conquering volcanos... and the real reason for being there

this is the last part of my volunteer site visit. i also went mango hunting and witnessed a cock fight.

last monday during my volunteer visit we went to plan with vicente, one of zac's counterparts.  he lived slightly inland up a dirt road where he has a small farm.  according to zac, he is a farmer by morning and experienced teacher by afternoon.  it was evident that vicente had his ducks in a row because we showed up and he already had a good idea of what we were going to talk about. prototypes and providers and he wanted to teach it a certain way. we offered a few suggestions and then finalized the plan.  from what i have seen, co-planning is not always this easy and can be one of the more frustrating aspects of the job at times.  i was glad to see that there are times when things do work out and there is a good relationship between PCV and local counterparts.  we went to class later in the day and everything went pretty much as planned.

vicente showed us around his farm after we finished planning.  he had all kinds of different plants growing.  plantains, avocado, passion fruit, coconuts, etc. we cut down some coconuts and had a taller de coco (coconut workshop) where he deftly demostrated how to use the machete to cut open just the top of the coconut in order to drink the water inside and then to use one of the pieces cut off as a spoon to scoop out the meat.  it was awesome.  we threw around some ideas of things he could do with all of his products, specifically making coconut oil.  he was very interested and we decided to investigate the process later in the day. unfortunately, i didn't bring my camera to take pictures of the taller. next time.

our guide was super excited to
show us this dead snake

this massive tree along the path.
it apparently used to be 30m tall
but was buried after the eruption
in the 40s. it still was pretty tall.

tuesday, class was canceled due to the counterpart (not vicente), so we decided to hike the taller of the two volcanos on the island.  originally we had planned on just hiking up to a lookout at 1,000m, but we ran into a group led by a guide that zac knew, so we tagged along.  the volcano is 1,610m tall and it took us about 2 hours to hike up to the look out through the dense forest at the base of the volcano.  i hadn't exercised in several days because i had the gripe (cold) the week before, so it was fun jumping back into physical activity.

the start of the real hike

from the lookout it took us another two hours to reach the summit.  this part of the trail was less of a trail and more just forging our way up the steep face of the volcano.  a lot of the way was with loose volcanic rocks and a few times climbing up larger rocks.  it was definitely a good challenge.  my quad started cramping up about half way up this part, but i was able to stick it out after a little bit of stretching.  our guide, ronmel, said it was probably better that it was cloudy as we climbed because when it isn't, a lot of people freak out from looking down to the base of the volcano.  considering how steep the rock face was, i can definitely understand how that could happen.

butterfly along the path

at the mirador

the start of things to come

it seems that every time i climb a mountain it is cloudy when i reach the summit, and this was no exception.  we were told that the crater was just over the ledge, but all we could really see was clouds. the summit had a strong smell of sulfur and rocks were very warm to the touch as we scrambled around in the windy conditions. after a few minutes we climbed back down to have a quick snack and then descended.  it took us about another 4 hours to get all the way down.  during that time we were rained on quite a bit, but luckily after the super steep and difficult part of the descent. to celebrate our accomplishment, we ate delicious pizza in town that evening and treated our guide to a meal.  it was some of the best pizza i have ever eaten. or maybe i just was super hungry and pizza is a good comfort food for me.

near the summit

apparently just over this ledge we would find the crater.

the whole group

on the way down 

this may be a bit dramatic, but it was steep

the clouds opened up a bit and we could see down to the lake!

looking back up into the mist

 on the way to the island we took a ferry, but on the way back we took a lancha because the next ferry left too late for us to get back to our training towns.  the boat looked about 25% as safe as the ferry, yet still seemed to be floating, so we hopped on board and gladly paid half the price to return. it was funny because everyone was just sitting on the deck of the boat for an hour.  it really felt like a scene from a movie.

just chilling for an hour. nbd.

this guy in blue was high as a kite, and i was waiting for him to fall off.  he didn't though.

the boat we took did not look like this at all. this was a cruise liner in comparison. i just took it for the name. 

the captain still took his job very seriously. don't worry mom.

cultural experience: cock fights

this is part two of my site visit. you can read the first part about getting there and hunting for mangos here.


zac's friend, alvaro came over and mentioned there was a cock fight in the evening the first day i was on the island. yes, cock fight. a cultural tradition here in nicaragua, i was excited to experience this event.  as soon as alvaro left, i said, "so we're going right?"  he said we could, and then we went mango hunting (see last post). 


right about when we were going to leave, the power went out (of course), so we hung around for a while waiting for that to come back.  in the meantime, we chatted with luisa, one of zac's english students.  eventually the power came back, and we set off.  

entering the bar

the bar was located down a dark street that i never would have considered exploring on my own or as a tourist.  the only reassurance i had was that zac and alvaro had been to this place several times.  it definitely was a local spot.  we entered the dark bar and saw the ring illuminated and surrounded by men intently watching the process... and drinking (of course). 

making sure the razor is attached just right

turns out cock fighting is serious business. there is a process of attaching a razor blade to each rooster's left foot so the blows are more intense.  the razors have to be the same length otherwise it wouldn't be fair, so a lot of time is spent on this part.  once they are razored, another guy uses a separate rooster to get them riled up and pissed off. that way once they start to fight they are ready to go instead of looking for bugs on the ground. finally, they are set on each other.  this ring used a kids clock to tell the time, and each fight can last up to 15 minutes.  occasionally a timeout is called and the fighters pull their roosters back and try to fix them up.  they blow air into their mouths to give them more oxygen and then set them back on each other.  eventually one of them cops out and bites the dust.  i was amazed at the amount of money that was dropped on a single fight.  one guy lost C$2,000 apparently.  

getting the roosters riled up

watching the fight. i left out the end. 

overall, the fight was certainly a cultural experience, but not something that i plan on frequenting on a regular basis.  i saw it and have checked it off my list of cultural things to see. on to the next one right?

mango hunting

last week the peace corps gave us a folder with the name of a volunteer currently working in the country and sent us off to go visit them and see what real volunteer life is like.  the anticipation was killing me as we went through each volunteer and my name was not called.  the sites in the north were called. the far away sites were called. nothing. finally, "aaron white is going to... ometepe!" i was super excited to hear i was going to the island in the middle of lake nicaragua with two volcanos and a big tourist destination for the country. pc explained the purpose of the visit, discussed our responsibilities, budget, and what we needed to do to get there.  then we went off and all discussed where our sites were after the meeting. we all were very excited to get out of our training towns for a little bit and take a break from the nonstop pace of training.

ometepe from the ferry

waiting for the ferry

sunday morning, i headed out around 7 and met up with the other trainee heading to the island with me and caught the next bus headed towards rivas, the main city in the region. from there we negotiated with a cab driver who wanted to charge us C$70 to drive us to the dock in san jorge. after some arguing, we settled on C$40 for the two of us- a much more reasonable price.

the obligatory photo

the only way to get to the island is by ferry, and when we got to san jorge the next ferry didn't leave for another 1.5 hours. kacie and i decided to get some coffee and relax at a little place near the dock and then hit up the beach for the obligatory photo of the volcano in the background.

after arriving on the island, zac, the volunteer i was visiting, and i promptly spent some time relaxing in some hammocks available at the hostel he lives at while his host family prepared baho (sounds like "bow" in english)- a traditional nicaraguan dish. the way it was described to me is they start with a layer of banana leaves, then layer different things like plantain, yucca, vegetables, more starchy things, and meat. after everything has been properly layered, they wrap it in a plastic bag and then place it in a big pot to boil for several hours.  the result tasted kind of like pot roast to me, it was pretty good. complemented, of course with some rice and cabbage salad.

baho- nicaraguan pot roast basically

gustavo was super proud of those mangos

later we went in search of delicious, ripe mangos. this involved asking several people where to go and where the best place might be to find mangos.  they all told us to go find this one woman, doña francisca, in the poorer section of town because she had a large mango tree. unfortunately, when we arrived, they had already harvested all of the ripe mangos. it was amazing how friendly they were though. they let us in and said we could go look at the mango tree if we wanted. definitely a much different experience than in the states.  most people would probably say, "what the hell are you doing here?" if you came up to them and asked if they had any mangos. it's a different world here.

finally found the mangos

then we met gustavo. gustavo caleras to be exact. he was one of the men we stopped to ask directions from while searching for doña francisca's home. he asked us if we had any luck, and when he found out we hadn't, he offered to take us to his house because he had some mangos there. i thought that meant he had a mango tree since they are fairly common. (my house has one right outside and sometimes they fall on the roof and sound like we're under attack) turns out, gustavo didn't have a mango tree, but he did have three mangos at his house that he glady gave us.  he pulled out some chairs and we sat on his front step for about half an hour listening to his life story basically. how many kids he had, where he grew up, etc.  at one point in his life, he was making C$12/day with 10 kids.  he said that there were many times when they were hungry, and i can imagine.  12 cords is about $.50 in today's dollar.  i can only hope that the cost of things were slightly less back then because i can't imagine trying to live on 72 cords a week for one person. i really enjoyed meeting him and sitting for a while. the best part was he just gave us the mangos. he said some people might charge us for them, but he didn't really care. he'd give us the tree if he could.

i also went to a cock fight, planned and observed a class, cut coconuts and ate them, climbed a volcano, and went to a training session with local businessmen about social responsiblity and identifying relevant stakeholders. i'm going to break it up because this is already kind of long.

cowboy culture

* update * i've tried several times to upload the videos, but they don't seem to be working. :(

cowboys and black jesus
in case you thought that cowboy culture is just a southern thing in the US, let me tell you right now, you are wrong.  my history of us-latin american relations professor actually wrote a whole book about cowboy culture and was big on the latin american part of it all.  if you think about it, cattle don't really care about imaginary lines that we draw on pieces of paper to mark "borders" between two countries.  so it stands to reason that there are cowboys elsewhere.  i got to experience this first-hand in nicaragua for the past two weekends.

there are several different versions of the legend, but the general consensus is that jesus with black skin showed up to one woman or several near volcán masaya about 300 years ago during the time of spanish colonialism. the town now celebrates during the fiestas patronales with a ten day long festival that starts with the hipica and then ends with a crucifix with black jesus being carried through the streets of the city. you can find the different versions of the legend here.

cowboys and dancing horses

chilling at the hipica

yes, dancing horses. we celebrated the hipica here in masatepe on may 27.  according to the locals, we have the best hipica in the country and the crowds proved it.  the event was packed with people from all over the country.   i could compare it to a fair of sorts.  there were even rides for kids (including bumper cars!).  the main attraction are the horses that come in and ride through town; however, these aren't just any horses. these can dance!

the dancing horses trotted through the streets of masatepe while crowds of people milled about drinking toña (the local beer) and flor de caña (the national rum). several of the current PCTs (peace corps trainees) all met up to enjoy the festivities.

henry's family had a party at their house with several families.  they invited us along, and we gladly accepted (obviously). several volunteers danced, and we all enjoyed some beverages while chatting with each other and the other party guests (depending on our level of spanish).  later, we all went out to see the horses again and the massive crowds of people in the streets of the city.  several people went to a big party at the local casa de cultura. by that point i had spent most of the money i was willing to part with, so i headed home.

cowboys and bulls

we had no idea what "exciting" was going to mean

saturday, june 2, the festivities returned to masatepe for the annual tope de toros. the way people described the event to us, we were envisioning a running of the bulls or something like that through the streets of masatepe.  it was a very hyped event by most every one we met.

wait, the bull is coming up the stairs!?!?!?

we all heard different times about when it was supposed to start, so we averaged that and shot for 2pm to meet up just to make sure we were there in time to see it.  we then proceeded to stand around and wait for about an hour and a half before they actually started.  the actual event was quite different than what any of us expected.  the bull was tied to a cowboy on horseback and then several men were pulling it along.  then they stopped in the middle of the square and taunted the bull. turns out the stairs of the church we were standing on was a place they always tried to get the bull to run up, which caught all of us by surprise.  we later understood what one of the host siblings meant by "more exciting."  i was ready to jump off of the steps while at the same time still take pictures of what was happening.  it was quite the adventure for sure.

i don't think his day ended well.

later there were fireworks in the main square, and kids ran around as mock "bulls" with fireworks shooting out of them.

fireworks in the main square

black jesus
sunday morning marked trinity sunday and the celebration of black jesus.  i went to mass to view the festivities and the place was packed.  i got there at 915 with my host sister and the church was already full. the service didn't even get under way until about 1015. crazy stuff.  the bishop was even there! it was like a huge fan fest when he walked in. people started cheering and clapping. someone was shouting "viva el obispo! viva el papa! viva jesus christo!" etc. it was super hot and crowded though, so i ducked out before the end of the service.

packed already

the key part of the service is when they carry the crucifix throughout the town... all day.  it is basically a vigil and people sign up to carry the thing through out the day as they go up and down the streets of the town. he wasn't moving very fast though. i walked home around 6 and then saw him again about half a block down at 8. it was quite the operation. a guy was on a bike taxi with a generator strapped to it riding behind the crucifix so the lights could be on so everyone could see.  according to my family they go until around midnight. 12 hours is pretty intense if you ask me.

the start of the procession around town

those are the happenings
so that's the main stuff that's been happening around here lately. it's a cultural experience every day. the one thing i can count on every day is rice and beans. :)