Day to day living

(Note:  I've just got a modem, but it is still a bit frustrating as it's about the speed of the old phone modems and I've been dropped twice during this post.  Hopefully I'll be in a bit better contact from now on.)

Some of this I’ve touched on before, but I’ll write some about my day to day living.   As mentioned before, I’m living in a relatively prosperous household.  (If you look at the map of Sabana Grande that I posted, I’m at house # 16)  In addition to those mentioned, some other marks of prosperity are:  a motorcycle (parked in the main living room), the satellite TV with 37 channels and a bio-digester that supplies gas to a cook stove (although not enough to avoid burning wood).  There appear to be about 8 permanent residents (some from 3 generations) and 2 gringos at present.  The two smallest (a girl about 2 and a boy about 5) are quire shy, but are starting to warm up, especially the boy.  He is particularly fascinated by sailboats on Lake Superior (I brought several post cards with pictures from WI, IA, IL and MN, plus pictures from some of our family trips).  

View of my room standing just outside the door.

 

Other corner of the room showing bed with malaria netting, although I've not seen any mosquitoes in the current dry season.

My room is about 9x9 with plastered walls, a concrete floor, no windows, a corrugated galvanized roof and a single CFL bulb.  There is about 1 ft of opening above the walls directly to rooms on both sides as well as to the outside, so light, sounds, smells all travel quite easily.  In general, the is quite active until 10 or 10:30, then settles down household (humans at least).  As mentioned, the roosters start about 3:30 or 4, then the “traffic” (most all on foot or horse) at about 5 or 5:30.  There are also intermittent dog fights whenever some brazen canine tries to enter a space that is already claimed.  Yesterday I had a surprise when I left for a few minutes without closing my door.  I returned and was reading with I was startled by a chicken that clucked and hopped down from my bed (the netting was tied up).  Later, when getting ready for bed, I found a fresh egg on the bed!  I'll try to keep my door closed from now on, but most common areas (kitchen, living room) do not have closed doors most of the time, so chickens, dogs, cats, ducks, etc., wander in from time to time.

View of ceiling/roof with my light.  The light is free-hanging and note the staples, bare wire and the wire disappearing into the plaster to the right of the door.  You can also see the open space between the roof and walls.

Our house is on the grid, but the wiring is very “interesting.”  It is basically a knob and tube style with separate, uninsulated wires for hot and common.  These are passes through simple electrical staples in the rafters.  The wires then disappear under the plaster and reappear at switches and outlets.  The outlets have 3 prongs, but I don’t find any ground wires.  The house is organized more or less as a “C” around a courtyard with outdoor “hallways,” somewhat akin to schools in CA.  The main entrance and main room are at one end facing onto the street and the kitchen is at the other end of the “C.”  In the central courtyard is the communal wash sink for dishes, shaving, hand-washing, laundry, etc.   

View of the front from the main street.  Note the satellite dish and the water tower at the right.  This part has the main living space with the TV and stereo.

The blue section is behind and perpendicular to the main part and has several rooms.  Mine is to the right mostly hidden behind the plants.  The white to the left is not attached and contains the kitchen and a bedroom.

Another view showing the kitchen to the left and the sink for laundry, dish washing and kid bathing.  Note the PVC pipe and ball valve for the running water.

Also there is a shower, with water from an elevated tank fed by an electric pump.  The water is unheated and the shower enclosure is open-topped with a tattered curtain for the door.  The door opens onto the main street and breezes can easily blow the curtain completely open.  (I also discovered that when the spigot at the sink is turned on, there is absolutely no flow to shower, but at least there’s no danger of being scalded.)  Luckily I don’t have my glasses on when showering, so since I can’t see anyone else, I’m sure they can’t see me!  The shower arrangement also highlights a couple of advantages of being on the older side:  first, if someone did happen to go by when the curtain blew open, s/he would likely try to avoid having to look anyway and second, I think you reach an age at which vanity simply disappears.   

View of shower taken from near the street.  The kitchen door is to the right.  The dark things to the lower left are horse manure--this is where the horse is parked.

Close-up of shower, again with PVC pipe and a ball valve for control.

Toilet facilities are on the far side of the courtyard with 3 complete outhouses (all one-seaters).  They are standard metal latrines from various development projects of the last 10 or 15 years.  (Daughter Sarah has expressed an interest in having a more complete review of latrine facilities, so a later entry will be dedicated to that topic.  Sarah, of course, is a conesiour of latrines.)  Otherwise the courtyard is filled with trees, many of them bearing fruit, but there is generally no ground cover.  However, there are some flower beds and rose bushes, though not much is in bloom right now.

View from approximately my door across the yard.  Kitchen is to the right, the sink about the middle, the green metal latrine just below the jeans on the line and the shower is just to the left off the picture.

My breakfast and dinner are generally served in the main room or sala and I often eat with Liz, a natural builder from Maine who is here to teach a course next week and is constructing a natural building for the use of Grupo Fenix.  It is also possible to eat with food in your lap, either in the kitchen or outside.  We never eat with the family as a group and, in fact, the family never eats as a group.  It is something like a short-order restaurant with folks eating on their own schedules.  It is interesting that if Liz and I are served together, I am given my food first, which feels very odd to me.  The meals always have rice and beans.  In addition, one or more selected from cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, eggs, meat (very little and not very frequently), bananas, pineapples, and various fruits and vegetables that are not familiar to me.  For the noon meal, I always eat in the Casita Solar, which is a new venture by the solar center that recently opened.  It is to eventually open to the public and will help support the solar center’s programs.  As of now, it is purely for volunteers and other pre-scheduled events.  We are also supplied refreshments mid-morning and mid-afternoon, which consists of juice, tea or coffee (locally grown and roasted in the solar cookers) and crackers or a variety of local pastries, although “pastry” does not imply sweet in Nicaragua.

Hopefully this gives a somewhat accurate picture of my accommodations here.  I’ll try to include more about general community life and other aspects as I learn more about this place.  So far however, I’m feeling quite comfortable, but my Spanish causes occasional unprovoked hilarity by the locals.  (And to think that my kids keep telling me that I’m not funny!).   As an example, after we had salvaged a piece of broken glass by using silicone to put it back together.  My comment was “Lo salvamos,” which I took to mean we saved it or we rescued it…which it sort of does.  However, apparently the implication here his that we saved it in sense of the glass being born again and guaranteed an entrance into heaven, which the women I was with found unbelievably funny.