Well, buenos días there, dear readers! This morning we had to arise even before the sun. I had asked my host mama to help wake me up, and she did, but at 5am when we all had to meet at Gotitas (the preschool) at 5:15! I surprise myself every day I wake up that the first words out of my mouth come out in Spanish, especially in this groggy state. But I had no time to be groggy because my first sentence of consciousness was "¿Cuánto tiempo tenemos?" (How much time do we have?), and she responded with "Más o menos ahora." More or less right now. Right now? So I bolted out of bed to find Paul and Chris slumped in chairs in the kitchen waiting for me, dashed off to wash my face and get ready, all the more grateful that I had decided to sleep in the shorts and t-shirt I wanted to wear for hiking, and then all discombobulated figured out that my host mom was not coming with us but my dad, Douglas, was going to drive Paul, Chris, Paul's mom Jessica, and me in his bus! Bright and cheery we perhaps were not, but at least we just had to survive a short, bumpy bus ride soothed by Maná on the radio instead of a twenty-minute walk at that hour.
Families arrived at Gotitas, many of them having packed breakfast for their delegados. I chatted with my dad and his host mom for a few too, and because my dad was leaving on Sunday to return to his world of responsibilities back home, she wanted to invite me (and my host family too if they wanted) over for dinner on Saturday. That invitation was so sweet of her to think of me, and she kept racking up the sweetness points with the tub of fruit she sent along with my papa when all he had asked for was a banana for the road (and apparently she had fed him grilled cheese at home too!). And Dad's response was, "I feel like a niñito on the first day of escuela!"
Even though we were only with our families for two days, we had already made some pretty special connections, and it was going to feel weird to not be staying with them for the next night. We would return with stories to tell them, but in the meantime, some serious hugs and even a few tears were exchanged (from Cody's young host brother especially). And we were off to Talolinga, a tiny mountain village that my host family had never heard of before but apparently PML has done a number of projects with the community. Don Orlando, presidente del consejo, president of PML's southern board (the northern board is in Minnesota, and our coordinator Meredith gets to work to maintain good communication between the boards), is joining us on our trip to Talolinga as well, and he seems like a pretty cool guy, from what Meredith says. We were set to drive an hour and a half through beautiful terrain to Santa Rosa del Peñon, and from there we would walk through and up the mountains to Talolinga.
As we drove, the sun was coming up, and people were up! We could see a smoking volcano off in the distance, and if we thought our bus ride was bumpy over the road of rocks, imagine how uncomfortable biking along side of the highway would be... There was even a bike race that whizzed over a paved section of the road at one point!
In our little microbus, in between snoozes, we saw people starting their work early, oxen plowing the fields, a man driving two hogs to the market, a boy with a chicken tucked under one arm, and herds of cattle that changed our bus's course as they veered to the right towards the rice fields. One thing we have gaining consciousness about as a group is that the conception of Nicaragua is usually that it is a poor country with few, but going back to our first history lesson, but people are resourceful and it is indeed a natural material- and human labor-rich country. People may wash their clothing by hand, wake up at 3am to make tortillas, or take their horse and cart to the volcano every day to chop firewood, but that is what it takes. Meredith, Francisco, and Don Orlando are wonderful sources of knowledge to help us further make connections between the society we live in and the society we are staying in for a brief two weeks. Rice fields could just be rice fields, but Don Orlando told us since NAFTA has come into effect, people are cultivating more rice for export, and the exportation of meats and mahogany and other tropical woods is being encouraged as well.
Another discussion thought of note: At least where we are staying outside the city, neighborhoods are really social, unlike suburbia where many of us delegates live in the U.S. All that divides houses and yards here is chicken wire. Families take care of each other. Life is calmer and simpler. You can play soccer in the street. But immediate neighbors are apparently different than strangers, and people rarely acknowledge strangers on their walk, though I have taken to intentionally trying to greet everyone I pass with at least a "¡Buenas!" because I am the outsider and I am going to get stares no matter what, so might as well put on a friendly face. Of course the flipside of feeling safe on the streets during the day is you need to be smart about it. A few of us had wondered aloud to their host families why a pair of shoes was thrown over a power line next to Gotitas, thinking it was a little too high for a laundry drying location and hoping it was a funny prank, and we learned that it is in fact a symbol that drugs are sold there. Next to the preschool. As the center is mainly serving at-risk kid, the community is really trying to reclaim that space and make it a safe place for kids to grow up. In the meantime, one must always be aware.
But in our immediate meantime, look at this beautiful naturescape! Wow. Creation is incredible.
We finally made our bathroom stop in Santa Rosa, the last town our bus would be able to go, and we were on foot from here. I just love that hens and their chicks can be found really anywhere, including wandering by the side of the road.
And sleeping piglets!
And that signs anywhere may be painted in Sandinista colors.
Just a regular day's work, tossing roof tiles...
We have our own Blues Brothers aboard! Leif and Cody just happened to be making similar fashion statements.
We got our "bestias," our beasts, AKA the mules who would be saddled with our belongings for the two days, in Santa Rosa, and then we began our hike. The group splintered a bit, with Don and Paul rushing off with the youth, and somehow I think I had been distracted taking pictures of all of the surrounding beauty and I was left with a slow-and-steady crew (no offense to them, but in general in life I am more of a sprint kind of girl, and when applied to hiking, that amounts to walking/climbing at a quick pace for a while, and then taking breaks, rather than the slow-and-steady approach).
Francisco and I got lost in conversation for a while, talking about high school and sports, etc., and when we turned around, everyone else in our chunk was far behind, hanging out in the shade...
We passed many a person on horseback, and instead of greeting with an "Hola," apparently it is customary to say "¡Adios!" Why "goodbye," you may ask? "Hola" apparently indicates you want to stop and chat with someone, while "adios" means you are just passing by, and as its intrinsic meaning is "a Dios," or "to God," you are essentially wishing them safe travels with God as well. We started to feel a little more pro at this whole Spanish and Latin culture thing when we figured that out.
The last of our herd made it to El Charco, a tiny town whose name means "the puddle," where the youth had been waiting for us for about ten minutes already. And our bestias had made it too! One of the men from the Talolinga community had come down to guide one of the beasts up the mountain with us, and I was trying to just sneak a picture but caught him right when he turned his smile towards me!
Many of us popped into the pulpería (a little store) for cold drinks (I hardly ever drink pop, but soft drinks are so much better here because they are made with real sugar!), and I wanted to try cervitos, a "cereal de maiz con salsa" (cereal made from corn with a sauce), which amounted to basically o-shaped Cheetos. It really is fun trying new foods in foreign languages.
Laurie here showed off her farm skills as she helped a woman whose horse was shying - what a pro!
Joy and Leif saw this adorable dog hanging out by the pulpería, and it of course expected food from them, but our kids were following the unwritten rule of not feeding the animals. And while this dog could almost pass for a puppy, she in fact appeared to have recently had puppies of her own. We have been noticing that everything here is mini-sized - butterflies, dogs, people, etc. are all slightly smaller, but the remarkable thing is that trees and nature are so much larger - it is truly incredible.
As we set off, attempting to stay in a clump this time, always at least within sight of our group if we fractured, we passed a school with one small child standing at the door frame, and within seconds there was a whole horde of them! We were a sight, I'm sure.
I took this leg with more of the youth, as much of the mountain scenery seemed to be repeating itself, over, and over, and over, and the answer to "How much farther do we have?" kept being "Not too much farther, probably about a half hour..." But we got a little adventurous, doing a couple hill sprints and then waiting for the adults to catch up, leaping from rock to rock to cross a stream, and really having an urge to do some parkour up this really sweet embankment.
We all, including our bestias, stopped for a water break atop this hill, and enjoyed the view.
When we were finally actually about a half hour out from the village, Meredith encouraged us to take time to prepare our minds about our expectations about this rural village. How rural are we talking? Well, then her cell phone proceeded to ring... Ironic. We would learn more about Talolinga once we got there, and indeed we were talking rural, out there, mountain village that did not have electricity until about six months ago. And we learned we were lucky on our hike because the path was mostly dry. If it had been raining (like it actually was supposed to...), your feet could sink about a foot down into the mud with each step. Thank goodness for decent conditions! Mud would have made our three hour journey even tougher, especially for those struggling with knees and backs all that jazz. What we then learned was this hike that took us three hours with what felt like hundreds of breaks, Don Orlando, in his sixties to be sure, could do in an hour and a half. Granted none of us have really had our daily lives prepare us, but still, Nicaraguans and people like Don Orlando are pretty amazing.
Based on the improvised shacks most of us were living in, I think we had the preconception that rural villages would be even worse off, but when we arrived to Doña Angela's, basically the matriarch of the community, we were welcomed into her spacious living room in a solid brick building with real outlets, as opposed to having to connect two random wires together when you wanted electricity. And the kitchen was even a completely separate room with huge pots for cooking rice and beans over the wood-burning stove. As we all plopped down for an introduction to the community history from Doña Angela and Don Orlando, we were being watched by a teeny girl toddler with bangs and bright eyes as well as a young woman who could have not have been more than 17 who was just strikingly beautiful and featuring a number of silver adornments in her ears. The natural beauty especially in the vibrant eyes of much of this population with more indigenous heritage really is incredible.
Anyways, Don Orlando started off with a little background on PML's involvement in the community that stretches back 24 years to when Nancy, one of PML's co-founders, worked here. I hope to get this organizational history right, but I think he was saying that after she had spent time in Talolinga, she wanted to be able to lend assistance to communities that needed it, so she was instrumental in working with Project Minnesota and Project Gettysburg together and helped start delegation exchanges especially for adults to know the realities of how people live here. Simultaneously, the organizations wanted to be able to support the community in different ways. They helped build a centro de salúd, a health center, where before those services were being run out of Doña Angela's home with basic vaccines, pills, malaria medication, in addition to care and attention to women in their "época de reproducción," their "time of reproduction." The Project also connected the community to training for a midwife program to meet needs with the resources available, as well as provided the midwifes with basic kits such as backpacks with supplies and flashlights for night emergency calls.
Furthermore, they have worked to bring irrigation systems to connect homes to water sources and have provided loans to buy basic foodstuffs such as beans, rice, and corn in bulk at lower prices and store them in silos to cushion against times of bad harvest. What is more remarkable is that these loans are interest-free, and the Project has had such success with Talolinga in particular because it has been a responsible, honest, and invested community. What is key about the Project's mission is that they want to be able to serve the community based on its demonstrated need in sustainable ways. So while the infant and maternal care center had to be outfitted from mosquiteros (mosquito nets) down to cucharas (spoons) to serve free and reduced lunches, because this community has demonstrated organizational strength, responsibility, and communication with the Project, once those projects get running, there is enough drive to keep them sustainable so people can keep living their lives. Many poor, rural communities like Talolinga survive on what they can produce, so they are subject to the whims of the food market if they do sell extra on the market. This trend also ties into education trends as schools are typically filled with the youngest children before they turn seven or eight and are old enough to work the fields... For me, this is all the statistics I pored over for my senior thesis on Latin American poverty and sustainable development coming to life, as measures for the level of national development often delve into school enrollment trends, and particularly the frequent divisions between urban and rural rates.
And another trend we have been noticing is that there are a good number of women, but few men. We are truly seeing the other side of the U.S.'s immigration debate, the source. When people have money troubles here, many husbands and sons go to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and even Spain or the U.S. These men are sending money home to their families, and many do seasonal labor and do not even have capabilities of communicating with their wives and children back home. That is incredible sacrifice on all parts, and the women here care for each other and each other's children as well. That whole "It takes a village" concept. One sentence Don Orlando said that was particularly striking was this: "Para buscar la vida, los hombres se van," "To search for life, the men have to leave." That is what the vast majority of our immigrants in the U.S. are doing: looking for life. And many of them face such hardship on their journey to our country and while they are there, including being cut off from their families. And it makes me ever more thankful for the technological advances in the realm of communication our communities back home are fortunate to have, such as email, Facebook, and especially Skype! How incredibly strong these men and women are to live apart and not hear from their loved ones in months, sacrificing so they can hope for a better life some day.
The farm animals protect and take care of each other too!
It was pretty fun to see these women running around the kitchen making tortillas, rice, and beans! Apparently there is one grinder, and it is used for both masa (corn flour) and coffee, so if your tortillas have a hint of bitterness to them...
After the huge lunch a few could not even finish (we worked collectively on that task), we had a pretty relaxed afternoon. Francisco and I chatted with Cody for a while as he was game to work on his Spanish (and me too!), and even after many peeled off to take hammock naps (it was a pretty long day already), Cody stayed in the living room to converse with more of the elders and keep going with the Spanish - way to jump in, man!
Meanwhile, many of the rest of us were wiped. While Don Orlando and Doña Angela's husband were stringing up hammocks wherever they could find an adequate place, Don plopped down on the stoop. And don't worry, I asked Chris to make that face.
I think I got about twenty pictures of the chickens and their adorable flocks here. This one came up about two feet away when I was sitting on the stoop, and then she ushered her little babies away.
It was especially funny watching the chicks attempting to climb over the rocks to go visit the cows again.
I caught up on my notes for a few while the hammock forest came together. Look at these hammock buddies! Here's Paul, Kira, and Don (front to back).
Laurie taking pictures of the little girl and showing them to her. I will say around little kids is the only time I have felt unsafe with my DSLR here, just because many are so excited to see the pictures of themselves and of our adventures that they will grab at it with complete disregard for all the buttons... But I made the decision to bring it here and to try to be culturally conscious about when it is appropriate to bring it out, and showing pictures to kids who, if they are lucky, may have only had their picture taken at their baptism and at a birthday party, is something I do want to do.
While Luci had passed out on the first hammock to be strung up outside, Jennifer among others opted for one hung inside the back room attached to Doña Angela's house. Joy and Leif, as good friends, went the feet-in-face route.
I finally settled into my own hamaca and passed out for a while, only to be awoken later for a group tour of the village.
With music blasting from a couple of the houses along our walk, I got excited to hear a famous Brazilian pop song "Ai se eu te pego" by Michel Teló, a song I heard actually first from two Mexican girls I befriended in Brazil, off in the distance. We passed a couple adorable children, just entertaining themselves in the dirt, and our community guide, Javier, first took us to the church.
Javier told us that only "delegados de la palabra," delegates of the word, come here, not necessarily priests or pastors because it is too remote. But there are services twice a week, and almost the whole community turns out - about 100 to 150. And from how he described what they do in services, they are very similar to ours! Javier himself has been studying the Bible for some time and calls it his favorite book, adding that some people here may believe in some different doctrines but the same God. He seems like just a really kind and thoughtful soul, and Meredith said he is only 19! A couple of the women also noted you could see his eyelashes from completely across the room too...
Pastor Don also happens to be in a rock band, so he asked about the five-stringed guitar-like instrument hanging on the wall. This is apparently called a vihuela, which a person often plays while another plays a guitarrón, and this conversation evolved into a mini-concert!
We got to hear some of the wonderful voices of Javier and our own
Francisco, in addition to vihuela and tambourine, and Francisco added it
is with music like this that he sings to God and praises God.
Jennifer, one of the two Spanish teachers on our delegation (Paul is the other), peers into the next classroom. There is a trend of increased attention to the importance of education now, even reflected in the ages people are getting married, Javier noted. 16-25 is normal, with 18 being the average age, but he is noticing more of his generation waiting until 26 or 27 so they can focus on education. These rural communities are having to get creative with their education prospects, though, like with the long-distance learning program. But even if you want to go to the university, time, distance, and funding are all serious obstacles.
Javier used himself as an example. He has big, but realistic, dreams of studying sustainable agriculture in the university so that he can learn methods to implement here in Talolinga, particularly returning back to indigenous and traditional farming methods that are more sustainable than today's norm. He is being supported currently by Project Gettysburg, especially because he wants to come back and pass on the knowledge, saying "tenemos pobreza por falta de conocimiento" - we have poverty because of a lack of knowledge, which connects to experimental garden projects for the elementary school and for the community, as well as to encouraging healthier diets. They do not lack riches of the land, just the tools to make the most of it in a healthy way. Javier further noted that the university is good for theory-based learning, but what is especially helpful is a series of hands-on training workshops here to get the specific skills he could implement in his own community. It makes you think of education in a totally different way, as the American dream is just to want to send your kids to college, but many just mess around, are unfocused, and may not even come out with a degree they will use in the future. Why do we look down on technical or vocational schools if they give people the relevant tools they will actually use? I am not knocking my liberal arts education by any means because I am so fortunate to have had that opportunity and that was right for me, but if people want to have a hands-on job, hands-on learning can only help.
Next is our group sitting by the water holding tank. There are water stations throughout this disperse community, and as we sat, we watched several women fill up their huge buckets and walk off with them on their heads. They are truly amazing. I wanted to try to get a good picture of them but be respectful at the same time; they are not zoo animals...
Doña Angela is fortunate enough to have a well in back, but most, like this woman, do not. Nobody has to pay for the water because it is a community resource. And it is a wonderful resource indeed. The results of water testing indicate it is the second-cleanest in the 33 municipalities around Santa Rosa.
And then the question about taxes was raised. We in the U.S. are so aware of income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc., but in a country with a mixed economy where certain resources like water and healthcare are free, how is the Nicaraguan government making money? If you own a manzana of land (I was initially confused why he was talking about apples! Land is apparently measured in something like 7000 square meters), you have to pay 15 cordobas per month (a little over 50 cents), which is very cheap. This also incentivizes using all your land, as even if you only produce on one manzana, you owe taxes on all that you own. And while you have to walk to Santa Rosa to pay your taxes, visits from the alcalde, the mayor, do not happen as often as they should, rather, they communicate with the community leader, who is Doña Angela in Talolinga's case. Javier only half-jokingly said, "We have more visits from foreigners than from the mayor" - and they get about two delegations every year. Quoting poetry left and right, he said this phrase much more eloquently in Spanish than it could ever be translate in English: "Talolinga is its own world. People have what they have and conform to what they have." And while life is not easy, people surely make the best of it.
Our group navigates mud and puddles in the path on our way back to Doña Angela's.
Doña Angela's husband was watering the patio when we got back. Watering the patio? A rather foreign concept to us, but since the patio is pure dirt, they do this to keep the dust down since it has not rained for a while.
People and animals alike were starting to wind down their days around 6pm, as this hen tucks her babies into her wings...
... these roosters flew up into the trees to snooze...
... and these teenagers decided to find a nice corner in the living room to curl up.
While dinner was being prepared, a few of our crew hung out in the hamacas, still feeling full from the noon meal, and I sat with Jennifer, Laurie, and Don Orlando, who gave us some mamones to munch on. He told us that if you open the inner cáscara (shell) of these longan-like fruits to eat the seed inside, these semillas can help with stomach troubles, so they are sometimes ground into a paste for kids to soothe their tummies as well. And my dad wanted me to make sure I got to know Don Orlando in case I was interested in becoming more involved with the organization someday, so we sat on the stoop, asking more about his life as well as I translated for my papa. He has been a teacher of química (chemistry) for 38 years and originally had to work in a lab to make money to pay for university schooling. And he has been volunteering with PML for roughly 20 years! This wise man also asked me about what I studied and gave me the advice to "ten paciencia," have patience, because things will be okay if you have the skills. And he also encouraged me to keep practicing, speaking, and reading Spanish, and even recommended I read works by Gabriela Mistral and Ruben Darío, especially as I already love Isabel Allende.
And then the conversation turned to farm talk. My papa grew up on a farm in northeastern Iowa that has been in our family for a few generations and miraculously still is, so he was very interested in learning more about farming practices here and asked some great questions with Paul as an involved translator as well. Here they can have two growing seasons and two harvests because of the weather, which is advantageous for the population, but Don Orlando pointed out in the midwest we have híbridos (hybrids) and semillas (seeds or kernels) are productos as well. Not to mention the agricultural industry is protected by a number of laws in the U.S. He further exclaimed that our corn ears and kernels are huge! I had one ear to my conversation with Jennifer and Laurie as we learned more about each other and part of an ear towards my dad's conversation, and I wish I had heard more of it because my papa I'm sure had more wonderful questions. What they did get out of that conversation is that he, along with Jennifer and Laurie wanted to rise early the next morning to go milk a cow with Doña Angela's husband.
My dad is so great at trying to include everyone, as it was kind of hard to figure out who the two men who had helped us bring our bestias with our bags were, until we determined they were members of the community who actually live here. But they just hung around in the background until my papa had brought chairs over for them to join our conversation, and we somehow realized the man in the photo below who my dad was mainly conversing with was actually Doña Angela's husband. There are very clear social customs about class, especially when dealing with foreigners it seems, and he appeared very accustomed to keeping his distance and serving us when needed. But when he and the other community man jumped into the farming conversation and my dad was truly interested in his work and his farming life, my dad later told me that man had said one of the most touching single lines of his whole trip. That he had interacted with twelve-or-so delegations that had come through here, and this was the first time anybody had asked him about his farming. Who needs language if you have a good heart (and an interpreter)?
Doña Angela's husband showed Dad one of his farming implements while Paul interpreted.
After a late meal of more rice and beans over conversations about vampire bats, Nicaraguan equivalents to our society's "crazy cat lady," and translations of refranes or dichos (sayings), a few of us ended our night by rocking out on an acoustic guitar Javier brought out in the living room.
Francisco, Javier, Chris, and Don passed the guitar around, playing what they could from memory, and I even ventured to try briefly (I usually avoid singing and playing by myself in front of others, but it was fun!).
As the music wound down, hammocks were strung up in the living room and back rooms, and a few of the adults got solid beds to sleep on. The tests for the night: to not swing so much as to hit the next person sleeping about two feet away and to not fall out!
¡Hasta mañana!
