Rainy season

So rainy season has started full force, and I must say that I love it! This morning I was stuck at Puntos because it was pouring and I lost my umbrella the other day. I finally grabbed a taxi and got to the centro relatively dry. The roads in the barrio have been converted into muddy rivers. The water literally runs down the sides of the streets, and sometimes right down the middle, dragging rocks and garbage with it. The drainage ditch, which also serves as a garbage dump, has turned into a churning brown river of garbage that runs directly into the lake. On rainy days lots of kids skip school...

The first day of rainy season is officially May 15. Eduardo were cooking in my house, and about a million bugs were crawling all over the sink and in the kitchen. They kept landing on me and I was swatting them away. ¨Where did all these bugs come from¨I asked him, and he said they were the winter bugs and that it was a sure sign that it was going to start raining. Sure enough, about an hour later it started to pour, lightening and everything.

The rain has brought a cool breeze that lasts all day. The oppressive heat has lifted and the intense sun is hidden a lot of the time (my skin is very thankful for this). Although when the sun does come out, it's very humid.

Mother's Day Event

This Saturday we took

the mothers of the youth in the youth group to the beach at Pochomil for Mother's Day, which is a very important holiday here and is celebrated on May 30th. As you can see from the pictures, the moms really had a chance to let loose and just enjoy themselves, without kids around or any obligations. We began celebrating as soon as we arrived at around 10.30am, when the first case of Toña beer was brought out, and continued until 6.30pm. Doña Esperanza, who appears in 2 of the pictures dancing, definitely wins the prize for being the most festive. In the bus on the way to the beach, she had everyone in stitches telling jokes. She was either dancing or swimming the entire time. We drank, ate arroz a la valenciana (an enormous pot full of it that could've fed 100 people), danced barefoot in the sand and swam. It was windy and cloudy, so the waves were huge, but the water was warm and shallow. The women laughed and cried, remembering children and other loved ones who had passed away. But as Gustavo said, this is the way that Nicaraguans celebrate... mixing happiness with sadness.

Garifuna

Tuesday night my roommate Nico invited me to a free dance performance... Garifuna dancing from the Atlantic coast. The Garifuna are people of African and indigenous American descent. It was pouring when the bus dropped us off in front of the Spanish-Nicaraguan Cultural Institute, and the power was out. The place was full though. Lit by candles, the drummers came out on the small stage and began playing, so you could imagine being on a Caribbean beach. After about 20 minutes of drumming, the lights came on and the dancers came out. They spoke about the history of their people. They had come on slave ships to St. Vincent island in the 1500´s from west Africa, intermarrying and living together with the indigenous Arawaks who already lived on the island. in the late 18th century, as a result of fighting between the English and the French over control of St. Vincent, the Garifuna were deported to an island off the coast of Honduras, and then to the mainland. Today they live on the Atlantic coast of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The main dance form that they presented was Punta, which involves really fast and furious hip shaking. The dances they presented used symbolic movements representing important activities of daily life. My favorite part was when they called up people from the audience to participate. The volunteers (including me.. how could I resist?) did a dance called AEIOU, each one doing the dance in turn. Then there was a Punta dance party. I'm going to get to the Atlantic coast before I leave no matter what!

Matagalpa

Karina

and I went to Matagalpa this weekend, a town up north in the mountains. (he mountain picure is a view from our hotel. Because of my Sunday english class, it's hard for me to get away sometimes.

Matagalpa is an interesting city. The climate was extremely refreshing after being in the intense unrelenting heat of Managua all the time. (The heat has really been unbearable... I take the bus every day at 9:30AM across the city and then have to walk to catch the connecting bus that takes me to the centro. Although I don't have to walk far, I'm covered in sweat and completely worn out. Then I teach english in the afternoon in a furnace of a classroom with no air flow, where extremely loud buses pass every few minutes raising up a cloud of dust that could kill you.)

So back to Matagalpa, we went to a delicious Italian restaurant with a beautiful back patio full of plants and bright blue walls. We ate a huge salad and spaghetti with broccoli and olive oil, just like you make at home, mom! We wandered around the city, running into an AIDS prevention festival and a micro-producers fair where we bought black pottery and locally made chocolate bars. In the evening, we ate Mexican tacos (so much better than the fried Nica tacos) and went to the Grupo Venancia cultural center where a bohemian crowd was listening to a group play Silvio Rodriguez music and singing along. It is apparently the place to be on Saturdays.

On Sunday we woke up early and went to Selva Negra (I think they have a website if you google it), a coffee plantation owned by a German family that was the first immigrant family to start growing coffee in Nicaragua. We hiked in the forest on their land and just enjoyed being in fresh air...

party!

On Friday we had a party at the centro. A woman who has supported the centro financially for over 14 years came to visit. Gustavo's band Nectawara played, we ate delicious food and danced. It was really interesting getting Jean's perspective on the history of AMUCOBU. Doña Esmeralda was going to move to Miami to find work 14 years ago, but Jean thought that it was crazy for her to leave the neighborhood, where she was such an important community leader, so she told Doña Esmeralda that she'd fund her salary. Also, for the past few years she has been funding the medical post through her own fundraising. She holds multiple fundraisers throughout the year, such as bailathons and house concerts, where all music and services are donated and 100% of the proceeds go to the centro. This she does in her spare time, as her day job is a neuropsychologist. It's amazing to hear the stories of gringas who have been working in solidarity with Nicaraguans since the 80's and makes me want to do an oral history research project talking with them and the people they have collaborated with... Maybe something for grad school?

In class last week we started a community mapping project. It's an idea I've had for a long time but have been waiting for the right moment to start. First the students came up with an enormous list of all the places and things that one might find in a neighborhood (I found it interesting that one of the first ten things they mentioned was the local Alcoholics Anonymous chapter). Then they analyzed the list, mentioning the things that there are and are not in their actual neighborhood. On Thursday, we went out and took pictures of places in the neighborhood. They came out very nicely (the kids took almost all of them...) Here are a few.

Snapshots

I bought a bed in the Mercado Oriental on Monday, the biggest market in Central America. It was a classic experience of market shopping. Without the help of Tere and her daughter Jania, I would have been smothered in swindling. When we got out of the taxi, vendors swarmed us, saying, que busca chelita, veni ver sin compromiso. We ignored them and entered a store at the end of the row, overflowing with wooden bed frames, hutches, dressers, shelves and the classic Nicaraguan rocking chairs. An employee followed us, showing us the options for mattresses and ensuring us of their quality. Tere and Jania cunningly worked him down to the lowest price he would go to, and made no promises to come back for the bed. In the meantime, the guy who transports furniture in the back of his pickup whispered in Tere's ear that he could help find her a better deal, so we snuck out and followed him to about 5 other stores, all saying that they are always honest with their customers about the quality of their beds, which made me mistrust them even more. I finally chose a beautiful carved wood-framed bed, but the mattress is really bad so I'm going to have to buy another one with the next paycheck...

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The new house is amazing! There's two hammocks strung up in the front patio and 2 rocking chairs. The breeze comes in and out freely and it's always nice and cool. There's political posters up all over the main room, including one about the life of revolutionary El Salvadoran leader Farabundo Martí and the schedule for a film festival from last fall. Nico and Roberto are active in what is called the Social Movement (of students I think) which is basically a social justice group, and have a huge group of friends who are also involved. Roberto teaches computers in the University. One of the greatest parts about living in this house is cooking for myself. Last night I made nicaraguan style rice and beans with an asian veggie stir fry with peanut sauce. I was very excited to eat veggies! The other great thing about the house is that my room is very well ventilated and I can leave the window open... it's almost cool enough that I don't need to keep the fan on all the time!

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This week I started a mapping project with the youth in my daily English class. The first step of the project was to think of all the places in their neighborhood, and then learn the words in English. I thought it was amusing that one of the first ten things that came up was the local Alcoholics Anonymous. Next week we're going to walk around the neighborhood noting where all of the important places are and taking pictures. Then we'll later draw out the map and add the pictures to it. I'll take pictures of the finished product and the process too...