2nd place

May 30^th is Mother's Day here. There was a celebration at Ari and Calhoun's school last Friday to celebrate us mothers. There was no school on Thursday because of preparation for it and no school in the morning. We arrived at 10:30 for the celebration. Everyone had to bring something. My job was to bring toilet paper (I was grateful since that is hard to screw up). Ari asked me why all the MOTHERS had to bring something for a Mother's Day Celebration. A good question but who else was going to bring things? And I am sure that parties and celebrations are not in the Nicaraguan education budget. So no complaints here. The festivities started (about half an hour late) with some clowns who interviewed kids. I missed a lot of the jokes and those I understood I was trying to translate to Ari (who wanted to understand everything). Then there were a couple poems read by kids. Very cute. There there was a “national dance” by a 5 year old. Either she had stage fright or the national dance entails standing in one place and swinging your dress back and forth. I suspect the former. Then they asked for four mothers to come up.

Crickets.

They asked several more times. There is something about my personality that cannot stand it when no one volunteers and I wanted to fill the gap but refrained because I probably wouldn't understand the directions. I don't really mind embarrassing myself but it seemed a little much to be the first volunteer. Finally two mothers volunteered. And once one person volunteers, usually many follow. But no. Crickets again. So, against my better judgement, I started walking up. I get up there and they ask whether I want to dance or sing. What???? I just volunteered for a contest. I swear they didn't mention that before. Probably to lure innocent mothers to the microphone. I chose singing (obviously- have you seen me dance?) Two of the mothers went in front of me. I had no idea what to sing and not a long time to think about it so I chose a song Ari likes to hear as a lullaby. The words are a silly rhyme but it is about me loving my kids so I thought it would be appropriate. It was the first time I have seen Ari embarrassed of me. She was actually hiding her face. The contest was judged by audience applause. Another mom and I tied. And then she won in the tiebreaker. Maybe I should have sung in Spanish? There were several more contests and games. I did not volunteer again. A couple of classes did little performances and then it was time for the 4 year old beauty contest.

It took me a little while to realize that the 4 year old class was not just going to do a dance in bikinis but that they were pretending to walk down a runway and doing head tosses and hip pivots. In bikinis. And the audience was judging by applause. There was also an evening gown portion but we missed it. The kids had been clamoring for ice cream (the ice cream vendor stands just outside the school gates) and although I had said were not going to get some I decided that it was the perfect time to leave for a few minutes.

We came back and there were a few more (less offensive) contests. At the end we went into our kid's classroom (in my case, Calhoun's) and each mother received a take-out box with delicious chicken, french fries, rice, salad and a piece of cake. I looked around the room. Most mothers were forfeiting the majority of their food to their kids. A pretty appropriate celebration of mothers. :)

Refrescos

The other day I was listening to a young man speak and I realized that 1. His accent was fairly easy for me to understand 2. The speed of his speech made him nearly incomprehensible. Turned out he was Mexican. It reminded me of my friend Monica, also Mexican, who was an exchange student with me in Sweden (now over 20 years ago!). Once she spoke Swedish, she spoke it about twice the speed of Swedes. I loved it.

The Nicaraguan accent is harder for me to understand although I am getting used to it and enjoy its quirks. Nicaraguans drop the 's' sound a lot. And Calhoun, though he doesn't say much in Spanish at this point, has of course picked that up. The other day he said something about how sometimes they have 'refrehco' at his school and took me a minute to understand that he was saying 'refresco'.

He also corrected me the other day. We were walking and saw a couple of dogs (one little and one large). I said, “Hola, perrito!” (speaking to the little one) but Calhoun said, “No. There are two dogs so you have to say 'perritos'.

7:10

We have been wilting for lack of good dairy.  Good cheese, yogurt, ice cream - we miss it terribly.  As for milk, the heat and the blackouts make it difficult to keep milk for much more than a day and we don't love the taste of it anyway.  Even the ultra-pasteurized doesn't seem to last despite its weird chemical taste. 

We had long heard tales of fresh milk, straight from the cow, that could be purchased daily.  But we had also heard tale that it could only be purchased in the morning.  Different places had different times but it seemed they all ended by 8am.

We're not morning people. 

But we recently resolved to overcome our laziness in hopes of having some cereal for breakfast. 

So I ascertained that the nearest milk vendor (at the nearby market in town) sold milk from 7-10am but usually sold out early.  After dropping the kids off at school (at 8am) we stopped by the market and spoke to the milkman who, sure enough, was out of milk by the time we got there but said he would be there early the next day.

With not a small amount of determination, I got up early the next day and was at the market at 6:40.  No milkman.  Someone took pity on me and asked what I was in search of.  Milk.  Palatable milk.  "Oh.  He comes at 7:10, the bus comes in at 7:10." 

I had misunderstood.  He wasn't there 7am TO 10am.  He was there exactly at 7:10.  An easy mistake to make in a country where NOTHING is on time (my Spanish partner frequently comes 45-75min late to our meetings without a thought).  But no.  The milkman is punctual.  And sought after.  I got my bag of milk (yep, he poured it into a 1 liter plastic sandwich bag).  I had the gall to ask for another one and he flat-out refused.  Turned out I had only ordered one bag. 

He was sold out by 7:18.

The guy driving a motorcycle while holding crutches

He's got somewhere to go.  And walking there on crutches is going to take forever. 


Yesterday I was elected to go find the town welder.  No one knew his name or number but a guy we know told us that the guy who owns one of the bars along the beach has been woken in the morning recently by people doing work on a nearby business and they are definitely having some welding done so go to that place and see if you can find him. 

Where is it?

Do you know where the restaurant ChaChaCha is?  Go to that block (I think it is parallel to the street along the ocean, about 3 blocks back) then look east at the corner and look for someone doing some welding.

I am fantastic at directions but manage to find the corner but not the welder so I go back to bar owner and ask him specifics.  I get the name of the business.  At the same time I also decide to find out the word for welding. I had the forethought of looking up "steel", "iron", and "holes" but had forgotten to look up weld/welder. 

I find the business. At first it seems I am going to be turned away but then I get across that I am not trying to take the welder away from the job he is on now and the owner allows me to speak to the guy and get his name and number.  I check with him that he can weld steel and/or iron and he looks at me as if  I am crazy.  Duh. What else does a welder weld? 

So we've got ourselves a welder.  He starts next Wednesday. But that may mean next month.  Why do we need a welder?  That's another post. 

The rooster crows at dawn and other myths...

We decided to try living in the town of San Juan del Sur instead of in the quiet outskirts.  This is our new view.  The inside of this place is not much to look at but who needs to be inside???  The seal on the fridge is terrible, there is not counter space, we don't currently have a broom or any hand towels and dogs bark and roosters crow periodically at night.  But it is wonderfully breezy, we have a view of the ocean and we can walk anywhere we need to.  Of course, it takes a while because we have a 3 year old to prod along  But it was so nice to go to the beach in town in the afternoon and walk home at dusk-  we ran into to a family whose boy is in Ari's class, some guy just handed us a few mangos and we generally just felt more a part of the town,

Have I mentioned that going to school is a bit of a crapshoot?  I never know who will actually be attending school (and until what hour) until I drop them off.  The 'regular' hours are 8-11am for Calhoun and 8-12 for Ari.  But AT LEAST once a week one of them does not have class.  And at least once a week each of them needs to be picked up early.  Usually at 10am or 10:30am.  So that's handy.

It's beautiful here.

RAIN

It rained tonight. This is remarkable because it has only rained ONCE before in the 2 months plus that we've been here. I had mentioned to a friend at the library that it seemed like it was going to rain and asked if she thought it would. She said no, that the thickness of the air and the fact that it was overcast had to do with fire. But it did. And what a relief. I love heat but it has been pretty unbearable the last couple of days with unrelenting heat and no wind. It feels a little like NOLA or the Philippines- I was sweaty after the effort of... brushing Ari's hair at 7:30 this morning.

But back to the sweaty present:

Almost immediately after the rain started, the power went off. This is not particularly unusual. But then I saw light in the distance and showers of sparks. Visible from at least a mile. So... just for good measure, I shut off the breakers too. But now the rain is gone and although I can see clearly now (except for it being pitch black) it is hot hot hot and there's no power for the fans fans fans.

Trucks, Scorpions and Woman

I stepped on a scorpion last night. It REALLY hurt.  I was glad the kids were asleep so I didn't have to put on a brave face.   But after a few minutes the pain had almost completely subsided.  A neighbor had told me it was like stepping on glass.  That is a very good description.  I thought that is what had happened until I realized that the chances of someone breaking a glass in the bathroom when no one was awake but me was pretty small.  I never even saw the perpetrator. 

Someone pointed out to me that I pitch my voice higher when I speak Spanish and ever since they pointed it out I have been noticing it.  I know that when I was learning Czech I tended (and frankly enjoyed) copying other female native speakers that were fairly nasal in their speech.  I am not even sure how common it was since I was never that great at it-  but I am aware that I was a mimic. I don't think I did so in Swedish- probably too young and I don't recall trying to sound like anyone in Ilonggo.  In Spanish, I know that a big part of pitching it higher is because I am unsure if I am saying it correctly or perhaps unsure even if what I am asking makes sense (who doesn't know how to cook field corn, right?) But because I have spent some time trying to get my female younger cousin NOT to sound as if everything is a question, I am frustrated that I am doing it in Spanish.  Granted, I do not want to sound as if I am COMMANDING everything either.  I am a bit averse to that after hearing so many gringos sound brusque in their Spanish.  Perhaps I can find something in between. 

Commanding a truck.  We now own a large double-cab, diesel 4x4 truck.  Because of rough roads it is fairly necessary here.  It felt pretty weird to drive it (or even just to be the owner of it) but let me clarify that the weirdness of it all stems from me as a person, me as a short person driving that big of a thing.  The other day, I was driving someone around and HE mentioned that he found it amusing to watch a woman drive a 4x4 truck. I like to think of myself as amusing but just because I am a woman driving a truck.

Is a woman wielding a scalpel amusing?   I met a surgeon on the beach with her family.  We ended up hanging out and the kids had fun together and I had a nice time talking to them.  And then, as we were calculating the bill, the husband (not a surgeon) made a series of comments to his wife including, "Do you think you're better in math than me?", "Have a drink and dumb it down a little." It was so awkward. I am glad I don't hear that sort of thing from the people surrounding me but it is sad people still feel weird about a woman being smart. 

Sonatinas and Sandinistas

The neatest thing happened with Ari today. She chose a book from the library here. I let her know it was in Spanish but promised I would do my best to translate. She was sure she wanted it. While Calhoun napped, we looked at it. It turned out to be a poem by (Nicaraguan) Ruben Dario, illustrated in a really fun way by Carmela Mayor. The illustrations were mixed media- cut paper mixed with sketches and watercolor and Ari loved it. I loved the poem. I had to look up a couple words on most pages but most of them were such fun words; ivory, sovereign, fairy, dragonfly. Ari was so patient. 

There was something magical about the poem slowly unfolding to us together.

 

 

I also briefly tried to explain how presidents are not solely responsible for a country, why some countries are poor, who the Sandinistas were/are and other light and uncontroversial topics. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cliché but true

It is really amazing how few toys you need.  We brought a few toys and the kids almost never play with them.  Ari does use the art supplies we took with us (and some we've bought since) but they spend most of their time:

Playing with the rocks down by the pool (they make us a lot of milkshakes and pizzas with those rocks)
Playing various pretend games in the pool (there are often sea lions and sharks)
throwing shingle pieces at trees
making art out of old boxes
Reading the same books
Building (and razing) sand castles

I keep asking Ari why she likes Nicaragua better than New York.  I think it's because in a way I find it so hard to believe that she doesn't miss her friends, her school, the vast array of food/toys/you-name-it.  But as free-spirited as I consider myself to be, it's me who misses that stuff more than she does.  She has swimming every day, beaches, more time with her parents, stars in the sky and all the mango she can eat.

What else does she need? 

Shoes here!

Ari read "shoes here" in Spanish today.  I have been explaining that reading Spanish is easier than reading English but today was the first time we tried it.  We were at the fast food chain Tip-Top (heavenly refried beans) and she was reading the sign above the shoe rack by the indoor playground.  She was probably aided by context but it was pretty exciting nonetheless. 

For those of you wondering if I ever showed up to the school again after being shamed, I did.  Ari started attending there too.  I made clear to Ari's teacher that I would need very clear directions on any food that I was expected to make.  Calhoun's teacher and I seem to be on OK terms although it seems like we are expected to send him with a juice box and I do not want to send him with a juice box daily.  We will have to take it up with her on Monday. 

Rabies

A visitor at the compound where we live got bitten by the guard dog here. No one could speak for the dog's vaccinations. The visitor did some research (and spoke to the resident nurse here- that's me) and knew the chances of him contracting rabies were very small. But he also has a 9 month old daughter and didn't want to take any chances. I offered to drive him to the local clinic because of my obvious qualifications (a car, some Spanish, medical training). I learned the following:

1. All care is free.

2. The personnel at the clinic have not treated anyone for rabies for 2-3 years and are certain that no dogs in SJdS have rabies.

3. The personnel see a lot of North Americans who have been bitten and are convinced that they need the rabies shot.

They were not persuaded by my argument that since other animals in the area (I am pretty sure we were talking about skunks but I could have misunderstood. It's possible we were talking about stinky foxes) have rabies, a dog in SJdS COULD have rabies. The visitor, after much discussion, was given a tetanus shot (his last one was over 9 years old) and a prescription for Cipro and Ibuprofen (he did not fill them). He will be back in the U.S. before the 10 window on getting the shot and Kaiser can decide if he needs it.

Githeru

 Last Friday I had been asked by Calhoun's teacher to make the food for Monday.  It seems parents (and by that I probably mean mothers) take turns making the daily food.  I couldn't seem to get very clear directions for what I was supposed to do with the bag of food I was handed and she was awfully busy with 24 kids.  There was a big bag of dry black beans, a big bag of what I would call feed corn, some odd grayish powder and a big bag of rice. I was clear on the rice and beans but was a little unsure about the corn and the powder.  Over the weekend I meant to ask a native Nicaraguan but didn't.  And I realized that I had cooked feed corn (my term) before in Githeru (a Kenyan dish).  I LOVE Githeru, checked with my Tanzania-born neighbor and cooked it.  It was delicious.  But when I brought it to Calhoun's school, the teacher's response was, "What did you do?" I also, evidently, was supposed to have bought (so-called) juice to mix with the grey powder.  I had not done so.  So I left feeling silly but irritable that somehow the clueless gringo had been chosen to make the food on his 4th day in school.  To add to the day I missed four calls from Calhoun's teacher during the morning (my Nicaraguan cell phone doesn't work well at our place). Calhoun had an accident so I went to the school and found him pantsless, shoeless and in a diaper.  Later, I was explaining to Calhoun that he knows his body and can tell when he needs to go.  He countered with, "There is no bathroom in the classroom and I am not big enough to open the gate."  He is correct on both points.  We've since worked (again) on bathroom words in Spanish.  The teacher told me that none of the kids would eat the food I cooked, that I needed to bring toilet paper, soap and diapers and returned the pots and containers I cooked in empty.  I am sincerely hoping they did not throw out the Githeru, as I would have eaten it.  I walked out into the very hot day carrying a large plastic bin, a big metal pot, a bag of poopy clothes and a 35 lb kid. 

It was a crappy day until we had a picnic at the beach and then there were crashing waves, kids playing, delicious food and all was well.

1st person plural. And other nerdiness

The 1^st person plural is so easy to conjugate and now that I almost always have a little person in tow, I get to use it frequently and don't sound like an idiot quite so frequently. I have long known that I get pleasure out of learning other languages. I am not sure exactly how that reward center got built but it's there. If I get to say a word that I recently learned and haven't uttered before I get a little high. If someone uses a word that I just recently learned, I really enjoy it. The amount of Spanish I speak per day greatly influences my mood. There are worse vices I could have but maybe not nerdier ones.

Monkey or plastic?

The first week here we were driving back from Remanso Beach and I noticed a tree with several black plastic bags in it. My initial reaction was sadness that there was garbage in the trees.  Then it occurred to me that it was odd that there were numerous plastic bags in ONE tree and not in others around it. 

And then I noticed that they were monkeys, not plastic bags. 

The same thing happened to me on a run the other day. I was running alongside the Pan-American Highway (like you do) and saw a black plastic bag in a tree.  Except it was a monkey.  It was a nice reward for running in the heat.

I have also seen a frog the size of my head, a tarantula the size of my 3 year old's foot (but thankfully not ON Calhoun's foot), beautiful birds and scorpions.  Stuart got stung? bitten? by a scorpion.  He's fine. 

That's all for my wildlife report.

Avgolemono

I thought about making the subtitle of this post "If life gives you lemons...".  It is sometimes hard to strike a balance between local food and comfort food.  For the first two weeks we ate every dinner out.  It was delicious but expensive.  Not half as expensive as New York, but expensive.  So the next week we made our own food but being far from home and not yet comfortable with the ingredients here, we mainly stuck to pasta. We even bought a couple of imported boxes of macaroni and cheese.  But tonight I feel as if we found the kind of familiar dish that works perfectly with local ingredients.  We aren't Greek but we LOVE avgolemono and after looking up a recipe a year ago it has been a monthly dinner (at least).  And the ingredients are so easy to come by.  In fact, lemons can be found along our road, having dropped from the tree perfectly ripe.  Tiny lemons and lemons bigger than I've ever seen!  So we had Avgolemono soup, cut local veggies (cabbage, carrots, peppers and cucumber) and for dessert I made no-bake cookies with peanuts, honey, peanut butter, cornflakes and flour. 

Picture Posts. It's a good day today....

1 out of 3

1. We now have a place to live.  We are moving there in 3 days after we tool around the country to make sure we don't want to settle somewhere other than SJdS (San Juan del Sur).  The place is a little outside of the town but close enough to get Ari to school without any fuss.  It has a communal pool- Calhoun will tell you with his voice ever-rising with excitement that.... the pool... has a... tunnel!!!  There is also a gorgeous view of surrounding hills, though not of the ocean.  And room for visitors :).

So that's the one out of three.

2. We still have no car (we currently are renting but just found out that you can't hold the title to a car unless you are a resident- ACK!)

3. We still have no job. 

The kids have been here for a few days now and seem to be adjusting OK to a life of swimming twice a day.  That is my new goal- to have them learn to swim while we are here.  I know- lofty goals!  But sometimes you just need something attainable.

I am less sure about our goal of becoming fluent in Spanish as you see and hear English wherever you go in this expat town but we will have to see.  Of course, I am also hoping that we get to learn more of Nicaraguan culture and get to know real live actual Nicaraguans.  I am banking on my kids just starting to play with someone and it growing from there.  Luckily they don't know the pressure is on them. 

On a change of plans

My last blog (Kenya) was written pre-kids.  I will warn you that this one will undoubtedly be filled with musings on how kids absorb culture and language.  I will also warn you that although I will strive to be succinct, my style of writing is a bit on the stream-of-consciousness end of the continuum.  I am writing from Nicaragua.  This is where I live right now. 

If you had no idea I was in Nicaragua I will recap how we got here.  Stuart and I have been wanting to, and talking about, living abroad for a few years.  I have missed living abroad and I was thrilled when Stuart wanted to do it as well.  So we finally stopped talking about it and did it.  We rented out our place, sold or gave away 80% of our stuff and bought one-way tickets to Nicaragua.  Why Nicaragua?  We visited here in 2011 and liked it, we knew we just needed to start somewhere and this is the place a great opportunity came up.

But then, the day before we flew to Nicaragua, that great opportunity fell through.  So for those of you we had talked to before, we are not managing a hotel in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. We are however, staying in a great hotel in San Juan del Sur free for the week because the owner felt bad about ditching us for someone already in the area.  Stuart and I took turns being upset about it.  But what can you do?  So we are working on a new plan.  A new plan for where we might work.  Where we might live.  And so on.  Luckily, the kids stayed with my parents for a week in Florida and are set to arrive with my parents on Friday, so we still have time to straighten things out.  And there seem to be lots of possibilities for what we might do. 

Oh, and we won Trivia night and Big Wave Dave's last night.  And won a bottle of the local rum.