Lundgren Nicaragua Update #2

September 13, 2016 (PICTURES TO FOLLOW)!

Our first update about our year in Nicaragua came from the rather posh Camino Real hotel near the airport in Managua; there was a nice, clean pool, delicious food (including hamburgers!), AC, comfy beds with quilts...you name it. We spent ½ day seeing Managua, zip-lining upside-down over a lake and touring the central plaza where the clock over the colonial church still reads 12:35, the time which a massive earthquake struck the country in December of 1972, killing 60,000 people. The earthquake is understandably still talked about today.

Now we have settled into our new casa in the village of El Tololar, about 45 minutes by chicken-bus from the colonial city of Leon.  We have a new pet ‘gatito’ (kitten in Spanish) name ‘Sweetie” by Olle. Harlan and Olle have made some new friends,and everyone we have met has been amazingly kind and gracious.

Just 12 days ago, our friend and Executive Director of Tololamos Tyler St. Clare met us at our hotel along with 2 good friends, Beto and Wilmar, and we were quickly ushered into our new life. We jumped off the mini-bus two hours later and were greeted by a slew of smiling faces, each offering to carry our bags down the dirt road toward our house. Rounding a corner, there she was...2 bedrooms (Harlan and Olle’s room had 2 ‘tijeras (scissor)’ beds named for the neat way they fold up and made from thick shopping bag material), a large, empty kitchen, and a spacious, airy patio with a thatch roof that has since proven both largely waterproof and the likely abode of several small tarantulas. After introductions to what seemed like 30 different family members of the Rivas family – it actually was 30 different family members of the Rivas family, including the Patriarch Don Lionel – we were treated to a small feast of various local foods followed by dancing (mostly by Miriam and the woman who owns the property our house is built on, also named Miriam).

Day one dawned with the roosters, as each day has since. We are surrounded by volcanoes wherever we go: San Cristobal, Teleeka, Santa Clare, Momotumbo and of course Cerro Negro, one of the youngest volcanoes in the world and one we hope to “surf” in the coming weeks. Our friend and staff member of Tololamos, Beto, helped electrify our kitchen today and as he was working, we saw our first scorpion , just a baby. Beto worked some local magic and somehow ‘decommissioned’ the scorpion’s ability to strike with his tail, lovingly placing the now powerless little guy in a nearby banana tree. For the record, we have since encountered 2 other scorpions - one in the shower and one Miriam found early one morning (before her coffee no less!) in an oven mitt. Neither met such a nice fate as the banana scorpion.

Days 2-10 were spent getting acquainted with our new home and neighbors. We painted our house a beautiful sunny yellow shade that really made it feel more homey. We dug a hole in our backyard for garbage, as that is how you have to roll in El Tololar when there is no garbage truck that comes every week. We encountered hundreds and thousands of Hormiegas (biting ants). Harlan and Olle took part in a local baseball game which included Harlan covering second, a horse in right and a couple pigs playing center.

Each day has brought new challenges and new experiences. It’s hard to really show in writing how hot it is here. We are always sweating, like always, and when the power goes out and you haven’t had a shower (the water is pump fed), it feels nasty. We miss all of our friends and family terribly, and its been tough to get used to the beds although the boys have actually done a great job adjusting to sleeping with mosquito nets, lizards, and roosters crowing all night long (we always thought they start at daybreak but turns out Nica chickens cock-a doodle anytime that feels right).

Miriam has learned the local way to cook frijoles (it takes like 2 ½ hours so you really have to plan ahead) and they are damn good. We have had rainstorms most evenings (rainy season lasts another 1 ½ months) and one storm was so strong that we spent several hours “sweeping” the water off our patio and out of our rooms. The boys have taken to walking to the Venta (a house with a small store that sells soda, chips, eggs, hammocks and other necessities) and Miriam has also howed a garden plot beside our house and is growing seedlings to plant carrots, beans, tomatoes, cilantro, peppers, swish chard and squash. Getting the garden plot up and running with the proper nutrients included a hilarious conversation we had in very halting Spanish with a local boy named Josue about borrowing a wheelbarrow and making a “poop” run to his house to get some good cow manure he happened to have.

The heat, missing our loved ones, and not being able to communicate effectively have been only a few of the hardships. Harlan was really sick for 3 days with a stomach bug, really the sickest we’ve ever seen him. He gets a gold star for pushing through such a nasty bug in the midst of all the other realities of everyday life, including the two small tarantulas (both fortunately dead) we found on our patio on successive mornings.

Tyler from Tololamos has introduced us to many of the friends he made during his 2 years here as a Peace Corps volunteer, and one family has offered to give us a rabbit (Olle is psyched at the prospect of a kitten and a baby rabbit). We take Spanish lessons monday -Thursday for about 3 hours.  We've got a long way to go, pero dia a dia, mas mejor.

Our house is well built but we have experienced some massive thunderstorms and Cully and Miriam's room has proven to be less than waterproof.  We also found out that the soil here is loaded with iron from all the volcanoes, making thunderstorms particularly powerful as the soil attracts the lightning.  Who knew?

There have been lots of funny juxtapositions, like the advertisement for the best "Polish-Sri Lankan Food" in Leon or the poster that featured a big "152" year anniversary, always a popular one! Or the boy on the local bus who wore a baseball shirt, # 8, featuring the every popular team name "Stanky Leg".

In all the first 2 weeks have been even harder than we could have imagined.  We so appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers with us on this journey.  More to follow soon. We hope to have an internet connection at our house by the end of the week, which will make school for the boys MUCH easier.

Hasta Manana

Miriam, Cully, Harlan and Olle