My first Nicargauan Cake

Indira´s Baptism Dress and My Host Mother

Mike, my best friend

January 10, 2009

I hope that everyone had a great holiday season and is enjoying the new year. I apologize for not having written in so long, but was out of my site for a while and have been pretty busy when I was here, it has taken me a while to slow down.
My Christmas was pretty good, I really missed being with my family back home and to be honest, I am really glad the holidays are over. The host family here didn’t really do that much. We had a chicken dinner on Christmas Eve and tried to wait up until midnight, but we made it until about 9:30. On Christmas Day we went to mass and the two year old girl in my family was baptized. There were about twenty little kids being baptized and none of them were happy about it, but it was really cool to see how proud all the families were. I opened the packages that ya’ll sent from the states and they were great, thank you. I gave the Santa hat and the Christmas decorations to the family and had to tell them what the snowflakes were. I think it’s been a while since Nicaragua got snow.
I spent New Year’s at a beach in the department of Leon with a group of Agriculture volunteers. It was beautiful, I wish I had taken my camera, but I was worried about it being stolen because we were staying in a hostel. Turned out my feeling was right on because I was pick-pocketed on the way home in the city of Matagalpa. They took all the money I had just withdrawn to build a bathing area for my host family, my Nicaraguan debit card, identification, and U.S. drivers license. It was really frustrating but I am just trying to think about it as contributing to the Nicaraguan economy.
As most of you know I was really excited about my horse and my new life as a cowboy, so I figure I should tell the story of my first experience with my trusty steed. One Sunday morning in December I walked over to my neighbor’s, where the horse is cared for, to talk about the possibility of riding my horse, which the previous volunteer named La Gringa. Sunday is the day when many Nicaraguan men chose to drink very heavily, and this Sunday was no different, as my neighbors porch was filled with a handful of Nicaraguan cowboys who decided to get an early start on their drinking. These guys were real cowboys, horses tied to trees, spurs, cowboy hats, man beards, the works, and here I come, awkward and white, asking if I can ride my horse.
My neighbor asked if I knew how to ride a horse and I said sure, I have done it before, I am sure I can do it. He must have been unconvinced, because he told me to get on one of the vaquero’s horses and ride around the field. I should tell you that this field serves not only as pasture but also as a sports field for soccer and baseball games. On this particular Sunday there was a baseball game going on, so there were about forty men and spectators on the other end of the field.
So I mounted one of the vaquero’s horses, it would be considered small by American standards, but was fairly good sized for a Nicaraguan horse. After walking around in circle for five minutes the men were satisfied with my ability to sit on a horse, my neighbor sent one of his kids to fetch my horse. What he brought was in fact no horse at all but a tiny pony. This little thing might have come up to my nipples if it stood up straight and arched its back, and the onlookers from the house were really helpful in pointing this out.
Undaunted, I hopped on up, my neighbor handed me a length of rope and told me to use this to hit her to make her go, I didn’t really like the idea of whipping my horse and was sure I could manage without it, but took it anyways. So I turned the horse, put my heels into her, and started to make my way out of the field. Much to my embarrassment, I found that this horse went about as fast as she was tall. As all the men on the porch laughed and shouted God knows what, the men on the baseball field all turned to watch me plod out of the field. My arm was tired from using the whip that I was determined not to use. To make a long story short, it got no better. The road from there to my host family’s house, which takes me 30 minutes to walk on foot, took me and my little pony 45 minutes to stumble. I really thought I was going to kill that horse and she acted like she was on her last leg. I returned the horse later that day in shame and have not asked about her since.
Other things in my community have gone much better. The previous volunteer came back for about a week to close up his community banks and divide out the money. I had always been skeptical of these banks, but of the three banks, two of them had about a 35% return on the savings and the other had a 68% return. The most incredible example was Doña Elsa, and elderly lady, who managed to save and earn over one hundred U.S. dollars, an incredible amount in a country where a man’s full day of labor earns around 2.50 USD, and whats more, Doña Elsa is illiterate.
I am working to restart the banks again for this year. We have a meeting for one of them today and the other two next Saturday. There seems to be more interest in joining them and it looks like there will be about 100 people total between the three banks, about a ninth of the total population of the community, an incredible testament to the need of credit in the community and the work of the previous volunteer.
I am looking to move into my house sometime next week. I am going to be sad to leave the host family, because they have been so caring, and to be honest I don’t know what I am going to eat, but it will be really nice to have my own space and some peace and quiet. I have been looking for a dog, but haven’t had any luck yet.
I saw that the basketball team lost last week to Boston College and I am really glad I didn’t have to watch it. Yall need to do a better job of cheering them on. I am going to try and watch the Duke games at least, but I don’t know if that will happen.
I miss you all a lot and have appreciated hearing from you. I hope you all are doing great and having a good start to the new year.