A Reverse Manger Scene

It has been a painful Christmas week here in San Nicolas. 

This past Monday, a man who lives down the street from us, Tonito, was thrown from his horse and died a few hours later, leaving his wife and seven children to mourn his death just two days before Christmas. Then yesterday, on Christmas day, we heard our friend and neighbor Henry sobbing uncontrollably in his back yard. He called Davie's name through his tears and told Davie from across the fence that his uncle had just died across the street.

We had created a joyful space within the walls of our house on Christmas day, cooking some hearty American comfort foods and skyping with our families. And when we opened our front door to go to the vigil for Henry's uncle, it certainly wasn't joy that greeted us in the streets of San Nicolas, but it also wasn't the outright hopelessness that we had expected.

A huge crowd of people lingered in the street outside our house. We followed them into the house across the street from us and into its living room, where Aurelio, Henry's uncle, lay motionless on a bed in the empty room,. He had died less than an hour before. Family and friends filed into the house, crowding around the bed to lay hands on him and pray. Little kids zoomed in between people's legs to get a look at Aurelio and then went back out into the street to play games.

It seemed that most of the community of San Nicolas was gathered around Aurelio, next to his bed, in the living room, and in the street outside the house, in the moments after his death. It occurred to me that on this Christmas night, we were witnessing something akin to a reverse manger scene, with the shepherds and wise men gathered instead around a very human death.

We were also struck by the fact that this death was such a public, community event; we saw almost everyone we know in San Nicolas there. I had never really thought about how private our death traditions are in the US before – they occur within hospital walls, surrounded only by close family. In contrast, it was fascinating and beautiful to see the entire community surrounding Aurelio, talking and even laughing about his life, at the scene of his death.

This afternoon, the community of San Nicolas walked down the main street, bearing Aurelio's casket. We joined the long procession of people, and even though we didn't really know Aurelio, somehow marching down the streets of San Nicolas with everyone in town, even at this sad moment, made us feel so much a part of this community.

We walked along next to the mariachi band, who blended their violin and trumpet tunes with the wails of Aurelio's family. And there at the cemetery, with the entire population of San Nicolas looking on, Aurelio was put to rest in the ground, as the sun set over the mountains around San Nicolas.

As we're surrounded by the Christmas joy of birth and love, it is uncannily beautiful to see how the sorrow of death here in San Nicolas is inextricable from the love within this close-knit community – how, in essence, joy and sorrow can be such close companions.

Recipe: Jalapeño Chicken

One day a few weeks ago, Idalia, the director of the school in San Nicolas, came over with her daughter to teach us how to make a standard Nicaraguan dish: jalapeno chicken. 

It being a food-oriented time of year, we want to share this recipe with you. For those of you who are in a cold climate, this dish will warm you quite well. 

For the chicken:

3 lbs chicken, cut into filets

1 clove of garlic, smashed and diced finely

1 lime, juiced

2 small green peppers, diced finely

1 small onion, diced finely

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

Juice the lime and combine it with the chicken and diced garlic. Let sit for a minute and then drain the additional liquid. Dice the peppers and onion finely and combine the rest of the ingredients with the chicken. Cook the filet and vegetables, discarding the liquid, in a pan with butter until it is browned and crisp. You can also cook it over a grill if you prefer, Arrr Arrr Arrr.

For the sauce:

2 julienne-cut onions

1 or 2 julienne-cut jalapeno peppers (the more the merrier)

2 cups water

2 tablespoons corn starch

½ cup milk

½ cup sour cream

salt

Cut up the onions and peppers and saute them in oil. When they are cooked, add the water and cook until the water is hot. In the mean time, mix together separately the corn starch, milk, and sour cream. After the water is hot, add the corn starch mixture to the onion and peppers. Cook until the sauce thickens and add salt for taste. You may think, “that is a lot of jalapenos,” but the milk and cream will cut the spiciness - don't worry.

Mix together the chicken and sauce or serve them separately. Eat this dish over rice, with the side of beans that is essential to every Nicaraguan meal.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from San Nicolas, Nicaragua (Santa's vacation location)!

Graduation Season

We have been to three graduation, or promocion, ceremonies in San Nicolas in the last week, and let us just say, they are no small matter. Each ceremony is not only a graduation, we discovered, but also a reunion and a church service, all wrapped up into one four-hour-long service. All said, we have spent more time watching people graduate in the last week than we have spent cooking or eating or maybe even sleeping. (That last one is only a slight exaggeration). And when we do sleep, the graduation theme song haunts our dreams.

The first graduation service we went to was for our friend Fatima, who works at the pharmacy next door to us and was graduating from a local agricultural school. We were invited to the second graduation by our friends Samari and Tamara, sisters who were graduating from 6th grade and kindergarten respectively. The final ceremony, last Saturday, was for our students graduating from high school.

Working on the banner the night before graduation

From our estimation, here are the essential ingredients to a promocion service in San Nicolas, Nicaragua:

1. The graduation theme song, which is different from the one used in American graduation services, but equally as repetitive.
2. Balloons, especially white and blue balloons for public school graduations.
3. Female audience members wearing 6-inch heels and tight glittery dresses.
4. A rousing sermon and some heartily-bellowed hymns.
5. A large congratulatory banner; drop-shadow letters are mandatory.
6. Walking down the aisle with a parent or sibling.

10 a.m., David waits outside the locked church

We also learned this week that when someone tells you that a graduation starts at 10 a.m., they really mean that the graduates start thinking about donning their gowns at 10 a.m. If you go to the church at 10 a.m. for the graduation, the church doors will most definitely be locked, and no one else will be there. 

But in spite of the long, sometimes-boring nature of the graduation services, we were honored to be invited to attend all of these ceremonies, and to watch the pride in our students' eyes as they walked down the aisles in their graduation gowns. So many students have to drop out of school early to work in their family's pulperias or take care of a sibling or child, that graduating from high school is a huge accomplishment, and graduating from a post-high school program is even more admirable. At the high school where we teach, you can see the drop-out progression when you look at the numbers of students in each class. In our 7th grade class, there are over 30 students; in 11th grade (the final year of high school), there are about 12. 

Jarol with his mother, Dona Victoria

The school offers GED-like classes on Sundays as well for adults who never graduated from high school, and we have become friends with Jarol, one of these students. After the graduation ceremonies, we were invited to parties at a few different students' homes, including Jarol's. Jarol is this big bulky manly-man who once made fun of me for complaining of an ant bite ("Come on, you are so much bigger than it!"), but he was visibly glowing with pride after graduating from high school. 

We are so happy for all of the students who graduated from the different programs in San Nicolas this last week, and we want to congratulate them and honor their accomplishments by posting a few photos of them.

Tamara graduating from kindergarten

Samari graduating from sixth grade

Fatima and her dad

Our neighbor, Juan Ariel, with his mother Dina

The Summer Holidays of San Nicolas

It is summer in Nicaragua. Little purple flowers decorate the hills around San Nicolas, and the rains that should be completely over by this time of year (according to our neighbors) have at least slowed down, if not totally stopped. (Global warming strikes again, this time on the Nicaraguan bean harvest).

The school year ended about a week ago for the Instituto Publico Carolina Camas Arauz, and it's been a nonstop party since then. We're discovering that Nicaraguans love holidays, and it seems that a lot of them are concentrated around the end of the year. Here are the special days we celebrated this week:

San Nicolas Day, December 5

Where is more fitting to celebrate jolly old Saint Nick than in San Nicolas, Nicaragua? Answer: NOWHERE. (Although I'm still not convinced that December 25 is not the real San Nicolas Day . . . But I guess the people of San Nicolas know best).

San Nicolas Day is a big deal in San Nicolas, and rightfully so. People came from all of the 40 or so surrounding communities, walking very long distances in very fancy clothes, to celebrate. San Nicolas Day is, of course, a Catholic holiday, and when we meandered over to the church for mass in the morning, there was a long line of people stretching out of the church and through the park. We asked the guy who sells us enchilada snacks at school what they were doing, and he told us they were waiting to greet the bishop, who was coming all the way from Esteli to do the mass.

After the bishop arrived and was given a royal greeting, people made a rush for the church door. They clamored into the church – little girls in froofy dresses, women with elaborately braided hair, old men still wearing the spurs on their heels from their horse ride into town. People were packed into every corner of the church. We stood at the back in between the drunken cowboys and the offering table, which overflowed with bags of beans and rice.

During the service, lots of kids from the surrounding communities were confirmed in the Catholic Church. Afterward, they got their pictures taken with the bishop, and everyone shared a meal together in different houses around San Nicolas, since there were so many people.

Davie's Birthday, December 7

There isn't actually a Nicaraguan national holiday celebrating Davie, but maybe one day there will be. Apparently the birthday custom here in Nicaragua is to make a cake on the birthday person's head. Lucky for Davie, this culinary miracle didn't come to pass on this day. Nicaraguan birthday tradition is, we're told, to crack an egg on top of the birthday person's head and sprinkle some flour and other cake ingredients on top of the egg. It seems to me that this would result in a rather gooey cake, but maybe I will do some experimenting.

I did bake a cake yesterday, though in normal cake pans rather than on a head. We invited a few friends over to share the cake and Davie showed off our new, huge map of Nicaragua on the kitchen wall and his new baseball mitt that he got for his birthday. Then later one of our coworkers, a teacher at the Institute, stopped by to wish Davie a happy birthday too.

La Purisima, December 7 and 8

We had heard that the Purisima is a really big Nicaraguan holiday for celebrating the virgin Mary. But apart from a few bouts of middle-of-the-night firecrackers that woke us up this past week, we were not convinced that the Purisima was anything special until today.

On Sunday, instead of waking up to firecrackers, we woke up at 4:30 a.m. to loud trumpet music coming from the mayor's office next to our house. Then, during church a cheer went up several times, saying, “Who do we celebrate today? The Virgin Mary! Why do we celebrate her today? Because of the immaculate conception!”

We had been wondering why the church was so unusually packed with kids this Sunday. After the normal service ended, the religious sisters asked for some kids to volunteer to sing a song to the virgin Mary, but since the kids all stared back blankly, an old lady went to the front of the church to sing the song instead.

Then a group of people from the mayor's office brought around box after box of treats to hand out to each person in the church. We each made out with some pretty impressive loot, including a mysterious pink beverage, honeyed pumpkin, sugar cane, fruit, candy, and a bowl. It was a fun celebration, and it was cool to see the people of San Nicolas, who so seldom get anything for free, carrying around big bags of treats.