Thursday, May 17, 2012

Today was an excellent day. I woke up around 5:30am after not sleeping well due to the hard rain the night before. I walked to meet Luis at his house, so that I could use the internet. We walked to “la punta” which means “the point”. It was the same basic direction as “el pino” but it wasn’t as high. It had a clear view of the nearby community of Achuapa and their cellphone tower. It was a great view. I needed to send an email to Alvaro about when I would be returning on Saturday to coordinate how I would not only get back to the office but also into the office. Then, we walked back to Largartillo. It was about 6:30 in the morning. When I got back, Francisca was making tortillas. It was a bit late for her, but she told me she had a headache from the heat and humidity. Therefore, I gathered the wood for the day. It took three armloads to get enough. It was wet and heavy. I do not envy her for having to do that every single day. For breakfast I had beans, cheese, avocado, and a tortilla.

I went to class at 9am as usual in the cabana. When I arrived, Alcedes asked me if I wanted to go on a walk almost immediately. I agreed. We left the village and walked through pasture and grazing land towards the forest. In the forest, Alcedes and his brother had planted coffee. He told me that Lagartillo is too hot for coffee so it has to be planted in the forest where it is a little cooler. The places in Nicaragua that can grow good coffee, like Matagalpa, are at higher altitudes where it is naturally cooler. Alcedes said that his coffee was an experiment to see if it was good. His plots were only six years old (this is how long it takes the plants to grow). This is also why I apparently like the coffee here. It is fresh and organic. He also told me that he has plans to cut down the old, dying trees around the coffee and plant some fruit trees for more production. Currently, he has three types of banana trees, avocado, and bamboo. He wants to add passion fruit, mango, and more avocados. He also plans to build a house closer to forest since it’s kind of a hike to get there from the village. During the summer, he needs to irrigate the coffee, but he is lucky because his coffee is at a lower elevation so no pump is needed. On the walk back, I saw a lot of bamboo and wild parrots. I also saw a huge humming bird that was almost the size of a real bird.

Then I went home for lunch. I had rice, fried potatoes, spicy fish (from a can), fried bananas, and a juice made of passion fruit. It was really good but really heavy. Then, I wrote a short essay about women in the US for my afternoon homework. At 2pm I went to the library so that I could pay for my classes for the week. The school was very unclear about how payment worked and I had to ask Nicolia about it. If I wanted to be dishonest, I could have easily have left without paying. It needs to be run better/made clearer. The cost of the school pays for fresh fruits and vegetables for the student, it gives a stipend to the host family, gives money to the organization of Hijos del Maiz, as well as gives 20% to the community for projects like solar panels for electricity, clean drinking water, community gardens, an ambulance, etc.

For my class in the afternoon, Alcedes read to me and I wrote again. He read to me from the book “The Little Prince”. Then we talked about different religions around the world. It rained a lot again and never stopped. For dinner, I had beans, rice, cheese, and a tortilla. Then, I made paper boats with one of Francisca’s granddaughters, so we could race them in the river forming in the street. It was a lot of fun. Alcedes let me borrow his book, so I am going to read a bit of that too.

The view from "La punta"

Coffee planted in the forest