Recipe: Mango Cusnaca

Mangoes are finally ripe in Northern Nicaragua. Because of the drought, they're about two months later than usual and lots of them have little worms in them, but we're not complaining. We have more mangoes hanging from the tree in our back yard than we know what to do with.

We climb up and pick the ripest ones to eat for breakfast, and then pluck a green one to dip in chili and salt for a little afternoon snack. Giving them away is fruitless (ha!); almost everyone here has their own mango trees in their back yard, and they certainly don't need more. So lots of them just end up falling to the ground to rot.

Last week we finally discovered a use for all our mangoes: cusnaca. Not only does this traditional Nicaraguan dessert use lots of mangoes, it also disguises all of the little worms in the mangoes, so that you would never even know if you ate a worm!

In fact, this very thing happened to us. My friend Maria invited us to her house in the community of Potrerillos last weekend to learn how to make cusnaca. We were so impressed with the results - a deliciously creamy mango pudding - that we went back for seconds. It wasn't until later when our friend Yobania told us that she doesn't make mango cusnaca because you can't really remove the worms from the mangoes that we realized that we had even eaten any worms.

Worms or not, cusnaca is definitely one of the most delicious Nicaraguan desserts I've had. It's the perfect refreshment for a hot afternoon, and the perfect solution to an overstock of mangoes. Here is the recipe that Maria gave us.

Mango Cusnaca

- 12 small mangoes (champagne or honey mangoes work best)

- sugar to taste

- milk for desired consistency

Wash the mangoes and mash them, whole, in a large bowl or bucket with a heavy wooden spoon or mallet, breaking the skins and getting the juices flowing. Let them sit for 15 or 20 minutes and then mash them again. Let them sit a second time. Then add sugar little by little, tasting as you add and mix, until it is as sweet as you want. Finally, add milk a cup at a time to achieve the desired creaminess and thickness. It should end up with a sort of watery pudding texture.

Serve with skins and mango pits; you can eat the skins if you like them.

35/19

In Nicaragua, anything can be turned into a political message – a telephone pole, a water tank, the side of a house. All you really need is a flat surface and a few cans of spray paint (red and black are the current style). Lately, the chosen media here in San Nicolas have been the boulders that line the only paved road into town. And the chosen message? “35/19. Buen Gobierno.”

It took us a little while to decode what this pair of numbers meant. But when we did the math, we figured out that 2014 marks the 35^th year since July 19, 1979, the day that the Sandinista revolutionaries overthrew the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua.

Before the revolution of 1979, three different members of the Somoza family had been in power in Nicaragua since 1936. For years, this single family wielded a huge percentage of the wealth in Nicaragua, controlling whole industries and investing their money in things like drug smuggling and prostitution. When the 1972 earthquake struck, devastating much of Nicaragua, the Somozas channeled most of the emergency aid donated by other countries into their personal coffers. According to Stephen Kinzer, author of the book Blood of Brothers, while most Nicaraguans during the mid-1970s were struggling in extreme poverty to rebuild their houses and feed their families, the Somozas had amassed a billion dollars in wealth. Interestingly, the US government supported the Somoza dictatorship throughout this entire time.

The revolution that finally toppled Somoza in 1979 was led by the Sandinistas, a guerrilla group named for the Nicaraguan anti-imperialist legend Augusto Sandino. In the midst of a lot of violence, mounting public criticism of Somoza eventually forced him to flee Nicaragua. And when Somoza fled, the National Guard also fled, leaving the Sandinistas, to their surprise, in power.

This was not, unfortunately, the happy end to the story. The years that followed were ones of bloody war, with the Sandinistas eventually losing power when the war ended in 1990. Fast forward to 2006, when the Sandinistas were reelected under the political party Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN). This party, under the governance of President Daniel Ortega (a commander of the Sandinista movement in the 1980s), is now in their second term in office in Nicaragua.

So all of this is what we were celebrating with those numbers, 35/19. Out of all this, July 19 has become a national holiday, on which millions of people descend upon the plaza in Managua every year to hear the president speak. This year, four buses of enthusiastic patriots left San Nicolas to join the parade to Managua, tooting their horns and waving red and black FSLN flags. Apparently they didn't even make it anywhere near the plaza because there were so many people gathered around that single spot.

Here in San Nicolas, there was a 35/19 celebration earlier in the week. The mayor's office brought in a live band from Esteli and all of the little girls in town flocked to the stage to do traditional Nicaraguan dances.

The FSLN-governed mayor's office in San Nicolas does lots of good things like this for the people of San Nicolas. A couple of months ago, they handed out free roofs to anyone who needed one. They fund and host mother's day parties, give out bags of treats in December, and build much-needed structures like parks and roads. But there is also always a certain amount of pomp accompanying these charities. The FSLN never lets you forget which political party to thank.

To us, it seems a little strange that the FSLN political party paints their red and black flag on telephone poles even along the remotest campo roads. (Can you imagine if Obama spent government money to draw Democrat donkeys on telephone poles all over the country?) It seems a little strange that as you drive into Esteli, you are greeted by a gigantic billboard of Daniel Ortega's face. It seems a little strange that the government of a country where so much poverty still exists would spend the money on spray paint to paint, “Good Government!” on every rock along the Pan-American highway. “What happens to all of this if a different political party wins the next election?” we wonder.

But we also have to remember that Nicaragua is still finding its way into democracy. After so many years of brutal mistreatment under Somoza, Nicaragua under the FSLN is a little like a traumatized kid – it needs to know that everything is okay and that someone is taking care of it. And perhaps the kind of patriotism that the FSLN is creating in so many Nicaraguans is exactly what they need to assume a new, confident identity on the world stage.  

When the Rains Don't Come

Maria's kitchen

As I was tutoring my friend Maria in English yesterday, rain began to spatter on the tin roof above us and Maria looked up at me with this half-crazed look. “It's raining,” she said.

My first thought was how Maria would have to walk two miles along a steep dirt road in the rain to get back to her house. “Do you have an umbrella?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “But it doesn't matter.” By this time I realized that she was smiling.

Maria explained that for her family's subsistence, it is absolutely crucial that it rains right now. We are already almost three months into the normal six-month rainy season without any of the regular heavy rains that are typical of this time of year, and it takes at least three months for beans to grow. Maria's husband Donald gave up waiting for the rains to come and went ahead and planted their beans; now all they need is the rain to make them grow.

Many families like Maria's function on a partly self-sufficient diet. As a primary school teacher, Maria earns hardly any money. So instead of spending all of that money on food, they grow beans and onions to eat so that they can use Maria's salary instead on electricity and new clothes and bus fares. This system works well as long as it rains.

Maria's son Hansel

As it is now, Maria says that they have 100 pounds of beans left over from last year – enough to feed her husband, three kids, and mother-in-law for another three months. She says that she has begun to tell her kids (who are ages 4, 8, and 13) that they need to eat less.

For me, hearing this was a bit of an awakening. I am a frugal person, but I have never had to even consider rationing how much food I eat because there just wasn't enough. And yet, this is happening all around me here in San Nicolas. One year of meager rain is all it takes to bring these families to the brink of starvation.

Maria's daughter Helen

In shock at this realization, I flailed for a solution. “Are there any other sources of water available to replace the rain?” I asked Maria. She told me that they get all of their drinking, dish-doing, and laundry water from a natural spring. They have begun siphoning off a bit of that water for the fields – which means that they need to conserve their water for other uses – but it's still not enough.

“But surely the government can do something, if so many Nicaraguans are so close to famine?” I asked. The problem with that, Maria told me, is that actually not that many Nicaraguans are in this same dilemma. Because lately there have been such unusually strong winds for this time of year, the rain is being blown to other parts of the country. So departments like Matagalpa and the Region Autonoma Atlanticas are getting plenty of rain and having no trouble with their beans. Because it's a more local problem, then, it's a much smaller issue for the government as a whole.

By the time this conversation ended, the rain had slowed to a patter and then stopped. Unfortunately, fifteen minutes of rain wasn't enough to resolve Maria's worries. We will see what happens in the next weeks. But if the rain doesn't come, lots of hardworking families like Maria's – who have done absolutely everything right – will be devastatingly affected in the year to come by environmental changes that are completely out of their control.

La Isla de Ometepe: a Guide

Last week we took a vacation to Ometepe Island, the largest island in the largest lake in Nicaragua. Its freshwater and tree-lined beaches reminded me a bit of the Great Lakes, but the two active volcanoes sprouting from its shores reiterated that we were definitely not in the Midwest anymore.

Ometepe, a place inhabited by indigenous peoples for thousands of years, is just now beginning to feel the influence of tourism. It's still relatively untouched compared to lots of Central American destinations, but the motorbike rental and natural fruit smoothie businesses that tourists so love have begun to crop up in certain parts of the island. 

And it's no wonder that tourists are beginning to flock to Ometepe; with two stunning volcanoes, a huge natural springs pool, waterfalls, petroglyphs, and miles of gorgeous coastline, Ometepe is brimming with adventures. Here are our recommendations for a trip to Ometepe. 

1. Instead of taking the 1-hour ferry to Ometepe, spend a night in the colonial city of Granada and take the 4-hour ferry from there to Altagracia, Ometepe. In Granada, order avocado fries at El Camello, our favorite Middle Eastern / Mediterranean restaurant, and take in some Nicaraguan art and artifacts at the museum next to the San Francisco cathedral. 

2. On Ometepe, spend some time lounging on Santo Domingo beach, watching the herons and swimming in the super warm water.

3. Swim in Ojo de Agua (the water eye), a crystal-clear natural springs pool.

4. Look out for monkeys.

5. On your last day on Ometepe, climb a volcano. We did the steep, muddy hike to the top of Volcan Maderas, the smaller of the two volcanoes, and our legs are still sore. The reward at the top of Maderas was a cool, misty crater lake.