Bluefields and Family Visit

It’s time to catch you all up on what I’ve been up to these past few months.  My trip to Bluefields on the Atlantic coast at the end of May for Palo de Mayo was a fun trip.  Traveling there was the annoying part.  When people travel there they usually take the 9pm overnight bus since the trip is so long.  It takes 5 hours on the bus from Managua to El Rama, which is located about half way to Bluefields where you then get on a lancha (boat) on the river Escondido to head to the coast.  The boat ride is only about an hour and a half, but the thing is you have to wait from 2am when the bus arrives in El Rama until 5:30am when the boats first start to leave.  So you’re all groggy and tired from the bus ride and have to wait in line to get your boat seat number just to wait some more.  Lame.  The boat ride could have been worse.  It’s a fast little speed boat that blows your hair all over the place.  I couldn’t even look up to see the scenery because the wind was pounding my face so hard and drying my eyeballs out.  I sat hunched over trying to keep my hat on my head so I wouldn’t get sunburnt.    

Waiting at 5am to get on the lanchas to Bluefields

Once in Bluefields we all met up with the volunteers that live there for some hang out time.  They filled us in on the May Pole happenings that we could see.   One big event was the parade where all the barrios (neighborhoods) of Bluefields danced in the streets with their group costumes and youth leaders who were in a beauty pagent running for Miss Palo de Mayo.  Each group was led by either an enthusiastic drumming group or a car blasting music that they danced to.  Us volunteers staked out a spot up on a balcony to watch the festivities.  After the end of the parade some of us (me included) joined in the fun dancing along with the drumming and followed the parade to the park where it all ended.  I ate lots of seafood (as was my goal for the trip), including a mixed seafood soup, shrimp, fish, and lobster tail.  I must say I had to try the sea turtle that is so popular on the coast.  Yes, I felt terrible because they’re endangered (though the costeñas say it´s fine, yeah right), but it was just a little piece out of this dish a woman had made at one of the food booths.  It mostly just tasted like the yummy garlic sauce she cooked it in.  Another common food item is coconut oil (I bought two bottles to take back with me).  They use it to make coco bread and cook their gallo pinto in it too.  It’s not the strong coconut flavor I was expecting, but it does add a different level of sweetness that regular gallo pinto lacks (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE regular gallo pinto!).  

Palo de Mayo Parade

One of the day trips I took was to The Bluff, which is a peninsula neighborhood on the outer part of the bay of Bluefields.  You have to take a boat out there of course, and then we walked through the neighborhoods until we reached the beachy spot.  There were only two of about 12 beach shacks open that sold food and beer for the visitors.  I got eaten alive by these crazy giant yellow beach flies and left itching and scratching like always.  My legs really took a beating that day.  Bluefields was really hot and humid while we were there, but it did rain pretty hard a few hours here and there, which took the edge off.  I wish I could have stayed the whole week of Palo de Mayo to experience more of the culture there.  We only went for 4 days.  The population there is mostly black Caribbeans who speak a mixture of Creole English and Spanish.  I loved hearing them speak, it sounds so cool!  I didn’t know sometimes whether I should speak Spanish or English.  If I asked a question in Spanish they would answer in English, or vice versa.   One of my favorite moments walking around was when I passed a house with a woman sweeping her porch, and was about to say “Adios!” out of habit, but before I could say anything she cheerily calls out “Marnin’!” in her English Creole accent.  It totally caught me off guard and made me realize how settled I’ve become in my street greetings here in this country.  It also just put a big smile on my face.  It’s crazy that just on the other side of this relatively narrow strip of land that is Nicaragua there’s a whole other world and culture.  It truly feels like being in a different country.  

Palo de Mayo dancers

The second to last week in June I participated in Tech Week with some of the new Ag sector trainees, which was held in an Ag site about an hour bus ride away from my site.  I was one of 4 volunteers from my group invited to participate in teaching a group of 5 trainees from the new group who are currently in training.  Amongst the charlas taught included making an improved stove, making wine, making biofertilizer, working with youth, and attending a community bank meeting.  It was a fun week and was nice to meet some of the newbies who are just about to start their service.  I remember how I felt when I was at that point in my training last year: worn out on training, frustrated with my Spanish, unsure about what I’d be doing as a volunteer, and worried about where I’d be placed.  All of that’s behind me now (although I think I’m just always frustrated with my Spanish), and it felt weird to be the “experienced one” telling these new trainees what they might expect during their first year in service.  

After Tech Week my family came to visit!  My mom, stepdad, sister, aunt and cousin came for 10 full days of Nica touristy fun.  I met them at Selva Negra in the department of Matagalpa, which is an organic coffee farm owned by a German couple.  It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve been so far in this country.  It’s all protected cloud forest with families of Howler monkeys and tons of birds and other wildlife.  We went on a guided nature hike in the forest and were (kind of) attacked by a rogue agouti (small dog-sized forest rodent, not known for being aggressive).  It was my whole family plus another group of 4 people on this nature hike, and we heard this sudden rustling in the bushes like something was startled.  All of our attention was caught by this thing suddenly running through the underbrush, and all of a sudden it shot out from its hidey spot and ran right into one the guy’s legs that was in the back of the group.  He and the woman with them shouted and screamed like little girls as the agouti, no doubt equally shocked and terrified, bounded off his legs and ran back from where it came.  We were all beside ourselves with shock and then just started cracking up uncontrollably at what just happened.  It was so bizarre that this animal would spook out of the bushes and then run right into this guy as it tried to get away.  We were holding our sides with laughter.  What’s also funny is that the guy who was accosted by the agouti was the groom in a wedding that day at Selva Negra.  What a hilarious pre-wedding memory!

Attack of the killer agouti!

After some cool coffee and nature tours at Selva Negra, we all came to my site and stayed at my house for one night.  I spent the day dragging my family to 4 different family’s houses to introduce them to my community.  I had arranged for one woman to make nacatamales for my family to try.  She also made us the most delicious chicken and dumpling soup (one of my favorites that I was so grateful she offered to make!).  It was probably the best soup I’ve ever had, and my family raved about it as well.  We also visited the school and I handed out school supplies that they brought for the kids, including pencils, erasers, books, stickers and sharpeners.  The kids were all super shy of course, and just sat there in their seats looking up with big confused eyeballs at this group of gringos suddenly in their classroom.  The teachers were all thankful for the goodies and talked a bit with my aunt Kathy who’s a teacher and speaks some Spanish (and really wanted to practice her Spanish too :)).  Overall it was a short but sweet trip to my site.  After that we headed to Leon and hit up some museums.  I had twisted my back the morning we left my site and spent the whole time in Leon hunched over like a crippled old lady.  Luckily the woman at the pharmacy knew exactly what to sell me to help with the pain, and after a couple days I was better.  

Enjoying homemade nacatamales

One big pick-me-up during this trip was the compliments some locals gave me on my Spanish.  Two people on separate occasions told me it was obvious I lived in the northern part of the country because I spoke like a northerner.   Apparently I’ve done well and picked up the accent of my community.   Imagine if some obvious foreigner approached you in the States but had a thick southern accent.  It’d be pretty apparent where they learned how to speak English.  Another woman at a pharmacy straight up asked if I was Nicaraguan!  That’s never happened!   After Leon we spent 3 days on Ometepe island at Finca Mystica, an organic farm owned by a young American couple who were super nice and talkative about their finca and things to do on the island.  We went on a waterfall hike and did a nature kayak tour where we saw TONS of waterfowl.  It was really cool.  Their finca is beautiful and totally worth the rocky, bumpy 2 hour taxi drive there.  The food we ate at this place was amazing, so healthy and flavorful (fish filets with cabbage salad, chicken stir fry, coconut soup, homemade chocolate!).  I recommend this place to anyone who visits Ometepe.  The last leg of the trip we spent in Granada, the oldest city in Central America.  My sister rolled her own cigar at Doña Elba’s cigar factory, we drank Macuas, the traditional rum drink of Nicaragua, and hit up the shopping amongst all the vendors in the park and at the old Mercado in Masaya.  Overall it was a great trip: private drivers to and from each city, free hotel rooms and food (for me), and a washer and drier in the private house we stayed in in Granada!  Talk about luxury!  

Rolling cigars in Granada

Saying goodbye to my family at the airport in Managua was sad, but this next week my dad’s coming for a week to visit during my birthday (the 15^th everyone!), so it’s another vacation for me!  We won’t visit as many places as I just did with the rest of my family, but it’ll be nice to maybe visit someplace new and have some dad time.  In the meantime I’m working on finishing my next oven project proposal to send off before my next vacation break.  I’m planning on making 10 more ovens plus one improved stove to introduce to the community.  Next month I’ve been invited to facilitate an improved oven workshop for a group of health and environment volunteers and their counterparts, since they are starting to build these technologies as well.  It’s the first big charla/workshop I’ll have participated in so far, considering I have to teach the whole group how to promote this technology in their community and lead the oven building activity (in Spanish of course).  No pressure!  

Well I hope everyone had a great 4^th of July!  I spent the holiday recovering from the trip, cleaning my house, restocking my fridge, and catching up on a lot of laundry.  It’s been raining everyday so it’s not drying as quickly as desired.  Hmph!  Until the next update. . .

~Sarah~