Last Blog Post from 2012

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone from the beautiful island of Ometepe in Nicaragua! Well it was my second consecutive Christmas away from my family, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I never want to do it again. Call it nostalgia, call it cliché, there’s no place I ever want to be except with my loved ones during this time of year. That being said, Christmas in Nicaragua certainly was an exercise in cultural experiences. In good news, since I am not remotely near anything resembling a shopping center, I escaped all the horrible commercialization of Christmas, which was nice. I actually did not see a single gift given, though my friends in other parts of the country did.  This was a huge relief to me, because I had spent an entire week agonizing over what to get for my host family, time I could have put to better use sleeping, apparently. In my host family’s home, one would barely know it was the Christmas season because we had no tree. My host mom says it’s because it makes her sad to take it down afterwards. My host dad threw some strands of lights over a tree on our front patio, so that had to do for this year.

My town is largely Catholic, and they begin celebrating imminent arrival of the baby Jesus in late November. I’m not entirely sure if their traditions are purely Catholic, or a combination of pre-existing indigenous practices and Catholic influence. First there are nine days of La Purisima, when different neighborhoods take it upon themselves to erect temporary shrines in the streets out of sticks, shrubberies, flowers, and different-colored sawdust to house the image (I call it a “doll”, which is apparently not the correct terminology) of the Virgin Mary. I’ve been told the nine days are to commemorate the immaculate conception of Mary, or maybe it was one day for each month of pregnancy…not sure now that I think about it. Strings of light are strung over the altar and speakers are rigged that play music all day long so people know where to come in the night. There was one interesting contrast in which the speakers playing religious music were situated next door to the house blasting Linkin Park all day long. Crowds of people arrive at 7pm (theoretically) to recite the rosary and sing some hymns of praise, accompanied by a small brass marching band.  Afterwards, the hosting families distribute food to the people present, then everyone processes with the Virgin back to the church. In the morning there will be an early mass, followed by a procession to the next altar site and the distribution of a light breakfast. Not being Catholic, I felt no need to attend so many rosary recitations, but I did help out with altar construction a couple of times, and I spent a lot of time cooking and putting food into plastic bags when it was my family’s turn to distribute food. My family is by far the wealthiest in town, and they always generously allot a good chunk of money to the food distribution. We made over 100 nacatamales, some sweet squash-like thing, coconut candies, and two types of fruit drinks, plus distributed a lot of candy, all in convenient reusable plastic containers. 

Neighbors putting the finishing touches on the altar outside my home.

 

I took advantage of the opportunity to introduce neighborhood kids to frisbee.

 

I thought this finished on the December 7^th, but apparently this is followed by another 9 days of celebrating the baby Jesus. Supposedly the women are in charge of the Virgin’s celebrations and the men the baby Jesus’, but in practice everyone helps with everything.  The general set-up for the 9 days of the baby is the same, with different neighborhoods erecting small temporary stables to house the “image” of the baby Jesus. I never actually attended one of these, since my family never participated, so unfortunately that is all the information I can share. Maybe if I had attended more of these I would have felt the anticipation of the birth a little more.

On Christmas Eve itself, my counterpart Sara, who is also my best friend on the island, invited me to go out with her. I was horrified, since Christmas for me is a sacred family day. My family ended up cooking dinner with the cousins next door; I helped chop some veggies, but in the end it was a regular meal. I was disappointed, because we have so many relatives living next to us that I thought we would all get together for a big family dinner. I suspect that this might actually happen on New Year’s, especially given that a whole slew of family members showed up the day after Christmas to spend a week or so on the island. We shall see. I believe there was a mass at 7, but we didn’t go. After a 2-hour nap, I woke up to go with my family to the church around 11:30, in time to see the arrival of the nativity procession, consisting of many children with colorful staffs, a Mary and a Joseph, and presumably the baby Jesus, though I wasn’t close enough to see. For whatever reason, the manger in the nativity scene was depicted as a boat; no one could give me a satisfactory reason as to why.  After a few minutes of chanting, the nativity scene broke up and was followed by about an hour of people shooting fireworks off in the street. This is an important part of any Nicaraguan celebration; all during the Purisimas and the celebrations of the baby Jesus, fireworks were shot off before, after, and during musical interludes. All I can ever think during these displays is what a liability nightmare it would be in the US. Shooting off fireworks is a favorite pastime and apparently rite of passage for Nica boys, and I breathed a sigh of relief each time one of them shot one off without losing a finger. It turned out 3 people from town did end up going to the hospital on Christmas Eve for firework-related injuries, though I was unaware of this at the time. Because apparently fireworks alone aren’t dangerous enough; the kids in town went all West Side Story and were chucking small fireworks at each other across the street. I had to duck a couple times to avoid being caught in the cross-fire, and spent most of the time cowering behind a tree.  There’s another tradition, and again no one can tell me how it started, that involves fashioning a box into the shape of a bull, covering it with fireworks, and having a person hold it over their head while running through the crowds. Also not safe. I decided that, without a doubt, Christmas Eve was the most dangerous situation I had been in thus far in Nicaragua – who’d have thought?

 

Failed attempt to upload video of fireworks. Apologies.

 

Other than December festivities, I haven’t had a lot going on here. These two months are dedicated to “community integration” – most volunteers talk about the vast amount of books they read during this time. The prevailing advice is to venture out into the community and sit on as many front porches as possible to get to know the people we’ll be serving. I did pretty well the first two weeks – I know all the extended family members of my host mom, who live right outside our back door. I have good relationships with all the neighbors on our street, and I have infected the neighborhood children with an intense love of Frisbee. We play a game we made up with two teams facing each other, and you have to throw the disc so it lands within the other team’s territory without them catching it to get a point. I have one Frisbee that I let one of the kids keep overnight to practice, and they always fight over it, despite the multiple times it has fallen in cow dung.  The kids are improving a lot, and I’m planning on asking some of the older ones if they want to get their friends together to learn more about how to play the actual sport. But the point is that now I have a comfort zone and it’s becoming more difficult for me to break out of it.

I arrived worried about what projects I was going to do in the community apart from teaching high school English, and somehow fortuitously things are seeming to come together for me. I got in touch with one of the English teachers at the small university in my town. They only teach on Saturdays, from 8-3, and I initially balked at losing a day of my weekend; but as a fellow volunteer on the island pointed out, every day is like a weekend when you live here. Good point. So I’ve now taught 3 days of class to a group of 6 students (one of whom is my host mom!) completing their first year of English. I am enjoying the opportunity to work with older and more motivated students, and hope to continue with them in the upcoming year.

One of the Peace Corps’ requirements for English sector volunteers is that we form a community English class. I was silently fretting to myself about how I was going to get that organized, when a woman got in touch with me. She and a group of about 30 residents of Urbaite had taken an intensive English course for 3 months at a technical institute in nearby Altagracia, and were wondering if I was interested in supporting them. Community class? Check. We held an initial meeting a couple of weeks ago to which about 15 people showed up, and we decided we would start January 14^th, 2 hours a day from Monday to Friday. This seems excessive to me, but it was the same schedule they had when they took the course so they are used to it. Of course we’ll have to cut back to probably 2 classes per week once high school classes begin in February. And of course gossip spreads like you wouldn’t believe around here, and I’ve had a bunch of students in 10^th and 11^th grade express interest in joining the class. I’m keeping a list of students and I have about 22, but I know a lot more have said they’re coming, so we’ll see how many people come. Fortunately for me, my host aunt is the vice-principal of the primary school that is right across the street from me, and has offered to let us use a classroom. Like I said, fortuitous.

Another pleasing development for me involves politics. Urbaite is one of 5 indigenous communities on the island, though the people don’t look any different than other Nicaraguans. Each community elects a leader to an indigenous council that is responsible for undertaking and directing projects to benefit the community. Of these representatives, one is elected president, and the president has the power within the group and will be the representative to international gatherings of indigenous leaders. I think I’ve mentioned before that my host mom is a powerful figure in the community and on the island, due to her incredibly successful career as a (non-corrupted) lawyer. She was elected as the representative from Urbaite, and then last week she won the election as council president. She has talked to me about the ideas she has for the community, such as opening a school for art and music or a training center for women to make handicrafts. I am excited to help work on these projects, and know that I can apply for grants from USAID and the Peace Corps to help with funding.

It should come as no surprise that soccer is a very popular pastime in Nicaragua and on the island. Each community has a team in a league that competes on the weekend. As some of my host cousins and neighbors play, I went to watch a game last week. It was the playoffs and we lost, which was sad, but I learned that there is also a women’s league and that, for whatever reason, Urbaite has never had a team. This is surprising, since Urbaite is one of the largest communities. I asked around, and people seemed to think there would be enough interest to start a team. A neighbor got me in touch with a coach willing to help me form a team, and we’re going to start recruiting girls this weekend. I have a vague fear that this might be one of those “failures” the Peace Corps tells us we’re bound to have, but I’m excited none the less. I also feel slightly guilty because I am doing this for entirely selfish reasons, since I want to play soccer…but I suppose as long as other people benefit than it’s still a good thing.

The other piece of big news I have involves my second spectacular injury of the year (see China blog entry on splitting my eyebrow open by running into a glass door). While I was out for a run two weeks ago, a dog came out of a home and bit my leg, leaving an epic gash. Stitches are not an option because of the bacteria in dog saliva, so after an agonizing week-long ban on running and a lot of triple antibiotic cream, it is slowly beginning to heal. It’s one hell of a conversation starter, that’s for sure, especially since everyone in town has some story about either themselves or a family member being bitten by the same dog. I don’t know how the dog is allowed to a) live; b) run around free. Yet another item on the list of Things That Would Never Happen in America. Which thus far reads as the following:

1.       Small children lighting fireworks and starting gang war.
2.       Impunity for dog that has bitten almost everyone in the community.  
3.    Peeling potatoes with a machete.

My apologies to those with weak stomachs. The neighbors say it looks like someone split my leg open with a machete.

 

Fun photo of my host family 'sardineando' with my Peace Corps-issued mosquito net. I'm not mentioning this to them until I'm safely out of the country. Not that they expressly prohibited using the mosquito nets to catch sardines, they should really be specific about these things.

 

 

Until next year! Love, Laura.