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.