...An adventure in which the front porch ferris wheel makes a comeback
Word of the Day:
rueda chicagua- ferris wheel
hermosa- literally means beautiful, but Nicaraguans will say "Estas mas hermosa" to mean you've put on weight, but here it's a compliment. And Nicaraguans have a 6th sense for weight changes.
========================================================================
After camp was over, I made it back to El Rosario to visit my old host family. Being in Peace Corps has really changed my approach and desires for traveling. When I was living in Chile, I was always jetting off (more accurately, taking arduous 12 hour bus rides off ) to new places. But this time, I wanted to spend my "out of site days" to go see some familiar people and places. Out of site days are days that you are allowed to be away from the place that you work without officially taking vacation time. This is a necessity in a lot of cases because going to the bank or going shopping properly are activities that can't usually be done where you live. Anyway, I guess having two years in a country gives you the feeling that you don't really need to rush to see all the sights.
It was interesting to be able to see things in El Rosario with fresh eyes, after I'd left about a month and a half ago. I secretly kind of like the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua better, although I love San Miguelito and Rio San Juan is growing on me. My first thought upon arriving in El Rosario was "Wow, this incredibly close to everything and quite urban" whereas when I first arrived there, I was like "OMG WHAT IS THIS PLACE, this is the smallest and in the middle of nowhere!!!!!!!!" Funny how your parameters for judging things can change pretty quickly. My second thought, shared by my travel companion and former training mate Jamey was "What is that tremendous amount of noise?" We had forgotten entirely that El Rosario has a whopping TWO fiestas patronales, and that the entire month of January is basically a fiesta here. So when I climbed out of the taxi, I realized that the street where my former host family lives was once again blocked off by carnival games, accompanied by lots of extremely loud MUUUUSSSSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCAA. My hopes of having a quiet weekend of recovery from camp were quickly dashed. I had forgotten how loud El Rosario is. A friend once told me it was once voted the safest pueblo in Nicaragua- I wouldn't doubt it, and I bet it is up there in terms of loudness as well. I think Americans have this vision of small towns/villages as quiet, peaceful places, which has nothing in common with the reality in the rest of the world if Central America is any sort of indicator.
It's funny how much had changed in a month, even as some things stayed entirely the same. My host mom has acquired a dog named Boston. It's cold here right now (like 50s at night), and windy because it's approaching dry season. All the furniture in the house was completely moved around. Instead of two Nicaraguan doctors, a roving cast of soccer players and family friends from El Salvador were renting the other rooms. There was a fresh coat of paint almost everywhere, in the house, and most places in town. 2 extended family members had gotten married. There is a pizza place in town now- that would have greatly improved our quality of life during training. A children's library had reopened. I felt comfortable enough to go on a long run to a nearby town, La Paz.
I had also forgotten how awesome and completely crazy, in the best kind of way, my training host family was. I fell right back into the weekend routine that we had had when I left, as if I had never been gone. It was especially fun to reunite with all my host mom's grandkids.
So, here are some amusing things that happened (and as usual, there was loud music blasting in the background for most of this):
-I accidentally interrupted a prayer service by walking into the house and exuberantly hugging my host relatives. Missed social cues on that one...
-Boston, the new dog, which my host mom begrudgingly acquired pre-named from her nephew, has a stray doppelganger, right down to the string around his neck. The doppelganger dog got in the front gate, and then tried to get into my host brother's house. When my host mom tried to scare it away with water, it squeezed through the gate into his house, where it thoroughly ensconced itself in the bathroom. It took 3 people, a lot of dragging and a broom to extricate him. Then, after all that, the real Boston ran away. Doppelganger confusion continued.
-Watched a traditional dance exhibition at the cancha, the court. El Rosario has an absurdly nice cancha which I had never properly appreciated before.
-My host mom had a her birthday this weekend, which I wasn't aware of, until a mariachi band started serenading her at 3, including with the tune "Hoppy Birthday". At first I thought it was a diana, an early morning parade to celebrate the Virgin Mary, but I realized what was going on when it became clear that the music was literally just outside the house. I felt really bad for not knowing it was her birthday until her granddaughter told me that she had forgotten too, and had yelled at the mariachi band to be quiet, before realizing who it was for.
-There were a ton of people in the house, pretty much none of whom I knew. Including a lot of Salvadoreans, who made homemade pupusas for my host mom's birthday dinner. Pupusas are basically little corn pancakes with different things inside, in this case, fried beans and fresh cheese, topped with cabbage salad and tomato salsa. Exquisito. Definitely some of the best food I've had in Nicaragua.
-Someone bought the 4 year old cousins whistles, which added another noise layer. AYYYY
-I taught origami to the grandkids, since teaching 150 Nicaraguan youths during ACCESS camp clearly wasn't enough. The house is now littered with cranes (herons because that was the only thing I knew the word for), balloons, crows, and butterflies. Also, I introduced them to candy corn, thanks to Hilary Clayton's excellent care packages.
No comments:
Post a Comment