First Week on the Farm
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2009
1
8
34
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Finca Las Mercedes
Ocotal, Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
This is Heather. It's been almost a week now of living and working on the farm and we're are doing really well. It's rustic but not bad at all. We have our own room and bathroom, running water, electricity, a good kitchen with a refigerator, toaster oven and a gas stove top with 2 burners. Pots, pans, plates, cups, silverware - everything we need. There are small lizards around, but we hardly notice them and so far, no weird, scary bugs.
Our days already have a routine it seems. Get up by 7:00, eat breakfast (usually 2 eggs and half a roll) and then work outdoors for 4 or 5 hours by which time it's too hot to be out in the sun. We break for lunch and study Spanish using the Spanish-English dictionary. We look up words we want to use or have heard that we didn't understand. We write them down in a notebook and also piece together questions and phrases we want to use or know we'll need. We try to speak Spanish to each other as much as we can, but we really learn the most when we speak with the people on the farm. (More on that in another entry.)
We made it to the supermarket on Saturday and stocked up on some basics. We can't get too much because although we take a bus into town, it's about a 1.5 mile walk to and from the bus stop at the farm; and about a mile in town. But we can afford to go every week (about $1.50 round trip total -- not each.) However, we did have an embarassing moment at the store when we went to check-out. We splurged and picked up a 6-pack of bottled beer and a bottle of rum. Even though those items were only $4.50 (US) and $5.00 (US) they pushed us WAY over the amount of money we had locally (cordobas.) So in our very broken Spanish had to tell them to put it back/take it off our total. There was only 1 register and she needed a manager which caused the line to back up to about 15 people all who had 1 or 2 items each (the stores aren't very big.) From now on, we'll keep track of how much we're spending as we go.
We get stared at everywhere we go. The adults give us fleeting yet repeated glances. The children will just blatantly stare and poke their friends while looking at us. No gringos visit this part of the country. Charles is about 6 inches taller than the average guy here, so they might think he's famous - ha.
One funny/fun thing we discovered -- if you buy cokes in a glass bottle (common) they will pour the coke into a baggie, tie the baggie and then hand that to you. Not sure how we're supposed to drink it from the baggy, but we poked holes in them and poured them into our water bottles. We have a picture of Charles with his bag of coke (ha.)
That's it for now. We'll update again as soon as we can!
Heather and Charles
