Beaches and farms...I'm in heaven

Normally, my weekends are pretty relaxed, full of sitting around and doing homework.  This last weekend though, I ended up staying pretty busy and not having much time for homework, but I’m not going to complain about that.  On Friday, our church was having a half-vigil, meaning they had a service from 6 until midnight.  Thankfully, our church meets in Lisa’s house (she’s another one of the Dordt students here).  Instead of sitting through the service, Lisa and I hung out in her room talking about many things during that time and the night ended with 3 of the girls from church entertaining us.  They were all past tired I’m sure and trying to stay awake so it was very entertaining to watch. 

Saturday, us girls all went to the beach, such a fun thing to do at the end of October!! It was a nice day and we found a calmer part of the beach where we could swim a little more.  We came back early because our church was having another service, this time a youth service.  The service was recognizing the active youth in the church and ended up being like Christmas.   A few women in the congregation had gotten presents for the youth, so they all ended up with 2 or 3 gifts, with things like socks, belts, shirts, sandals, and perfume in them.

Sunday, instead of going to church, we went to the family farm!  I was really excited because I have been wanting to go since I first got here.  My mom, papito, brother, and I got in the back of my aunt and uncle’s truck with another uncle for the ride to the farm.  The first hour was fairly smooth, but then we had to leave the main road and get on a dirt road.  The river had flooded over the road to the point where you couldn’t see it at all for about half a mile.  I wasn’t sure if we would make it or not, but thankfully we did!  At the farm, I met lots more family since three of my mom’s brothers live there with their families.  My brother and cousins gave me a tour around, showing me all sorts of fruit trees and the animals.  Then we got in the truck again to go down the road to another part of their farm.   There, we sat on the porch and ate papaya in honey, a delicious snack/dessert they have here.  On the way back to the other farm, we stopped to pick some corn and I felt like I was back in Iowa (besides the volcanoes in the background).  Once back with the others, I helped the women make tamales, which we got to enjoy later for supper.  The whole day, everyone was finding all sorts of things for me to take pictures of, so I have lots to share today!  It was a really good day, but when we got back I still had homework to do for Monday’s classes.

My week at the farm was fairly uneventful and now I’m back in Leon for a few days.  Saturday we are going ziplining, which I am very excited for! And then Sunday we leave for Costa Rica!! We are going to Costa Rica as part of our class, with several motivations.  One, the elections in Nicaragua are Sunday and should be calm, but in case anything happens, they want us to be out of the country.  Two, one of our professors lives in Costa Rica and we are studying the immigration of Nicaraguans to Costa Rica.  Three, our visas run out at the end of the month, so we need to leave the country for a few days in order to stay for the rest of the semester.  It looks like it will be a very busy week with classes and touristy things. 

 One of the many camioneta busses in Leon

 This is not a river...it's the road we drove to get to the family farm last weekend!

 Iowa or Nicaragua??

 The cows here are funny

 My adorable cousins! Naima, Jacob, Jonathan, Mareling

 A cute goat from Rancho Ebenezer...the ones that look like this are my favorite

Patience

My North American patience definitely got the best of me yesterday.  I was waiting to leave Rancho Ebenezer after lunch and waited for over an hour for a moto-taxi to come by.  One never did, and finally Don Francisco, the director, said he was going into town so I could go with him.  I was very thankful for his offer, but already frustrated that I was an hour and a half behind my schedule.  Going with Don Francisco, I ended up backtracking a little, putting me back a little more.  By the time I finally got to Managua, I should have been in Leon already, but I wasn’t so I just had to remind myself to be flexible and patient with others and myself.

Other than that, I had a very good but unexciting week.  As promised, I won’t write too much this week, but I’ll give a short summary.  Monday we had 2 really interesting classes in Managua.   For our history class in the morning, we had 3 different speakers on different topics.  The one, Daniel, had talked to us the week before and has a very interesting life with heavy involvement in many recent Nicaraguan history events, without even trying.  He was really interesting to listen to and made us feel like we were talking with a celebrity with all the things he had done.  The second part of class we had a North American Jesuit priest and a Nicaraguan Baptist pastor (who happens to be my friend Wendy’s dad!) tell us about the differences and similarities in their churches and how the people have reacted to recent historic events.  For our Worldview class in the afternoon, we went to a school/church and talked with the pastor about how his church has helped in their community over the last 10 years.  There were lots of kids there doing an afterschool Compassion program, and they were super cute.  They all wanted to touch us and say hi to us, so they followed us around everywhere. 

This week at Rancho Ebenezer, I got to help a little bit in a different area with lots of goats.  I watched and even tried my hand at trimming hooves, which is a lot harder than it looks.  I also got to try milking a goat again.  I even got to go one afternoon and help cut sugar cane with a machete.  For the rest of my time there, I was working with Carlos again doing many different things in the “Mitpa” area.  That area is supposed to be a model for the farmers that come in, and what they teach the farmers to imitate.  I helped deworm the goats again and helped get some gardens in tires set up.  I am really learning lots there and hope that it will help me decide more of what I want to do when I graduate.

OK, I hope I didn’t ramble too much this time, and here are some promised pictures.

There are many street "parades" during the day here in Leon.  Most of them are linked to Catholic or indigenous traditions.  These two pictures show "The bulls" tradition.  Many people flood the streets and there are always drums accompanying the parade.  For this one, several people have shell-like things on their backs and get beat with sticks.  It's hard to explain, so I have a little video to show what it's like.

Unfortunately, my internet is slow and takes a long time to load videos...so hopefully I can get the video on some other time.

Ridin’ Nica style

Ridin’ Nica style definition: No mode of transportation has a capacity limit.

Examples: Bikes- Most people in the states think that because a bike has one seat, it was made for one person.  Nicaraguans know this is not true.  Bikes can hold up to 3 people at a time here.  While one person is pedaling, another can be on the bar in front of them, on the handle bars, or standing behind them.  I can’t imagine the balance it must take to do this, but Nicaraguans sure know how to ride

Motorcycles- Motorcycles were made for up to 4, maybe 5 people, as all Nicaraguans know.  In the States, motorcycles are for single people, sometimes couples.  Here, a motorcycle is a family vehicle.  It is common to see mom, dad, plus a few kids on a motorcycle.

Busses- Here is where I have experience “ridin’ Nica style.”  To get to Rancho Ebenezer, I take 2 microbuses, which are basically compact 15 passenger vans.  Well, in the States they would be at least…here they can hold up to 30 people I’m pretty sure.  To help you get a better image of what it is like to ride one, I will tell you about my journey to the Rancho this week.

I started about 9 AM Tuesday morning waiting outside my house for a camioneta to come by.  I waited for about 10 minutes before one came by and then rode it to the bus terminal.  Almost as soon as I got there, it started down pouring (it hasn’t stopped raining since we got back from Corn Island).  So, with my backpack and duffel bag, I hurried across the parking lot to find a microbus to Managua.  A guy was yelling Managua at one of the busses, so I gave him my duffel bag to squeeze behind the back seat and hopped in.  The ride from Leon to Managua is usually fairly comfortable because we start out full in Leon and don’t stop very much during the hour and a half drive.  A few people will get off in a couple of small towns along the way, and occasionally more people get on, but for the most part, the 15 passenger van has 15 people. 

Once in Managua, I get off at La UCA, a bus terminal by the Central American University.  Here, I ask around to get a microbus to San Marcos.  I got on one for Jinotepe this week, which stops in San Marcos on the way.  The bus started off fairly empty when we left the terminal, maybe 10 people.  After a few stops on the way out of Managua, we were full.  This 15 passenger bus was modified a little with a bench facing backwards behind the driver seat, so it could probably hold 19 or 20 people sitting down.  Before leaving Managua, our driver rear ended a taxi at a round a bout.  This took a few minutes for them to talk and decide nothing was damaged, and then we were on our way.  With this bus, we take quite a few stops along the way, dropping a few off here and there, and picking up more.  Just when you think the bus is full, all the seats are taken, the guy taking the money keeps yelling out the window “Jinotepe, La Concha, San Marcos.”  And I’m thinking, why is he advertising where we’re going, there’s no more room!  Well then 3 or 4 people get on, some squishing takes place, a few people end up standing, and the air gets a little more sparse.  Just when I get comfortable and think this isn’t too bad, 2 more people get on.  Where are they possibly going to fit? Oh, we’ll just not shut the door all the way, that will allow for these 2 more people.  Then, thankfully a few people get off and I can breathe again.  But not for long, as soon as 2 people get off, 4 get on it seems.  At one point I counted 27 people in this “15 passenger van.”  You really have to be comfortable with many bodies touching yours and not being able to breathe real well.  I happened to be on around lunch time, which means many students are going home for dinner, so they wouldn’t be on the bus for long, but it meant large groups getting on and off at the same time.  A little over half way to San Marcos, we were climbing a large hill/small mountain and I started to smell something.  A little while later, the driver stops and gets out.  Not long after, they were telling us to get out and wait for another bus to come.  Turns out the bus was overheating or just couldn’t make it up the hill.  Luckily, another bus headed right for San Marcos showed up about 30 seconds later, so 5 of us going to San Marcos squeezed on and headed to San Marcos. 

A microbus

From San Marcos, Dr. Ervin, the vet who works with Rancho Ebenezer, picked me up and brought me to his house in Niquinohomo.  From there I would have to take a moto-taxi to the ranch.  The problem is that the road to the ranch is dirt, and it’s been raining for a week and a half straight.  This means not many moto-taxis are willing to go out there and risk getting stuck.  Dr. Ervin had his guard try and find one for me, and he eventually did, but it was going to cost twice as much as normal.  Shortly after, I started the wonderfully bumpy ride to the ranch.  About 1:10 PM, I finally arrived at the ranch, glad to be done traveling…for now.

I hope that by now you all are feeling clausterphobic and tired, because that is how I felt.  I spent Tuesday afternoon doing much of what I did last time, cleaning pens and feeding goats and rabbits.  This time I did get to meet Carlos, who speaks English and is in charge of the area where I have been working.  It is good to finally have someone to report to and who can explain things to me when I don’t understand.  He usually speaks Spanish to me, so that the other workers know what he is telling me, but he took the time to explain more about the ranch to me in English, which was really nice.         
I was also excited to find out that a group from Michigan was staying at the Ranch this week.  They are a group of doctors who has been putting on clinics in the surrounding area.  It was nice to have other people around after work was done.  I got to eat supper with them and played cards at night with them too.  I got to hear many doctor stories from the day as well as medical jokes and talk that I didn’t always understand haha.
It has been fairly rainy here lately, with very little sun, but Wednesday beat the record for how much rain I’ve seen.  It started raining pretty hard Tuesday night before I went to bed and there was no break in the rain until I was done working Wednesday.  That meant I was nice and muddy all day at work on Wednesday.  It also meant fixing the roof over the goats most of the afternoon.  I supervised haha.  Today I got the chance to milk a goat, watch a hernia surgery on a pig, and help deworm goats.  It was all very interesting and more fun than just cleaning!

After lunch today, I started my trek back to Leon.  Thankfully, it was much less eventful than the ride down.  Although my moto-taxi did get stuck shortly after leaving the ranch, but thankfully we got out and later picked up another passenger who gave me 5 mandarins.  They sure taste good!  As always, it is good to be back in Leon and I am excited to see the rest of the group tomorrow at class.  Sorry for this book, I don’t even have pictures to go along with my stories because I didn’t bring my camera this week.  Maybe next week I will have more pictures and less stories.