Monday, November 30, 2009

sweet buns and the Caribbean melting pot




The other night I met a wonderful girl my age from Rama Cay, the ancestral home of the Rama poeple. My first night out in 6 weeks-- we spent the night dancing on the docks of Bluefields over a full moon. Upon waking Sunday morning, we purchased supplies in the market and headed to her sisters house for a lesson in cooking the typical foods of the Carribean Coast and the Rama people. We made coconut bread and gallo pinto with coconut (also called coco beans.)

Of course, as I always discover, a cooking lesson at her sisters house really meant a day of sharing, laughing, and cooking with a group of about 8 women and girls and another 10 or so men and children looking on teasing and joking. In between cooking, we feasted on coco beans, freshly caught fish, and platanos, all drenched in sweet coconut milk. The day also included letting the girls comb my hair out and braid it into cornrows, a walk to the pier to see the panga that will take me two hours across the bay to visit the family of 12 in Rama Cay when I return from the campo. I also had a view into one of the poorest barrios in Bluefields; I hid my surprise upon learning that the entire barrio, housing 6- 10 people in each one room house, shares two latrinas, one of which was built at the end of the dock over the bay. We shared language. I learn that in their creole tongue, the Rama people pronounce wood, ewd, and boil, bile and a bellybutton is called a neighbor. I couldn´t understand everything they said but always new when they were poking fun at the gringa.
Gina and Becky are number 6 and 8 of 12 children and their father is the Moravian preacher for the Rama Cay community of 1,000 . The Rama people are an indigenous group who have inhabited the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua for generations. They live along the coast, primarily making a living through fishing and harvesting oysters. Becky works for the Rama government office here in Bluefields, one of many governing bodies that comprises the Autonomous Region or the RAAS. She travels to Rama communitites up and down the coast, educating them about their rights and the state of the governing body.

The Atlantic Coast was populated entirely by indigenous communities until the 1990´s when Mistiso´s from the other side starting migrating here. The Sandanista´s communist tendencies to reform the area led to a good deal of distrust, much land displacement, and, ultimately many Miskitos joined ranks with the Contras or fled to Honduras. Presently the indigenous groups have self rule over natural resources ç, health, education, but the flexibility of the statute defining the RAAS has led to feuding over land and resources between the 7 or 8 indigenous groups. For example, right now the Garifuna community in Monkey Point, who arrived on Rama soil generations ago accidentally by fault of a shipwreck, are now trying to grab up more land to the north of them. This has led to a feud between the Rama and Garifuna people, who plan to settle the dispute away from court and without government intervention.

The Garifuna people recently celebrated an annual holiday in their ancestral home of Pearl Laguna and Orinoco, just north of Bluefields. They celebrate with traditional sugar cane drink and dancing. The punta and soka dancing of the Caribbean coast has traveled to Bluefields, helping to make the city one of the most musically diverse cities in Central America.

Bluefields likes to bump and grind to their music on full volume, blasting from taxi, porch, storefront, or panga parked on the docks. A deep creole voice serves up reggae, roots, soka, pubnta, Palo de Mayo, and dance hall music on one of Bluefields 9 radio stations. The screaming voice of the Spanish speaking dj is sure to play the country songs of Mexico and the U.S., religious Mariachi choruses, latino love songs, and, of course, salsa.

There isn´t a young creole girl in town who can´t shake her hips as fast as a hummingbird flaps its wings and these girls pour into the streets in costume, accompanied by drum and marimba, on holidays and for the entire month of may to celebrate Palo de Mayo.

Speaking of holidays, for Christmas, I have received several invitations, each followed by a description of the food that is customarily served up in their neck of the woods. The most tempting offer so far is to join the farm manager hçand her family who live in the creole barrio, Beholden in Bluefields. For Christmas, each family cooks a creole version of coconut chili and then walks from house to house in their neighborhood to sample each others tasty soup and visit with friends and family. Reminds me of the Poultney Chili Cookoff, which I recounted with fondness to Carla.

Among Rama families that same tradition is observed but with Coconut Sweet buns. Enjoy the recipe that follows and let me know if you give it a try! In the meantime, my mouth waters when I imagine the potato pancakes I´ll be cooking up for my family to celebrate Hanukah, upon my return to Bluefields in a week.


Coconut Sweet Buns

Chop the husk off of two coconuts, using machete. Drink the milk and then break the shell into large pieces to grate over a large coconut grater. Once finished, was the coconut meat three times byt adding water and then straining. The third time, add three bowls (about 5 cups) of water and then set aside.

Next, in a large bowl add 5 pounds flour, 2 packs of instant yeast, a spoonful of cinnamonm, freshly grated nutmeg, and one cup of raisins. Add one stick butter and blend with hands while adding 1 and a 1/2 pounds sugar to the mix.

Strain the coconut mix, saving the water for use. Slowly add the coconut milk to the flour mix while kneading. Save a 1/2 cup of the milk for glazing. Once added continue kneading the dough. Place dough on a large wooden table and knead, separating the dough into two loaves. Cut about 20 or 25 slices into the two loaves. Take the first piece and pull, knead, and stretch the dough into a long strand of dough. Place one end of the strand down and gently wrap the remainder around and around forming a coil. This activity is best done with friends and family.

Once finished, allow the buns to rise for about one hour (in warm weather!) Then set a giant pot over hot coals on the fire. Place a piece of metal over the top and build a fire. Once the fire is hot and the buns have doubled in size, lift the metal cover with the fire and place buns along the bottom of the pot. Replace the fire over top the pot and allow to bake for about 5 minutes or until the buns are a slightly browned on the outside.

Once cool, glaze each bun with a mixture of coconut milk and sugar. Serve fresh off the fire to everyone you know.

Friday, November 27, 2009

La Gringa se fue a La Capia

Inspired by my brothers´ recent blog entry about his ventures into the Mosques of Mali, I have decided to recount my experiences visiting Evangelical Church with my host family in the heart of the campo.

Everyday for three weeks I awoke at 5am to the deep baritone singing of the elder brothers and the choir boy altos of the younger brothers belting evangelical hymns in harmony as they milked the cows, swept the chicken coop, drew water from the well, and fed the pigs. At first I thoroughly enjoyed the beauty in this routine. Naturally, however, I came to miss my music that speaks to complexities and ironies, recounts stories and events. While we worked together in the field, I began to call upon a dozen or so songs that I would hum to myself as the brothers, 6 of them ranging in age from 12 to 26, sang of their undying love for God, their glorious savior.

As is typical in the U.S., there are more fervent Christians living in rural areas. Here, the most obvious way in which I encountered the religious fervor of the campo, was the age in which girls married and bore children. I´ve never felt so old as I did living with the 40 year old mother of 7, grandmother of two. Her daughter, 19 was mother to a 4 and 1 year old. They had quite the work crew to maintain the farm as the father and I traveled each day to the surrounding neighbors, productors of Cosecha Sostenible, to model techniques and assist them in their work. It was common that we would visit productors, age 25 whose eldest child was 12, quickly approaching the age of marriage. Here, the division of labor was more deliberate than I´d encountered with my family in Bluefields, and so children were brought up learning the work of a mother or the work of a father. Naturally, by 14 they were prepared, in practicality, for motherhood and fatherhood and maintained adequate maturity, though many could not read or write. I found irony in marrying so young when I learned that many women in the campo live till 120 years, often riding a mule till their very last years!

Beyond the hymns and the marital customs, I´d come to understand Evangelical Christianity one other way. The mother of my family, Marta, was a strong force to reckon with. She reared 7 children, left her first child with her grandmother to fight as a guerilla in the northern hills with the Sandanistas during the revolution, she woke each day at 5am and barked orders from dawn till dusk, and when she spoke about her God, she spoke with an intensity that made me weary. I appreciated that Marta was not like other women of the campo who slinked in corners, and spoke in whispers.

Marta had explained once that only those who were honest Evangelicals, who swore off alcohol, dancing, adultery, premarital sex, etc were allowed into their church in the presence of the lord. However, most nights from 6- 8pm we pumped the generator and 12 of us piled onto the floor in front of the family´s one luxury: the television. After some time, I actually began to look forward to the Mexican telenovela we watched from 6-7pm that was straught with two- timing women and strutting, drunk cowboys. The one hour of Luche Libre, or World Wrestling, that followed was so tragically bad but so loved in the house. I often wondered, during this time, whether a beer and a good dance was any worse than cheering for "the Undertaker" to beat the shit out of "Jericho."

One night we were having one of our typical English lessons, where the brothers inch closer to me as they ask me the meaning of this or that random phrase or point to words in the dictionary, names of their favorite WWF wrestlers, phrases on their shirt (my two favorites: "if you can read this, pull me out of the snow" written upside down, and "my boyfriend is cuter when I´m intoxicated.") That night the brothers wanted to know how many names we had in the States. In the campo, each person has two first names and two last names. I learned that Ismael´s middle name was Darwin, which seemed appropriate since he´d acquired the nickname monkeyboy, for his fearlessness in leaping from the tree overhanging the river. I explained the connection between Darwin and the adaptation of man. Just then, the second eldest son and most fervent believer, interrupted and asked, "You don´t believe that man adapted from monkey, do you?" Suddenly the mom was standing over me and all 6 brothers looking at me questioningly. I said I do believe in science though I can make space for the story of creation, too. Jader tells me that the science is not true. "God made man..." I try to explain how many believers have found peace with both truths. Albaro, my favorite son, who travels by mule to attend school on the weekends instead of church, turns to me quietly and tells me that he´s read in his science book about the adaptation of man. I smile and nod as the mother begins her preaching, her voice escalating. I drown her out, singing in my head, "Give me that old time religion, give me that old time religion, give me that old time religion, if it´s good enough for Jesus than it´s good enough for me."

We woke the next morning, Sunday, and prepared for our two our trek to church. Though a bit nervous after the discussion from the night before, I felt a trip to church with the family would be a fun adventure and an interesting eye into the life of families in the campo. The boys took turns polishing cowboy boots. We saddled the mules, enough so that each young child could ride accompanied by an adult. The rest of us put our skirts and shoes in a bag and pulled on our rubber boots and jeans for the two hour hike to church, also called culto, or worship, in Spanish. As we hiked over log bridges, through knee deep mud, up steep clay inclines, and through jungle brush, we encountered neighbors along the way; the families of the productors whose farms I´d visited the week before. I came to understand just how central their weekly trek to church was in the social scene of the campo. We arrived and washed mu from our arms and legs with water from the river and then piled into a wooden changing room where women and children changed, combed hair and sprayed parfume (the women don´t believe they should where makeup, however.)

I sat on a wooden bench surrounded by the women and children I had come to know well over the past few weeks. The mariachi band began playing as we stood to sing the songs I had come to memorize. The people sang along, clapping to show they were believers. Women and men sat separately but women led the service. Men, women, and children took turns coming up the front to lead us in a song and the mariachi band accompanied. The songs I´d come to detest had taken on a new beauty backed up by guitarron and accordian or belted by earnest five year olds who voluntarily came to stage. The service was simple and direct. Each person who came to the stage called out a little chant that began, "Who is our savior?" and everyone responded "Jesus." "and Where does he live..."

The pastor stood and shouted his hour long sermon through a microphone that was powered by a generator. This seemed unnecessary, I thought, as my head began to pound. Though the pastor was a small man, his voice was loud enough for our modest group in the small wooden room. The sermon began with ¨there is only one answer..." a simple message, I thought. There was an element of a town meeting that followed, as the church community was trying to raise funds to higher a school teacher and build a schoolhouse for the children of Las Breñas. The service ended with an eruption of prayer in the form of chanting, calling, yelling, clapping, and arms thrown up into the air. We then kissed and hugged our neighbors and filed out of the stuffy room into the bright midday sun where women pedaled fried sweet yucca, enchaladas, corn cookies, and ice cream (bumble gum favored water frozen in a plastic sandwich bag) to make some much needed cash.

I had come to understand that church fulfilled all the elements of life in the campo, socializing, vending (one single mother saddled clothes she purchased in the nearest city to her mule each week and was solely responsible for clothing the entire community of Las Breñas), music and dance, fundraising and organizing, education and spiritual belief.

We trekked back towards our homes, one big pack of mules and rubber boots, and borrowed instruments, chatting as we speed walked back over bridge, through river, up cañon, past jungle brush... I hugged families goodbye as they peeled off, promising to send photos and possibly return before my departure.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Alé con los lombrices en la Finca de Georgina.
Mujeres estan lavando sus ropas en el caño.
La Puente en barrio Santa Rosa.
Chicas en uniforme.
Calle San Pedro.
Povo por Thanksgiving.
Randy esta agradando la mierda de la vaca a ll lombrizhumus.

el construcción de la casa en la Finca Demostrativa.
reflecciónes.
construccíon en la calle San Pedro.
ropas se secan en la alambre


una tienda tipica
loteria
uno de los productores del FUNCOS en su finca

una vaca se atascada en al lodo
panga y botas al lado del Kukra River.
Don Ramon con uno de los productores en San Pancho.
viajamos debajo del Kukra River con plantas por los productores.
Maritza con helado tipico.
Finca La Perla en communidad Las Breñas. Vive acqui por tres semanas con una familia de doce.
Carlita antes de nuetros leccion de nadar.
Isaac esta prcesando arroz.

Un Domingo tranquilo alrededor la Finca Demostrativa.
Samuel y Juan Gabriel se aprende a jugar alhedrez.
Lucy esta comiendo una tortilla.
La muñeca del Maritza esta secando en el sol.
Encontri Lawrence del Green Mountain College en la calle en Granada.
Juxtaposición en Granada.
La Iglesia Alteva en Granada.
Granada a la seis de la mañana.
Mi guia en Granada. El parque de las peomas.
Bañando en La Laguna.

Kiara Y Julio al lado del Lago Nicaragua.
La Calle San Pedro. Viajamos en el lodo para el centro.
Cerdo para vender.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

farm practices

cheap and dirty insecticides: set water to boil over fire. once boiling add the tobacco of 6, preferably natural, cigarettes to the water. stir and continue boiling for fifteen minutes. add oil to the mixture and spray over rows the day before planting. the mixture seeps into soil and is harmful to plague carrying beatles. also, before planting we sprinkle ash, senisa, over the rows to send thee ants packing. ants are a nightmare here, both to me and the plants.

biofertilizante: let cow manure sit for one month. add to water in a five gallon bucket and stire, straining any clumps of hay from the mix. add sugar. cap. punch hole in lid of bucket and place a small tube through it. the end of the tube should sit in a coca cola bottle to allow the mixture to ferment. set in cool, dark area out of direct sunlight for 4 to 6 weeks. before planting, add water to mixture and spray over the soil.

a variation on three sisters gardens and cover cropping: here farmers interplant beans, Frijoles de Carnival, in beteen corn, maiz, to add nitrogen and organic material to soil, serve as a living mulch to retain water and attract beneficial insects.

vermiculture: farmers place cow manure, estiercol, in waist high wooden boxes of red wiggler worms. this is a very potent fertilizer and the red wigglers eat their way through in 21 days. we harvest quickly ad add more every three weeks. the veggie scraps go to the compost and the rest to the pigs.

carioca: farmers working with Cosecha Sostenible are instructed in how to build a drying area for seeds, corn, rice, beans, cacao, etc. the design resembles a movabñe chicken coop. içm trying to convince the tecnicos to put handle bars and wheels, put the chickens underneath and rotate the chickens around the veggie gardens to turn the organic material into the ground, as farmers only have pick axes and machetes to do this work. the value of chickens is yet to be realized here. for now they run free. rotational grazing, too.

seeds: are impossible to come by here. Whereas I would wirte away for last years free seeds to use in our gardens in Boston, here, Cosecha Sostenible pays, in dollars, for seeds from 2005 to 2008 from US companies in Southen California that actually translate the cans of seeds into Spanish and rely on this business as part of their income. luckily the farmers receive these seeds for free. i am interested in doing germination tests and then writing to these companies eith the results.

more to come about biodigestors, water catchment and gray wate systems, etc.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Saturday, November 21, 2009

100 words for rain


a bit about my first few weeks in Bluefields.

Alaskans have 100 words with which they speak about snow. The same should be true for describing the many forms of rain in Bluefields, Nicaragua. Though, more likely they would be shared among the diverse languages spoken here; Creole, Spanish, and the indigenous tongues of Miskito, Rama, Garafuna (hailing from West Africa destined for slavery, they never encountered that harsh reality, freed just before reaching land by the blessing of a shipwreck). Today´s rain is persistent and steady against a gray sky, perfect for a Sunday without much to do. I most prefer the days where I awake to a bright blue sky and from time to time, to cut the strong sun, a dark cloud travels quickly across the sky giving way to three minutes of pelting rains quickly turning our dirt roads into knee deep mud trenches. At these times, children run shirtless into the roads to roll in the puddles and young boys glide down along the green algae that builds up on the sides of the roads as if they´re skateboarding.


I live with a fantastic family in barrio San Pedro, which is a one hour hike from the center of Bluefields. Bluefields is the largest city on the Atlantic Coast but is just small enough that I manage to run into someone I know everytime I leave the farm. The facvt that I stick out like a sore thumb pairs well with my good memory for faces. My host brother and I drew a map of Bluefields and its barrios and colored it in with my water colors. It includes his grandmothers house, where I am going to meet them for Sunday lunch. Leaving the centro for my barrio, I make sure to smile at everyone I see as insurance that people are looking out for the gringa. I wish I could reward the few men that don´t call to me or hiss as I pass, or that I could punish those people who make me feel unsafe here. Building trust here is hard and the effort of having to look out for my personal safety can be tiresome at times.

Each day I wake with my wonderful host family at 5am. We live on the Demonstration Farm, La Finca Demostrativa, purchased less than a year ago and still very wild. FUNCOS (Fundacion Cosecha Sostenible) is building an office and workshop space there before building a house for the family. We temporarily live among the two bare rooms that currently have roofs. I have gotten used to the complete lack of personal space but appreciate the immese feeling of safety I feel when I lay down to sleep.

The family of five begins stirring just as the sun is rising, shortly after 5am. I stay in bed lazily for a bit while I listen to them brushing off their beds, folding their bedding, and sweeping the floor. The room is transfrormed by the time I am up. Usually Maritza, spright and intelligent 9 year old, sits down on my mat the very second I flutter my eyes. We make breakfast, a true Nica farmer´s breakfast usually consists of rice, beans with yuca or banana or cohauda cheese. The leftovers are lunch and the rest is turned into gallo pinto for dinner. Our temporary kitchen is outdoors, various wooden benches and counters and fire pit for cooking. We often play a game of checkers before breakfast and then take turns bathing by bucket. I have learned to enjoy that first cold bucket I pour over my head and learned and have gotten used to having wet hair all day as a result of the humidity. Mornings are long and lazy when we wake at 5am and begin work at 8am. Such a contrast to my mornings on the run in Boston. In the evenings I gather my laundry, scrubbing mud from my clothes over washboard frees the dirt from under my nails. Feeling utterly refreshed, we gather as the sun goes down. I taught the 12 and 14 year old boys, Samuel and Juan Gabriel, to play chess, which we play at the rate of 3- 4 games a day. We indulge in an hour of radio before bed. I translate Reggae songs and Christian rock, love and God being the dominant themes of both. We make our way to bed by 8pm, 7pm if we´re particularly tired or sick. Last night, recovering from a night out, we actually fell asleep at 6pm, a personal record, I´m sure.

Those days of intense pelting rains followed by bright sun perfectly epitomoze the deep contrasts I´ve encountered in Nicaragua thus far: LIKE, the great focus people have to be clean, to wash daily, to spend hours daily cleaning clothes, EVEN THOUGH, from my vantage point, it´s the trash and dog feces littering the sidewalks and contaminating rivers, rather than the mud and sweat that give me reason to shower meticulously each day.
The work is hard but every instruction I receive at the Demo Farm is followed by ¨tranquilo.¨ I cleared a piece of the jungle with a machete, pick axed the ground and double dug rows, bancales, for the Demo Farm´s huerto, garden. I rain down sweat while I work, and then rest when my blisters begin to pop. The construction crew that arrives each day to work on the house never tires of crooning to me from the roof while I work solo down below. Earlier in the week myself and the entire family spent the afternoon wading through the contaminated river that runs through the farm, scraping leaves from the bottom and cutting through vines and branches to allow the water to flow freely through. I was glad for the experience to help me overcome my fear of snakes, though holding my breath that i´m not soon plagued by a parasite. There is nothing I do at the farm that the 9, 12, and 14 year old children can´t do. The work also includes our daily chores of chopping wood, starting fires to cook our meals, washing clothes over a wooden washboard. Because working in this heat with such inadequate resources means we work harder, we also relax more, much more. I am often exasperated at the pace at which we work but have to remember that our warm days are not going anywhere... there isnt the same pressure farmers have at home.

I break up each week that I spend on the farm visiting an urban farm project started by a wonderful Swiss extranjero who runs a drug prevention program for people about my age. She eploys her good will and psychology background and I bring the farm expertise. I cherish every minute I spend with the folks at this farm. I also get to speak Creole, which puts a smile on my face after weeks speaking only Spanish. The other night I help up a sign reading¨Blaze up my youth, Big up GLB¨ as one of the farmers got up on stage for Dia de la Autonomia del Bluefields. The day celebrates the rights of the Creole and Indigenous groups and their autonomous right over this region following colonial rule. Bob Marley is a pillar here and the people celebrate with drumming, marching, dancing, reggae. It made for a terrific Halloween weekend.

I speak Creole and Spanish. Learning Spanish has meant studying grammar and listening. Learning Creole means street talk and thick accents. In Spanish I describe things as nice, sweet, pretty and hope that my personality comes through in my actions. Speaking Creole means speaking forcefully with emphasis and attitude. Both languages were built on the foundations of love. Maritza writes me love letters, and my encounters on the street don´t progress far without talk of amor. The children I live with come home each day asking me to translate Creole they hear from classmates. What does it mean, live up homie¨, they ask. It´s hard to believe I go days without speaking English but am impatient nonetheless for the day I am fluent enough to dream in Spanish.

Things that make me feel at home here.
Plentiful and creative uses of bikecarts, of course. I am, in general, a fan of wheels, all sorts. Pulling fresh, clear water from the ground with a wheel gives me joy. Waking up this morning to chickens crowing and an hour of American Christmas songs set at full volume in the house next door made me laugh.

Things that make me weary.
Machismo, gangs, starving chickens and parasite infested dogs, children kicking dogs, dancing always means with a partner, a night out in Bkuefields means slow dancing or grinding to reggae in dark smokey bars, biting ants, snakes in the grass, tarantulas and cockroaches, working hard to converse, being misinterpretted, christian rock, boots stuck in the mud.

Things I don´t take for granted.
fresh and clean well water, two months free of food and water bourne illnesses and Dengue Fever, the terrific children i live with, the handful of extranjeros working for a renewable energy company who live down the road, the opportunity to speak creole, the opportunity to learn how to farm using machete and stick, Rondon a Carribean coconut fish soup and bread made with coconut milk, delicious tortillas cooked on clay plate over wood fire, radios set at highest volume at all time of day.

i traded my bicycle for a mule
















To find me on the remote Carribean Coast of Nicaragua, one would have to fly to Managua, travel 8 hours by land through the night, and two hours by Panga, a small speed boat that winds down river until river opens into bay just as the sun rises. Upon arriving at the colorful docks of Bluefields, the smells, music and diverse languages of the Carribean Coast drench the skin in a waft of thick, moist ocean air. From here to the small, off the grid hillside village of San Pancho, a four ride in the panga, smacking down over wave upon wave until the bay turns back to river while the air (or rain) strikes the skin at 60 mph. The river shrinks smaller and smaller, the boat passes other pangas trucking pepsi and chips, rice and masa flour down river, passing fisherman paddling canoes, passing iguanas and rainforest birds, the potential of snakes dripping from vines into the boat, a serious threat. Arriving in San Pancho, one would trade boat for mule for a four hour trip into the interior, into the communities of the campo, trudging through swamp, mud, down canyons, through rivers, across wooden bridges, through barbed wire gates, separating one farmers´cattle from another.
I made this trip in stages, over the course of a month. Not having the opportunity to share my experiences before leaving for the campo, with only a journal and pen to occupy my mind, I began a lengthy journal that I hope to transcribe here, now that I am back on Tierra Firma (I´m referring to the mud, of course) for the length of a week, to enjoy Thanksgiving with a few expats, a reunion with my host family on the Finca Demostrativa, a workday at my friend Georgina´s farm, and a lesson in planting seeds with Doña Coco and her group of street children who visit the farm.
Please enjoy my stories, share them, share your own stories, leaf through photos, and know that I spend many lazy hours rocking in the hammock, thinking of friends and family in Philly, Boston, and Vermont.