Hola to all. I know, for the past month I’ve been plenty slack about posting. First there was vacation, and now there was a Spanish workshop. So, a few random things, and then an activity update.
Rain o’ plenty…
I have recently been introduced to jocote, which is a bright red fruit when ripe, and a dark olive green before that. There is a jocote tree in the front yard of my house, along with a mango tree. The little grape looking things are jocote and the darker green leaves with still green fruit are mangoes that aren’t ripe yet.
Well, there are so many jocote falling off the tree, I can’t walk across my yard without getting sticky fruit-juice feet. Here’s a pic of my jocote wealth.
For reference, if you make a circle with your pointer finger and your thumb, tips touching, that’s roughly the size of a jocote. Yes, they’re edible and sweet, but there are so many that I can’t possibly eat them all. They have big pits and orange, squishy fruit like a mango. They are delicious, but the pic above is all from one day, giving you an idea of the incredible yield.
And this is how I am dealing with the problem.
It’s my witch broom, and it works great on sweeping jocote out of the center of my patio.
And now my update…
Last Saturday, almost my entire group, Env 45, met in Granada for a night out on the town and some much needed rest and relaxation. It was a good time, and while I can say Granada is a good place for dinner and drinks, I was not impressed by their dessert capabilities.
Then Sunday through Thursday I was at a Spanish workshop, where I learned all about the subjunctive. Well, I got the rules, but I have yet to really use and internalize them. It’s tricky, because we have the subjunctive in English, but we don’t use it nearly as often as Spanish speakers do, so now I’m getting into territory where mental translation just won’t work. Tricky.
Thursday night I spent with my host family in Masatepe, which is always fun, and almost like going home. They are just some of the most warm and welcoming people I’ve met in Nicaragua, and they really did kind of adopt me when I came here. When I leave, I’m going to miss them so much. The good news is that sometimes they come to the US, and having a “family” here is always an incentive to come back.
And on Friday, I went to Managua to pick up some meds and do a little work. My host dad, Don Henry, offered me a ride and I expected to get to Managua pretty quickly, in much greater relative comfort than I would in a bus. However, we had to stop at the hardware store and to pick up pineapple, etc., so I didn’t get to the office until after 11. Not a big deal, but it did make it impossible to get home on Friday. Luckily I have awesome friends, so Kaitlyn and Alex (Kaitlyn was in my training town) invited me to stay with them in Nagarote. Well, more like I asked if I could stay, but they still opened their arms and house to me. Their house, by the way, is an entirely different kind of house than the one in which I live, demonstrating the vast differences in Peace Corps experience, even within the same program. Because they are a couple, they live in a much bigger town than I do, and so also have access to a Palí (supermarket), pay their host mom to do their laundry in her washing machine, and buy their beans already cooked. Crazy. This is the link to their blog, where you can see what they’re up to and see pics of their house.
And that visit was a much needed break because a lot of stuff happened last week that was really terrible. Let me start by saying that I am going home in July, for good. All the people here in my town know, and my teachers know, and I’ve talked with my boss to rework my plan here so that I might be able to accomplish something during my limited time here. It’s because my mom is sick (hi mom (you know she’s reading this)), and I need to, want to, go home to be with her and my family. She was going to come visit me before I headed back to the states, but she has recently hit a bump in her treatment, and has changed her mind. I’m hoping she’ll change her mind again, but that was pretty stinky news. The Peace Corps office needs to know when I am going home, so they can buy my plane ticket. It’s a reasonable request, but it makes it all so much more real. I also had (and have again) big puffy elephant feet. Not sure why my feet are swelling, but it’s pretty weird. I have cankles. And then, on top of that, I found out my dog in the US bit someone. He didn’t go crazy or anything, but I was still scared about the possibility of a complaint and any consequences. Now I’m back in my site, swollen feet propped up, studying the subjunctive, and enjoying my new fan.
Along with the new fan, hopefully I will also have my very own tiny refrigerator very soon. If you go check out Kaitlyn and Alex’s pics you probably also need an update on my house now that I live in it. I took these when I’d been sort of bumming around all day, so the house is a bit of a mess, but I figured realistic is okay.
This is my bedroom now with mosquito net, bedding, stuff on the shelf, etc. Notice also the pile of leaves on the floor. I have to sweep about this many leaves out of my bedroom every day because they blow in the open doors and in through the crack in the roof above the center beam. Also, the bed is a mess because I was doing laundry.
My sala now has my hammock hanging in it, my table and chairs against the wall, and that snazzy bookshelf you see to your right is a big piece of wood on top of two buckets. Note the fan pointed at my chair. Love the fan.
And finally, my kitchen now. My little two burner stove is connected to that big yellow gas tank.
I had just eaten lunch so there’s dishes everywhere. The bags hanging from the ceiling by rope are for food that the mice like to eat. Every now and then one of them gets in, but I think that’s more an accident, like they fell in the bag since usually the system works pretty well. What I need is a big plastic sturdy tote thingie, but I haven’t ever seen one for sale on the island, and the idea of transporting one from Managua is kind of nightmarish, so for now I have bear / mice hangs.
And the newest addition to my kitchen, courtesy of my landlords is this bunch o’ bananas. They came today to clean up the banana trees lining the yard, and they cut these down and gave me a bunch. You hang them up and as they finish ripening you just pluck them off and eat them. I love this place.
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