We have officially graduated to the level where taxis don't honk at us anymore to see if we want a ride every time we walk into town. They know that we prefer to walk :)
Part of walking into town multiple times a day means that we get to hear some great English. School kids and even sometimes older adults shout things at us as we walk by: Hello! Hi! Hey man! Hi lady! How are you? Good morning!
The other day I even got a, "What's your full name?" Gotta love it :) There are two little girls about 4 or 5 years old that live in the shacks next to our apartment and if they're outside when I'm walking by they shout, "Hola gringa!" And then get really happy and wave when I say hola back. It's so great. I love these people!
A lot of the little kids know how to hold out their hand and say, "One dollar?" We get that a lot. Once in a while we'll get a mom with kids or old ladies begging, but not as often as I would've thought for a place this poor.
At about 5:30 every evening the roads fill up with kids coming home from school and I love their school uniforms! They all wear navy blue skirts, white blouses, white knee socks, and black shoes, and the boys wear navy blue pants and white shirts. They're mostly junior high age - I've seen elementary age kids in the road around 2 or 3. I felt kind of weird just taking a picture of these students, so Joe stood out there for me :)
Before FHE on Monday we walked to our favorite bakery and bought a doughnut for our FHE treat! The bakery products here are baked fresh around 4 pm - kind of different than things being fresh in the morning like I'm used to. It would be easier if I could buy bread at the same time I buy the rest of our food at the market in the morning, but there is very little left in the bakery then, so when we want bread we have to take another trip into town around 4 or 5. But it's always worth it! :)
On the way home we saw the moon and it was so beautiful we had to take a picture. Our evening walks here are so gorgeous, it's usually cooled down and a breeze has moved in and the market is closed, and everyone just gathers in front of their houses on rocking chairs and talks while their kids play in the street. I think it might be my favorite time of day here.
Had to get a picture of the luscious doughnut! :) That is definitely heaven in a little baggie!
I can't seem to get over how skinny the animals are here. This horse in the picture doesn't look nearly as skin-and-bones and he was in real life. We're able to see rib cages on pretty much every animal and all of the horses have huge hip bones (or whatever they are) that stick out. When I stand behind a horse, I'm used to seeing their stomach bulge out on both sides, but there's none of that here. And it's fun to see a lot of the animals just roaming the streets. We've seen cows just sit down in front of people's houses to rest for a while.
One of my nieces asked if Flat Stanley could come visit us in Nicaragua. We don't have an address or a printer or scissors, so she emailed me a picture of Flat Stanley and I did my best to re-create him :) We took a few pictures with him around town and I just thought I would include some of them in the post since they might be of interest to others as well...
A market street...
Horse and buggy rides that are always available for tourists at the central park...
The cathedral in the center of town...
And I included this picture because of the gorgeous sunset in the background
We decided that to celebrate our 11 month anniversary we would try some traditional Nicaraguan food. We found a little place in the central park serving Vigoron - a Nicaraguan fast food dish that actually originated in Granada and has since spread throughout Central America. It is a mound of boiled yucca mixed with pieces of fried pig skin with shredded cabbage on top - served on a plantain leaf. Yummy :) Joe didn't finish all of his...
We were taking a picture of Flat Stanley by the food when the waitress came back to give us a bowl of onions soaked in vinegar and spices that apparently are eaten with the food. From the way she looked at us, I don't think she knows who Flat Stanley is. :)
The whole time we were eating we saw a young boy sitting at the table next to us just watching us eat. When a couple at another table got up and left, we realized that the boy was the busser, but before he took the dishes back into the cafe, he finished eating all the food that was left on the plates. Crazy. Joe's donation to the cause was a couple of pig rinds he just couldn't stomach :)
Joe went to the market the other day by himself to get some fresh fruit and came back with a huge bag full of bananas and a huge bag full of mangos. He said he finally found a place that sells full size bananas and had to stock up on them! (Most bananas here are a bit smaller than we're used to). So we peeled some of them and stuck them in the freezer - a great, healthy, cold treat that I discovered on my mission - and have been eating all-you-can-eat frozen bananas since then :)
As for the mangos - he found a booth that was selling unripe mangos for 1 corboba apiece instead of 2! So he stocked up on those too! I should send Joe shopping more often.
We tried our first papaya this week! And might not try it again :) We expected it to be sweet - it just sounds like a juicy, delicious, tropical fruit to me - but it really tastes like cooked carrots and has the same consistency too.
We did find out though, that the seeds are really good for killing parasites and bad bacteria. So I guess now we have that knowledge just in case... :)
On Friday morning we decided to go for a walk before it got too hot outside, so we headed south to a port where boats leave to tour the Granada islands. There are 365 islands that were formed when the nearby volcano, Mombacho, errupted thousands of years ago. Some are tiny with not much on them, but a lot of them are privately owned - some apparently with big villas on them where the rich folks of Granada and Managua live.
The port is about 2.5 miles away, so we decided to walk down to see what was there. Most of it was dirt road and seemed to be a major trail for people biking up to Granada. I never cease to be amazed at the people on bikes around here. It seems to be the custom for boyfriends and husbands to bike their girlfriends and wives around on their bikes, with the women riding sideways on the crossbar. And a lot of times the women are holding babies or have young children on the bar in front of them. Sometimes the dad is biking with children in front of him and behind him. I think 5 people on one bike is the most that we've seen so far. And we've seen kids sitting on the crossbar that can't be older than 18 months. Definitely a skill to learn at a very early age!
You can see some of the trash problems that they have here...
We made it to the port! And it was beautiful! It was about 7:30 a.m. so we were one of the very few people there and it was so quiet and peaceful.
A restaurant on the shore
It's hard to see in the pictures, but we could see some of the islands that weren't too far off-shore.
All we could see were boat docks, so we asked some of the workers who were arriving if there was a public beach anywhere near. So one guy walked us down a path about .5 miles further to a little public beach area. Too bad we didn't have our swim suits with us!
This is a tree that Joe liked on our walk back.
This guy and his son came along pushing a cart and collecting plastic bottles from the trash along the road. If you look closely you might be able to see his daughter asleep in the front of the cart.
When we got back from our walk I headed into the market to pick up some things and on the way back a pick up truck with a big blaring microphone was announcing some advertisement as it drove down the street. I ignored it because that happens quite a bit. But then I noticed that walking behind the truck were about 20 teenage boys wearing matching shirts and carrying donation jars and cans. They were talking to the people along the street trying to get donations as they walked. I just figured they were a volunteer group from another country or something, until one of the guys called out to me and I recognized him as being the Sunday School teacher from church. He explained that they were trying to get donations for a girl that needed an eye operation or something. While he was talking to me I noticed that his shirt said SUD in big letters and underneath it said Los Santos De Los Ultimos Dias. All of those guys were members that were collecting donations! So cool! We saw them about 5 hours later in the central park still collecting donations. Wow.
This morning I set out to the market determined to buy plantains and figure out what to do with them. When I tried to buy some, the lady on second thought asked if I was wanting ones to eat. I said yes. So then she tried to get me to buy bananas instead - telling me that they were better for eating. I tried to explain in my very limited Spanish that I understood what she was telling me, but wanted to buy the plantains and that I knew I had to cook them with oil before they were good for eating. She eventually let me buy the plantains. I'm guessing she's had some experience with foreigners before... :)
So tonight I tried making tostones! Wow - that was some HOT work. I should've known better than to try to cook anything that would require me to stand by a source of heat for longer than 30 seconds at a time. By the end of the experience I was seriously dripping with sweat.
And it takes a lot of oil. There's probably a teaspoon of oil in each of those. They tasted good, I'll give 'em that, but I think from now on I'll stick to popcorn :)
One last cool story from the market this morning. I wanted to buy something new, something that I hadn't tried before. I knew for sure I wanted to try plantains, but I also wanted to find a new kind of fruit or vegetable - something that I'd never seen before. So I found a basket of these and stopped to look.
A teenage boy on his bike was also stopped at that booth to buy some vegetables and when he saw me looking at these things he told me to get one because they're good. I looked at him a little skeptically and asked how much they were. The lady said they were 5 cordobas apiece. I still wasn't convinced because it didn't look too appetizing, but I think the boy took my hesitation to mean that I didn't understand, because he took out a 5 cordoba piece and showed it to me and kept explaining that one of those could buy one of these vegetables. I told him I understood that much, so he then picked up this veggie and handed it to me and told me I should try it. I agreed and gave the lady 5 cordobas. When I paid her she handed the 5 cordoba piece back to the boy and I realized that he had bought it for me when he handed me the vegetable to try! I thought that was so nice of him! Like I said before, I love these people!
I still have no idea what this thing really is - so if you have a clue or know how to cook/eat it, please let me know :)
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