Just call me Aracely

Spontaneous Dance party with the kids of the campo in my house!
see all photos »

Okay, okay...I know you´ve all been patiently waiting to read about my adventures in the Nicaraguan campo! So I am going to do my best to fill you in on everything you missed...the lodo (mud), the chickens, and of course the bugs. I´m back in Managua now, and safe...that´s a good place to start. But my adventure began in a little town named La Estrellita. To get to La Estrellita you first have to ride in the back of a pick up truck with 6 other people, up the side of a mountain. The town is made up of 66 families, and everyone lives below poverty. The men all work on coffee farms and the families live on what the land provides them with. 6 of us stayed in this particular community, each with their own family. My family was incredible. I had a Dad, Angel Antonio, a Mom, Sandra, and two little sisters, Yaritza and Angela. Their house was made of stone which is a hugggge deal, but it was only one room. Everyone sleeps in the same room, eats in the same room, hangs out in the same room. There is a wooden kitchen type thing outside and then there is the latrine...the lovely latrine which two gigantic spiders called home. Each day my family and I would wake up around 5:30 and i would start by making tortillas with my mom. Grinding the corn, making the dough, cooking them on what is basically the equivalent of a campfire. It was so much fun though, my friend Tabitha (one of the other students) lived next door and she would come over and we´d have tortilla making competitions. The women are very very oppressed and were a bit shy of these very loud gringas, but they were hysterically laughing as we tried to make tortillas. So then each day we´d have tortillas, beans, rice, and coffee. Every morning Tabitha and I would try, unsuccessfully, to teach our families and neighbors how to say our names, but it didnt work. My mom said to me, "your name in spanish is aracely" and that was the end of it. that was my new name. Something about the l´s in Allison just wasn´t working. Most days i would then go out to the campo and help my dad chop cornstalks or work with the cafe plants. He loved to talk to me, all about Ortega and the government, about the United States and about his land. The highlight was one morning when we were picking corn, and he said to me, "i hope you have enjoyed staying with my family, we really hope you come back. having this experience, being able to talk to you and eat dinner with you, has been incredible." the community was beyond welcoming to us...some of them had never seen foreigners before and a lot of the kids truly believed we were aliens. but the people were very proud to have the chance to "take care of us". There were some highlights though that I have to mention. The first was my grandpa. He was crazy, and crazy doesnt even begin to describe it. He had no teeth to make things really difficult, so he would sign things to me and i would have to guess what he was trying to say. One day I was sitting in the house writing in my journal when he came in and sat down. He sat there staring at me for about 10 mins (pretty typical experience), but then I decided to try to talk to him. I look up and ask him how he's doing. He motions to me that he has something to give me, and that´s when he handed me the note. This was not just any note, but a not telling me he needed a treatment for the magic inside of him that was making him sick. At the top of the paper he had written "para Tabitha". i told him tabitha lives next door, but he insisted i give it to her.  My grandpa thought Tabitha was a witch! and that she would cure him of his "mago". It was hilarious because the rest of the trip he would follow her around rubbing his stomach all the time. That was my funny experience, my sad experience was with an older woman in my community who was dying of brain cancer. This woman´s family had come from all over Nica to sit with her and be with her until she passed away. So one day my family had me sit with them next to her hammock and we just sort of watched this woman dying...it was so sad. The people here have enough to get by, but there is no money for health care, they cant afford to go any school past 7th grade because the high school is two hours away, and they dont have access to running water or electricity 90% of the time. When i had to bathe my sister and I would go down to the river and that was the bathtub. J-Bird you would have loved it though, because there were fields full of lightening bugs! It immediately made me think of you. Those were the stories I can remember right now. There were other neat things, I rode a horse, went to a quinceñera, and played with the kids in the neighborhood for hours each day. I slept under a mosquito net for the first time and discovered a camera is the most amazing thing in the world...people were fascinated by it. My family all took baths and then put on their best clothes so i could take their picture and send it to them. My dad even posed in his baseball uniform! It was such a neat experience, there were hard parts, but when I left my mom was sobbing! I had no idea how much it meant to her to have me there, or to have something to break up the monotony of what she does everyday. She was told me I had to come back as soon as possible. Many of the women in my community had been married since they were 15, some had 8 or 9 children, and all day they would cook, clean and take care of their kids. We made them laugh a lot, and Aynn, our director said that´s the whole point so I´m really glad. Next week we are going to the Carribean/Atlantic Coast which will be another adventure. The hurricane caused a lot of damage and the communities there are still trying to find their loved ones and rebuild their houses, so hopefully we will have the opportunity to help in some way.  This weekend Claire, Lindsey and I are going to go to Masaya and hike an active volcano. Depending on the height of the lava each day they determine how high you can go, some days they actually let you look down in the crater at the lava! Then we are going to go to Granada, the oldest colonial city in Central America. :) pretty exciting. Spanish is coming along, my family is still great, and I´m pretty healthy (mas o menos). I miss you guys and can´t wait to see you in December!