Days are filled with stove research, collaboration, cookstove presentation, eating beans and rice, and getting to know the lifestyle of rural Nicaragua, "El Campo".
Below are some photos and a snapshot of what life in the countryside is like.
A day in El Jocote
I wake to the pounding and grinding of hot corn tortillas being made right outside my door. I fumble for my watch in the darkness, its 4:40 am. The sun won't rise for another hour or so, but as usual the family is up and getting ready for the day. Being a gringo not accustomed to the early ritual, I pull the thin sheet over my head and try to sleep another few hours despite the choir of town roosters urging me to get up.
I finally rise, walk into the smoke filled kitchen and sit down to eat my gallo pinto (a traditional Nicaragua food of beans and rice). I stumble through my broken Spanish wishing my host parents Marta, Tonio, and their daughter Ivania a good morning. "Buenas dias Marta!...muchas gracias por la comida...si dormí muy muy bien...no, no oído nada, dormí bien!"
Jeff, the other intern and only other Gringo for miles, comes up to my host family's home at 8:30am and we head off to work Jose Carlos' farm. We arrive to the small slopped batch of land and help install the first drip-irrigation system in town, complete with a solar-powered pump. As we work together to lay the black plastic drip-pipe, I take breaks to joke around and take pictures with the children. The children are eager to help in anyway they can. Just as the hot sun becomes unbearable, two of the children run off and arrive back with fresh squeezed orange juice. Gerald, a 9 year-old boy whose grandfather owns the farm, gives me a huge smile as he hands me the full glass of juice. I smile back grateful for the act of kindness. We finish our work and all stand back admiring the new system.
Lunch is more beans and rice, but with the added bonus of salty hardened milk quahada, a Nicaraguan style cheese.
After lunch I set forth to get to know the community and how the woman feel about their cook stoves. They comment that their stoves create bothersome smoke, and use a lot of wood. The smoke is extremely harmful to their lungs and eyes, and the wood is hauled by the families from their mountainous farms 2 km above. But, after seeing a demonstration of an improved cook stove, they are excited about trying one out. I continue walking from house to house with my host father Tonio leading the way. We talk to 7 different families before the sun starts to set. Wiping the afternoon sweat from our brow, we head back to Tonio's mud-walled and tin-roofed home just in time for dinner.
Dinner is beans, rice, quahada, and tomatoes.
As dinner comes to an end, we talk about the day and how the water flowed from the spigot for only a half-hour. One way or another conversations always seem to end up being about water, who uses the most, when it's turned on, and the shear lack of it.
As the night dwindles down, I grab the 100-year-old looking guitar off the wall and head for the porch. After some thorough massaging, the horribly out-of-tune guitar actually starts to sound sweet. I breath in the fresh air, stare out across the pitch-dark valley, and pick along to the sound of crickets in the distance. I feel absolutely calm.
Exhausted from the days work, I say goodnight to the valley of roosters, chickens, cats, dogs, horses, cows, pigs, farms, smiling children, welcoming faces, and forty-four homes that make up "El Jocote".
I finally rise, walk into the smoke filled kitchen and sit down to eat my gallo pinto (a traditional Nicaragua food of beans and rice). I stumble through my broken Spanish wishing my host parents Marta, Tonio, and their daughter Ivania a good morning. "Buenas dias Marta!...muchas gracias por la comida...si dormí muy muy bien...no, no oído nada, dormí bien!"
Jeff, the other intern and only other Gringo for miles, comes up to my host family's home at 8:30am and we head off to work Jose Carlos' farm. We arrive to the small slopped batch of land and help install the first drip-irrigation system in town, complete with a solar-powered pump. As we work together to lay the black plastic drip-pipe, I take breaks to joke around and take pictures with the children. The children are eager to help in anyway they can. Just as the hot sun becomes unbearable, two of the children run off and arrive back with fresh squeezed orange juice. Gerald, a 9 year-old boy whose grandfather owns the farm, gives me a huge smile as he hands me the full glass of juice. I smile back grateful for the act of kindness. We finish our work and all stand back admiring the new system.
Lunch is more beans and rice, but with the added bonus of salty hardened milk quahada, a Nicaraguan style cheese.
After lunch I set forth to get to know the community and how the woman feel about their cook stoves. They comment that their stoves create bothersome smoke, and use a lot of wood. The smoke is extremely harmful to their lungs and eyes, and the wood is hauled by the families from their mountainous farms 2 km above. But, after seeing a demonstration of an improved cook stove, they are excited about trying one out. I continue walking from house to house with my host father Tonio leading the way. We talk to 7 different families before the sun starts to set. Wiping the afternoon sweat from our brow, we head back to Tonio's mud-walled and tin-roofed home just in time for dinner.
Dinner is beans, rice, quahada, and tomatoes.
As dinner comes to an end, we talk about the day and how the water flowed from the spigot for only a half-hour. One way or another conversations always seem to end up being about water, who uses the most, when it's turned on, and the shear lack of it.
As the night dwindles down, I grab the 100-year-old looking guitar off the wall and head for the porch. After some thorough massaging, the horribly out-of-tune guitar actually starts to sound sweet. I breath in the fresh air, stare out across the pitch-dark valley, and pick along to the sound of crickets in the distance. I feel absolutely calm.
Exhausted from the days work, I say goodnight to the valley of roosters, chickens, cats, dogs, horses, cows, pigs, farms, smiling children, welcoming faces, and forty-four homes that make up "El Jocote".
Kids come running when they hear a truck, and love to jump on.
Richard! This sounds like an incredible experience, thank you for sharing such great descriptions of your days.
ReplyDeleteNo worries Mica. Hope all is well in Eugene, miss you all!
ReplyDeleteGreat post my man! Very vivid...feel like I am there with you. Sounds like a really great experience...and of course like you're doing some good work. Interesting to be in a place where water scarcity is less abstract than in US cities. And nice photo accompaniment.
ReplyDeleteKeep on keeping it real buddy.