July 4th

The 4^th obviously isn’t a holiday here but I decided to celebrate. My class on the 4^th was cancelled because they had end of semester tests during my class period, even more of a reason! I took my two host sisters out for ice cream because I don’t know of a place in town to get a hot dog or hamburger and the only thing I could think of that we do on the 4^th is have ice cream. We have a pulperia that sells ice cream with a few chairs so we went there. We took pictures and talked about the significance of an independence day. 

Leña

Most of the cooking here is done using leña instead of gas. My host dad and host uncle went to get the leña the other day and since we use many sticks each day, it gets used rather quickly. Leña is much cheaper than gas. Gas stoves are hooked up to tanks that need to be refilled and the tanks themselves are expensive and it is a hassle to get them filled. Sometimes we use the gas stove, to make quick things like eggs, reheat food and boil water but pretty much all other cooking happens outside with leña. Since gas is expense, we use the oven for storage. Most people never turn on their oven.

Tacos

The day my host mom made nacatamales and I was convinced we would eat them for dinner, we actually ate tacos. My host uncle picked them up from his favorite place in the nearby city. They were delicious!! I have learned here that even if things have a name that I recognize, it’s rarely what I am expecting. It has happened numerous times. With fruits, like melocoton, which I was taught means peach but here it means star fruit. Mantequilla isn’t butter here; it is cream, like sour cream. So it came as no surprise that when I was told that there was a taco in the aluminum foil, it didn’t resemble the NY version of a taco when I opened it. Here it’s a rolled, fried corn tortilla filled with meat topped with cheese, a ketchupy sauce and mantequilla. I had 2 chicken tacos for dinner that night and they were delectable. It reminded me of the Greek gyro. Something relatively simple that is incredibly delicious--ethnic fast food. 

Pin the Tail on the Donkey – June 20th

Felt like a productive day. I had a successful co-planning session in the morning and then went to the high school in my town where the students had organized a teacher appreciation party. There were cookies, ice cream and soda. They also made some games. They drew a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game, which surprisingly was quite a hit. The teacher who placed the tail perfectly won a package of cookies. I was called up during the second activity. There were nine balloons taped to the blackboard.  I picked a balloon to pop and inside was a small piece of paper. It said I had to dance with one of the students. So I danced with this outgoing girl to music that was inaudible so it was like we were dancing to imaginary music. Everyone had a good laugh!

Nacatamales

My host family is super excited to introduce me to the different foods of Nicaragua. During the 3 months of training, I hardly tried anything. I didn’t really have the opportunity to try the various foods but now my host family is making it a priority. They are eager to share their favorite dishes, restaurants, and drinks with me. I have been in site for a little under 2 months and I am quickly checking foods off my list. The next few posts will be all about food. So far, I have liked almost everything I have tried. It helps that my host mom is a great cook!

To make money, my host mom makes nacatamales every other Saturday. A nacatamal is a plantain leaf stuffed with cornmeal masa (dough), potato, pork, rice, tomato, onion & sweet chilis. The filling is packed in the plantain leaf and tightened with a small twine-like vine, that makes it look like a pillow, and then steamed to perfection over the course of many hours. She makes between 100 and 150 and sells to people in town. She takes orders in advance and of course makes a few extra.

I have been here for one of the Saturdays. On Friday, she does whatever she can do the night before. She washes the pork with a lime juice concoction and chops up some vegetables. Saturday morning she starts around 4am and with the help of our empleada they prepare the delicious delicacies. By mid-afternoon they are ready to be delivered. I thought people would eat them for dinner on Saturday, but it actually seems to be more common to eat them Sunday for a late breakfast with coffee. The day I was going to try them for the first time, I had no idea that we would wait so long to eat them. I was ready to eat mine for lunch on Saturday. Then once I saw the size, I thought maybe it would be for snack. I was sure we would eat them for dinner on Saturday, but no. I had mine heated up on Sunday morning with coffee. According to Wikipedia, “The nacatamal is perhaps the largest production within the traditional Nicaraguan kitchen and it is an event often reserved for Sundays at mid-morning, it is usually eaten together with fresh bread and Nicaraguan-style coffee.” I would have to agree.

School Trip Crashers!

My first Friday in site, my host mom asked me around 9pm if I wanted to go to a coffee finca (farm) the next day in Jinotega. Without hesitation, I said, “Sure! What time? Any time after 3:30am works for me.” She laughed and said, “We have to be ready at 5:30am.” It sound early, especially for all of you who know me in the states. I sometimes go to bed around that time. Here I wake up round 4:45am since we got to bed by 10pm each night. I could try to blame my early wake up time on the roosters that crow every day at 4:45am, but they make the noise day and night.

When my host mom’s brother showed up at 5:40, his son and daughter were in the car, which confused me. Especially since his daughter was pretty dressed up, but I should have been surprised my host mom was wearing high heeled suede booties to go to the coffee farm. We made several stops because her brother knows everyone and we were running some errands for his business. Then we went to the park in Ocotal and there were about 25 young adults standing around. That’s when I figured out that my host mom and I were crashing a school trip.

Some of the students are studying agribusiness specializing in coffee farms and some are studying to be coffee connoisseurs. The son is a student in the agribusiness program and his father was invited as a special guest because he own coffee farms.

On the way to the coffee farm, we went to have a typical Nica breakfast at a stop along the highway. They had one breakfast option. The only selection was you could choose to not include one of the components. The one option consisted of bean, eggs, cream, cuajada (a soft crumbly cheese), avocado, tortillas and coffee of course.  It was pretty good, nothing special since I eat all the components on a regular basis. Even avocado is something that I eat so frequently that I don’t really even think about it. I have tried the small avocados, which I didn’t really like. One day we had avocados that had yellow flesh and they were delicious!

The farm was quite far away and we were flying in an SUV. I can’t imagine how it would have been by bus. The drive was beautiful! According to Lonely Planet, “The back road from Estelí, has got to be one of the most beautiful drives in the country. It’s just high-altitude beauty, with one town, La Concordia, almost exactly 33km from Jinotega and 33km from Estelí.” Then we passed the Lago de Apenás-Asturias. “The third largest body of water in Nicaragua is artificial, formed in 1964… It is two lakes, much larger Lago de Apenás (54 sq km) and its smaller, northern brother, Lago de Asturias (3 sq km)… There is a hydroelectric dam, and PlantaCentroamérica produces about 50,000kw and usually holds about 324 million cubic meters of water; during Hurricane Mitch it held back 756 million cubic meters, just barely.”

We eventually turned off a main road and were on a road through a small town. We had to ask a few people for directions. Everyone of course knew the place and each person kept saying a little bit further up the road. Of course there’s not a sign to let you know you’re close or even when you finally arrive. We made a sharp right turn and followed a dirt path about 15 minutes all hoping we were on the right path and luckily we were. We finally reached the entrance of the place, Santa Maura, around 11:30am.

The coffee farm was incredible! It functions like a small town. They have a couple hundred permanent workers and their families. There is even a primary school for the children of the workers. We were given a special tour, which included an hour-long powerpoint presentation on the logistics of their farm and then we toured around the finca to see different coffee plants. It was my first time seeing coffee plants. I learned a ton about different coffee farming philosophies. We also got to go where their outdoor nursery where they have seedlings waiting to grow large enough to be transplanted.

We had to move the dinning table due to...

THOUSANDS OF FLYING BUGS!

Luckily, the bugs only were around for a few weeks. Things are back to normal and the table is back in the center of the room.