Last day at school

One of the highlights of my time in Sontule has been teaching at the local primary school. I mostly taught Spanish to the first grade, 6 and 7 year-olds, and maths to the second grade, 7 and 8 year-olds. I got to know the kids really well and we had a great time. This was the thing that got me known around the community as the whole school knew who I was and so all their families did too. Playtimes last a good hour and mainly involve the boys playing baseball or pretending to shoot one another, while the girls organise themselves into friendly team games. The views never got boring.

It was quite a change to teaching in England. Not only was I teaching in Spanish, but my only resources were a board, a pen and some paper. I soon adapted and definitely learnt as much myself as the children did.

Climbing on a ruined wall by the outdoor school kitchen. You would never get away with this as a teacher in the UK.

Loud speaker advertising

This is a fine example of why we so often have to ask people to repeat themselves when we are talking to them on skype. The pink building is Cafe Luz, the only cafe in Esteli with wifi and where we can often be found on our days in town.

There are all sorts of vehicles touring the streets with a variety of loud speaker systems strapped to the roof. They blare out advertising jingles at ear-busting levels for anything from pharmacies, to nappies, to events, to where you can get your tyres changed. It's a charmingly simple form of advertising if a little invasive at times, but nobody here seems to mind that.

Very small bananas

We've blogged once before about the huge variety of bananas available in Latin America, and Nicaragua is no different. Last week in Sontule we encountered what was definitely the tiniest to date. The one pictured was pretty much the same size as all the bananas in the bunch. That's just the way they are. They were very sweet but a bit hard in the middle, which made them just right for adding to our hot milk and oats each morning.

Baking day

Baking day is quite an undertaking at Lucia and Rogelio's in Sontule. We're not just talking about knocking up a quick victoria sponge or a batch of flapjack, there's a bit more to it than that. A large, igloo-shaped clay oven, a good two metres across, occupies part of the yard near to the kitchen. The oven is made from bricks and clay and requires a red hot pile of firewood inside to get the whole thing baking hot. The embers are then pushed out of one side and the baking is ready to be popped in the other side. The oven spends most of its time redundant, except for occasionally housing a laying hen, so baking day makes for a good spectacle.
Rosquillas were the main item for the oven, in their hundreds. These are small biscuits made from cooked and ground corn, cuajada cheese and a bit of margarine. Some are savoury and shaped like a little hoop, others are round and sweet, filled with an unrefined dark sugar and called hojaldras. There are always people selling them on buses and they're available in cafes and corner shops, but their quality varies greatly. They are definitely at their best when they're warm, but Lucia's rosquillas were particularly impressive and kept us coming back for more for a good few days. They go down especially well with a coffee.All the members of the house got stuck in to the baking process. Lucia and Endira did the preparations and Rogelio was in charge of the oven. Jackson did a bit of fetching and carrying, while we were taking photos and employed to clear the trays of cooked rosquillas and place them in a bucket. This involved plenty of sampling.

From one side of the oven to the other. It doesn't look hot in there, but it's baking biscuits in 15 minutes.
We took a photo of ourselves nibbling rosquillas in Esteli, which for some strange reason turned out like a promotional shot for a rosquilla company.

'Mmm...rosquillas'

Old Man's Beard

An old man and his beard.The forests of Miraflor are beautiful and on many of the trees grows this wispy plant, called Barba de Viejo, or Old Man's Beard, which gives an eery edge to foggy mornings and a touch more shade when the sun's out. It looks spiky until you touch it and realise it's very soft. Local uses for the plant, known in some Engish speaking parts as Spanish Moss, include mulch for plants and a natural, luxurious toilet roll. We are yet to test either claim.

Deer for lunch

Walking uphill in Sontule towards the cooperative building one morning after breakfast we heard a yelping up ahead and saw an Alsatian attacking something with skinny legs. As we approached and threw a stone at it, the dog ran off, leaving behind a beautiful, young, white-speckled deer with a mangled leg and blood dripping from its mouth. It is the first deer we have seen in Nicaragua and we were just thinking that it was a shame to see one in such unfortunate circumstances when Don Rogelio appeared on his horse, heading for the fields. He agreed that it was a shame for the poor creature but quickly moved on to the prospect of enjoying it for lunch. He was thrilled with us for seeing the dog off in time and asked Simon to pass the deer up to him on his horse. It was kicking weakly on the floor. Simon hesitated for a couple of seconds, but after a couple more 'pass it to mes' from Rogelio, Simon grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and its hind quarters and passed it up to Rogelio who slung it over the front of the horse and trotted back to the house with it. A few hours later, we were enjoying its tender meat in this delicious casserole with a beetroot and cabbage salad, rice, beans and tortilla. Sontule has been in a protected nature reserve since the 1990s and nobody had eaten deer for years. We were popular with the family for the rest of the week on the back of our deer discovery.

A funeral in Sontule

Last week we attended the burial of a local mum who died in childbirth after a complicated pregnancy with her third child. Her baby daughter survived and will be brought up by an aunt in Esteli. Her two other children, Walter and Juan Ramon, are eight and six, and in Simon's Spanish and Maths classes. At least for now, they are staying in the community with their dad.

Nicaraguans bury their dead usually within twenty four hours of them dying, and it is a big community affair. The evening of the death, the family holds an all-night wake. For this lady, over 300 people attended. Her parents' home is two hours walk through the hills from Sontule but over 40 people went from the village, returning in the early hours of the morning. That afternoon, friends dug the grave in the cemetery, a beautiful, shady spot in the mountains in Sontule. The next morning, the whole community headed for the cemetery, including lots of children, to await the arrival of the family with the coffin from the neighbouring community. Nobody knew what time it would arrive, and whether it would be carried through the hills or brought in a pick-up truck. In the end, it was a pick-up that appeared with around twenty people crammed into the back along with the coffin. We waited in the cemetery for a couple of hours, and were given a bit of a tour of the graves by our friends. Rogelio and Lucia's relatives are all buried here, as well as some notable locals killed by the Contra in the 1980s. Another little boy from the school matter-of-factly showed us his mum's grave. Next to Lucia's family's graves, including a daughter who died as a baby.

There were a few striking things for us about this funeral. Despite this being a really tragic death, the community was typically stoical about it. They had all visited the family already and offered their condolences. In the cemetery there was a lack of drama, collective grief and dark, formal clothing. There was more of a feeling of the community simply gathering to pay their respects, offer support and do what had to be done in putting the coffin into the ground. It seemed very natural to include children in the event. Many children had bunches of flowers from their gardens and either looked on curiously or played quietly in the background. Walter and Juan Ramon, her two sons, spent most of the time sadly looking on, but also looking round and showing interest in the whole event. At one point, Juan Ramon looked over, recognised us and gave us a big smile.

Lucia and Rogelio led a few prayers and singing before the local men lowered the coffin into the grave and took turns to fill in the earth. The family take no part in the physical act of carrying or burying the body. All of the community waited until the grave had been filled, sitting around in small groups chatting or gathered around the grave, before laying flowers on it and heading off to carry on with the day's work.

Tweeting to Twitter in Sontule

This is the only place in Sontule where there is a mobile phone signal, next to the school and ten minutes up the hill from Rogelio and Lucia's house. It's a nice spot for a Tweet.

Fifteenth birthday parties for girls

Fifteenth birthday parties (quinceneras) are the most significant ones for girls in Catholic countries. Traditionally, it was a coming-of-age, time to get married occasion. We've been invited to a couple now and they have both been quite different from one another.

Last night was party night in Sontule. For the first time since we've been going there, the entire family turned out: Rogelio and Lucia, with their six children and eight grandchildren plus a good turn out of local friends and neighbours. Marciel is their eldest granddaughter and lives over the road, as well as attending my kids English class, so we see a lot of her.They'd gotten hold of a pick-up truck in Esteli to bring up the family from there and the enormous birthday cake pictured above. We spent the afternoon making rice-crispy cakes, pop-corn and decorating the house, while the family made an enormous pan of rice and chicken. It wouldn't be any kind of event in Nicaragua without the speeches and Don Rogelio rose to the occasion with messages of love, God and happiness. After the speeches and food, the dancing got under way. In Nicaragua, people don't ask you if you enjoyed a party but rather if you danced a lot, which to them, amounts to the same thing. While dancing is obligatory, how much and how enthusiastically you do it is optional. Rachel stayed on the fringes while I did some hip wiggling and got challenged to a dance-off by Rogelito which was declared a draw after I replied to an impressive display of bandy legs and a bridge with my swallow-dive breakdance move. Rachel chose well to enjoy some calmer dancing later on.Our rice-crispy cakes turned out disappointingly crumbly but Rachel's brainwave of serving the mixture up in paper cones was a hit with the locals who luckily for us had mostly never eaten rice-crispies before so had no clue as to the poor quality of our party treat.

Conos en el aire!

It was great to meet the members of the family who live in Esteli and who we hadn't met yet and most importantly Marciel had a great 15th birthday party.

The other quincenera we went to was the city version, of the daughter of a good friend of our friend Nicholas in Leon. Firstly there was a church service with lots of smart people, the whole affair looking more like a wedding to our English eyes although we did only get there in time for the post-service photos. We managed to scrub up well for the do as is clear in this picture of Rachel looking fabulous, holding Naomi, a little friend in Leon.The party was quite a contrast to the Sontule celebrations- in a reception venue rather than a front room and with a higher budget reflected in the dress and cake and the dress on the cake.Of course material trimming really aren't the making of a party, that would be the people, the food and the music. And so it was that in both parties we enjoyed the company of friends, ate well, and danced to a mixed bag of Salsa, Reggeton and 80's pop (Oh for a night of good music!)Throwing some shapes.

The house is fine, but where is the kitchen?

This house is in the rural village of Sitio Historico, a few hours east of the city of Matagalpa. There were quite a few identical houses dotted about (like the one pictured above), built of brick rather than wood and with a tiled roof rather than tin. We were told they had recently been built by a European NGO. It's easy to imagine the designer in Europe very pleased with how the design looked on paper, but out here things are a bit different and it's equally easy to imagine the Nicaraguan family entering their new abode only to glance around and say, 'donde esta mi cocina?'. Naturally, the new houses were designed with an internal kitchen but most Nicaraguan campesinos find this concept completely alien. Hence the fact that every single one of these houses now has a rustic wooden lean-to shack annexed on to the side or a few paces away at the back of the house. Not only that, but for most of the day the entire family can be found choosing to sit in the kitchen, leaving their beautiful new houses empty until bedtime.

Second-hand clothes

There is a thriving second hand clothes market in Nicaragua, nowhere more so than Esteli. There are rows of shops just selling second-hand clothing and shoes, mostly shipped in from the US. Just as in the UK, some people are a bit too proud to buy second hand, but for those like us, with an eye for a bargain, it's a fun shopping experience with more interesting, quality clothes on offer than in the other shops (think branded shirts and spangly, clingy lycra tops).One of the biggest and most popular shops with a great range of stuff.

Here we are, sporting our newly purchased, second-hand shirts.

Unsophisticated shops need unsophisticated changing rooms.

Second hand furniture

Chipboard wood-effect veneer, nasty looking computer desk: $90

Brown wood effect, vinyl-upholstered, dirty old armchair: $35

In Nicaragua, where very few desirable household goods are produced or imported, any old piece of second hand tat holds a value far above what it would in the UK (where we replace a sofa because we're bored of its colour). This second hand shop in Esteli had a selection of furniture outside which could easily have been salvaged from a UK rubbish tip. Here it has the same price as new items available in IKEA. This is too expensive for most people, which is probably why on the whole, people aren't too bothered about having fancy things in their homes and most front rooms are furnished with plastic or wicker chairs and not much else.

The friendly police of Nicaragua

One of the lovely things about Nicaragua is the friendly face of the police force. Since we arrived four months ago, we haven't once seen a police officer throwing his or her weight around but we've seen plenty of friendly coppers pottering around on bikes, chatting to people on buses or sitting around smoking a fag at big public events. Just like the army and other public institutions, the police force had a complete overhaul after the 1979 Sandinista Revolution. Now they really do seem to be of the people and for the people. In most of the other Latin American countries we've passed through the police has had a history of being a repressive, militant and highly corrupt organisation which is still reflected in the way they interact with the public. In the UK of course, we have a delightfully friendly police force, apart from the occasional racist and the entire traffic police.

The Nicaraguan police are occasionally accused of being ineffective, and they do take small bribes for traffic violations, but on the whole I think people realise that they're a lot better off with a friendly police officer that they can chat to, rather than the violent, abusive, oppressive fascists currently being suffered by their neighbours, the Hondurans.

Legally, motorbike drivers are supposed to wear a helmet, but it turns out that a baseball cap or any form of covering on your head classes as a 'helmet'. There are also no rules about passenger's headgear, you often see mum, dad and child squished onto a motorbike, or bicycle for that matter. As you can see from the chap on the red motorbike, the police on the whole aren't exactly on the ball in enforcing this law.

We had to put a photo of David the policeman on, just because he makes us chuckle. When we left Pearl Lagoon in the Caribbean, he spent a good half hour very seriously and officially recording our details onto a sheet of blank, white paper with a biro. When we returned a few days later on a quick speedboat stop-off, he shook our hands and greeted us like old friends. He asked Rachel again if I was just her friend, and when we announced we were getting married in September, he gave up on her and asked if we had any female friends who would be interested in him. He asked us to take his photo to show them. He ran off to write down the police station number for any interested girls, but sadly while he was gone, our boat departed.

The good and bad of music in Nicaragua

This is one of our favourite songs from our time in Nicaragua. It's a lovely folk song which we think would make a great replacement for the dreary national anthem. The words have been conveniently translated into English for non-Spanish speakers.

Bizarrely, most of the Western music in Nicaragua is at least twenty years old. There's an unnerving amount of poor commercial disco from the Village People to unknown lost 'classics' (see Best of Disco 1983). But the song we've heard more than any other on bus journeys across the north of the country is this slice of 80s classic soft-rock love cheese, by mullet-clad stadium rockers, Air Supply: Making Love Out of Nothing At All. The video is quite something.

Day of the Dead

I have encountered 'Day of the Dead' or 'All Saints Day' a few times now, with mixed experiences. It's essentially a Catholic event, and was forced upon Latin American along with Catholicism when the Spanish invaded. I spent a morbid and woeful Sunday aged 16 in the graveyard outside a dusty village near to Salamanca in Spain with my Spanish exchange girl. The entire village gathered in the walled cemetery. The priest intoned for hours and my family cried next to Great Uncle Mathias' grave. It had been preceded by a couple of hours 'Santa Maria-ing' in the church and the whole thing nearly broke me. A few years later and I was in Mexico for 'Day of the Dead' - the celebratory and politically charged Mexican version of All Saints Day which incorporates the Aztec beliefs that your relatives return from the dead for the day. Kids dress as skeletons, offerings for dead relatives of their old shoes, their favourite food and drinks are placed outside each home to welcome back their dead relatives for the day. In Mexico City, the city's main square is filled with gazebos with different themes, one linking the day into highlighting childhood obesity and death caused by too many McDonald's, another on journalists killed because of their political views and investigations and this sort of thing. It's fascinating and a lot more fun than Spain.

So on to Nicaragua. A big part of the day seems to be about clearing up your relatives' gravestones. There is one cemetery for the dead people of Esteli and this is the day when all those who are still alive head down there. The cemetery is packed with families, and of course all the traders selling tortilla with shredded cabbage, fresh oranges to suck on, flowers, confetti, and oddly, sacks of sand to throw on the graves after clearing off all the overgrown grass. There were also young lads with machetes and muscles trying to make a few cordobas for those less inclined to do the clearing themselves. The tombs, which house generations of familial skeletons, ranged from the grandiose to the simple and moving, with misspelt names or back-to-front letters but lovely flowers.The poorer end of the cemetery. In the background, the names of the deceased are painted onto the concrete walls.

It was a really interesting and enjoyable communal event to go along to. Some people were obviously deep in thought, but the majority mainly seemed to be settled in for the afternoon to catch up with friends on what is a big social event in the year.

Flower sellers set up in the main square in Esteli.

Walking through town on our way to the cemetery, this friendly father also heading there, asked us if we'd like to take a photo of his trailer load of flowers and daughter because he thought it would make a nice picture.