STEPHANIE MORK

I have kept busy here with volunteering and doing some social media for Comamos Juntos (follow us on FB, twitter and insta plz) – but I have also been doing my fair share of exploring.

Only a few days after arriving in this country, I made my way to the north of Nicaragua for a trip to a National Forest Reserve called Bosawas.  Thank goodness I was with a group of people! I was suffering from culture shock, heat shock, language confusion and basically just confusion in general.  It was an amazing trip and my highlights from it were:
1) Staying at a remote cabin type place near a rainforest – the people were kind, the food was so so traditional and tasty and the views were stunning.
2) Hiking into the cloud forest.  It was a bit challenging but every bit worth the climb.  We swam in a waterfall, saw jaguar poop and were led the way by a 70 year old man with a machete.  You can’t make this stuff up.
3) Riding the chicken buses.  Not saying they were comfortable but wow what an introduction into Nica culture!  Mostly what was new to me was people randomly jumping on the bus to sell their goods and the fact that a lot of people utilized them to buy snacks and drinks – myself included.

Laguna de Apoyo is a crater lake that was formed by a volcano and is now a popular spot for spending the weekend – kayaking, diving, swimming and general relaxing.
Highlights were:
1) Hitchhiking (sorry mom) – we were safe the whole time but we had to hitchhike to actually get to the lake. The bus doesn’t drive far enough!
2) The fresh air and water – Managua is dirty and the wind is pretty hot so feeling some relief from the hotness with a view was a double win.
3) Going diving! It is quite an experience to breathe underwater – there wasn’t much to see  because its a lake but it was still a nice experience and I hope to do it again somewhere else before I leave Nicaragua.

Granada is a nearby city that is full of life and colors and fresh wind and backpackers.  I met so many people from around the world and its truly amazing what kind of community you can build in just one weekend.  Honestly my main highlights were meeting people, eating french fries, and drinking toñas in a treehouse in the middle of nowhere with monkeys hanging out in the trees above and stars so clear.  I was a bad tourist, but sometimes planning activities is not what I want to spend my time doing. It was very unlike me to go somewhere alone without a plan, but I am glad I did!

Lastly, I went to Volcan Masaya – One of my friends here has a car and offered to drive me up the volcano at night to see the lava.  It was truly an amazing experience to feel the breeze, see the lava and the stars and smell the sulfur.

Nicaragua has so much to offer and I am afraid I won’t have time to see it all – thoughts of a Central America backpacking trip may be on my mind.

I also spent Easter weekend on Isla de Ometepe and it 1000% deserves its own post.

Enjoying the total body sweat today at 92 degrees! Sending sun, mangos and good vibes to you all.

The neighborhood life in Nicaragua is like nothing I have ever experienced.  It seems that each residence on the street has some sort of small business, or is a farmacia, or a venta (a cornerstone) and there is actually a gym right across the street.  Our next door neighbors cook up traditional Nicaraguan food to sell each night for dinner, the neighbors across the street sell some produce or packaged goods, a few houses down there is a woman who makes the best corn tortillas EVER. <– slowly but surely becoming my BFF.  My host family sells both frescos and a fast food-ish thing called repolechas.  Its a fried dough with refried beans, cabbage, cheese, and ketchup and chili sauce on top.

You need not walk more than 10 steps for any of these things, and there are people that walk down the street and sell produce or other goods in carts as well.  There are places that sell nacatamales – which is similar to a tamale but they are literally so big – places for sweet breads or desserts made from fruits, places for candy and snacks – for laundry soap and toothpaste.  Ten steps people.  Okay maybe 20.

Managua isn’t so much a tourist destination. When I tell people I am staying here for a few months they are surprised and ask why and what I think about it.  In all honesty, Managua is big and chaotic, a bit sketchy at times, hot hot hot and there are only few things for tourists.  BUT I am not a tourist.  I am a student.

I am learning the ways of the city buses.  I take them everyday to get where I am going – which is something I did not anticipate.  The city buses are sometimes pretty chill, but sometimes they are a sweaty mass of people squeezing past each other, falling over onto each other and either trying to get off the bus or trying to find a bearable place to stand for the duration of the ride. For this gringa, it can be pretty stressful at times – otherwise it’s just so ridiculous how many people are squeezed into one space that I have to laugh.   I am pretty much the only white person on each bus I get onto which is a bit unnerving, but most people are kind and if I give a smile, I will usually get a smile in return.

I have learned how to wash my clothes by hand.  I will literally never take a washing machine for granted again! I sweated and scrubbed and scrubbed and sweated the other day doing my clothes and I am pretty sure I’m not totally doing it right either.  My host mom kind of had a little grin on her face watching me.

I have learned how to navigate (more or less) the Mercado Mayoreo and find the various places I need to go in Managua.  Each new place that I make it to alone is a small little victory and I cheer silently at myself from the sidelines.  It’s truly all about the small victories people.

I am enjoying life in the Barrio.  In the evening, it is not uncommon to find some family members sitting outside the house just watching the world go by.  Watching as the sun goes down and the neighbors fire up their grill and feeling the coolness of the evening blow in.  Someone usually hands me a fresco and life feels pretty good with a cold sweet fruit drink in my hand and the heat from the sun fading away, while the world slowly moves on by in front of me.

Maybe Managua is a bit dreamy and poetic under all the noise  🙂

Time is moving more quickly than I anticipated here and my last weeks are filling up with trips to other parts of the country.  Next post on highlights of Nicaragua so far!

I think pineapples are the most beautiful fruits.  Inside and out.  Even though they are spiky and maybe formidable on the outside, once you get inside they are juicy and sweet and especially good in combination with their friends – the mango and the banana.  They are photogenic and colorful and also nourish and hydrate the body with all the vitamins.  I have fallen for the pineapple – hard and fast.

I spend and will spend a decent amount of time in one of the bigger markets in Managua – Mercado Mayoreo.  I think my obsession with fruits in Nicaragua began in the market.  There are many things happening in the market – vendors selling their produce, motor taxi’s whizzing by, unfamiliar and unpleasant smells, busses honking, smells of fried street foods, and always keeping constant awareness of your surroundings and where you place your feet – but the fruits… the fruits have stuck out to me as a thing of beauty.

They are for me, a thing of peace in an otherwise chaotic place.  When I think about fruits, I think of tropical places, beaches and nice breezes.  It’s almost as if when I see piles on piles of fruit my imagination takes me to a calm place for just a split second.  And for me, that’s just what I need to focus on the tasks ahead – just a moment of peace.

I will be spending two days a week in the market collecting food with other volunteers from Comamos Juntos.  Our tasks include just that – going around to vendors that have an established relationship with Comamos Juntos and collecting the produce they have set aside that they will not sell.  Many times, we must sort through the crates they give to make sure we are only collecting produce that is not rotten or diseased.  Since it is so hot, produce can go bad much faster, so it is important to go through the whole bin so the communities are getting the freshest produce possible.

Once the food is sorted, it is weighed and recorded.  At the end of the collection the food is divided into three groups for each community and loaded onto a truck for distribution.    The three communities that receive the produce from CJ are Ananda Marga (a primary school), Villa Guadalupe (a community built on the edge of a dump), and a community of ex sugarcane workers that are suffering from kidney disease.

After the work is done, the volunteers share a fresco together – the sweetest old lady sells them right next to our home base in the market.

The market is a fascinating place for me.  It is so so different than how everyone I know makes a living.  People are incredibly creative and resourceful with what they sell.  I’ve seen things from kitchen utensils, to fried plantains, to socks, to bags of water.  People sometimes carry their goods around with them and call out – “Agua, agua!”  This also happens on the buses, in the streets and at most bus stops.  On longer bus rides, people hop on the bus with their homemade goods – things like corn bread, fried chicken, sweet tamales, cut pieces of fruit – you name it.  Going back to my word – fresh – many times these homemade food items are so hot they must have just come from the kitchen.

I am staying hydrated with all the fruit smoothies and seeking refuge from the heat in the mountains or in an air conditioned cafe of bliss – things are becoming a new normal here.  I am continually thankful for my host family and the Comamos Juntos family who have welcomed me so easily into their lives.  Next post on life in the ‘hood – Barrio Paraisito – where I am living.