…At the end of movies, it usually gives the “happily ever
after” vibe. One assumes that the couple gets married, has beautiful and
perfect children, and lives in their house with their white picket fences while
staying madly in love the rest of their lives.
Well, that
happily ever after does not exist. That couple may gets in fights, perhaps one
of their children develops a drinking problem, and maybe their house gets
foreclosed on. How have I discovered this harsh reality? Well, after
successfully taking down two rats in a week, I thought the war was over.
However, the next night, I woke up to hear another chewing on something of
mine, and this morning I saw it scurrying across my floor, taunting me. This
losing mouse-war that I am in is representative of the bigger picture; there is
never a happily ever-after, where everything is perfect from there on out. Life
will always throw us curve balls, or rodents. Yet I don’t mind this, how stale would life
be if there never existed some challenge. Sometimes we get caught up in the
current problems of our lives, obsessed with the idea that “when we fix this,
everything will be ok forever.” It won’t. I guess the take-home lesson is that
one way or another, there are solutions to our problems, but there is no
solution to ALL of our problems for the rest of our lives, nor will we ever
stop having problems. No matter how big or small, we have to be able to cope
with them. As far my problem of a few mice in my room, I’ll deal with it. As
long as I avoid getting cholera or leptospirosis.
I used to
say San Fernando only had room for only one gringo, but these last three months
have taught me otherwise. Although it is a little town, there are still
undiscovered nooks and untapped social circles. San Fernando is a very
religious town (like the majority of towns in Nicaragua), and has an orphanage
run by a catholic convent of nuns. I
didn’t even really know about the orphanage until one of the nuns became my pupil
in the community English class that I started up in April, and was always
accompanied by three young girls from the orphanage. I saw them always come out
of a building, and I guessed that the younger girls with them weren’t quite
nuns yet. Sor Daisy called me the other day and told me they would be having
someone from the states staying with them, and would love if I would orient
her, since she was still learning the Spanish language. It has been quite the
treat having a padawon in my town, Her name is Anna, she is a 19 year-old from
a small town in upstate New York. She had done volunteer work the organization
Mission of Hope in Nicaragua twice before while in high school, and volunteered
for three months in Africa after graduating high school. After doing one
semester and realizing that her heart wasn’t in it, she wanted to explore other
options. Mission of Hope suggested for her to volunteer at a small orphanage
run by nuns in a small town in northern Nicaragua for a semester to figure
things out, and here she is. What a
random, small world we live in. I’ve gotten her and the nuns in the habit of
walking with me every morning in their tennis shoes and nun-attire, thus
inspiring the phrase- “nuns in action!” and I’ve gotten to see what wonderful
work these two women do for the fifteen children living in the home. It is
eye-opening to see how delicate children are, but how resilient they can be. I
am so thankful for people like Sor Delia and Sor Deisy, who have dedicated
their lives to giving a family and safe home to children that would otherwise
not have either of these things. Many people would not choose to be a nun
caring for children at an orphanage in rural Nicaragua, but they did. It’s
pretty cool that each one of us have our own special niche in this world;
otherwise we’d all be astronauts or firefighters.
We always
hear our elders telling us to enjoy our youth, because then you blink and the
next thing you know you are 35 years old with a mortgage, and then you blink
again and you are 76 years old and you are waving your cane at the neighbors’
kids, yelling at them to get off your lawn. It’s true!!! Time flies. Before
entering Peace Corps, I was mortified at the thought of a 27-month commitment,
at least 1/20th of my life. The first three months of training stretched as if
they were an eternity, and my first year definitely had some “No way am I do xx more months of this.” However, I
found a groove, made a second home, and before I knew it, the end was near. My
group, Nica 58, just had our Close of Service (COS) Conference, and we all
become very aware of our PC mortality. COS Conference is for the PCV that are
about to end their service, and its focus is to prepare volunteers on how to
wrap up their projects, so that when the time of departure comes, they are
ready to “re-enter” life in the States, and not start every sentence with “This
one time, I was in Peace Corps…” It was very surreal to be sitting in a
conference room with my group, discussing the end of our service, when it feels
like yesterday was January 2012, and we were in Washington D.C., nervous about
our departure. El tiempo vuela (Time
flies).
I hope
everyone had a Merry Christmas!! Going home for Christmas last year was an
extremely important part of my service last year, as it was my only first and
only time visiting America, and being with my family that Christmas meant the
world to me. However, due to a Turkish wedding (of my big brother Dean!!
Congrats Dean!!), the complicated flights of Nicaragua-Turkey, lack of vacation
days on my part, and my desire to have a holiday in Nicaraguan, this year
Christmas was spent in-country, Nica-style! I was excited to see how Christmas
is done in a tropical country where Santa cannot afford extravagancies. Vacations
started for all government workers (meaning my co-workers at the health center,
trash pick-up workers, mayor’s offices, etc) on Friday December 20, and will
last until January 6, which is “Dia de
Los Reyes.” I hope not too many people get sick at the same time over this
time period, because we’ve got only 1 doctor and 1 nurse on call in my town of
10,000 people. Regardless, the town was becoming festive. The church put on
plays in the park, re-enacting biblical scenes, carolers could be heard
singing, and some townspeople decorated their houses with lights and nativity
scenes. The main day of celebration here is not the 25th, but the 24th.
We awoke this Christmas Eve day with the roaring of the pick-up truck and
12-year old Jeison prodding me with a machete, telling me it was time to get
the Christmas tree. The elder son, Oswaldo, drove the pick-up truck through the
rough and unpaved road to their mountain property while 6-6-year old Drixana
tried to impress me with her truck-riding skills but not holding on the handles
in the back. Impress me, no- She succeeded in terrifying me. I could picture
the headlines… “Peace Corps Volunteer lets host-sister fly out of truck
Christmas Eve. Machete Involved..”
We made to
our very Nicaraguan version of a Christmas tree farm, called the forest, and
picked out trees for the family. We brought them home, and decorated them with
whatever few ornaments we had, balloons, and scattered sawdust around the
bottom. With extra branches, my family decorated outside pillars with the extra
branches, and created their own nativity scene, with a baby Jesus that was to
be unveiled at midnight the 24th going into the 25th.
Gifts can be given on this day, but in many families they are not expected. In
the case of my family of four children, the only gifts they received were a
“monopolio” board from me, and a few dolls from an aunt. It was a very
different feel from when I was a child, and my siblings and I fought over which
child had more presents under the tree, but it was Christmas none-the-less.
Instead of presents-galore, the mantra of a Nicaraguan Christmas is “Nacatamales until you burst!” A nacatamale is like a homemade hot
pocket, with pork stuffed into crust of corn meal and lard infused with spices
and wrapped in a banana leaf. These nacatamales
require quite a bit of preparation, and the women are frantically working all
day the 24th to whip out the required production. There are also the
traditional foods of “gallina rellena”
(chicken stuffed with pork and minced veggies) and “lomo relleno” (pork back-strap stuff with minced chicken and
veggies); I was a big fan of these traditional foods and the irony of stuffing
one dead animal with the meat of another dead animal. They both were delicious!
The night of the 24th, there was an 8o’clock church service,
followed by religious activities in the park, and then everyone goes to house
parties to wait for the birth of Jesus! This felt more like New Year’s Eve to
me than Christmas Eve, because at 12o’clock sharp, we began cheering and
fireworks went off to celebrate! Since everyone stays up celebrating the 24th,
the 25th is the lower-key day of the two, and many use this day to
nurse their hangovers by eating leftover nacatamales.
Thanks to a surprise present of pancake batter (one has to go to the city
capital for some Mrs. Butters) from another PCV, I was able to preserve my US
family’s tradition of pancakes on Christmas morning, and we made banana
pancakes for the entire family, extended family, and even a few neighbors. Even
without presents and snow (and my beloved US family near, who I was able to
talk to J),
my very Nica Christmas was an amazing experience, one that I will never forget. I can’t
wait to see what New Year’s is like- rumor has it that explosive rag-dolls are
involved…
No comments:
Post a Comment