Random happenings in the rural communities
1) So I learned that Nicaragua has scorpions. Some of them are the size of my thumbnail and some of them are the size of my hand. They are not that posoinous unless you are allergic to them, but their sting hurts quite a bit. In one of the rural communities I had just come back from using the latrine prior to going to bed. I sat on the small wall that runs around the house to keep the chickens and pigs out where I took off my boots. I then swung my legs over the wall to the other side to put on my flip-flops. I did not use my flashlight to look to see where my flip-flops where. As my feet came down on the back of my flip-flops I turned on my flashlight and saw that my left foot was centimeters from a large scorpion. He did not sting me, thankfully. But I did receive quite a scare.
2) At the recommendation of my director, Reyna, I bought a pair of rubber boots that come up to my knees for my time in the rural communities. I did not think they would really be necessary, but since she said it would be a good idea I decided to follow her advice. It turned out they were incredibly necessary during my first two weeks in the rural communities. During these two weeks it rained almost non-stop and everything in the rural communities turned into mud. There was mud everywhere that in places came to my mid shin. Also the rivers that we easily crossed weeks before now where anywhere between midthigh and waist deep. The people apparently thought I was rather a funny sight – a gringa tromping around in the mud and rain in their rubber boots. I would enter a house and they would say – Oh you have our boots and begin to chuckle to themselves.
3) I received my first marriage proposal from a drunk 65 year old man during the middle of an all night funeral vigil. A little weird, I know.
4) I have now tried armodillo and it is rather tasty. It is a delicacy and the families in the rural communities only eat it a handful of times during the year. In one of the homes where I stayed, the husband and his brother found and killed one the day before I arrived so his wife cooked it for our lunch. We ate the leftovers for dinner. It is kind of like chicken. I don’t mean that jokingly. It has a similar texture, but is more flavorful.
5) One morning I woke up about 5:30. It is hard to sleep much past then. The families wake up between 5 and 5:30 and once one of them wakes up the house immediately fills with noise either of wood being chopped for the morning fire, of the sound of the corn grinder as the women grind the corn kernels to make the morning tortillas, or of the chickens clucking as the wander in and out of the house. I woke up and lay on a bed that is what they call a scissor bed. This bed has two pieces of wood that form x’s on each end and across the wood frame hangs the same material they use for their large bean and rice sacks. I lay there trying to decide if I wanted to get up yet or not. About this time two of the kids, Samuel and Joel, walked into the room and laid down on their mom’s bed. They laid there for a while looking at me and then began to ask me questions about my house, the type of food I eat, the type of animals I have, if it rains, if I have brothers, and many other questions that fill the minds of curious 7 year-old boys. We laid there talking for a while until we heard the sound of plates being filled with food – gallo pinto and tortillas.
6) When it is going to rain at night ants begin to appear from who knows where. They form lines on the floor and wall and continue to crawl around until the rains come. It is slightly disgusting because they are rather large ants – about the same size as carpenter ants that we have in the states.
7) I walked to a house in the rural community of Buena Vista with my two guides – Antony a 13 year old boy and his 10 year old sister named Cindy. We walked along a small dirt path, down a steep hill, across a small river, and then crossed through a fence. The path continued to lead up a hill to the house of the lady I needed to interview. But we decided to take a small detour to go take a bath as they called it. This meant that we went over to the river where we waded in about knee deep and then ended up splashing one another and swimming around for a while. It was a lot of fun.
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