I'm taking gofio to the US of A!

 

This is the story of me making gofio, my favorite Nicaragua treat to take home with me for the holidays. My neighbor Carolina supplied the know-how, but I did the work.

1. Carolina came home in the middle of the day to make the “miel”, honey. She started a fire and put a big pot of water on to boil. She threw in a couple of handfuls of anise seeds. She let it boil until the water turned a rich yellow then she added four big bricks of sugar cane.
   
2. I stirred the pot until the sugar cane dissolved and we had a dark brown, flavorful syrup. Diego and Franchelle kept me company. Carolina went back to work. She left the pot on. The fire would die down and the syrup would cool so it would be ready to use in the evening.
   
3. We started again about six that night. The other ingredient of gofio is pinol, a flour formed by grinding roasted corn, cacao, and vanilla together. Following Carolina’s directions I formed the pinol into a volcano shape and filled the crater with syrup. (OK, so it’s a lousy picture. This is an important step and it’s the best one I had.) Pinol is such an important part of the culture that Nicaraguans call themselves pinoleros.
4. I mixed the syrup and pinol together until it was moist throughout, about the consistency of pie dough, and then formed it into a ball.
   
5. I patted it out until it was a big pancake about a half-inch thick. This was damn hard work I gotta say.
   
6. I started cutting the gofio into the traditional diamond shapes. Michelle was swiping the trimmings and popping them in her mouth.
   
7. Francisco, who never does anything in the kitchen, decided I didn’t have the shape quite right. He stepped in to straighten me out. I tried to Tom Sawyer him into doing the rest but he wasn’t buying it.
   
8. Almost done. Michel is watching me and watching for an opportunity to swipe more trimmings.
   
9. I take a break to dance with Doña Mercedes. Carolina threatens to show the picture to Juan Jose, her grandfather and Doña Mercedes husband for 61 years. I ask if he has a pistol and they say, “Como no!”
   
10. All done and it looks and tastes right.
    

In The Shadow of the Volcano

 

            Chinandega is located on a coastal plain. The Pacific Ocean is only twenty minutes to the southwest. Going in the opposite direction, also about twenty minutes away, is Nicaragua’s tallest volcano, Volcan San Christobal. There is a smaller volcano between the road and San Christobal called El Chanco. Located about halfway up the slope of El Chanco is the farm of Rey and Marcelina Lira. Our landlords, Juan Carlos and Ruth Viales, invited us to go with them to visit this farm. They told us that it was on the mountain, that there was no water or electricity, and that we’d get transported in an oxcart from the highway to the farm and then from the farm almost to the top of the volcano where there is a cell phone tower and great views. Of course we said we were in.

            Juan Carlos described the farm as “humilde”. The most obvious translation of this word is humble, but I think that misses something. It seems to me that when Nicaraguans describe something as “humilde” there is a sense of respect attached to the word that is hard to capture in English. You might not guess it from life as it is led in capitalist America, but the notion that a lack of means does not reflect on a person’s worth has a long history. Probably no one has said this more clearly than Luke (6:20-21) channeling Jesus: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Maybe it is the deep Christianity of Latin America that loads “humilde” with a sense of respect.

Rey Lira and his oxen. Juan Carlos Vinales riding in the cart.

            Juan Carlos, Ruth, Deb and I took a taxi out of Chinandega. About five miles outside the city we came to a dirt road that went off through the fields toward the slopes of El Chanco. Juan Carlos tried to raise the farmer on his cell phone, but didn’t get an answer. We started walking up the road. It was a gentle slope and it was early enough so that it wasn’t too hot. After we had walked about twenty minutes we met Rey coming down in his ox cart. I had trouble understanding how the two families are connected. There seems to be a mutual friend that connects them and they all seem to go back years to their days in the army. It is easy to see why you’d want to have Ray as a friend. He was lively, chatty, and funny. He took to Deb and me right away and joked with us and teased us the whole day. Any time we asked questions or showed interest in something he went out of his way to give us explanations and demonstrations.

            The oxen were huge and seemingly placid, but we were warned not to come up behind them because sometimes they kick. There is such a contrast between their size and strength and the fact that they are totally compliant. It seems obvious that it would be impossible to make them do anything they didn’t want to do and yet they do exactly what they are supposed to: pull anything, no matter how heavy, no matter how far. One of the things Ray showed me was how the oxen are hooked up to the cart. The yoke is lashed to their horns and a line is looped around their inside ear. To get them to turn right you tug on the left hand oxen’s right ear and vice versa. Ray said he switches them back and forth because otherwise they start walking funny and thinking they know which way to turn. (Keep in mind this explanation is based on my understanding of a Spanish conversation, which means there is maybe a 75% chance I got it right.)

            We climbed aboard the cart and the oxen pulled us up the rocky, rutted path for another thirty minutes. The cart lurched and swayed and bounced. It was like a slow motion amusement park ride, but with beautiful views all around. One of the most spectacular birds I’ve ever seen is the Mot Mot or Guardabaranca, the national bird of Nicaragua. It has a long forked tail with fan shaped tassels on the ends. They are unmistakable in flight. We must have seen two dozen of them on this leg of the cart ride.

The farm

            Ray and his family live in an open structure that is made of wood and tin. There is a walled sleeping area, however most of their living space has only a roof. The floors are dirt. There is no electricity or water. They cook on a grate over a wood fire. The house is smoky. They have cows, pigs, chickens, horses, the oxen and plenty of dogs. Near the house there are plantains, avocados, limes, oranges, papayas, and mangos. Further away they cultivate fields of beans and corn. They cart their produce and milk down the mountain to the highway where it is picked up for sale in the market in Chinandega. They cart water back up the mountain. As with most Nicaraguan families, it is fluid who lives on the farm at any given time. There are Rey, his wife Marcelina and two young adult sons. Others come and go. The younger of the two sons, Juan, was around and spent the day with us.

            Juan is a beautiful young man. He is attentive and soft spoken in a way that registers as gentleness. He makes this impression despite the fact that we had a long conversation about killing snakes. He told me about killing a boa that was eating one of their chickens. It was about six feet long. Then he went on to tell about the rattlesnakes he had killed. There are many of them. You have to be careful. Deb asked if he saves the skins. He said no just the “mantequilla” – butter. He saves the fat from the snakes; snake oil. I asked him if he could show me. He brought out two bottles from the house, one containing oil from the boa and the other rattlesnake oil. He told me that they are used to treat scorpion stings. The snake oil takes away all the pain. Juan also showed me his collection of rattles. He was able to shake them to make the unmistakable castanet sound of a rattlesnake coiled and read to strike.

Juan and snake oil

Juan and rattlesnake rattles

We got back in the ox cart and took the ride to near the top of the volcano. I asked Rey about his family’s history of living in this area. They have been here for many generations. He told me about the tragedy of the Las Casitas Volcano. It is in the same string of active volcanoes as San Christobal and El Chanco, but a little closer to León. In October of 1998 Hurricane Mitch passed just a little to the north and six feet of rain fell in three days. One wall of Las Casitas collapsed and sent a mud and rock slide of horrendous proportions down the mountain. Two towns were buried and 2,500 people died. Reportedly, aid was held up by President Alemán, one of the people who came to power in “free” elections fostered by the US in hopes of undermining the Sandinista revolution. The area of the disaster is heavily Sandinista. (This account is based in part on what Rey told me and in part on a section of The Moon Guide for Nicaragua.)

            Very near the top of the volcano on which the farm is located, incongruously, there is a huge cell phone tower, the only evidence of the 21^st century for miles. It was walled in, but Rey knew the caretaker and he let us come in and look around. He invited us to step into a large, refrigerated equipment shed. Inside it was the temperature of a meat locker. We strung hammocks at the edge of the hill and looked out over the Gulf of Fonseca with mountains in Honduras and El Salvador visible in the distance. I napped.

            Rey and Juan trotted down the hillside into the fields below to pick beans. They were soon well below us where we watched them work for the next hour. Then we watched them climb back up carrying huge gunnysacks of beans.

Ray and Juan coming up the hill

            Back at the farm, Ruth and Marcelina made us chicken soup for lunch. Ruth had brought many of the ingredients from Chinandega, but the chicken had been running around the yard that morning. After lunch, everyone worked on separating the beans from their stems and leaves. We were given a big sack of beans to take home. That night we shelled them and made soup.

Shelling the beans from the farm

 

The soup!

           Just after spending the day at the farm, I was reading the New York Times. In a article about the life shortening despair of white, working class Americans, Paul Krugman wrote, “It’s probably worth noting, in this context, that international comparisons consistently find that Latin Americans have higher subjective well-being than you would expect, given their incomes.” Living in Nicaragua this comes as no surprise. It even leaves you open to the possibility that the notion that income will correlate with subjective well-being is bogus.

            Being a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua does not make me want to renounce my privilege or even permanently give up the comforts of my life in The States, but it does put these things in perspective and everyday is a confirmation that you can’t know the value of something only by knowing its price.

 

A Glimpse at Healthcare in Nicaragua

One thing John and I say about our life here in Nicaragua is that we never know what each day will bring. Last Friday this point was driven home yet again.  I had been participating in a workshop for community health volunteers with a group of boisterous, funny, irreverent, and committed women.  Several women brought their children to the training because they had no other childcare option, which raised the ambient noise level to a point where I could often hear nothing.  Then a magical moment happened and we were all standing in a circle in silence (even the children were still), many of us had tears in our eyes, while one woman sang her song of gratitude.  Here’s the background:

In Nicaragua health care is a right and it is free.  There are for profit private practices and facilities for wealthier or insured people as well as government supported health centers and hospitals, which cost nothing.  As a Peace Corps volunteer, I work in the public system and find it very refreshing to be in a healthcare facility with no finances attached (no copays, no outstanding balances, no trouble for the personnel due to poor collections, etc.).  People arrive in the morning, state the reason for their visit, wait their turn, have their consultation, fill prescriptions if needed at the in-house pharmacy (also free) and leave.  Of course it is not a perfect system.  The waits are sometimes long (this is true in many aspects of Nicaraguan life so the waiting does not cause the same irritation it does to North Americans, it is simply part of life), if extensive testing is needed it might not be covered by the government budget and may be too expensive so it does not get done, and the pharmacies often lack the needed medications so patients need to go to private pharmacies which they cannot afford.  Nevertheless, there are many aspects to the healthcare system here which I love, my favorite being the network of community health volunteers. 

Among the community health volunteers are midwives, brigadistas, and recently a new program training community health volunteers to dispense prescribed birth control in their communities.  Sadly, the midwives are doing very few births in Nicaragua.  Due to the high infant and maternal mortality rate, a national movement to institutionalize births was initiated about 20-30 years ago.  Most births now take place in hospitals or health centers with a doctor in attendance.  Initially midwives were invited to do the births in the institutions and/or instruct the doctors and nurses on various ways to support women in labor and positions for birth but their presence has been slowly phased out.  In the hospital in Chinandega, there is no midwifery involvement and the women receive little support in labor.  Midwives are trained to support pregnant women in their communities, refer them to the health centers for routine prenatal care, teach about nutrition and breastfeeding and to be aware of danger signs in pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and with the newborn for immediate transfer to the nearest facility.  They are no longer being trained to perform births. 

The brigadistas are trained to provide basic health support in their communities.  I have been participating in a 12-day brigadista training and the curriculum includes the basic philosophy of community health, the importance of a healthy environment, care of children, care of women, care of adults and basic first aid.  There are 25 women and one man in the training, most of whom have been brigadistas in their communities for several years and are participating for their required review.  I decided to attend this training so I could learn more about the role of the brigadistas in the Nicaraguan healthcare system.

There were 3 problems for me at this training.  1. We were in a room with poor acoustics so when people spoke it was hard for me to hear. 2. There were children (7 one day) playing, whining, and making general kid noise, which added to my inability to hear.  3. It is not customary for Nicaraguans to give undivided attention to the speaker so while one person is speaking, there may be many side conversations going on, phones ringing, and children being disciplined which often made it look to me like the main speaker was simply moving his or her lips. 4. My own level of Spanish is not advanced enough to understand when people are speaking fast and in the vernacular.  With this combination of factors, I often could hear nothing and had no idea what was going on.  Nevertheless, I got the gist of things and occasionally added my perspective to the conversation.  Strangely enough, when I spoke, everyone listened.  (Gringo power!)

Kids present at the training

One particularly verbal participant

Facilitator on his cell phone

Last Thursday and Friday the topic was the care of women (body parts, menstruation, menopause, screening for cervical and breast cancer, pregnancy, labor, delivery, postpartum, birth control, etc.).  The focus was to inform the participants of how the system works and how to identify danger signs for referrals to their local health center.  I had been participating quite a bit on Thursday and when I was leaving, I asked the leader what was on the agenda for Friday.  He said family violence so I offered to bring my poster of the circle of violence to share with the group.  He said, “Great, why don’t you do the whole presentation,” and I agreed. 

I immediately called my friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer Jules who had recently led a very successful discussion on domestic violence with a group of HIV positive women.  She walked me through her presentation and told me about some Peace Corps resources available to me.  I spent several hours looking through the resources and organizing my presentation.  I had never done a formal presentation on domestic violence so I was feeling a bit nervous. 

It went surprisingly well. I did some parts of the presentation and the Nicaraguan facilitators did others.  I was pleased with two activities I led.  The first was having each person say one word that came to mind when they hear the word violence.  Each word was written on a large paper for everyone to see.  Next we repeated the activity sharing one word that came to mind when we think of a world without violence. We looked at the two lists and all agreed that we live in the world with violence but yearn for the other list to be our global reality.

For our finally activity we stood in a circle and one of the facilitators read a list I had given her.  The first part described various acts of violence and if anyone in the circle had been a victim of one of those acts, they took a step forward, stayed there for a moment and then returned to the circle while the next act of violence was read.  The second part read the same list but it referred to acts of violence that we ourselves have committed.  In the end there was a reflection about the need to address our own violent behavior and find healthy alternatives to conflict as we take on the issue of domestic violence.  We asked for reflections from the group and one woman shared her story of being a victim of domestic violence.  When she started to cry, everyone became silent giving her complete attention.  As she finished her story, the male nurse who was one of the facilitators, opened his arms and gave her a big hug.  We all followed his lead and when everyone had given her a hug, she sang a beautiful song of gratitude and strength.  The room was silent. 

The power of asking the question and giving space to be heard is sometimes overwhelming.

Toilet Paper: Right or Privilege?

As is often the case, I wait until the last moment to go to the bathroom.  I race in, sit down, pee and reach for the toilet paper which is not there.  “Damn!” In my hurry I once again forget that in Nicaragua we cannot assume that toilet=toilet paper.  If I am lucky, I have my backpack with me where I keep a supply of toilet paper for emergencies like this.  If not, I am out of luck and have to resort to a little shake and hope for the best. 

In the States, we expect toilet paper always.  If it is running low or out, we can tell the management and they are appreciative and take care of things right away.  Not so in the rest of the world.  It is easy for us to assume we have a right to toilet paper but I think it is important to remember that it is in fact another one of our many privileges. 

This is how it works here: as I mentioned before, there are many toilets without toilet paper.  Another popular arrangement is one toilet paper dispenser outside the stalls. That is a tricky arrangement because if you forget, there you are again on the throne without the goods. Sometimes I have observed women taking this common toilet paper in vast amounts and I think, “They need that much for one trip to the toilet?” and then I remember that they might be taking some home. Poverty shows its face in many unexpected ways. 

In the women's room at our local mall: "Take the paper before using the toilet"

Public toilet paper on the wall outside the stalls.

At bus terminals there are public bathroom where you pay 5 Córdovas (about 20¢) for an ample supply of toilet paper to take into the stall.  And then there are the places that always have toilet paper like the coffee shop and the convenience store by the bus station and we frequent them regularly. 

For men, it is completely different story because they pee everywhere and anywhere.  There are signs asking people not to urinate in certain areas but the smell of urine wafts up from the sidewalk or wall regardless of the posted requests.  There is a piece of wall left over from a building down the street from us where men often pee and John has told me it is known as the peeing wall. 

On the wall outside a local private school: "School area: prohibited to urinate here"

This is my favorite sign outside the church near our house:
"Selling prohibited in this area; Please do not urinate;
God bless you"

These are the thoughts I have wanted to share about toilet paper and privilege.  The process has made me aware of so many things we take for granted in the developed world that we could feel are our right but they aren’t.  We just happen to have them.

A Visit to the Barber

Since arriving in Nicaragua, I have been wearing my hair very short.  It is easy and I like it.  During training I asked a volunteer who came to do some presentations for us where she got her hair cut and she said she goes to the barber.  It is cheap and they do a good job.  I tried it in my training town and was satisfied.  Our site mate Zach told me about his barber Myron so I decided to try him out a few months ago.  He did a lot of clipping and buzzing and the used a razor around the edges, which made me a little nervous but in the end I was pleased with the hair cut. 

Today (about two months since the last cut) I went back.  As soon as I walked in Myron said, “Deborah! Cómo está?”  I was a little embarrassed because I did not remember his name. I won’t forget it again.  He was busy with another customer whom he was getting ready to shave.  Another barber was working on a little boy who was sitting absolutely still for the process.  Myron’s two nephews appeared and while I waited for my haircut, I watched the two of them getting theirs.  There was lots of buzzing, product and fussing, once again with the razor.  They were still and delightful to watch.  The barbers were having fun joking around with them. 

Myron shaving the customer before me

Little boy sitting still while barber works the razor

Nephew waiting his turn

When it was my turn Myron did quick work with the buzzer and the razor.  I noticed he had his beard in a rubber band and I asked him if he was growing it.  He said he had a long beard once and would like one again but he is not sure because of the heat.  I told that my son has his long beard in two braids that go to his waist.  His eyes lit up and he asked if I had a picture so I promised to bring one next time. The final product was just what I wanted and I was particularly pleased with the price: 30 Córdovas, which translates to a tad bit over a dollar.

My new haircut