Daily rituals of a Nicaraguence

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During the corn harvest I was invited to eat tamales with families in my community. I'm dancing during our feast.

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While in Nicaragua I taught dental hygiene classes to schools, held community discussions about deforestation, helped build latrines and teach the importance of water purification, blah, blah, blah…  But all this is not what I really DID in Nicaragua.

Living day to day, was my prime concern while in Nicaragua.

For two months I lived without running water, without electricity, without a computer, without phone service, without a washing machine, without hair conditioner, without a comfortable bed.  Enough of the negativity though, there were lots of things that I did have.  I had four shirts, two pairs of pants, one skirt, two pairs of shoes, lots of iodine tablets and chlorine for purifying water, 8 packages of pepto bismol tablets, one mosquito net, an emergency prescription of some crazy disease medicine the doctor prescribed me “just in case,” pink malaria pills that I had to take once a week to prevent disease (these pills also gave me very vivid dreams every night.  I wrote all the dreams down in a book…maybe that’s my next article), one miniscule cot to sleep in, and one back pack which held all of these earthly possessions.

With my "tio" (uncle) Nicaraguence

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When I say that my prime concern was living, I mean that life takes more work in a place like Nicaragua.  Every morning I would wake up around 4:40 because that was when the roosters were making tons of noise, and you can’t sleep through that.  It doesn’t matter though because the sun is out, and everybody has already been awake for a while.

When I first get up I’m probably thirsty, but being the slacker I am, I have no purified water, so there is nothing for me to drink.  So I get together several neighbors and family members to help me haul water from the well one bucket at a time.  What originally was in an effort to get one bottle full of agua turns into a group session, filling every barrel and basket full of water for bathing and cooking.

I’m probably hungry, it being first thing in the morning.  Breakfast-yummy delicious cereal and cool milk.  Well, actually fried beans and rice, and maybe a fried banana are more like it, but one can dream.  I can drink all the milk I want since it just came from the cow next door and is still warm.  I have to peel the film off the top.

Washing my clothes

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And I am extremely dirty.  Bath time should be a nice relaxing time where I can breath, have some privacy, cool off.  Instead it is a physical task.  In the morning when the air is still cool, the water is also freezing, and in the afternoon when the heat kills, the water has been sitting in the hot sun all day.  I have to carry a bucket full of water across the yard (water is heavier than you think) to a small brick building.  The word building isn’t adequate, because all the structure really contains is four brick walls about 4.5 feet tall.  This is the Nicaraguan version of privacy when bathing.  Inside most people have to duck in order for it not to become a public spectacle (that’s not really a problem for me, I’m not that tall).

To explain bathing in another country cannot do it justice.  Close your eyes and imagine you are surrounded by four brick walls of which you can see out of them.  You see people working, laughing, and talking.  Look, some of those people are talking to you- while you’re trying to bath.  In this structure with you there is a bucket of water, a small bowl and a bottle of pert plus which is your shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash, your all in one cleaner.  What do you do?

You learn.  By the end of a week bath time was my favorite time.  I loved to cool off with the water, and I got over my paranoia that everybody could see me, because no one can, even when you are looking straight at them having a conversation.

In the afternoon, after I became completely filthy with dirt and sweat and whatever else, I would realize that I had no clothes to wear.  It was time to wash the three outfits that I had brought with me.  With no washing machines, or hot water for that matter, this is a difficult task.  Each time I washed my clothes my arm muscles grew stronger, and my knuckles would turn bloody as I scraped them against the washing board.  Also- gringos suck at washing their clothes by hand.  Within five minutes of beginning I would have a city of Nicaraguan women around me telling me that I was doing it wrong, and I should just let them wash it because I was never going to get anything clean.  When I got back to the States I threw all of those clothes away.

Living in Nicaragua was an amazing experience.  I feel a tiny part Nicaraguence (what the Nicaraguans call themselves).  I miss my host family, my village of Los Zan Jones, my three sisters, 27 aunts and uncles, 95 cousins and grandmother.  But when I look back on the experience I do not think about the community service aspect of my trip.  I don’t think “wow, I really made a difference.”  When I look back at my summer in Nicaragua I am always amazed that I SURVIVED without electricity, running water, hot showers, e-mail and ice.  But then, I think without these things I was happier than every before.