Beware of manholes…and it just hit me today, how did I ever truly live life without a hammock in my living room?

2 second updates (aka ¿Qué Paso?):

Days in oscura (total darkness): 0…my lights have been fixed
Days without water at night: 0 (alright!)
Roof leaks: hopefully 0…once it rains really hard I will know for sure, but the chavalos just fixed my roof …again
Gripe/bacterial infection/parasite/general maladies: Zip, zilch, zero
Interesting news: As if school isn’t canceled enough, apparently El Dia de Trabajo (the day honoring workers)…all school and work is canceled
Boyfriend update: His name is Marco, he lives down the street from me…HAHA jk…in truth, he is a little 5 year old boy who calls himself my “novio” (boyfriend)
Cuts caused by barbed wire: current count, 3 ...I cut myself again while putting up the laundry

Easy bake oven…Peace Corp style! So I feel like I should receive some type of Girl Scout badge (preferably a pink badge with a hand stitched picture of cookies with steam evaporating off of them) for the oven project I just successfully completed. I was missing wheat bread, and baked goodies…therefore I decided to build a Dutch Oven using a big pot, 1 tuna can, and 1 small cake pan. Operation “oven” not only works but actually makes tasty goodies too! I baked oatmeal cookies for all of my counterparts using this contraption. Who knows what I will be baking next…but skies the limit.

Here is my oven in all its glory...by the way that´s what banana bread looks like when baked in a pot on a stove!

What is a nacatamal? Answer, a little slice of heaven rolled up into a banana peel. But in reality, I was not exactly sure what was in a nacatamal (even though I have eaten them numerous times). Therefore, I started an investigation to find out the ingredients that make up this dinner and/or breakfast food (yup, I have eaten it for breakfast!). This is what I came up with:

A nacatamal is a popular Nicaraguan food sold on the bus or in the local pueblo. It usually contains beef, rice, onion, tomato, potato, maiz, and is served piping hot rolled up in a banana leaf. The consistency of the nacatamal is comparable to the consistency of stew (it’s a bit soupy). How does one go about eating this culinary delight? Not quite sure. Usually, when I buy a nacataml I don’t have any silverware (because chances are I am on a bus going 40kph (approximately 25 mph) through mountain, river and volcano territory. So I resort to using my hands (extremely messy). I have become a master of the gobble and scoop method of eating. Did I mention I have also gotten pretty sick after eating a nacatamal?? However, I am not so quick as to equate this sickness with the nacatamal itself, but rather with the fact that I was eating with my hands (I will be the first to admit…kinda gross…but gotta do what you gotta do…and sometimes that involves eating a nacataml with un-sanitized hands on a rollercoaster of a bus ride).

Yesterday, I woke up to discover a large majority of my shoes and clothes had molded. Fun stuff. What kills mold? I decided bleach (cloro) would do the trick. Now I am left with a lot of white, splotchy clothing that smells of cloro but at least nothing is moldy. I am told that in the hot season (March-July) it doesn’t rain at all and therefore mold isn’t a problem. I hate to say that I am looking forward to the heat but I really hate mold, so give me the sun!

I thought it might be fun to post a few recipes of common/popular Nicaraguan foods, so that those in the States can share in a cross-culture experience without ever leaving the comfort of the kitchen! Here is the first recipe in a series of 5:

Dish name: Gallo Pinto

Serves 5

When do you eat it? Morning, noon and night!!!

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

- 1 bolsa arroz (approximately 1lb. of cooked rice)

- frijoles cociendos de 10 cords (approx. 4 cups cooked red beans; drained)

- 1 cebolla (1 medium sized onion)

- 3 chiltomas (3 small green or red peppers; or 1 big green pepper)

- 1 taza aceite (1 cup vegtable oil)

Directions:

1) Finely dice cebolla (onion) and chiltomas (pepper). Rinse white rice under clean tap water. Pour ½ taza aceite (1/2 cup oil) into a large pot. First, fry rice with cebolla and chiltomas. Next, add water to rice, cover pot, and allow rice to steam cook for approximately 20 to 30 minutes.

2) Meanwhile, put a ½ taza of aceite (1/2 cup oil) into a frying pan and deep fry the already cooked frijoles. Once rice is finished cooking, add in fried beans. Serve gallo pinto with corn tortilla and crema (cream).

**For a healthier version of Gallo Pinto, omit the oil/frying stages of rice and beans.

I haven’t been doing a lot of teaching lately due to fiestas. However, I will share an episode that occurred during the last class I taught, which seems like 10 weeks ago (in reality it was 2 days ago but class has been canceled nearly every other day)…The kids piled into the room, noisy as usual, and a bit restless. The class lecture finally got underway and then it happened…the girls started to put on their make-up in class and the boys brought out their cologne to trade amongst one another. CRASH… SPATTER… What is that smell?? A boy dropped a huge bottle of cologne and the bottle shattered into a million pieces quickly engulfing the room with the scent of P.Diddy (not sure if this is exactly what P.Diddy smells like…and if it is what he smells like, I would not be surprised if people kept a 20 foot radius from him…needless to say his perfume brand reeks of suave). While this scene was occurring, another boy in the class was singing his favorite reggaetone hits in un voz más alto (loudly). Finally, a girl in the front row wrapped her bandana completely around her face to avoid the fumes vaporizing from the floor. Now how was I supposed to focus the class after this chaotic episode? Given the fact that there was 20 minutes left of the class, it was impossible to settle everyone back down. The boy who dropped his cologne was forced to mop it up and class was dismissed. Lesson learned: if chavalos want to smell like P. Diddy, please do it outside of class time and preferably away from my nariz (nose)!

Watch out for the manholes…they’ll get ya every time! Alright, I made a whirlwind trip stopping by in Managua on my way to visit my old host family. Having been away from the city for 7 weeks I forgot my bearings and almost fell into a 10 foot deep manhole. Argh! In my small town there aren’t any manholes to worry about (thank goodness). But Managua seems to be plagued with uncovered manholes on every street. I saw a recent newscast (thanks, canal diez…channel 10) of a man who had fallen into one of these horrible traps and gotten stuck. Of course, as luck would have it, it started to rain and the man’s life was quickly put into jeopardy. No worries, he was saved and pulled out of the manhole not a minute too soon. However, a word of advice would be to always pay attention to the ground and avoid manholes at all costs!

My host family mom and me...posing in her living room.

I am now the proud owner of a hamaca (hammock, see picture below). It is in my living room. I love it! In fact I am sitting in my hamaca, right now, typing this blog. Earlier today I ate lunch in my hamaca. Ayer (yesterday), I said forget sleeping in a bed…it’s all about sleeping in the hamaca! What a wonderful invention…so cool, comfortable (my gosh this is beginning to sound like an infomercial…and for only $6.99 you too can own your very own hamaca, genuine cotton, comes in an assortment of colors, free shipping…call now, phone operators are standing by!) Ok, so some Nicaraguans do have hamacas in their living room or outside in their backyard (it’s not just me, the weird gringa). I am culturally adopting and to do so correctly I must have a hamaca in my living room.

A few days ago I hitched a ride to a small school an hour away. I jumped in the front seat of the car to discover…a wooden seat that used to be part of a rocking chair. The seat was now being used to cover the usual fabric upholstered car seat. This person had taken the wooden seatback and placed it in their car, sans rocking chair gliders, to make the seat more comfortable. Now, I was skeptical at first. How could a hard wooden seat be more comfortable than the cushy fabric upholstery? But guess what, after an hour car ride my posture had improved (no more slumping down in my seat) and I felt revitalized. So I would like to make a suggestion to all car manufacturers…ditch the fabric cushioned seats and opt for a hard wooden seats instead!