I’ve usually always been a sort of ‘Yes Man’ as in I am most always down to try something and do anything. But here in Nica, I’ve raised that to new levels. I may say Yes to one thing only to find myself doing things far and above what was originally planned. This makes for more wonderful and unique experiences that sometimes I have trouble believing.
My host family invited me to a friend of the family’s wedding one Friday night. It was relatively similar to a wedding in The States just with a lot more Latin music. The event was held in a local restaurant/disco place up the street from my house and we arrived as the ceremony was beginning. About 10 minutes later a couple roughly 20 years old were married and food was brought out for the guests. I was soon eating my family’s pig who was sold to the wedding family the night before and had been slow roasting for the past 15 hours or so. I’m also not a vegetarian any more.
The family I’m now living with absolutely loves to embarrass me and throw me under the bus as often as possible so they weren’t hesitant to invite me to dance with the bride in the middle of dance floor. Normally I would have no problem with this, but in Nicaragua it’s a little different. Spanish people know how to dance and they dance with such suave and flow moving all parts of their bodies at just the right time. I start dancing the best I can as the rest of the family (and possibly the whole room) laughs because I can’t dance the merengue or tango or salsa whatsoever. I have since found out that some of my counter-parts in the schools offer dance classes during the week, so I will be returning home a pro. If anything will motivate you to learn, it’s looking foolish in front of 200 people.
The next morning, I got up around 5am to head out to my host family’s cousin’s farm to milk cows, ride horses, and even brand some lucky cows getting sent to death row the following day. After herding and tying up the cows for milking, it was my turn to give it a go. You grip the udders as a fist with your thumb on the inside and squeeze and push/pull the milk out. I could barely do it, but the thing that was the most surprising was that the milk came out warm. Obviously it would be warm, I don’t know what I was thinking, I just always imagine my milk cold in a gallon jug and never from the source.
We filled up a few gallons of milk from all the cows and later that day delivered some to the local police station and sold a gallon here and there. Some of hippie people are all about seeing their food go from the plant to the plate, but I am not one of those people. Later that day when I had my café con leche (Coffee and milk), and I could smell that milk odor I almost vomited imaging that this was just inside of those beasts a few hours prior.
Back at the farm, after a quick branding of 4 cows, my host cousin and I mounted two horses bareback with a hooped string going through the mouth for steering and herded the dozen or so cows about a mile or so to a different farm for grazing. The horses here are very skinny and I remember the bony spine of my horse sharp against my butt crack.
There is a natural springs turned tourist spot about an hour from my home on the island. Noelle (sitemate) and I were invited to a party held there by all the expats living on the island. This party would, as usual, turn into something completely unexpected. We arrived early on a Saturday, had some lunch, went swimming, and played around until at about 2 the party started. Some big speakers and DJ equipment appeared as well as lots of building supplies… Unbeknownst to us, this party would be a pirate themed party, rafts would be built, costumes would be donned, and rum would be a priority. The party and music ran from about 3 in the afternoon to 1 in the morning with roughly 100 people in attendance. We both got to meet lots of people, especially several of the hostal/hotel/restaurant owners around the island from places like Germany, Australia, England, Israel, Canada, etc…
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