Those of sleeping in the living room fell asleep to Francisco's ghost stories, and while well-intentioned, they were hardly as sleep-disturbing as Paul, Chris, and my dad's overnight experience. In the middle of the night, I woke up slightly to see Paul and Chris tiptoe into our room and wrap themselves up on the hard floor, waking up slightly again each time someone let daylight into our room a few hours later but turning over until I had to figure out how to dismount my suspended hammock. When I did finally wake up, I woke up almost voiceless. I had been sleeping two hammocks over from the kitchen, which was already blazing with its wood-burning stove preparing another meal of tortillas, rice, and beans, and so I had been inhaling the warm smoke for a couple hours! Nothing some beautiful Talolinga fresh air outside could not remedy, though.
When most of us were up and moving, we got to hear the saga that was the night of the men in the back room. Apparently their sleeping quarters had undertaken a serious invasion from the morcielagos, the bats! And on top of that, when they took refuge on our living room floor, the chickens who had come in with their babies the night before thought it would be fun to snuggle with them too. So a less-than-peaceful night for these guys, but a story to tell.
And I had absolutely no idea until my dad told me that when Paul and
Chris slept on the floor across the room, he slept directly underneath
my hammock! But he had popped out early, along with Jennifer and Laurie, to meet Doña Angela's husband to try their hand at milking cows (pun semi-intended). My papa came back beaming and excited to learn more about the community agriculture with the rest of us.
Here's Jennifer getting a demonstration.
Doña Angela's husband also pointed out his father across the creek, who is 89 years old and has a bull that he lends for free to homes in the community that may have one or two cows. It was pretty amazing to hear as well that beyond this act of serving the community, when he got too old to cultivar (to farm and grow), he gave his land in equal portions to his children, and they in turn give him the food they grow. And there was no squabbling about who was entitled to what, simply respect for their father.
However, for this farmer and for many in the community, living off the land is not enough to get by. Two of his sons work as migrant laborers in El Salvador and Costa Rica, while his baby grandchildren and their mothers stay here, looking forward to that day in months to come that they would see their husbands again. These children truly are raised by the village, and I'll bet they get some quality grandparent time too.
Meredith was escorted off to school (see below) to make sure everything was set for our craft fair later in the morning, and by 7:30 everybody was stirring and preparing their stomachs for the "energy tortillas," as we joked, because the corn was put through the same grinder as the coffee. Even with coffee-infused tortillas, it was hard to get the group moving, but our next adventure was a walk through the woods to the community garden.
Seeing a neighbor along our walk.
Jennifer, Don Orlando, Lauri, and Luci.
Here is la huerta, the community garden, as Javier showed us. What is remarkable is that they have an experimental plot where they are trying to grow taller tomate plants and testing out maracuya (passionfruit), calabasa (squash), and other fruits and vegetables to have a healthier variety for the community. And, they are doing it organically. They fortunately have enough land to give space in between plots so that in the event one gets attacked by a plaga (a plague of insects or other unsavory natural phenomena), it will not spread to other tracts of plants. Javier along with seven women work in the garden and each have their own piece to experiment here and then apply what they have learned back on their own land. Think of this as continuing education: a place to learn, take that knowledge back to the community, and pass it on!
Don Orlando checking out the tomatoes.
Javier explaining more tricks of the trade.
The main focus of this garden is sustainability, in terms of environmental awareness, community practicality, and spreading conocimiento (knowledge). Another example of this is that little seed bag Meredith is holding. Now a typical community may have the resources to buy tons of these little plastic bags filled with seeds for the next season, but for Talolinga that investment takes time in addition to money, not to mention plastic is not exactly environmentally friendly. So Javier devised a wooden seedling box to save seeds they have harvested to plant and continue the cycle of growth and investment in their land with their resources.
After the garden tour we ran back to Doña Angela's house to grab our crafts and head up to the school for our craft fair! We were introduced to Don Juan Carlos, the teacher in this two-room school where you will see a lot of variety in age. Our group hoped to just be able to play with the kids and that we all could learn from each other as well. We definitely learned a thing or two about classroom organization, lesson planning, and flexibility! The youth took the lead on the warm-up game outside with a ton of energy and smiles to play a name game to start the day...
... and Francisco translated the demonstration!
"¡Hola! ¿Cómo te llamas?"
During the game I realized I had run out of memory on my camera, so I was hurriedly deleting photos to be discarded (As cute as the baby chickens are, I probably had about 30 pictures of them... It still was hard to pick my favorite five though! Or ten...), and as I was multi-tasking and watching the game, Javier came over to talk. We ended up talking about education and community, and he asked about our church since he had shown us Talolinga's. Somehow we ended up talking about the Bible, and he said it is his favorite book. He asked me what my favorite verse is, to which I replied 1 Corinthians 13, a good chunk of it, about knowledge, and trust, and love (I'd never had to think about how to say that in Spanish before - thankfully it was an easy transition to "Corintios"). I reciprocated the question, and I cannot remember his words in Spanish but I at least figured out that it was Philippians 4: 12-13: "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." It is truly evident in how he lives his life and how he wants to serve. In addition to being at the forefront in terms of education and sustainability in this community, he is also becoming quite a spiritual leader, and he is only 19. Pretty amazing.
"Soul Train" went splendidly and got a lot of people laughing, and then we split into five craft stations where the youth partnered with adults to lead crafts, and with my revived camera memory card, I floated around documenting. We found it was hard to get the kids talking to us at all, perhaps we were just too foreign or our Spanish was not good enough, but they seemed to enjoy the crafts, especially the pulseras (bracelets) and face painting.
Jennifer running the popsicle stick picture frames.
Luci and Joy prepping the face paint.
Laurie's bracelet bonding.
Paul and Chris demonstrating "God's eyes."
Even the teacher was up for a temporary tattoo drawing!
And Joy got Javier and Don Orlando in on the fun.
Don and Cody telling stories with pipe cleaner people.
Joy with a Harry Potter scar and the Nica flag for the boy.
And the youth finished the day with a rousing rendition of "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes," also as "Cabeza, hombros, piernas, pies."
And a group photo!
Back at Doña Angela's, Meredith encouraged us to take the time to reflect on our two days in this beautiful community. Here are a few of our currents:
- Just as a community like Carlos Nuñez hosting a delegation for the first time is an impactful experience, so is hosting usually only one delegation per year for Talolinga. And we ourselves are having our singular Talolinga experience firsthand, so both cultures are setting standards for each other to connect experience to what we had learned and assumed prior.
- We can also connect the rural Nicaraguan experience to the other side of the immigration debate we often hear so much about. While we see men working as our migrant laborers in our own country, we see and can empathize with the women caring for each other in this community. The nuclear family is not as vital as the extended family network here as you may not see your husband for months. This was hard for us to imagine with our technology-driven and technology-connected society. Not being able email our families and friends back home while we were here? Perspective re-centering helped us admire the strength of these women and this community as well as inspire gratefulness for what are now just normal conveniences to us. This definitely hit home as I had been in China for a trimester and got to Skype my parents weekly so they knew I was still alive and as my boyfriend is preparing for four months abroad while I'm back in the U.S. - thank goodness for Skype!
- Here a shift to more diverse vegetables and fruit will probably mean a larger variety than some of the neighborhoods down the mountain, and it definitely comes with more nutritional awareness as well.
- Life is just so much simpler here. You get up with the sun, you work hard, you take care of your family, and you go to bed on a much more natural rhythm. And you are surrounded by natural beauty. We questioned, with all of this fresh air and fresh food, why would you leave? Because people cannot make money here. It truly is unfortunate that the modern world has encroached on this way of life and made surviving without finding work in other countries nearly impossible, but some advances and especially how this community is adapting in sustainable ways will hopefully allow Talolinga to flourish simply and beautifully.
For our last meal, we were treated to some scrambled eggs and a fresca in addition to the tortillas and rice and beans. And then it became time to say our goodbyes to the Talolinga community, its people, the cows, the bats, and the chickens too. Our "flowery goodbyes" as the Spanish translates and as Meredith jokes. Kira had made a friendship bracelet for Doña Angela, and we wanted to make sure we could maintain contact with this community and support its people, especially with Javier's passion and the work he is doing.
One last group picture.
Laurie got to take one of our bestias down the mountain to save her knees, and as she rode like a pro, the rest of us trekked down will still-frequent stops to make sure all the splinter groups were within eyesight of each other. Leif and Cody once in a while found a good shortcut and of course the walk down was made more entertaining with their antics, but I enjoyed having some good girl-talks with Kira, Luci, and Joy too.
Two and a half hours later, when it really perhaps should have taken us half that time... it felt wonderful to climb up a little hill and see a bus that looked like ours! And as for the two guys who were roofing by one throwing the tiles up to the other yesterday? The roof was finished. We thanked our guides and our bestias, ensured they were fed, and rode on our microbus the final hour and a half from Santa Rosa to León.
This time we unfortunately arrived at Don Martin's a half hour late, and my host mom said she had gotten there with the kids a half hour early, so understandably they were starving. We had a nice walk home, chatting about the day, and passing enthusiastic church services and loud music (they apparently happen every day except Mondays). Jenifer had already had a long day with a lot of home and farmacia responsibilities, but at least she will let me help with the dishes now! And it was so cute that the boys wanted to help me too. For as mischievous as they are sometimes, they just needed a good energy outlet and wanted to be helpful. So even though dishwashing perhaps took four times as long as I could have done it by myself, Diddier and Diederich were so proud they could show me they could do it too.
It was so nice to just sit and talk with my host mom until who-knows-what-time, with interruptions from the kids of course, until they fell asleep on the couch with their bottles. Jenifer wanted to see my Talolinga pictures and asked about my being a photographer, if I could do that for a job. Maybe! To get paid for something I love and would do anyways is just an added bonus.
Things I learned from my host mama tonight:
- She wants me to come back to Nica!
- She has to get medicamientos, medications, for her pharmacy in Managua. She used to go every 15 days, but now with the kids she can only go monthly, sometimes only every two months.
- I asked her if she likes baseball, since it is quite popular here, and she said she thinks it's okay, but her dad loved it and even played in a Nicaraguan professional league. The unfortunate part of that is he practiced every day and did not spend time with the family, so that is why her parents split and her mom had to go work in Costa Rica.
- She wants to do civil rights law to defend people from injustice, in her words, and after this final year of university, she will become a lawyer already! However, she would need more schooling beyond that to be able to specialize. Even though she had to grow up fast with marriage and children, Jenifer is smart and still has big dreams, and I wish her all the best.
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