Wednesday, August 17, 2005
very long catch up blog, but still more to come...
Hi all
I haven’t written in so long, that I don’t know where to start.
First I just want everyone to know that I had a wonderful time with Angelli and Lucia in Granada, although it wasnt enough time. Angie is so beautiful and capable and smart, I really am glad I got to see her. I felt like I was so much a part of the cousins growing up when they where small, and then after leaving for college, it has become so much more distant. That is one thing so very different from here; all the family members usually live very close, so everyone is very much a part of each other’s lives, unlike the distant that arises in families in the states (sad side note: what is the social impact of poverty driving people to immigrate to Costa Rica and the States, pulling apart families in a culture that is so strongly based around close familial ties?). We went shopping, hung out, went dancing, and had dinner at a lovely restaurant, and I hung out with them a little bit during their tour of Managua. All of the people on the trip were lovely and fun, and I hope the rest of their trip was great!
BTW, weird side note, one of the guys on their trip was Ian Harper, a guy I knew from high school!!! He comes up to me and says “Are you a Mark?” and we went from there. We were in the same class and he made me feel old by reminding me that our 10 year reunion was coming up soon (and I am still in school!!!!!!)
July 15th to16th:
I guess I will start from the beginning of where I left off, which was where I was just working really hard and getting ready to take time off to celebrate July 16th, the Anniversario de Revoloucion here in Esteli. I left Sontule on the 15th, got a ride, (remember, still no bus), but was still really tired and didn’t get to Esteli with rowan until about5pm, and I had plans to meet people at 6pm. I wanted to take a nap, but there was no time. First I need to set the scene
Actors: Me: Tired Biologist girl, but ready to party
Juanita/Janie: Former English teacher current social project coordinator for Sontule. Super fun, endless energy, famous for staying up all night, very mellow on the party scene, just
Saddie: Current English teacher in Sontule, also working on social projects: CRAZY AND LOOOOOOPY.
Rowan: happy mellow English guy who works with me
Ray and Julie: kinda mushy but ok couple (he’s funny and seems like he would be a lot more fun if she wasn’t such a wet blanket) whom also works with me
Weird Tourist Guy (WTG): Silent man who met Rowan at his hotel and hung out with us the whole time, but did not speak hardly at all
Hannah: New english teacher, just in Nica for the two intensive courses, and also fun with a very cute Northern English accent (says “ me shoes” instead of “my shoes” etc)
Anna: Isabels daughter who is at the house a lot helping out. SO beautiful and very friendly and happy and sweet and loves to dance
Eoghan: English teacher in Cebollal. Kind of quiet, but crazy and fun
Elizabeth,Otoniel, Henry(and wife Xania),: Isabel and Don Chicos other kids
Francisco(Pancho) and Lesbia: Great guy who works for me, also child of Isabel and fran, and his wife Lesbia, who is a really good friend.
Francisco Javier: guy who works with me who was in love with me, but apparently is now over it.
Ariel, Alex, Juan Carlos, Henry: Guides from the UCA
And lots of other fun Nicas throughout the night. Missing was Marlon and Ivan, sons of Dona Lucia, who are great fun on these days because they know all the songs, oh the songs!!!!
Oh, there is such great Nicaraguan folk music, and so much of it stems from protests songs from during the time of the revolution, much of it about how bad life was (“how sad is the sound of rain on houses made of cardboard. You would not believe it but the Patron can send his dogs to school when your own children cant read. They teach the dogs not to bite, while the patron has been biting the tierratenientes for years) Or to proclaim solidarity during the war (Hace falta muchas cosas a llegar la Victoria). I am going to get a copy of the words from a neat book a friend has, so I will try and post them later.
On this note, we all met up, while there was a stage in the park with different groups playing traditional music. The park was just alive with so many people, Nicas dressed to the nines All the women shiny and tight and clean and smooth hair, and impractical sexy shoes, and the men with baggy pressed jeans and tucked in shirts with new haircuts and shiny shoes, baseball caps and gangster swaggers.
Its hard to understand the great time of it all without the sounds. One day I will carry around a recorder with me.
From there we went to Rincon Legal, the local Sandinista bar complete with walls plastered with pictures of Che, a giant mural of the leaders of the Revolution, and old war memorabilia on the walls.
We listen to music, drank a lot of Nicaragua’s finest (Flor de Cana), and then moved off to Studio 54, one of our favorite dance bars, mainly because it stays open the latest, because it is super cheesy with a a small dance floor, bad music, décor from a bad Miami club circa 1989, and usually bad music. We danced, finally went home and to sleep by 5am, and then rolled out of bed at 9am to see the hipico
A hipico is a bif parade with horses. Oh, how I love the horses, shabby skniny work horses nest to lovely expensive horses, campesinos turned out in their best boots and hats!!!!!! A contingent from Sontule road by, including Nelson, who works for me, and we were all like “whoo-hoo Sontule!!!” We were hot and hung over, and watched the hipico from the corner eating raspados (shaved ice with fruit and syrup) and then dragged outrselves down to the plaza for the speeches (we being me Jane Sadie and Rowan). We met up with the people in our familys (Villareynas and Acnas-see last years blog for guide) and wandered around in the semi heat stroke dehydrated hungover daze I have come to associate the morning after going out in Nicaragua.
After the speeches, which we missed most of (thank goodness because it was really hot). We wandered over to the Texaco Starmart, last stop before the road for Miraflor, where all the cowboys were gathered in groups, laughing and talking, and of course drinking. I don’t want you all to worry, it is not dangerous, just happy……
I finally get back to the hotel about 5pm, thinking I will take a nap. I feel like my head has just hit the pillow when I am roused and convinced to go to a Nueve Dia (ninth day after a death get together) with Saddie Jane and Hannah. We plan then to go to the Hacienda to dance and meet other people, but in the end, I just cant do it and take a big nap instead. I will find this pattern continues, as I attempt to go out, but then when it comes down to it, the minute I stop working, I just get really tired…..
RANDON EVENTFUL THINGS:
One day we ran out of alcohol for insect collection, so I saddled up a horse (or more correctly, Fran did), and I rode the 1 ½ hours to Esteli through Yucusama, a very steep rocky downhill road, stayed in Esteli long enough to buy alcohol and have a coffee, and then road back up.
Rowan got bit by a botfly (tordolo) and got a big botfly larva in his arm. Fran put crazy glue on it and duct tape over the hole so it would suffocate and die and then ripped the tape off a day later (with a fair amount of hair), and then Isabel pulled it out…at least 5mm and fat and gross. I took a picture and maybe some day I will post it. I had two in Bolivia, although not THAT big……
One day Sadie and Jane came over and everyone was at an Acabo del Ano (one year anniversary of someones death) and we had the whole house to ourselves. I told them I would make a lovely asian soup with the miso packets and tofu and noodles, but three incompentent chelas spent an hour trying to get the stove started, mainly because we couldn’t chop enough kindling with the machete. Javier arrives and enters the smoke of the kitchen to deliver a message to Saide, and gets the stove started in like 2 minutes…didn’t stay for soup though,….on a separate note, this chopping of kindly is dangerous, because Ana cut her hand really bad the other day, and Isabel just told me about how one time she cut off the tip of her thumb, and found it on the floor, and just tried to stick it back on and wrap a bandage on it, but it didn’t stick and got infected. And when I got here, Fran had nearly taken his finger off chopping wood in the same way..dont worry, I don’t do any of the chopping….
Javier got Dengue too.
I have gotten fat from oil and tortillas and good treats people have sent me…..
When Fran and I were checking a bird nest, like always we were using ropes to try and pull the birds branch down alittle lower. And, like it very often is, the nest was near a wasp nest. Now this particular wasp nest is called “campana” for the shape of the nest. There is another called “comecarne” (meat eaters) and vihupo, which are africanized bees, so just know it could have been much worse when we pulled the branch too hard and in came crashing down and the wasps attacked us. I managed to get away with only one bite, although the sight of wasps all over my clothes repeatedly trying to sting me was scary and they got caught in my hair, Fran helped me get them all out….Normally we wear more clothing, but we both had long sleeves at least, and did not get bitten on the face…and again, don’t worry, I walk with an epipen in case of allergic reaction, but have never had one.
There was a big party in Ocotal last Saturday (a city1 ½ hours away with like 5 different groups), and I really wanted to go, but in the end I was just too tired and decided if I went out all night on Saturday after a long walk through Yucusama to get to Esteli to drive to Ocotal, and then not sleep all night and arrive back in Sontule by Sunday, I would be so wrecked, I would suck for the next few days. As it was, I slept ½ of Saturday and all afternoon on Sunday, so I think my body was tired, and you have to take care of yourself first, right? Although I always regret not going out because Jane and Saddie are so much fun, and I hate missing out on fun, and I always say next year, but next year they might now be here, and it might just be boring peopleJ
A famous journalist for Radio Liberacion, Esteli was killed last Saturday night….Adolfo Olivas Olivas. Nonstop radio coverage and a big homenaje and burial on Sundayu. I guess very liberal and championed peoples causes and was always exposing people involved in corruption and drugs..word is he was killed by a taxi driver over 60 pesos (3 dollars), but many suspect it was an asasination
We had a birthday party for Ana, and it was fun, and I got Brian a birthday present that is a learning toy with different buttons that talks, and he LOVEs it and calls it his “chunchito” ( here a chunche is a thing), and always wants to play with it, and Fran and Lesbia have hung it on the wall as decoration, and the rule is he can only play with it when with adults, because thyese kids break everything…EVERYTHING. Bien travieso. But they have never had an electronic toy like that , so that it can talk,so they arevery enamored at the moment.
I have had bad luck with insect collectors. The first girl, Rosa, I had to let go because she was always late, and just did not seem interested in doing anything or learning anything, and said she didn’t want to walk alone in the woods..
The second was Eveling, who also did not like to walk by herself and quit….
I have yet to fill in about the wildly successful Environment Day activity we (Me Jane Saddie Marlon Danelia IvanJavier and others) organized in Sontule, as well as the trip to Managua on July 19th, for the big big big caravana of trucks from towns all over the north to the main plaza in Managua, all red and black, and awesome and incredibly hot. A wonderful adventure, I really want to spend a long time writing about it, so it will have to wait……
">Link
I haven’t written in so long, that I don’t know where to start.
First I just want everyone to know that I had a wonderful time with Angelli and Lucia in Granada, although it wasnt enough time. Angie is so beautiful and capable and smart, I really am glad I got to see her. I felt like I was so much a part of the cousins growing up when they where small, and then after leaving for college, it has become so much more distant. That is one thing so very different from here; all the family members usually live very close, so everyone is very much a part of each other’s lives, unlike the distant that arises in families in the states (sad side note: what is the social impact of poverty driving people to immigrate to Costa Rica and the States, pulling apart families in a culture that is so strongly based around close familial ties?). We went shopping, hung out, went dancing, and had dinner at a lovely restaurant, and I hung out with them a little bit during their tour of Managua. All of the people on the trip were lovely and fun, and I hope the rest of their trip was great!
BTW, weird side note, one of the guys on their trip was Ian Harper, a guy I knew from high school!!! He comes up to me and says “Are you a Mark?” and we went from there. We were in the same class and he made me feel old by reminding me that our 10 year reunion was coming up soon (and I am still in school!!!!!!)
July 15th to16th:
I guess I will start from the beginning of where I left off, which was where I was just working really hard and getting ready to take time off to celebrate July 16th, the Anniversario de Revoloucion here in Esteli. I left Sontule on the 15th, got a ride, (remember, still no bus), but was still really tired and didn’t get to Esteli with rowan until about5pm, and I had plans to meet people at 6pm. I wanted to take a nap, but there was no time. First I need to set the scene
Actors: Me: Tired Biologist girl, but ready to party
Juanita/Janie: Former English teacher current social project coordinator for Sontule. Super fun, endless energy, famous for staying up all night, very mellow on the party scene, just
Saddie: Current English teacher in Sontule, also working on social projects: CRAZY AND LOOOOOOPY.
Rowan: happy mellow English guy who works with me
Ray and Julie: kinda mushy but ok couple (he’s funny and seems like he would be a lot more fun if she wasn’t such a wet blanket) whom also works with me
Weird Tourist Guy (WTG): Silent man who met Rowan at his hotel and hung out with us the whole time, but did not speak hardly at all
Hannah: New english teacher, just in Nica for the two intensive courses, and also fun with a very cute Northern English accent (says “ me shoes” instead of “my shoes” etc)
Anna: Isabels daughter who is at the house a lot helping out. SO beautiful and very friendly and happy and sweet and loves to dance
Eoghan: English teacher in Cebollal. Kind of quiet, but crazy and fun
Elizabeth,Otoniel, Henry(and wife Xania),: Isabel and Don Chicos other kids
Francisco(Pancho) and Lesbia: Great guy who works for me, also child of Isabel and fran, and his wife Lesbia, who is a really good friend.
Francisco Javier: guy who works with me who was in love with me, but apparently is now over it.
Ariel, Alex, Juan Carlos, Henry: Guides from the UCA
And lots of other fun Nicas throughout the night. Missing was Marlon and Ivan, sons of Dona Lucia, who are great fun on these days because they know all the songs, oh the songs!!!!
Oh, there is such great Nicaraguan folk music, and so much of it stems from protests songs from during the time of the revolution, much of it about how bad life was (“how sad is the sound of rain on houses made of cardboard. You would not believe it but the Patron can send his dogs to school when your own children cant read. They teach the dogs not to bite, while the patron has been biting the tierratenientes for years) Or to proclaim solidarity during the war (Hace falta muchas cosas a llegar la Victoria). I am going to get a copy of the words from a neat book a friend has, so I will try and post them later.
On this note, we all met up, while there was a stage in the park with different groups playing traditional music. The park was just alive with so many people, Nicas dressed to the nines All the women shiny and tight and clean and smooth hair, and impractical sexy shoes, and the men with baggy pressed jeans and tucked in shirts with new haircuts and shiny shoes, baseball caps and gangster swaggers.
Its hard to understand the great time of it all without the sounds. One day I will carry around a recorder with me.
From there we went to Rincon Legal, the local Sandinista bar complete with walls plastered with pictures of Che, a giant mural of the leaders of the Revolution, and old war memorabilia on the walls.
We listen to music, drank a lot of Nicaragua’s finest (Flor de Cana), and then moved off to Studio 54, one of our favorite dance bars, mainly because it stays open the latest, because it is super cheesy with a a small dance floor, bad music, décor from a bad Miami club circa 1989, and usually bad music. We danced, finally went home and to sleep by 5am, and then rolled out of bed at 9am to see the hipico
A hipico is a bif parade with horses. Oh, how I love the horses, shabby skniny work horses nest to lovely expensive horses, campesinos turned out in their best boots and hats!!!!!! A contingent from Sontule road by, including Nelson, who works for me, and we were all like “whoo-hoo Sontule!!!” We were hot and hung over, and watched the hipico from the corner eating raspados (shaved ice with fruit and syrup) and then dragged outrselves down to the plaza for the speeches (we being me Jane Sadie and Rowan). We met up with the people in our familys (Villareynas and Acnas-see last years blog for guide) and wandered around in the semi heat stroke dehydrated hungover daze I have come to associate the morning after going out in Nicaragua.
After the speeches, which we missed most of (thank goodness because it was really hot). We wandered over to the Texaco Starmart, last stop before the road for Miraflor, where all the cowboys were gathered in groups, laughing and talking, and of course drinking. I don’t want you all to worry, it is not dangerous, just happy……
I finally get back to the hotel about 5pm, thinking I will take a nap. I feel like my head has just hit the pillow when I am roused and convinced to go to a Nueve Dia (ninth day after a death get together) with Saddie Jane and Hannah. We plan then to go to the Hacienda to dance and meet other people, but in the end, I just cant do it and take a big nap instead. I will find this pattern continues, as I attempt to go out, but then when it comes down to it, the minute I stop working, I just get really tired…..
RANDON EVENTFUL THINGS:
One day we ran out of alcohol for insect collection, so I saddled up a horse (or more correctly, Fran did), and I rode the 1 ½ hours to Esteli through Yucusama, a very steep rocky downhill road, stayed in Esteli long enough to buy alcohol and have a coffee, and then road back up.
Rowan got bit by a botfly (tordolo) and got a big botfly larva in his arm. Fran put crazy glue on it and duct tape over the hole so it would suffocate and die and then ripped the tape off a day later (with a fair amount of hair), and then Isabel pulled it out…at least 5mm and fat and gross. I took a picture and maybe some day I will post it. I had two in Bolivia, although not THAT big……
One day Sadie and Jane came over and everyone was at an Acabo del Ano (one year anniversary of someones death) and we had the whole house to ourselves. I told them I would make a lovely asian soup with the miso packets and tofu and noodles, but three incompentent chelas spent an hour trying to get the stove started, mainly because we couldn’t chop enough kindling with the machete. Javier arrives and enters the smoke of the kitchen to deliver a message to Saide, and gets the stove started in like 2 minutes…didn’t stay for soup though,….on a separate note, this chopping of kindly is dangerous, because Ana cut her hand really bad the other day, and Isabel just told me about how one time she cut off the tip of her thumb, and found it on the floor, and just tried to stick it back on and wrap a bandage on it, but it didn’t stick and got infected. And when I got here, Fran had nearly taken his finger off chopping wood in the same way..dont worry, I don’t do any of the chopping….
Javier got Dengue too.
I have gotten fat from oil and tortillas and good treats people have sent me…..
When Fran and I were checking a bird nest, like always we were using ropes to try and pull the birds branch down alittle lower. And, like it very often is, the nest was near a wasp nest. Now this particular wasp nest is called “campana” for the shape of the nest. There is another called “comecarne” (meat eaters) and vihupo, which are africanized bees, so just know it could have been much worse when we pulled the branch too hard and in came crashing down and the wasps attacked us. I managed to get away with only one bite, although the sight of wasps all over my clothes repeatedly trying to sting me was scary and they got caught in my hair, Fran helped me get them all out….Normally we wear more clothing, but we both had long sleeves at least, and did not get bitten on the face…and again, don’t worry, I walk with an epipen in case of allergic reaction, but have never had one.
There was a big party in Ocotal last Saturday (a city1 ½ hours away with like 5 different groups), and I really wanted to go, but in the end I was just too tired and decided if I went out all night on Saturday after a long walk through Yucusama to get to Esteli to drive to Ocotal, and then not sleep all night and arrive back in Sontule by Sunday, I would be so wrecked, I would suck for the next few days. As it was, I slept ½ of Saturday and all afternoon on Sunday, so I think my body was tired, and you have to take care of yourself first, right? Although I always regret not going out because Jane and Saddie are so much fun, and I hate missing out on fun, and I always say next year, but next year they might now be here, and it might just be boring peopleJ
A famous journalist for Radio Liberacion, Esteli was killed last Saturday night….Adolfo Olivas Olivas. Nonstop radio coverage and a big homenaje and burial on Sundayu. I guess very liberal and championed peoples causes and was always exposing people involved in corruption and drugs..word is he was killed by a taxi driver over 60 pesos (3 dollars), but many suspect it was an asasination
We had a birthday party for Ana, and it was fun, and I got Brian a birthday present that is a learning toy with different buttons that talks, and he LOVEs it and calls it his “chunchito” ( here a chunche is a thing), and always wants to play with it, and Fran and Lesbia have hung it on the wall as decoration, and the rule is he can only play with it when with adults, because thyese kids break everything…EVERYTHING. Bien travieso. But they have never had an electronic toy like that , so that it can talk,so they arevery enamored at the moment.
I have had bad luck with insect collectors. The first girl, Rosa, I had to let go because she was always late, and just did not seem interested in doing anything or learning anything, and said she didn’t want to walk alone in the woods..
The second was Eveling, who also did not like to walk by herself and quit….
I have yet to fill in about the wildly successful Environment Day activity we (Me Jane Saddie Marlon Danelia IvanJavier and others) organized in Sontule, as well as the trip to Managua on July 19th, for the big big big caravana of trucks from towns all over the north to the main plaza in Managua, all red and black, and awesome and incredibly hot. A wonderful adventure, I really want to spend a long time writing about it, so it will have to wait……
">Link
