The pepper, tomato,
onion, banana, potato ladies can be found throughout Leon, but they tend to
concentrate at bus terminals. They seem
perennially happy as they board increasingly crowded buses, selling plastic
bags filled with 5 - 10 of each type of vegetable, each bag usually selling for
10-20 cordobas (we are currently at
just shy of 30 cordobas to the
dollar). We have our favorites, like the
young mother we buy our bananas from most days we take the Lisandro Santiago
bus home to El Tololar. At 10 cords, her
bananas are priced right, and as long as we eat them within 2 days, they are
quite tasty. Some days we forget and buy
our bananas elsewhere, and our vendor friend is always taken back and a bit
miffed at us that we don't need yet another bag.
In addition to the
staple vegetable/banana ladies, we've made other food-based friends during our
travels both through Leon and in El Tololar.
There are the fellas that sell us our fruits and other vegetables in the
market that abuts the bus terminal. We
mainly buy from this one guy, but inevitably interact with his neighbors as
well in halting Spanish, generally about soccer. Harlan is often wearing some type of soccer
shirt, and the guys get a kick out of ribbing him about his favorite team or
player. Our guy and Miriam seem to have
a sort of cuisine connection, as she spouts out what we need (una bolsa de cebollas, tres pepinos, cinco
zanahorias, dos sandias, y un ayote) and he moves like lightning, filling
our shopping bags in rapid succession with our provisions for the week.
Other food friends
include the ice cream guy (we generally have had our fill of sweets by the time
we encounter him on the late bus but from time to time splurge on a cone), the
soda lady (she sells soda (gaseosa)
until the last cat is hung, often unaware that the bus has left the station,
forcing her to disembark and walk back with a bucket of empty bottles perched
precariously on her head), and, for lack of a better word, the "sweet,
unhealthy cake" lady. She is one of
our favorites and although we have yet to buy even a smidge from her due what
appears to be cakes made of pure sugar and fat (they are therefore probably
delicious), we love watching her shuffle down the aisle, cracking jokes with a
dead-pan face that slowly turns to a mischievous grin.
Our all-time favorite
is the chicharron guy (he sells bags
of peanuts and fried, dried pig's skin. We rarely buy the chicharron but love fist-bumping and talking with him every time we
meet him on the bus - he's got a son in Miami).
He arrives in Leon every morning at about 5:00am, works the buses and
streets all day long, and takes a late evening bus to the nearby city of Chinendega,
arriving home around 9:00pm. He has
three kids, and works seven days a week exclusively to support them. You can tell he's a selfless guy, he genuinely
cares about other people, and if he lived in our town, we'd definitely have him
over for dinner. Despite the transient
nature of our relationship, we consider Jose Manuel to be our amigo bueno.
Most of the t-shirts
worn in Nicaragua seem to be donations from the USA. The majority are written in English, and they
can be comical when worn by an unsuspecting Nicaraguan who likely doesn't grasp
a particular slogan's significance. There
was the skinny tri-ciclo (3 wheeled-bike taxi) driver who haggled over a
client's fair wearing a shirt that read, "Of course I'm right, I'm
Italian!" Or the giant, neck less
weightlifter who looked like who could squeeze you in two. Somehow his
countenance just didn't seem quite as scary when wearing a bright pink, incredibly
tight t-shirt inscribed with the Finding
Nemo quote "Just Keep Swimming."
Miriam and the boys
came home last week to witness a gross yet impeccably-timed series of
events. First, they walked into the
kitchen to find a large, dead rat on the floor (like, this was big) and our cat
Mimi meowing proudly nearby. Miriam
grabbed it by the tail and began carrying it outside when Mimi ripped it out of
her hand, took it behind the fridge, and began munching on its head. Once the skull was gone, Mimi dragged the
dismembered body out, clearly even prouder than before. However, when she least expected it, Miriam
snatched the body and again began
carrying it outside. This time, right as
she crossed our patio threshold to go outside, down came rolling off the roof
the answer to our previous query about where our hen had been laying eggs, one dropping
and cracking right in front of Miriam and the headless rat. The egg roll moment must have been some sort
of prophetic sign, and we are continuing to try and divine its deeper meaning.
Moments in life can be
so fleeting. We often see something
happening and say to ourselves, "Oh, I'm too busy to experience that right
now. I'll do it later." But guess
what, there usually isn't a later; later can just be a synonym for never. Take the gorgeous, giant, white flower that
bloomed one morning last week on the edge of Aciles yard, about twenty yards
off the edge of our patio. The flower
was part of some type of cactus, and it opened wide to greet the 5:30 am
sun. We breathed and gazed in its
beauty, and then said we'd go over later for a closer look. But life happened, and by the time we thought
of it again, it had wilted and withered away in the hot late-morning sun. Do it..., whatever it is, NOW!
We've written on
several occasions about the guadabarranco,
Nicaragua's national bird. They are
stunningly beautiful - check out a picture here - and at times it can be unreal that there are so
many of them living right near our house.
Many seem to congregate these days behind our home, in the trees that
separate our yard from Adilsa's beans and Don Leonel's corn, and we recently
found out why. While heaving our usual daily
double bucket combo (one pee, one garbage) into our waste pit one morning, low
and behold what should fly out of a hole in the side of the ditch but a guadabarranco. We had noticed a series of openings
lining the hole's perimeter, and had thought they belonged to an iguana, or
were perhaps the work of a dog digging for extra food. But true to their name, the "guarder of
the banks" had in fact been watching over our garbage hole, because
someone needed to protect it from all those mangy dogs for sure. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about our
sanitation bird is the discrepancy between its beauty and its surroundings,
like a diamond in the rough. Don't you
just love when that happens? When something exquisite sprouts out of the most
unlikely of places, astounding us while making us test our preconceived notions
of how the world operates.
Carlo and Miriam came
by bearing five eggs last week, the work of our hen Malam, who has also begun laying
eggs in the brush pile in their front yard.
Despite where they came from, they assured us the tiny eggs would be
tasty - and they were! We got talking about what it was like a year ago, before
we had arrived. What did they expect our
family to be like? What were they most nervous about? It turns out a few
things. First, they were
embarrassed. They knew we were a
"wealthy" family from the US - we had paid them to build us a whole
house for goodness sakes - and they felt we wouldn't understand the poverty they
lived in. They wondered if we would
even be able to stay for a whole year, as life is so different in El Tololar
vs. Massachusetts. They told us about
the last day before we arrived. They
were all running around like crazy, cleaning the house, cutting the yard, and
putting the final touches on our home.
They didn't know us from Adam, but were willing to open up their lives
to us, to take a chance on some strangers.
More than nine months later, we have collectively learned so much about
each other; outsiders have become friends, the "other" has become
"one of us."
Update on Malam the Hen: After laying a few
eggs at our house and then deciding Carlo and Miriam's dump was a better place
for eggs, Malam has subsequently found a boyfriend, the big white, totally vain
rooster who crows at all hours of the morning around our house and walks around
thinking he's God's gift to poultry.
Somehow, our sweet Malam has taken a liking to him and they can now be
seen sauntering around the yard together. They truly are an odd couple, and
their union has resulted in Malam exploring other sleeping accommodations and
leaving poor Pagi to roost all by her lonesome. Update #2: Turns out
Malam had in fact been sleeping under a giant pile of brush that Carlo and
Miriam had been piling up in preparation for a big burn. After they torched it last Saturday (we made
sure Malam wasn't fried) she lost her digs and has now taken to roosting once
again on our patio.
Goosebumps are found,
mostly on arms, all around the world.
They have a universal nature about them, and they don't distinguish
between sex, religion, culture, or ethnicity.
Thus they are connective, binding, and relational. They tend to appear
either during really frightening moments, or when some experience (listening,
seeing, touching, feeling) or emotion is so visceral that it goes beyond the
norm, touching a part of our soul that rarely gets touched. Last week we had a party at Adilsa's house to
celebrate four birthdays (Miriam, Harlan, Belkis, and Mariella) and to honor
all the mothers in our midst (May 30th is the day in Nicaragua). Before the party, we put on a song written by
Tololamos Exec. Director Tyler St. Claire (he's kind of a jack-of-all-trades). You can listen to the song here if you'd like.
As soon as Tyler began to sing, giant goosebumps appeared on both Adilsa
and Cully's arms. The bumps spoke for
themselves, relaying in an instant so much about Tyler and his impact in the
lives of others.
Miriam and Cully have wanted to run a
half-marathon every since hearing of the 11 1/2 laps that Tyler and Wilmar had
run a few years back in the peanut field.
They knew they couldn't run it the day of the Tololamos race (last
Saturday, more on that to follow) so decided to do it last Wednesday
night. They started at about 3:50 pm,
meeting friends Yader and Fernando after one lap, and continued running for 13
laps. It was a hot day (it kind of
always is here) and after about lap five they were both feeling heat
exhaustion. But the sun began to go
down, it got a little cooler, and they pushed on. By the time they were done, they were
completely spent. Yader, on the other hand, looked like he could go on forever
and in fact did do an extra 14th lap just for kicks. It wasn't easy, but they did the half
marathon. The cost? That night up
through midnight both Cully and Miriam felt pretty ill, experiencing regular
bouts of vomiting and nausea while they watched an early summer lightning storm
roll in.
We attended a ceremony
at the local Catholic church in El Tololar last week. It was the one-year anniversary of the death
of our good friend Beto's grandmother.
We just missed meeting her before she passed, but we hear she was an
amazing, caring, and powerful woman when she died at 100 (if you are that old
in Nicaragua, you likely don't know exactly when you were born, but 100 seems
like it was at least in the ballpark).
We entered the church, already sweating, and were ushered up to the
front row. There was a new priest up
front, and he took the opportunity of seeing the family of gringos up front to
begin peppering his homily with a variety of English words. It turned out to be much shorter than most of
the other 2-3 hour affairs we have attended at the church, and before we knew
it we were outside eating sweet cornbread and drinking sodas, the requisite
prepared refreshments for all the parishioners.
Prior to exiting the sanctuary, we had the chance to hug two of the
woman's daughters (both in their late 70's or early 80's). Both of the women we already knew in passing
from riding the bus, but our attendance on this day clearly meant something
special, and it felt good to support and connect in a meaningful way. That feels good to all of us, doesn't it?
Encouraging others in a time of need, and getting to know once strangers in a
more profound way in the process.
Preparations leading up
to the first annual Tololamos Carrera
(race) last Saturday morning went according to plan - mostly - and were not
unlike planning for a typical 5k race in the states. First, three of us - really Cully and Miriam
watching Yader - spent the morning before the race hacking weeds with a
machete, raking leaves, and kicking cow pies off the race course. Then, we borrowed Yader's Grandpa's oxen and
hauled 50 rental chairs from Marisela's store to Don Leonel's patio. Later in the day, Miriam went to Ivania's to
help make 200 enchiladas and 200 fruit juices, while Cully and the boys helped
begin positioning the items we would need for the big day close to the race
course/peanut field. Harlan interrupted
us once during the day to see if we had an extra baseball kicking around,
noting that his buddies had resorted to using a sour yet surprisingly hard
lemon as their ball. That night, we held
a big final prep meeting at our house to finalize any last minute details,
ranging from how much toilet paper to place in the latrines to where to place
the bathroom signs.
Race morning dawned
without a hint of rain in the sky, and by 4:30 the whole peanut field was a
hive of activity with Telica volcano smoking in the distance. Some volunteers were laying down chalk lines,
others hauling water buckets, and still others carrying tables and chairs over
barbed-wire fences to the rim of the peanut field. La Doctora and three other representatives
showed up from the Health Center, as did a group of awesome Spanish and
Nicaraguan Volunteers carrying drums, tambourines, and face-painting supplies.
Miriam had made an
excellent sign directing people to either Don Leonel's or Wilmar's latrines
when nature called. Unfortunately not
long after posting a cow walked by and ate the sign, causing minor
consternation on the part of runners with nervous bowels. In the end the first
race for Tololamos went of amazingly well, and all told we had close to 300
attendees. We had a 100-meter dashes in
the 5-7 and 8-10 age groups. Next there was a one-kilometer lap for the 11-14
year-olds, followed by a 200-meter open dash.
The main event was a 5k (about), 5-lap race around the peanut field, won
handily by our friend Marden who clocked in at about 6 minute miles. Miriam and Cully were spent from their
previous 13 lap event, but Harlan and Olle both entered the one-lap and
finished respectably. The race was the
first ever in El Tololar, and really brought the community together around
heath, education, and the environment. And, thanks to many of you, we were able
to raise almost $2,000 for the work of Tololamos in the community. Thank you so
much!!! If you'd like to see some photos and videos from the race, click here. For your viewing pleasure, we've even included a
photo we took just yesterday of a scorpion eating a lizard on the side of
Adilsa's house.
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