Things have started to settle into a bit of a (busy) routine here. Allow me to regale you with stories of a day in the life of Vince in Nicaragua...
But first, a note about cheese. Most people who know me know that I do not eat a lot of cheese and that my cheese-eating habits are strange to say the least (melted cheese good, cheese on crackers bad. Cream cheese lathered on bagel good, cream cheese elsewhere bad.). To make things easy here, though, and to finally step into that stage of life called maturity, I decided to just tell my home-stay family that I eat everything. I have since come to regret that decision ever so slightly. Why, you ask? Because of cheese, I answer. Cheese here come in all types (including unpasteurized) but seems in my family to come in only one size: excessively large. Granted I have no reference point, but I am reasonably sure that I ate about a quarter of a wheel of cheese last night. This cheese didn´t come sliced with crackers, though, it came in massive deep-fried chunks. A few slices would have been fine (just think of them as mozza sticks), but several slabs were excessive and, for the first time, I had a minor stomach gurgle or two. However, being the gracious guest, I ate it all with a smile. Thinking that I would find reprieve in my typically all-fresh-fruit breakfast the next morning, I nearly died when I discovered leftover deep-fried cheese chunks in my scrambled eggs. It has not been a gastrointestinally delightful 16 hours. If I see more cheese tonight, I could crumble. You will know by the conspicuous lack of blog postings.
Also, as an addendum to my last post, I forgot to mention the most obvious of the honking messages: "You are a woman and I am a disgusting man aiming to impress others around me." I´m certainly not saying that the treatment of women in Canada is perfect, but the sexism here (set in this idea of machismo) is frightening. I truly cannot imagine being a woman here.
That was a little bit heavy, I apologize. On to lighter issues, like my first attempt to hand wash my clothes today. Much to the delight of the three women in the house this afternoon, I made a valiant attempt at hand-washing my clothes. The outrageously time-consuming process, approximately 5 minutes per article of clothing, involved a sort of pre-soaking and pre-cleaning in detergent, washing and agitating with a bar of laundry soap, and then rinsing. My clothes are drying now so the final result is still up in the air, but a few indicators of success:
-The detergent water got dirty and I had to replace it often.
-After a few minutes and an observation I stopped getting tips. This might also be an indication of outright failure and a loss of hope on the part of my teacher.
-I saw suds. The bad news is that the rinsing step was incredibly difficult and I still saw suds after I hung the clothes to dry. Soap scum, here I come. Woo, rhyme!
-The clothes smelled better than when I started.
-I was sweating ridiculously and felt like a nap, meaning that at least some energy was transferred into the clothes.
Anyways, I was going to talk about a day in the life so... here you have it, beginning at 00:00.
-At 12:00 AM, I am fast asleep. If I were a light sleeper, the creaky tin roof, dog fights (random, not organized), birds trying to get in, and loud cars may wake me. I am no light sleeper.
-Unfortunately, I am not in a coma, so I do get woken up at about 5:30 by the family´s car which consistently takes at least 7 tries to start. The family seems to have moved past frustration and onto acceptance that their car just won´t start on the first six tries. My room is next to the garage. After the car leaves (the father in the family works a couple of hours away hence the early departure), I roll over and fall asleep anew.
-At 6:40, my alarm rings. I hit snooze.
-At 6:44, my alarm rings again. I get out of bed.
-After cleaning my room a bit (I could only hang my mosquito net on the "foot" side of the bed so I sleep on the bed the wrong way (my feet near the head board). I don´t want to confuse my family and have an awkward talk about how beds work in Nicaragua so I re-make the bed the "right" way every morning.
-At this point, I emerge from my room, and play with the three-year old and/or watch Discovery Kids (Barney and friends- which is weirdly explicitly "culturally diverse"... more on that some other day). It is incredible how quickly the child goes from running and screaming to standing motionless two feet from the television. I haven´t quite figured out the triggers yet.
-At 7:00, breakfast is ready. It has typically been all-fruit, but of late, the family seems to be testing out various other choices on me. The pancakes are outrageously delicious, but the fruit really can´t be beat. The mother in the family normally eats with me and we chat in Spanish about a random topic- government (Nicaraguan conversation is enjoyably political and everyone is fine with agreeing to disagree. A vivid debate can be followed by a joint outing to a café... it is very refreshing).
-At 7:15, I have a very difficult choice to make. Is this a shower / personal hygiene day, or a Spanish-improvement conversation day? Far too often, I have chosen the latter. Sorry. If it´s a hygiene day, it´s off to the cold shower for a shower that tows the line between refreshing and unbearable. If it´s a particularly lucky hygiene day, I may shave. That, too, has happened far too infrequently (due in part to the slightly dirty, dusty mirror in my room that masks my grotesque facial hair. I caught a glimpse of myself in a clean mirror the other day and had my hands up to my face, hiding my beard, the rest of the day.) If it´s a conversation day, we carry on our breakfast talk until 7:45ish.
-At 7:45, I pack my bag and head to school.
-From 8:00 until about 10:30 I have Spanish class, followed by a delightful bell sound for "recess" (Spanish small talk), and then more class from 10:45 until noon.
-At 12:15, I have returned home for lunch. This is a tough meal for me because, although it is delicious, I rarely eat lunch in Canada, choosing instead to occupy myself chewing gum. Here, though, it is a massive lunch with some conversation in Spanish.
-From 1:00ish until just before 2:00, I will normally do homework, watch Discovery Kids, or do some needed task (like attempt to wash clothes).
-At 2:00 (on most weekdays) I´m back at school for the afternoon activity, be it a visit to prenatal classes (where some students who will remain nameless thought it appropriate to take pictures... seriously, it was unreal. Can you imagine in the middle of a class about getting your newborn to latch, how to wash your newborn´s genitalia, and how to clean birth gunk (my translation) off of your fresh newborn, someone stands up, walks to the front of the class, and snaps a picture? My jaw dropped.), a visit to a natural medicine center (weird translation story that I think I shared), or some other community group or organization.
-The activities thus far have gone until about 4:00 or 4:30 at which time I normally swing by the Internet café to do some things before...
-Heading home for supper. Supper is sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 and I usually eat supper either alone or with the 3-year old because the mom and dad eat when he returns from work.
-After supper, I may head to a phone center, take a little walk-about, or just do more homework. My new Spanish teacher gives me a lot of homework (a mini-essay every day in addition to a couple of worksheets) that is teetering on the edge of exhausting.
-It gets dark here around 6:00, so it is weird to do too much after that. I am normally in bed by 9:00 and, after some reading, writing, and more homework, I doze off before 10:00, eagerly awaiting the sound of the car in the morning.
I think that that is about it. My days will definitely change when I´m done at the Spanish school, so maybe I will give a daily routine again in a month or so.
While you wait for that, here are a few more pictures of the farm. Ideally, I would share pictures of everyday life here, but I didn´t want to get up in the middle of the umbilical cord cleansing demonstration. Sorry. (On a more serious note, I will take and post pictures of my room, house, school, and city at some point, but again, the urgency just isn´t there at this point).
The view from the farm. After coming back to Estelí, I actually missed the lush, quiet farm. I would say that you can see why, but you haven´t really seen Estelí.
The farm. Those are coffee sorting trays you see. Those plants with pink leaves are really cool. There was a grapefruit tree, orange tree, and mandarin tree just to the left of this area.
I guess I only had two more loaded on my USB key, sorry. I will upload a few more for next time.
A day in Estelí. In theory I should be in the shade but what kind of tourist would that make me? Notice the door which is not quite as ornate as the murals above.
Where´s Waldo? This was my response to Amy´s remark that I would be accused of using stock Internet photos of Estelí unless I crossed the street and gave a smiling thumbs-up to the camera. 
Where´s Waldo? This was my response to Amy´s remark that I would be accused of using stock Internet photos of Estelí unless I crossed the street and gave a smiling thumbs-up to the camera.
Estelí´s central avenue. I told you nothing happens. If you squint you can make out one of Estelí´s two stop lights. They make things more dangerous for pedestrians because they give you a false sense of security. Two-thirds of the cars in the picture were likely honking when this picture was taken.
Arguably (though an easy argument to win) the only ornate, "photogenic" building in Estelí, this is the cathedral. You´ll notice that there are no people in either picture. This is because normal people don´t stand out in the sun at 1:00 in the afternoon. In all likelihood I was being mocked and laughed at. These are the things I endure for your photo-viewing pleasure. 
Estelí´s central avenue. I told you nothing happens. If you squint you can make out one of Estelí´s two stop lights. They make things more dangerous for pedestrians because they give you a false sense of security. Two-thirds of the cars in the picture were likely honking when this picture was taken.
Arguably (though an easy argument to win) the only ornate, "photogenic" building in Estelí, this is the cathedral. You´ll notice that there are no people in either picture. This is because normal people don´t stand out in the sun at 1:00 in the afternoon. In all likelihood I was being mocked and laughed at. These are the things I endure for your photo-viewing pleasure.
