to come in and sing. Unlike trick-or-treating, everyone partakes in the Purísima- parents, babies, small children, teens, old people, town drunks, non-Catholics who don´t know the songs. For a lot of people, the prospect of free food for their families is worth waiting in lines with their small children until midnight. I put up some pictures and a video on facebook if you want a better idea of the whole ordeal.

Tuesday was the actual Immaculate Conception. We went to a 2-hour mass in the morning and then packed up and went to the nearby river. The river is conveniently located behind a family´s house, and they take the liberty of charging an admission fee. They have essentially claimed ownership of the river, which I didn´t know was possible. It was really beautiful- situated in the middle of dense jungle. But then all the noisy kids came, and the drunks, ruining the peace.

My host mom bought a large green bird from a man walking through the streets carrying a shoebox of them. We already had 2 little green birds, but the anomoly of this one being able to talk (supposedly, it hasn´t said a word yet) was a selling point. The 2 birds got kicked out of their cage to accommodate the new one; they now roam around the kitchen floor trying not to get stepped on.

My host sister and I put up the fake Christmas tree the other day. Complete with lights and tons of decorations. Wasn´t quite the same as a real tree with Christmas music playing in the background, but it will suffice.

I´ve been walking a few days a week with my host mom. She´s showed me a bunch of new paths and windy roads that pass through neighboring villages. Yesterday we stopped at a sugar cane mill. We walked right up and poked around, watching the workers make candy/a block of pure sugar with it. My mom walked right up to a big vat of the processed sugar, stuck her finger in, dug out a big glob, handed it to me, and then repeated for herself. No one thought anything of it. We also passed by a house that sells milk and I carried back a Coca Cola liter of warm milk, fresh from the udder.

I went to a rosary praying session (they have become increasingly frequent since the Immaculate Conception) with my sister yesterday and they gave everyone a plastic cup of candy. Included in mine were two gold coin candies, which I assumed were chocolate. I got back and took out my secret stash of peanut butter to dunk the chocolate in. When I unwrapped it, to my surprise, it was pink! Gum. Talk about disappointing.

This morning when I was running I saw a guy wearing Boston College athletic shorts, almost identical to the ones I have. I was so excited. I stopped and said, ¨your shorts are from my university!!¨ He sort of laughed with me and looked at me like I had ten heads/was white, not to mention I was running at 6am on a Sunday. Anti-climactic.

Tomorrow I´m going to the beach with the teachers from the school for their end of the year party...even though I didn´t teach this past year, they invited me anyway.

03 December 2009

Officially a PCV

As of a week ago Monday I am officially a PCV instead of a PCT. We finished training and swore-in on November 23rd. The next two days was the All Volunteer Conference, where all 170+ PCVs in Nicaragua got together to talk about the meeting´s theme, food security, and to share ideas about projects, good recipes, etc. I learned that making hummus in a blender instead of a cuisinart, and without any sesame tahini, is possible. Hopefully I´ll try it out soon. Despite chowing down on two containers of hummus I found in a Managua grocery store, I am still having withdrawal.
A couple weeks ago I met with two people from Wisconsin who have been working on a Sister City Project with some nearby communities. They have built schools and latrines and are currently focused on getting materials and snacks to the primary school kids and training the teachers. They want me to help with the teacher training. It should be really interesting. The communities are really poor and isolated. The teachers in the school live in my town and commute there for the week--travel between here and there is limited and complicated. The teachers arrive on Monday afternoon, teach on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and leave on Friday morning, leaving the kids with 3 of 5 days of class...if they´re lucky.

The U.S. ambassador in Nicaragua talked to us on one of our last days of training. He was surprisingly frank about U.S.-Nicaraguan relations (they´re not the greatest). It was fascinating to hear his side of the story and compare it to what I hear from the people I live with or see on the news. The upcoming presidential elections in 2011 will be interesting to say the least.

My last day at home before becoming a PCV my host mom decided to help me make one of my favorite concoctions-chicken, broccoli and pasta-though I was mostly just doing what she told me to do. I´m pretty sure she doesn´t think I can cook. It was entertaining. First, we used chao mein noodles. The chicken was boiled and then shredded (I left it in too big of chunks, my host mom shredded it again after I finished). She cooked the broccoli (with celery) until it was mushy. Then she proceeded to re-cook/fry the chicken with mustard, 1000 island dressing and (I think) chicken sausage. It didn´t taste too terrible, and everyone actually liked it, but it was a far cry from anything I´d had in mind. Nonetheless, they were convinced it was Italian food...but also kept calling it ¨chao mein.¨ The next night all of us PCTs were in Managua and went to a real Italian restaurant for dinner. I got pasta with broccoli and tomato sauce...and the USAID guy who was there with us paid for everything!

I saw an old woman wearing a shirt that said ¨Everyone loves a drunk girl¨ the other day. I´m not sure where they find shirts like that, but they´re everywhere. I like to assume that no one really knows what they mean.

Monday is the Purisima, or Immaculate Conception. From what I´ve gathered, it´s like Halloween, but you have to sing for your candy, it´s not just for kids, and it´s religious. We´ll see...

Bambi

Bambi

World Map

World Map

my bed

my bed

my sister and her novio

my sister and her novio

the little birds in my kitchen

the little birds in my kitchen

a street and street dog

a street and street dog

the church

the church

the park

the park

an interesting mode of transportation

an interesting mode of transportation

viva la revolución

viva la revolución