The other days I get up early, eat breakfast and start
laundry. You have to do laundry early if
you intend to avoid the crowds and get it dry by the time the sun starts to
set. When it comes to clothes there is
first world clean and there is third world clean. Thanks to my sister Shauna who sent us Tide
pods we are maybe at second world clean….the detergent here is not so
good. The wash machine died our second
week here, but the repairman fixed it enough to partially work so this is my
system: I soak the laundry in cold water
in the Tide for about 40 minutes and swish it around myself with my arm as much
as I can. Then, the water is drained and
it spins and I take the laundry out to the outdoor washing basin. Sometimes the hose is nowhere to be found so
I fill a water bucket from a spigot and fill the side sink up several times. Then I take our laundry and with powder
detergent hand scrub each piece on a rippled stone surface- focusing on stains
and other areas while rinsing the clothes using a small bowl to scoop out the
clean water from the basin on my right.
After rinsing the soap out as best I can I wring the clothes and place
them back in the wash machine filled with water. I often use my hands in the wash machine to
rinse any remaining soap and then they drain and spin. They are now at least dry enough that they
won’t stretch when hung. I hang them dry
on a line near our room and I often have to protect our clothes from horses and
cows by using a stick. When you work so
hard to do laundry you don’t want an animal walking through it trampling it to
the ground.
This is where I scrub our laundry. It also tends to be a dumping ground for trash and bottles.
We do wear our clothes as many times as we can, but with the
mud, dirt, and sweat it’s still enough laundry to keep me and Anthony busy
several hours and days a week. While I
do laundry, I sweep our room to keep the spiders and ants at bay. Then, thanks to Jillian Michael’s 30-Day
Shred, I do my work out in our clean room.
I packed hand weights in my suitcase so I can keep in some sort of shape
here. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Spanish tutoring
at 10:30 for two hours. Each afternoon
when I am at Brio I spend it eating lunch, studying Spanish, preparing food, and
attempting to get on the internet. Once
a week I go into the small town of Gigante and enjoy a lunch at a Gringo
internet café called Party Wave. They
have the most Americanized versions of wraps, sandwiches, smoothies and a few
baked goods. There I sit, eat and read
by the ocean, or sometimes I am able to get up to the pool at our hotel to
catch a few rays for a couple of hours. Once a week Anthony and I often go down to the
ocean to take a swim, watch the sunset or eat a Nica-style dinner at a local
restaurant. Saturdays I clean our only
set of sheets and towels and clean our room, which is usually dirty because of
the dust and open windows. We do wear
flip flops in our room all the time to try and help keep the dirt level down. Sundays is more of our day of rest and we
sleep in a little, have church and a focused time on prayer and scripture and
then Spanish lessons in the afternoon.
Every meal requires us to heat up purified water using the microwave
in order to sterilize/disinfect our vegetables and also our cooking materials
both before and at the end of our meals.
We do have our own place settings, bowls, a knife, and one pan, but if
we need anything else we use what is provided in the kitchen- which is
sometimes very dirty and always needs to be disinfected beforehand. There is not hot water from the tap and it
can’t be trusted to clean food let or drink so really the microwave has been a
lifesaver for heating up water and killing germs! The resort provides large bottles of purified
water for the workers to use for cooking and drinking; however, we do run out
at times and it is Anthony always reminds the front desk at the resort to bring
us some more water. So you can imagine
at times I feel the need to conserve water and don’t drink as much as I need
to. Dinners take the most preparation
time because they are more involved and we sometimes have to wait in line to
use the stove. We try and use dinner
time to socialize with our hotel mates, practice Spanish with our friends, and
learn about Nicaragua. I brought a few
card games and we have introduced Phase 10 to some of the staff. It’s pretty fun (and a bit hilarious) playing
it in two different languages as you can probably imagine. After dinner,
we are typically extremely exhausted from the day, and it’s time for my
favorite activity. A shower! Thank goodness we do have hot water for our
showers, but we often shower with cool water because of the heat and humidity.
We often read before bed or watch a movie or an episode of Dr. Quinn on the
weekends (special thanks to my friend Becky Stowers). Then it’s usually lights
out for us around 9:30pm which often feels late since the sun sets around
5:15pm.
Several times a week we walk into Gigante to buy our dairy
products and buy fish (as a sidenote I can’t wait to have good dairy again). The yogurt here is decent, but the milk is
thin, tastes funny, and goes bad quickly.
Occasionally we can get a block of imported American cheddar (for a
hefty price of course), but most the time the only cheese available is the
local “squeaky cheese,” which is a white
feta consistency substance that makes a squeak noise when you chew it, but I
digress J Anthony has built some rapport with a local
fisherman and we buy mahi, mahi, mackerel, and snapper for a great price. We also try to catch the “Barrata” which is a
truck that goes down the road in the early morning or afternoon with a loud
speaker blaring the daily deals and the farm fresh fruits and vegetables it has
available. Many of the locals and even
restaurants in Gigante buy from the truck. When Anthony and I hear it we drop
what we are doing, scramble to get our money and grocery bag and run down the
gravel hill to the road to wave down the truck before it passes us by- which
I’m sure it’s a funny sight to see. One
time we missed it and literally jogged all the way to Gigante to catch it just
in time before it headed north up the coast.
It’s the only way we can have
fruits and vegetables throughout the week.
Supposedly, the Barrata is supposed to come Wednesdays and Saturdays,
but it can come any day or not at all.
Often the little store in Gigante does not have fresh produce or it has
produce but it is old and rotting.
Our little fridge full of food we just purchased from the Barrata!
Last but not least every two weeks or so we catch a ride to
Rivas with Aqua staff members to do our supermarket shopping. I enjoy going to Rivas, because I have a
chance to get out and about, but it is exhausting and requires the whole
day. Most of the time we squeeze in with
several others in an air-conditioned vehicle and make the 45 minute drive up
and down the extremely rough terrain. We
drop off staff members at their homes and then make various stops throughout
the town of Rivas for people’s shopping needs.
At the edge of town is “Maxi-Pali,” a small supermarket where I find the
shopping experience to be quite comical.
I hear old school music from the United States (Brian Adams is common) as
I patrol the aisles. At check out the grumpy cashier (which is common at most
grocery stores I suppose) literally tosses our food in a cart while we beg to
get more plastic bags (we have to bag the groceries ourselves and the cashier
controls the bags). On the way out of
town we stop at the local fruit and vegetable stands to buy the really good and cheaper produce.
It took us weeks to figure all this out. In retrospect it’s quite amazing to see how
far we’ve come in learning the ropes of living in the jungle in a third world
country. Anthony and I have had to learn
to adapt, be flexible and go without. We
plan as much as we can, but most times we have no control over things and we
often have to stop what we are doing and
jump on an opportunity to get food or catch a ride, for example, if it presents
itself. Living in Nicaragua has made me
appreciate a very long list of everyday things we take for granted in America.
Speaking of all this food is making me a bit hungry…one
thing for sure is that I can’t wait to have a good salad and deli sandwich when
I get home!
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