Grow

Our mango tree is finally producing.

The rainy season has been teasing us for weeks. Little droplets of rain, or cat-hairs, as people here call them, mist the air for ten minutes, just enough to barely dampen the ground. But the daily short, torrential downpours that are typical between May and November have refused to make an appearance so far this year.

For farmers, this is not good. They depend on the regularity of the rain to nurture the beans that they plant at this time of year. For weeks, they held off on planting, waiting for the crop security that daily rain brings. But they could only wait so long without missing their chance – and a huge portion of their yearly salary – completely. Even though the daily rains still haven't begun, farmers have finally started planting in the hopes that the rain will come soon.

Today we took a walk in the countryside just outside San Nicolas and ran into a friend of ours. He showed us the field of beans that he had planted about two weeks ago. They were small, four-inch sprouts, and he said that if the rains don't come soon, the sprouts will dry up or get attacked by insects.

Beans are the staple, of course, of the Nicaraguan diet, and this impending shortage has already upped their price from 14 cordobas (54 cents) a pound to around 20 cordobas (77 cents) a pound. This might not seem like much, but when people's daily incomes are so low (see our blog about this) and when an average family consumes several pounds of beans per day, this is a fairly significant increase in price. Not only will the absence of rain affect the salary of the farmers who plant them, then; it will also affect all Nicaraguans who eat beans (which is all Nicaraguans).

Nicaraguan flag in the garden helps the plants grow!

When rains are cooperating, however, the earth here is amazingly fertile. You don't even need seeds – you can just cut off a little stub of a tree branch and plant it in the ground and an entirely new tree will take root and grow.

Last weekend we spent the day at a hostel at the crater lake Laguna de Apoyo. I noticed some flowers that I liked planted along the path to the lake, so Davie went to work furtively uprooting a few of them to take home and plant. At the most inopportune moment, one of the hostel staff appeared and asked if everything was all right. I tried to shield Davie's work and said everything was fine, but the dirt-encrusted flowers in Davie's hands made it pretty obvious what we were up to. “You know,” said the hostel worker, “They will survive better if you just put them in a jar with some water.”

Hanging garden made by Davie.

So apparently everyone does this here. When you see a plant that you like growing in someone else's yard, you just clip off a bit of it or uproot a little sprig and plant it in your own yard. People can afford to be generous with their plants because they know that if they ever want more of it, all they have to do is cut off a little bit and replant it.

Being a transplant myself, I rather like the symbolism of this. Here is a place where I can be uprooted from the life I know and be replanted. Here is a place that is receptive to new growth, where I can generate new roots and thrive in a new environment.

Our back yard is certainly proof of this principle. For years before we got here, our back yard was the repository where sucker-wrappers and rum bottles landed when people carelessly chucked them over a fence. Since we got here nine months ago, Davie has worked in the yard almost every day, raking and building paths and planting nubbins of tree branches here and there. And the earth receives them all and regenerates them all and grows them all, so that now, instead of a trash dump, our yard has become a garden.

Guns, The Trophy of Machismo

When I heard a series of loud shots last night as I was cooking dinner, at first I thought it must just be kids setting off fireworks. But the wailing that followed was far too anguished to belong to goofing-off kids. When we went to investigate, we found out that a man had been shot in a house down the street from us.

This wasn't the first instance of a shooting that we'd heard about since coming to San Nicolas. Earlier this year, two guys got into a drunken fight in one of the tiny communities far out on a bumpy road from San Nicolas. They both whipped out their guns, and one of them was killed.

These instances beg the question: In a town as tiny as San Nicolas, where gangs and drugs are virtually nonexistent, what causes these shootings? The answer is pretty simple: guns.

From the stories we've heard, it seems that not so many years ago, San Nicolas was a little like the wild West. Horses were the only mode of transportation; cow paths were the only streets. There was no official law enforcement. Cowboys rode around frequenting seedy saloons, and every one of them carried a pistol.

Needless to say, owning a gun still seems to be a trophy of machismo around here. Before Davie's baseball career was prematurely terminated, he remembers how at games, his manager would go around collecting the players' pistols so that they wouldn't be tempted to use them during the game. One day, five players pulled guns out of their pockets to hand over to the manager.

It makes sense that in the campo farmers would need rifles to shoot animals once in a while. One evening Davie was hunting down a possum that had wandered into our yard, and our neighbor Henry handily ran in to fetch a rifle to shoot it with. But pistols are a different matter. Pistols are meant to kill people, not animals. And from the evidence we've seen, it seems like people around San Nicolas genuinely feel the need to carry pistols for self defense.

When we asked around about how people get all these guns, our friend the librarian told us that it's a lot easier to get a gun illegally than to get one legally. To get a gun legally, you have to take several tests to make sure you can shoot well, which probably tacks on an extra fee. So instead, most people go the illegal route, trusting that the small police force in San Nicolas will never catch their illegal purchases – which is probably true.

Here, there are the classic wild West stories of good guns triumphing over bad guys. After the shooting last night, we stood in the street with the rest of San Nicolas huddled in little groups, trying to sort out what had happened. A woman wandered up to us and told us about the time when some thieves tried to rob one of the stores in town. Their efforts were quickly thwarted when the citizens of San Nicolas whipped out their own guns and held the thieves up until the police could arrive on the scene to take the thieves away.

But I imagine that more often than not, the stories that involve guns end more like the one last night did. Speculation around town is that the motive was a business beef that the shooter had with the man he shot. Whatever the motive, the fact is that the shooter entered the house and shot the man twice – once in the face, once in the back – while the man held his baby child. The shooter escaped into the mountains and the victim was taken to the hospital in Esteli, where at least for the moment he is still living.

The fact is that shooting breeds more shooting, whatever the motives. But I hope that whether or not that baby remembers the moment that his father was shot, he will grow up and decide, with the rest of his generation, that owning a gun doesn't make you a man. Tonight, join us in saying a little prayer for that baby and his father.

Footnote: I know we just finished saying how many guns there are in San Nicolas, but I want to clarify that Davie and I also feel very safe here. Everyone in town agrees that here, this kind of shooting is always directed at a specific person against whom the shooter has a personal vendetta. Senseless mass shootings just don't happen, and even robberies are quite rare. Since everyone knows each other, it would be very hard to get away with this kind of thing. We have an extremely safe house and very good neighbors.

Mermelada

At the Friday farmer's market in Esteli, crowded onto the La Garnacha table along with artisan cheese and locally-harvested honey, are an assortment of jams: papaya and pineapple, mango, guayaba, and rose of jamaica. These jams are made by a women's cooperative in the tiny community of Potrerillos, a good 3-mile walk from San Nicolas.

For months our friend Pedro has been asking us to come visit his house and learn how to make jam with his wife and the two other women involved in the cooperative. This last weekend, it finally worked out.

On Saturday morning, we hiked through hills that are just beginning to be green with the start of the rainy season. In a landscape where there are no houses in sight and the tiny white dots you see perched on distant mountains are really cows, you don't necessarily expect to hear church music and aleluya Jesuses blaring brokenly in the distance. But since jumbo sound systems and TV made it to the campo of Nicaragua, anything and everything has become possible.

By the time we got to Pedro's house, the jam-making women had already started chopping. Pedro's wife is a younger woman whose birthing of two children in the past four years has apparently had no long-term effect on her tiny figure. The other two women in the cooperative are Pedro's sister, who lives in the same house and another friend of theirs who lives in a different but equally remote community.

These three women formed this cooperative two years ago when a Swiss expat, Lisu, taught them how to make jam. Since then, they've been getting together to make jam almost twice a month. They make jam with whatever fruits are in season and sell the little jars to La Garnacha for 35 cordobas, or $1.35 each.

Like so many other women in this area, none of these three has a formal job. Instead, they spend their days with the full-time work of caring for their children, cooking, doing laundry, and cleaning the house while the men in their family work in the fields. So for these women, as well as being a good excuse to spend time with female friends, making jam is also a way of earning their own income.

While the women showed me how to chop the pineapple and papaya into tiny, pea-sized pieces, Davie took on the task of entertaining Pedro's four-year-old son Engel, who wanted us to take a picture of every item in his house. (It's probably not every day that he gets a chance to impress gringos). They fed us a yummy lunch of beans, avocado, and chia lemonade and we watched the world cup.

While we chopped and stirred, the women told us about their families. Pedro's sister told me that she had grown up and lived in that very spot all her life, although the house was built more recently. When it came time to cook the jam, they whipped out their gas stove, which they use exclusively to make the jam. All the rest of their food they cook over a wood fire in a separate room, but the smoke from the fire gives the jam a bad taste.

When we walked home to San Nicolas later that afternoon, it was with two jars of pineapple-papaya jam and the recipe to make it. Here it is.

Papaya-Pineapple Jam

1 papaya (not completely ripe)

1 Hawaiian pineapple

¼ cup of lime juice

1 orange peal – only use the white part

sugar

Peal the papaya and pineapple, making sure to remove all of the spiky bits of the pineapple. Dice the papaya and pineapple into really small, pea-sized pieces, discarding the seeds and removing the tougher inner core of the pineapple. Mix the diced pieces together and add the lime juice. At this point, weigh the fruit and note how many pounds it is. Shave off the white part of one orange peal and wrap and tie this in two tea bags. (This serves as pectin, a gelling agent).

Divide the papaya-pineapple mixture equally into two pots (or if you have a huge pot, you could probably just use that) and throw an orange peal bag into each pot. Cook over a stove, without a lid. Once it's hot, you'll gradually start adding the sugar. To figure out how much sugar to use, multiply the weight of the fruit mixture by 0.8 and use that many pounds of sugar. Gradually add the sugar, stirring as you do.

Cook for 45 minutes. A foam will start to develop on the top; skim this off and remove it. Then cook for another 20 or 30 minutes. Pour the still-hot jam into sterilized glass jars right away, filling them up to the top and sealing them with the lid.

BeelyKreesteen

Before us, there was only one other couple who volunteered through the program Volunteer Missionary Movement here in San Nicolas. Locally, these highly-acclaimed gringos are known as BeelyKreesteen. This past weekend, along with the rest of San Nicolas, we had the pleasure of a visit from BeelyKreesteen and the newest addition to their family, Weelee'm.

Billy and Kristin Byrnes lived in our house and worked in the community of San Nicolas for the 1.5 years before we got here. They taught English at the high school, taught religion and catechism classes at the church, worked on the organic farm La Garnacha, and became an integral part of the community through their many friendships with people in town. You still hear their San Nicolas joint name (BeelyKreesteen) pronounced all the time, and people often get their gringos confused and call Davie “Billy.”

Anyhow, Billy and Kristin left San Nicolas last June with a baby in the belly and some big shoes for us to fill. William, junior was born in October right when we arrived, so this visit eight months later was the first overlap we had with Billy and Kristin in this place that has come to mean so much for all of us.

When we heard that Billy and Kristin were coming to visit San Nicolas, we couldn't wait to tell people, knowing how excited everyone would be. Our across-the-street neighbors immediately leaped upon the idea of planning a surprise party for them on the night that they arrived. So we spent the week before they got here running across the street to ask what kind of dessert we should make, and who was going to make the welcome sign and how would we know what time they got into town? Having a mutual secret is always a great way of bonding, and by the time Billy, Kristin, and William stepped into the dark room to a chorus of “Sorpresa!” we had already become better friends with our neighbors.

During the next few days with the Byrnes family, we ate a lot of root vegetables, watched the final San Nicolas baseball game of the season, watched a lot of San Nicolaseños dote on the cute gringo baby, and witnessed countless reunions of people so happy to see Billy and Kristin and meet their made-in-Nicaragua baby son. People killed chickens and pigs to make special-occasion dishes for their special visitors, and we were lucky enough to be invited to some of these meals too. It was a whole weekend long of celebration.

We also got some quality time to sit down with Billy and Kristin to talk about our experience, commiserating on the parts that have been difficult and celebrating the joys of living in this community. Here are a few reflections that came out of those conversations:

• Though our work here is not always countable (many of the kids at the high school know no more English now than they did when Billy and Kristin started teaching), what is just as important are the friendships nurtured visiting someone's farm way out in the campo or asking someone to teach us how to make a traditional Nicaraguan dish. In these instances of cultural sharing lies the love which is at the core of our service.
• We will keep making friends and experiencing these moments throughout the rest of our almost 1.5 years left here in San Nicolas. Just because our time here has an expiration date, that doesn't mean that we will hit a point in which we need to stop making friends and drop into a more strict routine.
• We have developed our own niche in this community. Much of our experience is similar to Billy and Kristin's, but we have been able to share our unique gifts and interests in different ways that are specific to who each of us is.

It was a great weekend spent getting to know both Billy and Kristin and the people of San Nicolas a little better. We are so grateful to the Byrnes for their great precedent of work in San Nicolas and for all of their support of us and our work too.

Sports in San Nicolas

Here is a blog by the illustrious David Wiegner about his experience playing sports in Northern Nicaragua. His batting average may be below average, but David has been known to attract the attention of more than a few 9th-grade boys at recess with his soccer-juggling skills.

Baseball

When Sarita and I first arrived in San Nicolas I was approached by our neighbor Henry. He asked me if I played baseball. I said, “Yeah, sort of.” Unlike many other Central American countries where soccer is bigger, Nicaragua is a baseball country. Baseball is not my forte, but I was thinking that I could potentially be all right. Growing up, I had played informal baseball games at family reunions and catch in the park with my friends. Anyway, my word was put to the test when the manager of Guingajapa's (a community about 5 kms away from San Nicolas) baseball team showed up at my door with sign-up papers one day. It happened so suddenly. I was hoping for some kind of tryouts or preseason. (The normal baseball season goes from October to May.)

Well, let me give it a shot, I thought. Our first game was two weeks after my sign-up. We had to hike several kilometers in the campo, traversing bean, corn, and chia fields, before reaching Guingajapa's baseball diamond. Once we got there, it was hard to even tell who was on what team because everyone's uniforms were any jersey from any team; the only requirement was that you had to wear a jersey with a number. Warm-ups were easy, just catching and throwing the ball. But I suddenly had a slight nervous breakdown when I was called up for bat.

What do I do? How do I stand? Hmm...the bat is heavier than I thought. Just swing. “Strike uno,” they shouted, “Strike dos, fly ball, OUT”! (A few English baseball words that are used here in Nicaragua are: strike, home, pitcher, home run - pronounced “on ron,” fly ball, foul, outfielder).

My baseball record proceeded as follows: two games, playing right fielder in both of them, two strike outs, one hit. And then I was never called to play again. Needless to say, people here are very serious about baseball. Apparently I wasn't good enough for that sport, so let me try something else, I thought.

Soccer

Even though baseball is the most popular sport here, soccer has a large following as well. When we first arrived, the soccer season had just finished, but it should start up again soon in the next month or so. I am a lot more hopeful about this sport, considering that it is my favorite. In addition, I grew up in Costa Rica and Mexico, both of which are soccer fanatics. I played for my varsity soccer team in middle and high school, and in college I played with intramural teams. This looks a lot more promising, right? I hope so.

After talking to the PE teacher (who is also the coach of all the high school teams) about sports at the high school, I realized that the materials they have to work with - a flat basketball, flat volleyball, and flat soccer ball - are not conducive to having much fun. So that got me thinking about ways to help out. With funds from donors in the US, we have been able to buy a new soccer ball for the school. In addition, since the FIFA World Cup is coming up, right now I am doing a raffle with the school and community of San Nicolas to raise additional funds to buy more equipment. Students and community members have been filling out brackets to predict what team will win the World Cup. I hope that having students and folks from the community join together to help support their own teams will instill enthusiasm and energy towards high school sports.

Also, I have started to practice with the high school's team on weekday afternoons. It is really fun, but exhausting to play again. Sarita snapped some pretty good pictures of the soccer team and me. (Note the blue and yellow soccer ball - that's the ball that was donated).

If you're interested in supporting the high school sports teams in San Nicolas, you can make a special donation to VMM indicating that the funds are for this project. Or join San Nicolas in filling out a world cup bracket, and we'll see who wins!