Lundgren Family Nicaragua Update # 12 - Redemption Songs, Baptism by Piñata, Gone with the Wind

Redemption Songs, Baptism by Piñata, Gone with the Wind During the wet season, the Nicaraguan sky dumped buckets of water on us, almost daily. And frequent lightning storms meant that a good deal of time, we were without both electricity and running water. January has brought more stability on the electrical front (we generally have power these days) but perhaps the heavy winds, a broken water pipe, or some other variable – it can be annoying not knowing WHICH variable – has resulted in us operating without water for the majority of the time since Christmas. When the water does begin to sputter on – usually between 5-7am - we move into ‘water capture’ mode, filling our three, 5-gallon containers as quickly as possible. That way, we can at least wash dishes, have access to drinking water, and in a pinch, take a much-needed bucket shower after a sweaty, dusty, game of soccer. Living without reliable, constant, effortless access to water is hard. Without water, you actually can’t make (gulp) coffee in the morning (egads!). Without water, it’s really hard to ‘dry-wash’ your clothes. It’s harder to swallow an allergy pill with only your saliva. Without water, you can’t wash the vegetables that are part of your dinner plans. But we’re learning a lesson: take extra care of the resources you have, because they may not always be there. It’s actually a good lesson for all things, not just natural resources like water. Take good care of your family, your friends, your health, your ‘things’. Value and treasure them, always. A couple Sunday nights back we held one of our monthly movie nights at the house. We told neighbors and friends beforehand and prepped per usual by buying a boatload of soda and making copious amounts of popcorn. Sunday’s movie night was a bit more hectic than others. Olle was sick, like really sick, vomiting and not keeping anything down, since the night before. Miriam had stayed at our house with Olle prior to the 6pm scheduled showing while a sundry group of ten others, including Larry, our neighbor who has already become a soccer legend in our minds due to his uncanny ability to fake opponents out of their pants, threw water on the dusty pitch prior to kickoff to minimize the anticipated levels of dust that would rise from the ground with every kick. Not ten minutes into the game, Nestor, playing barefoot as usual, stepped on a sharp rock, opening up a gaping wound near his toe (subsequently cleaned and bandaged in no time by a sprinting, hydrogen-peroxide, triple anti-biotic toting Miriam) and ending his playing time for the day. We all returned home and began shuffling chairs, pouring soda, popping final batches of corn, and waiting for our first showing of Star Wars in Spanish. Technical difficulties meant the movie started late, giving us time to greet guests while intermittently checking on Olle, sequestered in Miriam and Cully’s room and armed with his own blue-ray player and a barf bowl to boot. About 7:00 pm, Yader and his sister Jessica showed up on a motorcycle, transporting freshly made salad, repochetas (fried, yummy, cheese-filled tortillas) and re-fried beans lovingly made for us by their mother, Mayra. They were carrying a box containing two, loudly chirping baby chicks, Yader helping to fulfill Olle’s Christmas wish only two weeks tardy. The chicks, one black and one striped white, have since been named ‘Pagi’ and ‘Malam”, morning and night in Indonesian (we know, strange….). There was a lot going on during movie night, what with storm troopers yelling ‘adelante’ and Chewbacca being the only one who sounded the same in English and Spanish, and it was such a great example of Olle’s generosity of spirit that even in his diminished state he peeped his head out of the room to profusely thank Yader for the pollitos. Miriam and Cully finally have a new bed. After multiple sleep-deprived nights, we finally broke down and ordered a custom-made, hardwood bed, made lovingly by Yader’s dad, also named Yader. Our old bed (which was never ours to begin with but our neighbor Belkies bed) now sits in our kitchen until we can find a new home for it, precariously perched on the brick wall and once falling on our rabbit while sweeping, nearly flattening poor Rainer. The new bed has an absolutely gorgeous, hand-carved frame, and for really a song (about $100) we procured it with only 1 ½ weeks lead time, delivered to our house one afternoon while Miriam’s parents were still here, by pony express. It truly is beautiful, but unfortunately it hasn’t yet proven to be nearly as comfortable as it looks. Next stop – mattress store! Over the past four plus months, our friend Fernando has already shown us his many talents, most of them artistic in nature. First hand-carved and delicately inscribed bowls made of a local fruit called jicaro showed up in two separate installments, followed in short order by a delivery of homemade red, green, gold and silver Christmas ornaments. Two weeks back he showed up with three original paintings, all lovingly carved on the same pale-red roof tiles that beautify many of the our neighbors roofs, at least those that aren’t made of the omnipresent corrugated metal that burns under the noon sun and produces a furious, almost enraged clamor during a rainstorm. Two dolphins soar toward the water’s surface in the painting that hangs near our kitchen. Near Miriam’s garden hang’s an African Elephant, standing majestically in the fading light of the savannah. And in our kitchen, next to our window that overlooks our front yard, sits a lighthouse on a peninsula, surrounded by what looks like the choppy, salty, and yet somehow comforting, wild ocean of the Atlantic. Perhaps unknowingly, or more likely with a profound understanding, Fernando has in his own, quiet way given us a deeper sense of place, reminding us of the home we left behind, and the home we have here. A mystery has been solved. For the past couple months, our rabbit Rainer, a girl, has been getting increasingly frisky with our cat dulce, also a girl. Perhaps keeping such as prolific reproducer alone in the kitchen, at times with only an equally frisky cat, is not the best play, but Rainer generally loves the kitchen. She sleeps and spends most of her day there, munching on weeds, cabbages, and carrots, only wanting to get out every morning for a quick look around and a pee. But we have happened upon Rainer and Dulce, underneath our stove or in a corner, taking turns swatting at, sitting atop and jumping on each other, with Rainer often having the upperhand. Our friend Erickson, the same guy who gifted us Rainer during a downpour two months back, and also generally understood to be the local rabbit whisperer, solved a part of the mystery. Rainer is in fact a boy, Erickson recently declared while showing Miriam the goods, his initial diagnosis in error only because of the rabbit’s young, immature age at the time. We now have at least part of the answer to our increasingly perplexing query, ‘Why is our rabbit humping our cat?” But still, as Harlan astutely recently pointed out, ‘Why is our rabbit humping our cat?’ Good Day, Bad Day. We all have good days and bad days, no matter where we live. Here are two examples from our life here in Nicaragua: Good Day: We wake up early after a restful night, the distant sound of roosters mingling gently in the air with the soft bellow of cows and the occasional far off bark of a dog. Miriam and Cully take forty-five blessed minutes to exercise on our patio under our thatched roof, the soft wind caressing our skin as we stretch to meet the day, armed with plentiful and delicious Nicaraguan coffee. At times we are joined by our cat Dulce (often jumping on Cully’s lap), Rainer the Bunny (sniffing our toes and keeping a close watch out for dogs) and now our two baby chicks, who snuggle near us for warmth. The sun rises over the mostly fallow corn field, and Olle and Harlan wake up in good spirits. We have a lovely family breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread, and fresh grapefruit we picked off the branch just yesterday, blended with great conversation, a gift of connection for our family that this year has brought. The school day goes really well, and the boys find a way to concentrate and learn, in spite of the challenges. After school we have a meeting with our neighbor and excellent friend Adilsa and a group of students to whom we (you) are helping provide scholarships. Their smiles of gratitude warm our hearts. We then pick corn with the family in the nearby field, filling sack after sack. We feel good, because we know that corn is used to make just about everything and that this corn will surely not go to waste. We have a soccer game with the whole family in Don Lionel’s yard. We laugh, play hard, and get really dirty. Harlan and Olle find more time to play with Rachel and Leo, and then after showering (we have water!!) we eat a delicious meal of rice and beans, or maybe a special and anticipated offering of pasta – with chicken. Several neighbors stop by during the evening, bringing more food but more just sharing of themselves. We speak in Spanish, and on this day the flow of conversation makes us feel like we really know what we are talking about. We fall asleep after relaxing to a part of some really good movie, our room clear of bugs, our bellies full, and our hearts content. We are doing it! Living together as a family in a Nicaraguan village, learning, sharing, and feeling grateful for the experience. Bad Day: The wind has howled all night, sounding and feeling like an out of control locomotive, threatening to fling our roof into the nearby cornfield, uprooting leftover mud in our gutter from the wet season and depositing it on our floor, thus making any midnight, blind walks from our bed to our pee bucket that much more perilous. Needless to say we don’t sleep much this night. Upon waking, we are greeted by a mid-sized tarantula on the floor outside our room. We rush to kill it, and then fumble to unlock the kitchen door, dodging bunny poops in the dark and finally finding the tissues; we both have really bad allergies. The constant sneezing and coughing make it hard to focus, or taste the coffee, and Harlan and Olle also wake up dreary-eyed, coughing and sneezing. Our physical disorders are accompanied for some reason this morning by a longing for home, for friends and family, and for a cozy place where the weather cannot find you. School sucks this day, with lots of outbursts, frustrations, and seemingly little learning. School sucks partly because the wind continues to blow all morning, powerful gusts hurling palm leaves and dust (polvo in Spanish, also known locally as ‘yellow snow’) all over our porch and into our rooms. After school, we try to eat beans and rice but the beans Miriam cooked two days before have since gone bad due to a day without electricity. The dirty clothes are piling up but we have no water so the mound continues to grow. Harlan and Olle are bored out of their minds in the afternoon, and they pass the time by making a trip to the local venta, where they purchase a local sweet drink known as a yuppi (wicked sweet with a ton of sugar). Olle comes back almost in tears as he stepped on a big biting ant hill unknowingly while making one of several barbed-wire fence crossings. The wind continues to blow, at times forcing huge waves of smoke from a nearby garbage fire through our entire house. The chicks are cute but insist on walking on our patio where they leave fresh poops wherever they go. By evening we have had enough but the dust prevents us from running as a stress-reliever in the nearby field without having huge coughing fits. We still have no water by dinner and so can’t shower, and damn it would feel good to scrub those four layers of dust off. Harlan starts coming down with a stomach bug after dinner, on top of his cold, and the boys go to bed tired and not at all happy to be here. We fall asleep a few hours later, covered in dust, wondering why we are here and praying to God that tomorrow will be a brighter day. As we doze off, the power suddenly comes on, and the lights that we unintentionally left on while we had electricity wake the boys up, ensuring that we are all in for a long, sleepless night. Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crows….. Olle has given us all a gift. Every animal that we either currently have or have come into contact with has come to us based on Olle’s desire and dogged determination to get an animal. First it was Dulce the cat, who was originally Don Lionel’s kitten. Don Lionel must have seen the way Olle cared for, held, and caressed the cat (a type of love and affection for animals that is rarely seen here) and he gifted the cat to Olle, despite that meaning that he wouldn’t have a future mouse hunter under his roof. Next came Rainer the rabbit, and our friend Erickson must have seen the way Olle held and stroked the soft bunny, understanding that he would provide it with a good home and love. Owie the Owl was with us for only a short time (6 days), but it was Olle who wanted to care for and nurture the sick, injured bird back to health, despite the odds. Finally came Pagi and Malam the baby chicks, our friend Yader clearing understanding that the smile they brought to Olle, who chased them incessantly as he tried to catch them at Yaders house one night, was one that could not be ignored but rather needed to be rewarded. Initiating a mini-farm at our house was not our original intention, and at times having animals in this environment can be irritating (lots of rabbit pee and chicken poop to scoop off our patio or from our kitchen floor, mouse entrails and half lizards greeting us in the morning, loud meowing and soon possibly cock-a-doodle-dooing) but in the end they have brought us a little piece of joy. It feels good to cuddle with a rabbit on a rainy night, or listen to the purrr of a cat on your lap, or to just watch as a baby chick chirps as she pecks at things to learn new about the world around her. Thanks for the animals, Olle! UPDATE: Catching baby chicks is not easy. Miriam and Cully now have a new ritual, chasing Pagi and Malam around our patio every night in order to put them to sleep in our kitchen, chicken hutch. They are incredibly fast, and only by a concerted team effort involving lots of yelling directions and multiple errant, unsuccessful dives (we feel kind of like border collies herding sheep) do we finally get them to bed. The Fiesta Patronal, or Party of the Saints, happens in El Tololar every year on the second weekend of January. It is a big deal, and from what we can tell one of the biggest community events of the year. Last week we had the opportunity to attend several events associated with the day, arriving Saturday evening to the Catholic Church with a small group of family and friends just in time to see the Virgin Mary knock her head on the doorway as the 10 young men and women carrying her attempted to squeeze she and her entire float through the church entrance. We entered to a church rocking to various music styles that somehow fit despite their lack of congruence. Rapidly shifting from zydeco to polka to R + B sounding music, we swayed and lifted our hands with the rest of the congregation, largely failing at hearing many actual words except for the extortion, in Spanish, to ‘stomp on the head of the devil’, which we did with relish (and ketchup). It was part square-dancing, part old-school evangelical (although a Catholic Ceremony) tent revival, and part sermon, all led by a singing, stomping, sweating and enthusiastic Father (Sacerdote in Spanish). Upon leaving the sanctuary, before us lay a traveling carnival. Their were four rides, none of which would likely have passed any safety standards in the USA, especially the high speed ‘swing’ that Harlan and Olle tried once, whipping you around and around at higher and higher angles, threatening to either launch you towards the church or the health clinic, or into the crowd of onlooking spectators. Perhaps the most aptly named amusement was ‘El Titanic”, a scary looking boat-esque ride that truly looked like it might sink at any moment. Adilsa’s dog had followed us from her house as usual, succeeding in being the only animal to actually gain admission into the service. There were tons of dogs outside later at the carnival, however, and we remarked that the only reason they didn’t actually attend the service was because they were likely Baptist, not Catholic dogs:) Redemption and Forgiveness in action: We saw some last week, and hope to see more soon. The forgiveness happened really as a result of Adilsa and Wilmar. They were in the process of identifying the best candidates for the scholarships that you are helping us to provide to two university students and five high school students this year. They were narrowing down the list, and we came to the name of a young man who had spent many afternoons at our house playing with Olle and Harlan when we first arrived. We’ll call him Jorge. Jorge and his sister didn’t speak much English, but they had been so interested in us, spending whole afternoons at our house, chatting, playing with the boys, and generally just providing pleasant company. One afternoon, after a game of soccer, we came back to our house to find Cully’s phone gone missing. After a day or two of inquiries, we came to find out that in fact Jorge had taken it, telling his friends that it was a gift to him from the ‘gringo’. We were mad at first, but when we saw his name on the scholarship students list that Adilsa and Wilmar presented, we changed our tune. The incident also provided us the opportunity as a family to discuss on a deeper level about what forgiveness really means, and why is it so hard to actuate. When someone has wronged you, our first thought is often revenge, or anger, or hatred. But the act of forgiving someone, often only possible supernaturally, is so simple yet so hard. It can not only literally lift a weight off our shoulders, but we can play a part in redeeming another, and likewise lighten their load, instantaneously. Jorge and his family don’t have much at all in the way of material things. In fact, they are likely one of the poorer families in El Tololar. Yet Jorge is a really bright student at school, and he, like everyone, deserves a second chance. Redemption and forgiveness. Thank you for helping, from afar, to redeem and forgive. Part of learning about another culture is to experience as many cultural events as possible. Thus since we have been here we have attended multiple church services, gone with our family to the cemetery on the Day of the Dead, sang and walked our way through Tololar during the Griteria Festival on December 7th, attended a Quinceañera (15th birthday party for local girls, a really big deal), spent a rocking Christmas with local family and friends, and now also attended a post-baptism (bautizo) party. The Bautizo took place at the home of Mariano, one of the two local bus drivers we have become friendly with here in Tololar. We received an invite the week before, delivered via motorcycle by his grandson. Our intention was to arrive on ‘Nica Time’, in other words late, and we sauntered up the dirt driveway to the house a solid 25 minutes later than the 3:30 scheduled start. Clearly we weren’t Nica enough as we were still some of the first to arrive. We spent the next hour or more just sitting and watching families slowly saunter in, with the festivities finally getting going about 5:00pm. The main event came first, which was of course the piñata smashing. They had 2 piñatas, the first lasting only up until the fourth child took a solid, candy-inducing whack. The second one lasted much longer, starting out as a cute white dog with a green hat. Multiple kids took their turn (we think Harlan and Olle were just too old as the average whacker was about 5 or 6) and by the time they had gone around the circle of chairs, the poor doggy was hanging there, legless, multiple holes in his sides and head, and apparently still with a cavity of candy in him, as they kept whacking despite his sorry state. After the piñatas came food (plates of rice, bread and chicken that took a solid 45 minutes to deliver to the 200 odd guests), then soda, then ice cream, then goodie bags for the kids. THEN we went from the post-baptism party to our friend Yader’s 20th Birthday hoedown, which basically just consisted of a large table set in his front patio, reserved for our family. Multiple plates of foods and soda were delivered to us, the Lundgren Family somehow becoming the honored guests (that’s rural Nicaraguan hospitality for you) at someone else’s birthday party. As we have done now on multiple occasions, we ambled home, full to the brim with food and with thankfulness for the incredible kindness that is constantly being heaped upon us.

Wild Horses, Market Gazing, Adios Mrs. Chicken - Lundgren Nicaragua Update #11

Wild Horses, Market Gazing, Adios Mrs. Chicken

When a frog jumps onto your patio during the dry season out of nowhere, you know it’s time to terminate the on-again, off-again body of water near your house, dubbed “Lake Lundgren” by Olle. Since we arrived in September, every time we do laundry - usually it’s Miriam - a small swamp forms just outside our shower, the low point of our yard. During a big laundry day (say 4 days worth of clothes, most of which are downright filthy due to the volcanic soil and dust), Lake Lundgren can get pretty big and when water from four daily showers and washing dishes combines (our house was built so that everything drains to the same place) it can be a legitimate bog. In the rainy season, it often remains for days. During a recent de-weeding, ant-infested raking session near the lake, we finally had enough. Not only was it getting really smelly, but we were worried that it might provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes, who up till now have made only sporadic visits. We borrowed a shovel and a cova (awesome tool that breaks up even the hardest of rocks) and together Miriam and Cully built two matching channels, one leading away from the shower-sink hole, the other from where the laundry water pools. Thanks to a little engineering, Lake Lundgren is no more, in its stead are Moat Olle and Moat Harlan, which we are monitoring closely after each water use to verify that the engineers we hired were worth it:)

Our family has received at least 50 or 60 wasp stings since we arrived. It usually seems to be Harlan (often while just sitting innocently in one of our 4 rocking chairs) or Miriam (usually doing laundry) that get stung the most, although both Olle and Cully have had their share of stings, one of Cully’s landing in his mouth during a soccer game, the other on his upper lip, making it exceedingly difficult to adequately relay his experience about raking peanuts for future consumption by Don Lionel’s horses to the family one morning. There are many different kinds of wasps (huge black ones with a really loud buzz, tiny black ones that frequent our kitchen window, more traditional yellow-jacket looking ones) and sometimes its easiest just to assume they are all dangerous. Again, people from Tololar are generally not scared in the least. Wilmar must have had 25 of the small black ones and 3 or 4 yellow-jacket looking ones (later found to be conchitas) surrounding him when he did laundry one morning. He very nonchalantly explained that the conchitas could in fact produce a pretty good sting but that the black ones were no problem unless you really aggravated them, almost demonstrating the type of aggravation he was talking about for Cully and Miriam. Co-existence has a special meaning here in Nicaragua.

Add Veterinarian to the list of Miriam’s medical talents. A few days before Christmas, Nestor’s horse ‘Blanco’ (we thought Blanco was Don Lionel’s but apparently he was just horse-sitting for Nestor) came walking back home. He had been gone for about a month, having left one day to graze, as he often was allowed to do, and not come back. Nestor and Carlos had taken the moto out several times on unsuccessful reconnaissance missions and they had given up hope that Blanco would ever be found. When he reappeared one afternoon, his ribs were showing even more than usual – most cows, dogs, and horses here are pretty skinny to begin with – and he had a nasty wound on his back, right where his mane ends. At first it looked just like a bunch of bloody dirt but as Nestor cleaned it, a much larger gash was revealed, accompanied by a horrific smell of rotting, infected flesh. The large wound was accompanied by several smaller cuts and scrapes and the general consensus was that it was the result of a fight and a bite from another horse. Others thought it may have also been a vampire bat, matching the exact location where Don Lionel’s horse had been sucked. Nestor and Miriam took turns cleaning the lesion and pushing out the copious amounts of puss, while Blanco tried to lick it, shivered with pain when they touched it, and bucked or scraped his feet in protest. Marden arrived unannounced and quickly returned with a cleanser he had used on his pigs that he thought would work. The triumvirate of Marden, Miriam, and Nestor cleaned, scraped, inspected and disinfected the gash, all the while assuring Blanco that everything would be okay. They worked for almost two hours, past twilight and into the darkness, undeterred by multiple mosquito bites, a flock of chickens in the trees above them, and the frequent fly-bys by a local family of bats, roosting along with the chickens in the nearby trees.

Once they cleaned Blancos wounds, they turned to Don Lionel, who had prepped his horse and been waiting patiently for an application of disinfectant by Marden, Don Lionel’s horse’s previous vampire bat bite wound still not having fully healed.

The rainy season has officially ended, and now summer has started in El Tololar. That means that we won’t get any more measurable rain until at least May, and that the heat will start to gradually increase, reaching a sweaty, dusty, needing multiple showers a day apex by late April, or so we are told. Summer here is also accompanied by strong winds, which started in mid-December, much earlier than normal. The wind can be really powerful and quite dangerous, knocking over our dinky Christmas tree (along with Fernandos Christmas ornament balls) that we had unsuccessfully duct-taped to the floor on multiple occasions (not so bad), and blowing down a large, metal section of our rain gutter, almost onto Miriam’s head (not so good). The wind blows pollen and dust around a lot, requiring the Lundgren family to be on a 24-hour regimen of allergy medication, and also necessitating an additional budget line item for tissues (usually paper towels and toilet paper). The dry, windy weather makes our clothes dry pretty fast, as long as we can locate them after various length flights off our clothesline and onto the ant-infested ground, clothes pins taking first position on our current weeks shopping priority list. It wasn’t long ago that we longed for dry weather during a midnight rain-sweeping session on our patio, and now we’d pay a few cordobas just to see a little rain. That’s life here in a small, impoverished Nicaraguan Village. Life is never easy. You deal with the challenges (be they weather, health, education or job-related), and you rely on family and friends for help.

A Haitian proverb is the title of author Tracy Kidder’s excellent book, “Mountains beyond Mountains.” It is significant because it really makes sense for all of us, no matter where we live. The proverb basically says that we shouldn’t expect things to get easy. Life is not about arriving at a destination but about a process of growth, and of meeting challenges head-on. We hike one mountain (or experience a difficulty in life) and we should be ready for the next challenge (or mountain), because as sure as the sun rises, it will be waiting for us, rising in the distance. At first glance the proverb can seem depressing or uninspired, “So you mean life is just a series of trials and tribulations, one after the other?”, one might say. “Where is the fun in that”? But when you really think about it, the proverb can invigorate us and provide a context for a life of purpose. We wake each day with a mountain in front of us. It is not an obstacle, but an opportunity; an opportunity to be the best hiker we can be that day, to hike mountains not alone but in community with others. For us, life in Nicaragua is a mountain and an opportunity. And there will be another mountain waiting for us when we return and re-enter life in the states, in some ways the biggest challenge of our trip. What is your next mountain?

We walked by a boy in the crowded market near the cathedral. He was laying on his back in front of his mother’s food stall, looking up at the sky with a serene face as people bumped, jostled, and shoved their way past, many likely oblivious to his presence. What was the boy thinking? What was he dreaming of? Maybe it was his love (like ours) of city markets, lively places, the hearts of many cities, where people from all walks of life come to buy and sell, jumbled together in a miasma of rainbowic (it should be a word) colors and smells. The cathedral market place (Leon’s cathedral is the oldest in Central America) is a place where you can (and will) find most anything, especially food. Piping hot, steamy soups with hunks of meat-covered bone of unknown origin (Cully thumbs up, Miriam thumbs down), freshly made corn tortillas, delicious fruit juices squeezed before your eyes, fried chicken and pork, accompanied by various sauces, and sweets, lots of local breads and deserts that can make you fat just by looking at them.

Maybe the boy on his back was dreaming about his next meal, what he would eat for lunch on that bright sun-shiny day (that is if his Mom could make enough that morning selling tortillas). Or maybe has was day-dreaming about someday going to college, if his Mom could sell a lot more tortillas. Maybe we all have a little bit of day-dreaming boy in us, a need for a space to look up, to allow the busyness of life to pass us by for a moment, while we imagine possibility…

Caramelo the pig, a 200 pound sow, gave birth to five piglets, all breach, between about 8pm and midnight on December 23^rd. We knew Caramelo was pregnant, but assumed she still had a few weeks to go. But when Carlos came over asking for our ant killer spray to rid the birthing area she was preparing of biting ants, we knew her time had come. After dinner we, along with various members of the Rivas family, set up shop outside Caramelo’s quarters, some sitting in chairs, others standing, chatting or cheering each time the massive pig moved or grunted. It was like watching a baseball game – similar starting time – or a movie, Miriam even considered making popcorn. The cheers got louder at about 8:25, when neighbor Miriam came over to tell us that piggy # 1 had been born (Harlan and Olle had just bedded down themselves). We went right over as # 2 was getting ready. It was a comical scene. The two Miriam’s on either side of Caramelo, petting, whispering encouragement, and gently helping her push. Carlos was playing catcher at her rear end, calling out directions (‘one more push, a little harder, inside curveball’). Cully and the boys to the pig’s side, videoing and likewise providing verbal encouragement. After several brief appearances of legs, a few final pushes by Caramelo and the Miriams, and a nice pull by Carlos, a slimy, pink oinker popped out. Her eyes were closed, and she spent the next 30 minutes attempting to suckle, usually unsuccessfully, in part because every several minutes one of Adilsa’s dogs would attempt to get a closer look. Figaro, Adilsa’s kitten who is really cute but gets into everything, kept attacking the newly born pig’s still attached umbilical cord, thinking it was some sort of special treat. The whole experience was new for us, and we couldn’t help but think it was like a version of the Christmas story, being surrounded as we were, perhaps like Baby Jesus, by pigs, cows, dogs, chickens, and cats. Actually, it really was like the Christmas story. Mary, like Caramelo, giving birth amidst the dirt and dust of a barn, the bright, rural stars shining overhead. In that sense our friends here in many ways have a much better understanding then we do of the meaning of Christmas, experiencing the dirty, raw, organic nature and reality of life in a visceral way, every day.

The day after Caramelo gave birth, we witnessed death. A big Christmas Dinner was being planned, and six chickens were to be slaughtered for the feast the day before. We missed the demise of the first two, only coming upon two limp, still feathery birds when Adilsa called us over from across the fence line to help her pluck. We spent a good 30 minutes chatting and plucking breasts, heads, wings and butts, stopping only to wash the sticky feathers from our fingers. We did see the third death. We had been sitting and chatting with the family, having just exchanged Christmas gifts. Carlos was sitting in a chair, listening intently while stroking a chicken sitting on his lap. At some point he got up and called us to come around to the back yard, where we witnessed a few neck swipes by his machete. Once the blood had drained, Adilsa brought the chicken into the kitchen to show us how you get it ready to pluck, plopping it in a boiling pot of water just long enough to make feather removal easier. We always knew those plump breasts you buy at the supermarket came from somewhere, and this experience gave us a better appreciation for the work and sacrifice that goes into it.

No one really takes much time to name their animals here, largely because they aren’t expected to stay around that long. Even getting Caramelo the pig’s name out of Carlos was tough, him seemingly making up the name on the spot to please us. But we have on our own named Adilsa’s two dogs, initially erroneously and now just because its kind of funny. They are Sale (we pronounce it Sally) and Fuera. ‘Sale’ basically means leave, and ‘Fuera’ means outside. The two dogs just don’t understand boundaries, and want to always be part of the action. Hence whenever a few people are gathered chatting, you often here the names (actually commands) ‘SALE’, ‘FUERA’. For some reason the little dog gets told to leave more, while the larger one gets told to go outside, and so to us, they are Sally and Fuera. They are cute dogs, but have a habit of itching themselves, eating our cat food, digging in our garbage and hunting our rabbit, and so we are happy to continue to, affectionately, tell them to leave and go outside.

Olle loves little things, especially animals, one reason we now have a large rabbit in our kitchen that eats and poops too much and most likely a pregnant kitten with morning sickness that lolls about all day on our bed. They were both really cute when we got them though :) That desire for another small animal, this time a baby chicken, sent Cully and Wilmar on a nighttime motorcycle ride through the dusty streets of Tololar in search of a ‘pollito’. They first asked at the house nearby that breeds chickens, but they only had one left, and it was sick. It was suggested that it would be good to inquire at another house, but they only had a really little chicken that still required it’s mother for warmth. It must have been strange, two people knocking on your door out of the blue in the dark, with the strange query. ‘Hi, I’m the new Gringo who lives down the street. You may have seen my family and I over the past few months on the bus, or running in the peanut field. Yeah, well, my son wants a baby chicken for Christmas, and we thought you might have one. Can you help me?’ The nighttime chicken run was ultimately unsuccessful, and so our house remains occupied by only two juvenile animals, Olle for the time being having to be content with playing – and then sometimes eating - our neighbors chickens.

Grandma and Grandpa’s arrival on December 26^th was as anticipated an event as any of us can remember. We have now been in Nicaragua for just over for months and we (especially the boys) were absolutely giddy about getting to be with Grandma and Grandpa, the boys understanding that undoubtedly grams and gramps would fulfill their relational duty to spoil their grandkids, which they did with gusto. They rented a 4 x 4 truck (very smart move) and together we drove through and around Managua, Leon, El Tololar, and the nearby beach communities of Pone Loya and Las Penitas. We only got really lost on New Years Eve in Managua, receiving no less than 5 sets of different directions before Grandpa had the brilliant idea of hailing a taxi to escort us to our destination. We laughed, cried, swam, ate, drank, walked, drove, and sung our way to an amazing week that proved to be a much needed refresher and morale booster for all of us. And thanks to multiple hot showers, Familia Lundgren came away cleaner then we’ve been since August! We are so thankful for the generosity of spirit that Grandma and Grandpa shared with us and with El Tololar. They came to our house on two occasions to get a sense of our life here, and the whole Rivas family loved them, remarking on multiple occasions on how young they seemed. They were also duly impressed with Grandpa’s soccer playing skills!

Perhaps the most rewarding part of Grandma and Grandpa’s visit was a stop at the health center in El Tololar on their last day. The center’s doctor had previously given us a wish list of medical supplies that they most needed. Grandpa had found a way to requisition virtually all of it. He and Grandma ‘smuggled’ the goods into the country – along with lots of soccer balls and baseball gloves, the gloves for some reason receiving the greatest scrutiny by customs officials, as if their true intention was to initiate a covert baseball league that might one day play a role in overthrowing the government – and brought a huge duffel bag to carry them all. They included everything from glucose strips, to surgical gloves, to stethoscopes, bandages, suture kits, and a baby scale. The doctor, who had a chance to see these goods only after Grandma and Grandpa had left, was over the moon. Small things, big impact. Gracias, Gracias, Gracias!!

What’s the big deal about a chair? Normally, not much. But when twelve plastics chairs, two rocking chairs, two fans and a table show up at a health center where people previously were forced to sit on the floor or a concrete slab while they waited for medical attention, butts (especially) and their owners get really happy. A good friend of ours provided funds for the above supplies, which we were privileged to help deliver to the health center along with our Tololamos friends, Beto and Adilsa, on January 3^rd. Two women with babies were escorted to the rocking chairs, the plastic chairs were quickly occupied, and the doctor (she is awesome) came out to give a speech of thanks to Tololamos, while another patient made her own remarks about how big of a deal a chair really is to a sick person. Small things, big impact. Gracias, Gracias, Gracias!!

New Year’s Day brought us both the departure of Miriam’s parents as well as our first official sting by a scorpion. Cully was doing some post holiday clean-up, and took the opportunity to open the bedroom window to air out the dust and week’s worth of accumulated bug detritus. He simultaneously saw something move out of the corner of his eye and felt a sting on his right hand. A mid-sized scorpion came into view, falling into a pile of assorted shoes, sandals, boots, and a guitar. Miriam and Cully quickly found the scorpion (alacron in spanish) in the shoe pile and killed it – actually quite easy to do - in short order. Local stories they had heard of the power of scorpion stings (about three times as bad as a wasp sting, can make your tongue go numb, severe joint pain, dizziness, etc ) came flooding into Cully’s head but after a few minutes, his hand had only swollen a skosh and the pain was much less than expected. Somehow, the scorpion had partially missed – more likely due to it being startled from its slumber then any lightning-fast reflexes on Cully’s part – and we came away with a good story rather than a dusty, motorcycle ride to the hospital in Leon.

Asking for directions in another language and country is always an experience, especially so when flat tires get involved. Grandma and Grandpa Muntz had just treated us to an amazing mangrove forest boat ride cruise that included about 30 sightings of various local birds, a possible but unconfirmed crocodile sighting, a lone racoon, several large termite nests, a golden orb spider, and four recently born baby turtles at a hatchery that were awaiting their release into the ocean that afternoon. Upon parking for lunch after the tour, Miriam noticed that the rear, right tire of our rental truck was mostly flat. The parking lady told Cully that there was a tire fix-it place in the next town and while the others waited, he set off. An elderly, toothless man relayed that down the road, in the other direction, there were in fact two tire repair shops, both recognizable by old tires set on the side of the road. The first tire sign was a bike tire, and the staff (a father and son working out of their house) instructed Cully to continue on to the next, larger sign, at which point he should turn to the left and ask for Javier. Some 200 yards further was the sizeable car-tire size sign, but upon turning onto a small dirt road, none of the four children playing soccer knew anyone named Javier who fixed tires. Cully followed a separate lead down another road, only to encounter a dead-end and a police station across a fence line, none of the cops knowing definitively where you get a tire fixed, but feeling pretty confident that a guy named Lollo (Javier was now out of the picture) fixed tires out of his house, located a few streets down. A failed attempt or two later finally brought Cully to a side street and face to face with a smiling Lollo, who filled the tire, diagnosed that it was only a small leak, and promptly charged 100 cordobas for the air, and no doubt the experience!

How dare you chop down those trees? That was a first thought, when we heard the buzz of a chain saw and witnessed three eucalyptus trees falling to the earth, two fence lines over from our house. For goodness sakes birds live in those trees, but more importantly they provide an excellent background for our morning exercise/quiet times, and the wind that gently caresses their leaves in the morning makes us feel happy, and damn, we just need that little slice of happiness sometimes. But in reality, it’s not a big deal to lose those trees, and we aren’t so bummed that our halcyon days of selfish-tree bliss are over. Why? Because those trees, like everything here, serve a purpose. They will be the frame of a new tower, reaching to the sky, replacing the old tower (which after seven years succumbed to weather and an army of termites) that holds the water tank that irrigates – and therefore provides life – to Don Lionel’s corn field. We lost a couple trees; the family will receive a continued, sustained supply of water to their fields. Ask any farmer, that’s a big deal! And, P.S., the guy who cut down the trees is a wizard. He used a chainsaw (motosierra in Spanish) to not only cut down the tree, but to cut the planks for the tower…perfectly. This guy was like Rembrandt with a saw, carving and creating perfectly, symmetrical planks with a freaking chain saw. But that is par for the course here. Out of necessity, creativity and artistry are born.

Volcano Surfing, Screaming for Candy, Ain’t No BULL! - Lundgren Nicaragua Update #10

Volcano Surfing, Screaming for Candy, Ain’t No BULL!

Here name means “brilliant star”, and her future is brighter because of you. Last week we had the opportunity to meet Slilma, the first of two university students who will be receiving one of the scholarships we mentioned in our previous update. We sat in a circle on the dirt patio outside Adilsa’s kitchen. Adilsa and Wilmar represented Tololamos, the organization with whom we are partnering. Miriam and Cully (and later Harlan) represented “Familia Lundgren.” Slilma sat cross-legged on a rickety plastic chair, at first slightly disengaged, in between her father, Paulo, and her mother, Beliza. Slilma is sixteen years old (students often complete secondary school here at that age) and hopes to study nursing and/or accounting at a public university in Leon. Her family is poor and does not have the means to send her to school. Mid-way through our meeting, Paulo took his hat off, revealing a partially-caved in skull on the left side of his head, the result of a serious bike accident while riding home from work early one morning last year. He can’t work now and receives very little in the way of disability. Beliza doesn’t have a job and spends her time caring for the family. They understand the value of education on a deep level, Paulo noting that “every boy or girl who doesn’t have an education has no future.” Adilsa read the scholarship requirements (maintain a good grade point average, treat others respectfully, no drugs, etc) then presented Slilma with $80 cash, a part of the scholarship used to help her buy books and prepare for school. When the new school year starts in February, Slilma will receive $40/month for 10 months of school each year (as long as she adheres to the scholarships requisites). The scholarship will continue until she finishes, which could be five years, as only one year seems an inadequate amount of time to support a dream. Slilma and her parents smiled with gratitude, and so did we.

Florinda the chicken has a funny habit. She lays exactly one egg almost every day at about 11:30am, just before lunch. She lays the egg smack in the middle of our 10-year old neighbor Leo’s bed, cackling proudly, at which point Leo retrieves the egg and places it in the kitchen while Florinda walks outside with her friends. We think Florinda is also in the same posse of chickens that make a beeline for our house every morning when they are let our of their hutch by Adilsa at about 5:20am, circling our patio in search of the last night’s dinner scraps while Miriam and Cully exercise to greet the day.

Another gang of chickens, Miriam and Carlos’s, also frequent our home, at times even having the moxie to enter our kitchen. When neighbor Miriam calls them with a “coouuueeeee” each evening, they cluck and flap home excitedly with astonishing speed. Upon eating a traditional meal of chicken, bananas, rice and vegetables that she recently prepared for us, however, we came to find out that their fervor to get home to roost is at times imprudent as the next day could be their last.

We have a two-foot high plastic Christmas tree, bought in the crowded Leon market near the lady we buy our beans and rice from, that is heavily laden with many of the hand-made jicaro ornaments our friend Fernando made for us. Olle made a paper star that sits atop. Fernando and his brother Yader brought the bulbs to our house recently, along with a bag of hand-picked roasted peanuts that we ate for a week while contemplating the local and global implications of the peanut industry that we have outlined previously.

On a previous visit to their house, Yader had shared with us a video of a scorpion he had found under a piece of wood. He and Fernando, 19 and 18 respectively, mentioned that they couldn’t even count the # of times they had each been stung, but that it was bastante (which basically means a lot). Our obvious interest in Yader’s scorpion must have led him to the erroneous conclusion that we in fact like having scorpions around, and along with the Christmas bulbs and peanuts, Yader brought a jar holding a giant scorpion he had caught. He kept saying, “don’t worry, don’t worry, while periodically taking the creature out on the concrete floor near our kitchen and prodding it with a stick. Miriam did a great job in showing culturally sensitive restraint – perhaps being gifted a scorpion was in fact a great honor – by adopting only her ‘polite’ shriek technique in the hopes that Yader would eventually take the hint that we already had enough pets, which he finally did.

We’ve averaged about a scorpion and a tarantula every 2 weeks. Not bad. The tarantula count went up last weekend when we had successive sightings (and subsequent killings) about 12 hours apart. The first tarantula, whom our cat dulce had already partially incapacitated, met it’s demise on the bottom of Cully’s flip-flop, just outside our kitchen. The second sighting began innocently enough with Miriam washing clothes last Saturday morning. Upon picking up a particularly crusty pair of Harlan’s shorts, she felt something slither up her arm. It wasn’t huge, but for Goodness sakes, it was a freaking tarantula! We all came running, and even got a good picture which we’ll post shortly. Our neighbor Aciles found two sticks and picked it up from amidst the clothes, chop-stick style. He placed it on the ground nearby. Aciles was clearly on the tarantula’s side as he, like Yader, kept saying ‘no problem, no worries’, his way of advocating strongly for saving its life. It’s cool that people here are connected to nature, they live so close to a wide variety of animals that everything, even scary spiders, are just a part of living here. But in the end the ‘Hey man, I just had a tarantula on my arm while washing clothes and I’m just a little freaked’ argument won out, and Aciles pushed her into the ground with a pointy stick.

After 3 months, we finally went volcano boarding. In fact volcano boarding can only be done in a few places on earth, one of which is on the side of Cerro Negro, an active volcano 30 minutes from our house by motorcycle. Cerro Negro only came into being in 1850 and thus holds the distinction of being the youngest, active volcano on earth. It is actually a beautiful mountain, about 700 meters high, that grows a few meters each year (or more during an eruption year, of which there have been about 28 since Cerro Negro was born). It’s blackness is beautiful in stark contrast to the verdant green, dormant volcanoes and fields that surround it. Boarding or ‘surfing’ the mountain requires that you rent a tabla (a basic wooden snowboard looking thing without the straps), carry it up the mountain (or carry yours and your kids) and then choose one of several trails to slide down. It’s wise to wear long pants and sleeves, goggles, gloves and even a whole bright orange or yellow jump suit you are provided if you go with a local tour company. You sit on the board like a sled (you can try standing but the word is that it’s exceedingly difficult), and launch over the side. By adjusting your feet and hand placement you can manage your speed to be either quite slow or super fast. The fastest person on record down the mountain was actually a German guy on a bike who clocked in at 172 km per hour. Familia Lundgren didn’t break any speed records on our first try but judging by the volcanic pebbles in our eyes and mouths we all hit a respectable pace. We can’t wait to go again when friends visit :).

We go to the nearby city of Leon as a family once, sometimes twice, a week. We walk everywhere, because taxi or bicycle cab ride costs add up and besides, Leon is a really walkable city. When we walk, we are often the cover of the Beatles 1969 classic album, Abbey Road. Cully is Lennon, and Harlan Starr follows closely behind. Olle McCartney is next, with Miriam Harrison usually bringing up the rear. We have shoes on, there aren’t a lot of crosswalks in Leon, and we are usually carrying multicolored grocery bags packed with the week’s essentials, but for a moment at least, we feel we are a band, moving and weaving as an out of place rock group to the city’s pulse.

Griteria, which literally translates to ‘the screaming’, or the ‘day of yelling’ happens every December 7^th across Nicaragua. The holiday requires that you learn a phrase, ‘Quien Causa Tanta Alegria’, translated as ‘Who is causing so much Joy?’. Once you’ve got that in your tool box, you walk (in our case with a large group of about 14) down the narrow, dusty rounds of Tololar, dodging cow poop and other groups being pulled on big wagons by horses or oxen. You don’t approach every house, only those who have crafted a shrine to Mary somewhere out front, shrine’s you can usually spot from the road. You walk up, ask where all the joy is coming from, and the home’s occupants reply, ‘La Concepcion de Maria’, or ‘the Virgin Mary.’ Many of the homes for Mary are absolutely beautiful, and you can inspect them more deeply while bumbling through one of several traditional songs in Spanish. Each house that has a shrine is required by law (okay, by custom) to give you something in return. In this sense it is really both a Catholic holiday and also a day for the community to come together, and for those who have been blessed with more to give back. It’s kind of a mixture between Christmas Caroling and Halloween, because in addition to singing you bring a sack with you that is filled with candy, really sugary dried papaya, sweet drinks called yuppies, lollipops, bags of popcorn, and even large plastic bowls and cups, gifts that have come in very handy in our kitchen.

Our Griteria experience started earlier in the day with Miriam, Carlos and Marilyn giving us a large plate of food for lunch, a traditional meal of chicken (the same chicken Miriam had killed that morning), vegetables, rice, and even a few raisins for sweetness. Round 1 of “Pollo Relleno” was really delicious, as was round 2, the exact same meal being delivered two hours later by Paula and Santo, who live on the other side of Adilsa. We began our Griteria walk with mostly full bellies which became totally full during the two hour walk by virtue of copious sweets, many of which were consumed en route. Yader, Fernando and Jessica, who passed by on motorcycle in the dark, insisted that we stop by their house on our way home. We did, and after some small talk, four heaping plates of Pollo Relleno along with two large slices of bread were carried out. You know that feeling you get after Thanksgiving dinner when you can barely move and are happy to just lay on the couch and lapse into a mini-food coma? We had that, squared and possibly cubed, a feeling of fullness that was magnified in a not so positive way by Momma Yader’s retelling of the ingredients of her version of the meal, which included at least four freshly killed chickens, other parts of other chickens, undisclosed pig parts, and gaseosa (soda), the real origin of the dishes’ sweetness. We stumbled home from Griteria, less wondering who caused all the joy than what caused all our stomachaches. Actually, being part of Griteria was really special for our whole family, a slice of local culture, and not needing to eat for the next two days was just a bonus!

Miriam is a nurse, no question about it. We mentioned in an earlier update that she came to Leo’s aid when the side of Don Lionel’s house made a small whole in his head during a soccer game. Since then, Miriam has taken care of the other Miriam’s finger when she accidentally stapled it, tended to Carlos’s foot after a thorn sliced it during a nighttime motorcycle ride, massaged Adilsa, re-wrapped Miriam’s stomach wound multiple times after gall bladder surgery, re-wrapped Mariela’s bandage after wrist surgery, and cleaned Harlan and Olle’s numerous cuts and scrapes, including one Harlan got falling out of a coconut tree during a game of hide and seek. Most recently, our friend Minor came over – clearly the word that Flo Nightingale was in the house had spread – seeking help in cleaning a nasty cut that required several stitches he got playing barefoot soccer with friends. Everyone seems to know to come to Nurse Mimi, both due to her attentiveness and compassion, and because she brought with her to Nicaragua an arsenal of healing products that rivals the clinic in Tololar. When not playing nurse, she has acted as the resident pharmacist, dispersing various medications, including most recently allergy pills and pain medication to Don Lionel, who was suffering from post hernia-surgery groin pain, aggravated by excessive, seasonal allergy-induced sneezing. She has doled out drugs to our whole family, who have gotten wonked with allergies over the past two weeks, likely because of the change from winter to summer here. Your prayers and good thoughts are much appreciated, as allergies fall into that ‘we can deal for a while but this just really sucks on top of other hardships’ category. Given the way life unfolds here in Nicaragua, Miriam’s skills will continue to come in handy for sure.

The Christmas season ‘feel’ in Nicaragua is very different for us in a couple of ways. First, the stark difference between what we have and what our neighbors have in terms of material things is especially apparent. One neighbor was surprised that the lights we bought to string on our patio cost about $4. None of the other neighbors have lights (or Christmas trees for that matter) because in Tololar if you have $4 you don’t buy lights, you buy rice and beans. You don’t pay $5 for an extension chord, you just fix your crappy old one – with a machete (for the 20^th time). In El Tololar, a few bucks is substantial, and people know where to put it to the best use.

It’s also a bit hard to get into the Christmas Season when it’s 90 degrees out (although we are not complaining :) and the only snow is termite dust from above or from the makeshift snow-making machine Olle crafted one day by rubbing a piece of wood against another, ‘Look Ma, snow!’ The most festive holiday music we hear from our neighbors (other than Felice Navidad when shopping in La Union Grocery Mart in Leon) is Esteban’s oft downright gaudy selection of local and international favorites, blared at various hours of the day. We asked Harlan and Olle what were some of the things they missed most about the season: cookies, the smell of home, lighting candles, friends, decorations, food, neighbors, skiing, and of course, family.

We attended the El Tololar high school promoccion (graduation) last Saturday as special guests and representatives of Tololamos. Thirty-nine secondary school students graduated (high school here lasts basically through 11^th grade). Two of the students, Slilma (mentioned above) and Xochilt will have the chance to go to college because of scholarships we have committed to provide with your help. If you want to join the group supporting Slilma and Xochilt, and other projects here in El Tololar, we’d be honored to have you donate HERE. Prior to the actual ceremony, there was a ‘pre-ceremony’ at the local Catholic church. We stood in the back and tried to understand the pastor but only could catch a word here and there. Near the ceremony’s end, a commotion at the rear of the sanctuary caught our attention. We turned around to see a 5 foot ratonera (mouse killer) snake (our friend Chico gave a positive ID) slurking (slither-lurking) near the wall. Those around us were amused for a moment, and Olle got a little close for comfort (‘Look Ma, snake’) but a snake in church is just not that big a deal, and the service continued. At the high school (right next door), the graduation itself went off without a hilt, except for when Familia Lundgren missed our cue to sit in the special guest section, requiring that we walk – Beatles-style – across the courtyard with hundreds of eyes on the four gringos. Graduating from high school in Nicaragua is a really big deal, and we felt honored to have the chance to share in the day.

There is something surreal about holding a large plow and standing directly behind two even larger bulls while hollering at the oxen, ‘stop’, ‘go’, or ‘’other row’ in Spanish, sweating profusely and watching sporadic poop fall around you, a giant volcano smoking in the distance. Cully found himself in this very situation last week after having been invited by Nestor to continue to experience the whole process of yucca cultivation, an operation that has thus far included cutting yucca stalks to plant, planting (sembrar) yucca, throwing fertilizer on the seedlings, pulling weeds, and now cultivating the soil.

Waking up at 4:20am, Cully, Nestor and Carlos hopped on the family motorcycle (three grown men can easily fit on a cycle, and we have even seen five of six when you include grandmas and small children) and headed to the home of Nestor’s father, Raul. Raul’s neighbor had apparently borrowed the bulls, but upon arriving at his house he was found inebriated from the previous night’s activities and only capable of grunting that he thought the bulls must be on a walkabout. Nestor hopped on a horse like a real cowboy, and was back within 20 minutes with two bulls in tow. He showed Cully how to tie the yoke to connect the bulls, and in no time they were cultivating the soil (Cully bent over and in pain, Nestor working the oxen like a champ), using a technique of tilling that has not changed for hundreds, perhaps a thousand years. It has been an honor and a huge learning experience for us, to see the challenges that farmers like Nestor face here everyday, and to taste a small bit of it. The life of a Nicaraguan farmer is exceedingly hard and we hope that our involvement with Tololamos in Health, Education and Environment projects (all of which are either directly or indirectly connected to farming as Tololar’s heart continues to beat to an agrarian drum) will have a positive impact on people like Nestor.

Nestor, and the whole Rivas family, do not have easy lives. They’ve lived here on the property where we live for about 25 years. When they first moved here, they built Don Lionel’s house first and for many years, approximately 15 people lived together there. It was even smaller then, and somehow they crammed grandpas, sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, aunts and uncles all into one room to sleep. Fifteen people in one not very big room? Think about it. But they did it. Over the years, whenever they could scrape up enough money, they would build another house for another family member, always completing the work themselves. They would build latrines (an interesting multi-week, multi-person process that involves horses to cart the dirt away and digging down, one shovel full at a time, to a depth of about 8 meters before constructing the frame with aluminum panels), plant fruit trees, dig wells, and exist, as one unit, with no electricity or running water until about 10 years ago. More houses were added (ours the most recent, which will be gifted to Miriam’s children -not Harlan and Olle, the other Miriam -when we leave) and more family members were born. They are a family unit, and they have eachother’s back, always.

In the past 3 ½ months, we have been blessed to know that they have our backs too. And vice-versa.

And thanks to all of you for having our backs! We are so grateful.

Super-Hyper-Mega-Ultra-Gigantisimo, Cockroach Sipping, Angels in Waiting - Lundgren Nicaragua Update #9

December 2, 2016

Kids do and say the darndest things. Last week, Olle came back to the house before Harlan after a session of tag and general roughhousing with their friend Leo. Very nonchalantly, Olle quipped, ‘Harlan and Leo were playing with their fists. A few seconds ago they were using machetes, but they stopped.’ Well, that’s a relief!

As this update is being finalized, December 1st, another Lundgren is down and out. Olle was a beast on the soccer pitch as recently as yesterday, running around like a madman with his red shorts, black headband, shirtless, taking on any and every opponent as he weaved in between the coconut trees, dodging fallen grapefruit while getting covered with the telltale volcanic dust that is the soil of El Tololar. Today he woke up with a fever, and has fought it all day. We are at 101 plus right now, at times flirting with 102 under the arm, and may need to take him in to the doctor by motorcycle soon. Morning Update: Olle is better this morning, but pray.

We have attempted on several occasions to burn our garbage. In general, it has been a complete fail. This is mostly because we only dug one hole for our garbage this round and we mix paper, plastic and organic together. The hole sits in our backyard, shaded by several trees that line Don Lionel’s adjacent bean field. It gets some sun, but even if it baked all day for several days, banana peels, grapefruit husks, leftover pineapple, and watermelon rinds just don’t burn very well. Next time we need to dig a hole, we will dig two and practice proper organic separation!

Burning weeds is a different story though. Carlos has cut our weeds twice now, and each time we have been left with a giant pile of assorted cuttings. The first time we tried to burn them was during the rainy season and it just wouldn’t catch a fire (we haven’t come across any good lighter fluid). Last week we tried again, Miriam and Cully lighting whatever dry egg cartons, boxes and paper products we could find. The fire started with a roar and for a moment we were feeling quite proud, particularly because we had fortunately chosen a day with little wind and thus were not smoking out our neighbors. The weeds on top were dry enough but deep down it was wet. We each danced around the fire for the better part of an hour, a strange looking ritual for passer-bys for sure, us prodding, poking and circling the pile together, rhythmically, in an attempt to keep the flame lit. Ultimately the wind shifted toward our house, and we were left with a smoldering pile of weeds and smoke in our faces. The cool thing was that the fire did actually continue, smoking and smoldering for two days, and finally did succeed in burning all our weeds.

Full disclosure: We have a pee bucket. This is not something you normally divulge, but we really feel a kinship with all our friends and family and are ready to share the truth with you. Okay, we didn’t start with a pee bucket. At first we made the journey to either Wilmar or our neighbor Miriam’s latrine for both #1 and # 2. But one day Miriam had the genius idea that the green garbage can in our room was only being lightly used for rubbish and that it could easily transform into a pee bucket. It is now used by all four Lundgren family members throughout the day (it remains our little secret here :) and is dumped each morning into our garbage hole, another reason why it refuses to burn. We keep a supply of bleach handy to disinfect and have a strict #1 only policy that has only been broken once, during an intestinal emergency. In general we can highly recommend the pee bucket, and now it only seems a bit out of place when one of us needs to urinate during the boys school hours. ‘Hi Harlan’, Cully might say as he utilizes the bucket placed in the corner of our bedroom/classroom. ‘What have you learned today in social studies? Oh interesting, I had forgotten that the Paleolithic Age lasted up until 8,000 B.C. Bye for now...’

Miriam and Cully may in fact have one of the most uncomfortable beds of all time, although the type we use is commonplace throughout El Tololar. Harlan and Olle sleep on ‘scissor beds’ that are basically a bag used to hold rice and beans pulled tightly across a simple wooden frame. They have largely positive reviews of the beds’ comfort-ability. The double bed in Miriam and Cully’s room looks comfortable enough. It has two thin mattresses (we bought an extra one soon after we arrived to augment) and looks cozy. It has a simple wood frame and a wicker bottom with no cross-beam supports. Herein seems to lie the problem. Generally soon after we have dozed off, Miriam ‘rolls’ downhill toward Cully, coming to a rest almost on top of him. We then spend the rest of the night on the flat half of the bed, cozy for sure, but not as spacious as desired. We have taken great pains to identify the source of the slope, but it continues to allude us, even after going underneath the bed to inspect, like a mechanic checking the brakes. The incline – or decline depending on the sleeper’s perspective - remains a mystery.

Our Owl died just before we left for our Costa Rican vacation. We had Owey for the better part of six days. We fed her tens of termites and at least thirty or forty worms we found in rotting husks in the nearby cornfield. We used our fingers to dip water in her mouth. We pet her and endured cuts from her talons. She put up the good fight for sure but went downhill quickly late last Monday night. First she wouldn’t even keep a worm down, then her foot cramped up and she couldn’t hold on to her roost. Finally she couldn’t even stand, and we watched her die as she lay on her side in the hutch we bought for our rabbit Rainer. Losing Owey was a real bummer as we had all grown fond of her and admired her determination to live despite the odds being stacked against her. RIP Owey.

It took us exactly six local bus changes and one taxi ride to cross the border and reach the beach in Samara, Costa Rica, a brief but much anticipated vacation. We ended up leaving a day early due to news of the impending Otto, a very rare, late season hurricane that came onshore as a category two storm in eastern Nicaragua on Thanksgiving Day. It took us an extra day to reach our destination as we were forced to hole-up in the lovely Casa San Juan Hostel in Managua for a night as a result of Harlan’s rapidly deteriorating stomach trouble, made worse by an excessively greasy enchilada, purchased after bus ride # 1, an enchilada whose grease ruined Miriam’s pants during bus ride # 2.

At Casa San Juan we were introduced to the thrilling ‘suicide shower’ (we learned the name later from a couple we met in Costa Rica), evidently not hard to find in parts of Central America. The ingenious invention (which allows hostel’s to advertise that they offer hot showers) has a valve attached to the nozzle with three settings: hot, warm and cold. Coming into the valve are three different color lines. The shower must get it’s euphemistic name either from these dangerous looking wires (water and nearby wires is always a bit scary) or from the ‘hot’ setting. In fact, it should read ‘scalding, don’t use this setting in isolation or you may die.’ It turns out the only way to successfully use a suicide shower is by deploying the buddy system. One person showers per usual, the other stands at attention above, ready to change the setting whenever the showerer says ‘switch’. In this way it is possible to take a shower that stays mostly in the luke-warm range with only brief moments of wicked hot or freezing cold.

Unwittingly, Miriam nearly ingested a cockroach on Tuesday night. We had just returned from Costa Rica to a home with no electricity and no running water. We had stocked up our giant 5 gallon water containers weeks before which was great, but as the water had been stagnant for a while we decided it was best to use the life straws Miriam’s parents had purchased for us before we came. These straws, by the way, are amazing and allow you to sip water even from a dirty puddle if the need presents itself. Miriam took a well-deserved straw swig, followed shortly thereafter by screams and a confused cockroach running for dear life. Lesson learned? Always close life-straw lid when not using for an extended period of time.

In Nicaragua, at least, banana plants have magical powers. They both attract poisonous animals, and at the same time they make them disappear. And everyone here seems to know it. For example, upon finding a scorpion in our kitchen, our friend Beto trapped it and directly carried it over and slid it down into the banana plant. Our friend Marden was over at our house not long after. He saw Cully pick up a small, red, ant looking insect. He told us it was poisonous, at which point Cully said, “So we should kill it right? Marden said yes, but then proceeded, like Beto, to slide the insect (still alive) down into the nearby banana plant. We continue to wonder what is really down in between those leaves and what makes it such a good repository for arthropods ….

In cross-cultural settings, you often find yourself doing are seeing things that are either just weird, or plain funny. We recently took a bus ride with friends to a nearby hot springs. Prior to a bus switch, Cully looked out the window and said to Olle, 'Hey, look at that guy caring that giant piece of meat.' Upon closer examination, the meat was actually a ginormous pig head, just going for a morning stroll with his owner. Olle's eyes got pretty huge. Another time, Harlan and Cully were purchasing ibuprofen. The only stuff they had stated explicitly it was for menstrual cramps but indeed it was 200mg of ibuprofen. We're hoping it works equally well for all of us!

In Spanish, at least in Nicaraguan Spanish, they often use either diminutives (Harlan and Olle for example are not gringos but gringitos, our kitten is not a gata but a gatita). It's kind of cool because you can add 'ita', or 'ito' to lots of words to convey a sense of connection or cuteness. The same goes for extra-sizing things. In the states you might go to McDonalds and 'Super-Size' your order. In Nicaragua, they take it even a step farther, as we found out on Bus # 3 to Costa Rica, driving by a giant sign that stated the upcoming sale was sure to be 'Super-Hyper-Mega-Ultra-Gigantisimo' in nature. Beat that!

What does it take to be an Angel in Nicaragua? Not that much, really just a small donation to make a big impact. In the world of finance, an “Angel Investor” is someone (or a group of people) who provide much needed financial capital, usually to start-up companies. They are angels to the companies (and really to the people who run the companies) because often they are the only ones willing to take a risk on a great idea, on a dream. They make a potentially risky investment, and take a leap of faith.

During a conversation with our friends Wilmar and Adilsa around Adilsa’s kitchen table a few nights back, we had what might be categorized as an ephipany. It went (and goes) something like this. We are ALREADY Angel Investors, or perhaps a better moniker is micro-angel investors. We have some disposable capital, and before us we have people, the people of El Tololar, with big dreams. We have an opportunity, now, to invest in these dreams. Many of you have and continue to do just that through your support of our family. If you want to do more for the awesome, inspiring people of El Tololar, we’ve got a few (actually 4) really cool options for you. Here’s the skinny:

EDUCATION

We as a family have committed to raising money, in partnership with Tololamos, to provide scholarships (bekas in Spanish) to 2 university students and 5 secondary students who really need them. Education is hugely valued here but the reality for many families is that putting food on the table trumps obtaining a degree. For what amounts to less than a buck a day per student, we can help change that equation.

2 University Students = $40/month x 10 school months + $80/student for one-time book costs = $480/student/per year

5 Secondary Students = $225/student/per year. *This amounts to about .62 cents a day per student.

Total Annual Scholarship Cost: $2,085

HEALTH

In a previous post, we noted a need of about $300 to outfit Tololar’s Health Clinic with some chairs, fans, and basic supplies. A good friend is providing this plus even $100 extra! (Muchas Gracias) and we are exploring more needs at the clinic, including donations of supplies.

Initial Clinic Cost: $400 (More possible needs to follow)

SMALL BUSINESS

A successful business anywhere can have big ancillary benefits (salaries for workers, more money pumped into the economy, tax-revenue, etc). In Nicaragua, even a really small, successful business can change lives. We mentioned Wilmar’s story last update. Now’s your chance to support our friend:) You can read a bunch more about Wilmar and his business dream on the Tololamos website and can support Wil through either a donation or a small business loan.

Initial Start-up Cost: $4,800

ENVIRONMENT

Peanuts taste good, look beautiful when growing, AND and for a host of reasons we’ve outlined previously and detailed more HERE, they can be really bad for local communities. One way to break the cycle is to plant more trees and other crops to mitigate erosion, soil degradation, and create a natural barrier to the dust that is a trademark of peanut fields during the dry season. For about 1,800 cordobas (about $60 bucks), you can help pay for a worker (for 2 weeks) at the local garden nursery to prepare seedlings that are then offered to community members to plant near their homes, free of charge.

Garden Nursery Total Costs: Approx $1,000

If you want to make a tax-deductible donation to these projects (best to make a general donation and we will work with Tololamos to make sure it gets attributed where needed most within these projects as the needs may shift) you can do so either by mailing a check made out to Tololamos with “Lundgren Family” in the memo line to:

Tyler St. Clare

519 Brook Road

Towson, MD21286

OR

By donating directly through the Lundgren Family Page on the Tololamos website HERE http://www.tololamos.org/lundgren/ We will track all donations and share stories with you of the people behind the scholarships, the health clinic, the tree nursery and of course, our excellente amigo Wilmar.

Muchas Gracias, Feliz Navidad, and Que Te Vaya Bien

Here is a link to some of the photos we have taken