Lagartillo

A few weeks ago we spent the week living with a family in the rural community of Lagartillo. They have set up a small scale language school, with one-on-one tuition in people's houses and a determined effort to get their pupils involved in the community and up to speed on the Sandinista Revolution and the history of the community. Simon is back there this week for another week of classes. Whilst Simon went to classes with Ermelinda, I focussed on learning about food. With the help of the extremely patient Tina, starting at 6am, I learnt to grind maize, shape it into flat, round tortillas and place them carefully onto a hot plate. My first few efforts were a flop, and although I got better, there are still a few tricky bits which probably make all the difference between a successful or a disastrous tortilla and Tina discreetly avoided entrusting me with these tasks (further grinding of the maize with a stone rolling pin; adding water to the maize to the right consistency; flipping the tortillas). Tina's stove

I also learnt to make this fresh, salty cheese called cuajada. It's just fresh milk, a bit of water and a mysterious clotting tablet left together for a couple of hours and then with both hands in the milky, watery tub, you slowly squidge the cheese together and squeeze the water out, and then lift it out of the tub, knead it like bread and form it into an attractive lump. Again, there's lots of skill to this, where if I were to try it myself, I would end up with bits all over the place; it was only under the guidance of Tina that it all seemed simple. Rice, beans, tortilla and cuajada cheese make up the staple diet here.

Having made the cheese, and given that I grew up on a dairy farm and have never done it before, I decided this was the week to learn to milk the cows by hand. It turned out to be surprisingly tricky and exhausting. I assisted a lad who does this every morning. He grabbed two udders at a time, squeezing one and then the other, as though he were flicking a tap on and off. I tried and after a good amount of tucking on the weathered, wrinkly udder, a piddle of milk shot out at an angle and hit him in the face. I got marginally better, but were we to have relied on me to milk the four cows, I would have been there all day with milk curdled in the heat by the end of it all and me in a heap.

Lessons weren't just in people's houses, they included planting coffee trees, lopping down weeds and overgrown grass with machetes, playing football and walking through beautiful countryside to a lovely waterfall. There were lots of semi-solid cowpats in this field.

This looks a little half-hearted but that's just the photo treating me unfairly.

All were suitably impressed with Simon's diving technique.

On the way to the waterfall

Kids from the local community sang traditional and revolutionary songs to us one night. They're part of a group in the village who are gathering popularity in Nicaragua. They're playing at a small music festival we're going to this weekend in their nearby town of Achuapa. (We're also expected to sing at this festival. We practiced 'Jackson' by Jonny Cash and June Carter this weekend, but we were sounding pretty ropey and there's no chance to practice again, so we'll just have to try our best to merge into the crowd and avoid the stage)

We also went along to a few English classes at the local school. I taught them the English classic of 'We are Derby, Super Derby, Super Rams', which they quickly got the hang of and hopefully are still singing. We have a video of this but our laptop has gone wrong and so I can't reduce it and load it up.

There is so much more to say about this community but I'll leave it there for now. Simon can write a more inspired update next week.