Castrations, Volcanoes, and Mountain Paradises: A Nica Week

Sorry for the lack of updates folks, but the past week and half has been insanely busy with a whole bunch of training fun. Last weekend we left Los Rincones for a couple of days to check out Rancho Ebenezer, a gorgeous self-sufficient farm and agricultural training center outside the small town of Niquinohomo. Over two days we learned everything you could ever want to know about minor farm animals, including chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, sheep, and of course, pigs. From feeding rabbits, milking goats, creating worm boxes, vaccinating chickens, and realizing how absolutely terrible ducks smell, we truly got our hands dirty as we learned the ins and outs of small-scale animal production. But I have to say the most memorable animal experience I had was with the chanchos, or pigs. Over the course of two days, I helped castrate piglets, inject vaccinations into juvenile and adult pigs, and kicked away over-curious porkers as I cleaned what must've been a metric shit-ton of pig poo from their pens. I've heard that pigs are astonishingly intelligent- hopefully they're not smart enough to remember my face, or else a whole generation of vaccinated and testicle-less pigs will come of age in Rancho Ebenezer with a blind hatred for gringos.

On Sunday of last weekend, our whole group of 44 aggies and small business trainees went to check out the crater of Masaya Volcano. After a quick session at the visitor's center, we piled into trucks and began the climb to the peak, passing boulder-strewn fields and lava-rippled rock formations. Once at the summit, the gaping crater stretched before us, as we peered deep into the bowels of the earth, coughing and spitting from the plumes of sulfuric gas that rose up from the depths. I began to understand why the Spanish conquistadores of the 1500s thought they had found the entrance to Hell. It wasn't a far stretch to imagine a demon flying out of the steaming crater and wreaking terror on the countryside. For this reason, the Spaniards built the Bobadilla Cross, named for the priest that risked life and limb to examine the volcano's crater, on top of the crater's edge. After a quick hike to the cross, we climbed the ridge to the volcano's other large caldera, which has long been dormant and whose sheer edges now teem with lush vegetation. From this vantage point high above the surrounding forests, I was able to see clear across the country I'll call home for the next two years. To the south, massive Mombacho Volcano stood guard over the city of Granada, which was dwarfed by the ocean-like Lake Nicaragua behind it. To the west, laid Nicaragua's central plateau, where Masatepe and our host families had a view to the volcanic peak we now stood on. Off to the east stretched the flat cattle lands of the Chontales and Boaco departments. And to the north sat steamy Managua, sprawled along the shore of its eponymous lake, behind which rose the northern highlands of Matagalpa, Esteli and beyond. As an unabashed geography nerd, I really enjoyed this bird's-eye view over the terrain and topography of Nicaragua and I think it would be a great first day adventure for anyone that's coming to visit me (wink wink).

The next week our group of 21 aggies broke down into three smaller groups for Tech Week, a weeklong stay at a volunteer's site where we'd be getting even more hands-on experience. My group was lucky enough to be assigned to Micah's site way up in Jalapa, Nueva Segovia, just a spit away from the Honduran border. Because of the distance, my group had to split the trip up over two days and was put up in a hotel in Managua for the night. I never thought I'd be so happy to have a hot shower, use a flushing toilet, and watch English-language television. We even ordered Domino's pizza! It was almost perfect, except for the fact that the only thing on TV was the "Butterfly Effect" with Ashton Kutcher.

The next day, after hours of traveling higher and higher through the Nicaraguan highlands, we finally arrived in Jalapa. This part of the country was absolutely beautiful and completely unexpected. Once outside of Managua heading north, the mountains seem to stack higher and higher on top of each other, until every curve of the road brings a vista taken straight out of Jurassic Park. From Ocotal, the biggest city in Nueva Segovia, to Jalapa was 60 km of winding, brick-paved switchbacks that crossed rushing streams on narrow one-way bridges. Further and further we climbed into the rugged heart of the Central American isthmus, where Managua seemed as far away as Minneapolis. The banana trees and palm fronds of the lower altitudes soon disappeared, replaced by the pointy silhouettes of Ocote pines along the high ridgelines. I honestly did a double-take a few times, forgetting that I was in Central America and thinking I had somehow stumbled into the north woods of Maine.

Our week up north was a blur of learning, laughing, and seeing how volunteers actually lived in their sites and how they have helped the people in their communities. Over the course of three days we built an improved oven and stove made of adobe and brick, a drip irrigation system, a water pump, and one of the coolest things I've ever seen, a biodigestor. A biodigestor is quite simply a massive plastic bag, about the size of a pickup truck, that you fill with cow poop and put in a protected place in your backyard. Once the poo stew is a-cookin', methane gas is siphoned out of the bag through a series of pipes right to the kitchen stove, providing an extremely cheap, sustainable, and forest-friendly source of fuel. I was really impressed by the biodigestor concept, and I hope to build as many as I can in my community, especially if I'm in an area that has a surplus of cows and a dearth of firewood. We also talked to numerous local farmers about their techniques for diversifying their crops and how they cope with the floods, droughts, hurricanes, and pests that plague their corner of the country. On our last night, we were even invited to a real ranchero hoe-down in the hillside farmhouse next door. Between the cowboy hats, the local starfruit wine, and the eight to eighty-two year olds gettin' jiggy wit' it, it was a great farewell to the kind people of the Segovias.

After our time in Jalapa was over, we had two more days of training sessions in the rompin', stompin' cowboy town of Esteli. We also had our site fair there, where we learned about the various communities that are available to us and in which we will live and work for twenty-four months. While we were allowed to express our preferences for site assignment, I'm trying not to get my hopes up , to keep an open mind and make the best out of wherever I'm sent. I'll know by Tuesday of next week where I'll be, followed by a weeklong visit to meet my work counterpart and introduce myself to the community. With just four weeks left in training, the time has just flown by. In the blink of an eye I'll be swearing in as a full-fledged volunteer in Managua. Hope all is well with everyone at home, I'll be sure to keep you posted on my site assignment.

Dr. Doolittle Would Be Proud

I knew when I left for Nicaragua just about a month ago that I'd be getting into some weird situations over the next couple of years. Midnight tarantula battles, teeth-clenching bouts of diarrhea in the middle of long bus rides, awkward moments tripping over the language barrier, eyebrow-raising food, unique folks at every turn- these are things I am expecting during my time in Central America. However, I can safely say that not even in my wildest dreams could I have predicted the events that transpired last Sunday night.

It was sometime shortly after 8:30 PM. I was sitting in my room, my thoughts deep in the frigid Yukon goldfields of a Jack London story, enjoying the cool weather brought in by an afternoon thunderstorm. As I prepared to turn in for the night, I heard a deep bellow emanate from the cow pen, which is about 40 yards from the house. Thinking it was just the dogs harassing Fortuna, our orphaned calf, I ignored it and continued getting ready for bed. However, only minutes later I heard the excited shouts and pounding footsteps of my host family outside and I knew that something was definitely up. I ran outside in my sandals to see my host brothers tying an ox down with rope, a piece of wood jammed between its teeth to keep its mouth open, and my host father shining a flashlight deep into the beast's throat.

"What's happening?!" I asked my sister Eli, who was hurriedly tearing the leaves off of a plantain frond. "One of the oxen is choking on an avocado," she replied calmly, "It's having no trouble inhaling, but it can't exhale. So if we don't do something, it's gonna rupture its lungs and die". Staring at the unfolding drama before me, I quietly wondered to myself what the Spanish word for "meat balloon" was. Having finished pulling the leaves off the plantain frond, Eli handed the smooth, 4-foot long stalk to her brother Luis, who began ramming it down the writhing animal's throat like a toilet plunger, in an attempt to dislodge the potentially fatal fruit.

Despite this valiant attempt at animal rescue, the avocado wasn't going anywhere. So we had to resort to one last desperate measure. As I helped hold down the 1,200 pounds of wheezing hamburger, Eli ran into the house and came back with the biggest syringe I've ever seen in my life. She handed it to her older brother, Eddy, who ran the 5 inches of pointed steel right into the ox's rear quarter. Before I could ask him what he had just injected into the poor animal, the ox stood up uneasily, unexpectedly calm, and proceeded to empty the contents of its four stomachs onto the ground, forcefully ejecting the avocado in a spew of half-digested grass and bile, and finishing its performance with a satisfied grunt. The answer to my question was then clear to me; there is such a thing as bovine ipecac to induce vomiting. Despite the revolting scene I had just witnessed, I went to sleep with a smile on my face, knowing that I had helped avoid a potentially horrific situation and that in the humid tropical morning of Nicaragua, a proud yet stupid ox will live to see another day.

In other news, things are going really well with training. We've had numerous technical sessions at nearby farms, where we've learned about everything from how and when to plant different fruits and vegetables, organic composts, fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides, and the various types of leaf-cutter ants, white flies, bacterias, locusts, viruses, crickets, and moths that can wreak havoc on farm fields.

In one session we practiced different rural commercialization and food preservation activities that we can help farmers with at our volunteer sites. These included cheese-making, soy products, organic soap and shampoo, homemade peanut butter, jellies, jams, marmalades, and other products that can be made with available resources and sold for a little extra family income. Preserving milk as cheese and fruits in jams and jellies will also help families get through the lean times in between harvests. I'll admit that my scratch mozzarella needed a bit more salt, but I'll be damned if anyone criticizes the banana fritters I made.

In another session, we visited a farming cooperative whose main building was decidedly socialist in taste, as the local farmers introduced us to common crop pests beneath large murals of Che Guevara, Augusto Sandino, Daniel Ortega, Carlos Fonseca, and Fidel Castro. I don't know why, but it seems like murals of Fidel Castro follow me everywhere in this world; first my favorite bar in Russia, now a farmhouse in Nicaragua...maybe my path will lead to Cuba someday.

Out in the co-op's coffee and corn fields, we took leaf and soil samples, noting the various critters, both good and bad, that we found cohabiting with the crops. I couldn't help but notice how healthy the soil looked, a deep black earth that would make Nebraska farmers green with envy. But then I looked up from the dirt and over the tops of the corn stalks to the massive Masaya Volcano looming only a few kilometers away. I quickly remembered that this rich soil is due to geological processes that were occurring right beneath my feet. Miles below the farthest reaches of the tree roots and the underground labyrinths of the leaf-cutter ants, the tectonic Cocos Plate is grinding underneath the massive Caribbean Plate, driving liquid magma up towards the surface. The tufts of sulfuric steam that constantly rise high above the volcano's crater testify to the subterranean violence below. If there's a price to pay for such rich land, it must be the daily jitters one gets while living above a seismic hotspot.

With one month down and twenty-six to go, I feel like I'm sliding into life here slowly but surely. Of course, the protective bubble of training still goes on for another 6 weeks and I've yet to actually move into my site where I'll be for the duration of my stay. But still, I'm finding life here definitely to my liking. I hope everyone is doing well at home. I miss you all and I hope you find my posts entertaining, interesting, or at least a worthwhile 15-minute diversion from the work you should be doing. Keep in touch and keep me posted.

Green Acres is the Place to Be

If there's one thing that living in a big city like DC has shown me, it is the lengths that people will go to to avoid the inconvenience and discomfort of nature. Wind, water, heat, cold, and dirt become simply background noise to our daily lives, nuisances deftly avoided by the use of modern technology. We move effortlessly between our sturdy houses, to our heated cars and air-conditioned trains, to our spotless office buildings where recycled air keeps our days at a balmy 67 degrees. In a way, we have mastered Mother Nature, and made our lives as independent from her as possible.

That's not the case in a place like rural Nicaragua. Here, not only does wind, water, soil, and temperature influence life, in a way, it defines life. Nicaragua is marked by two seasons, the parched and dusty summer from October to April, and the drenching winter or wet season which has come full force this past month and will be here to stay until late September. For farmers in Nicaragua, their lives revolve around the planting, growing and harvesting of their crops depending on the season. Water, wind, dirt, heat, and cold are not just facts and figures for the TV weatherman to report, they herald the arrival of planting and harvest times, feasts and famine, and life and death.

To learn more about these age-old rhythms, our training group has started on some longer-term agricultural projects that we will be working on in the coming weeks. As I mentioned before, Ness, Jonathan, Mary, and myself, the four trainees in Los Rincones, have been tasked with forming a youth group to help us create a vegetable garden and tree nursery. The first task was to create a nutrient-rich fertilizer for use in both our garden and nursery. Rather than make a traditional organic compost, which can take up to 6 months to be ready, we have decided to make Bocashi, a type of rapidly-fermenting compost first devised by Japanese agronomists.

Last week, the four of us embarked upon an epic journey to acquire the ingredients needed for our compost. Jonathan and I took a bus past Jinotepe to a rice warehouse in the middle of nowhere, where a baffled foreman stared at us like we had gringo-colored horns coming out of our heads. From him we bought a big sack of dried rice husks that would serve as the base of our compost and provide nitrogen. Next, we went around to our host families' kitchens to get ash from their wood-burning stoves and dug up some nice dark topsoil from their backyards. Our final stop was the local chicken coop where we were gifted with at least 100 pounds of dried chicken turd, whose rich nutrients would help our plants grow strong and tall.

With a big pile of chicken manure, rice husks, ash, and dirt mixed together, we added a solution of water, molasses, and yeast to start the decomposition process. After covering it with a black plastic tarp we began the waiting game to see if our compost would catalyze. Within 24 hours, our chicken poo stew was cookin' away and breaking down into rich fertilizer. Due to the intense chemical reactions of the decomposition, the pile is astonishingly hot to the touch, steaming from underneath the tarp like some kind of demonic, manure-powered cauldron. It's also quite pungent, stinking up half the neighborhood with its good, organic, earthy perfume. I only hope our neighbors will forgive us in a few weeks when we bring them fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelons from our well-fertilized garden.

The compost should be ready within two weeks, but in the meantime we've begun meeting regularly with our neighborhood youth group who will be helping with our garden and nursery. At the end of July, we'll be taking part in an agricultural fair, showcasing a sustainable farm product that we create with our kids, and competing against the trainees and their youth groups in the other villages. So far we've come up with some good ideas, but have yet to decide between mango jelly, avocado shampoo or coconut candies. I suggested we try to combine all three into an edible coconut, mango, and avocado-flavored shampoo, but my idea was unmercifully shot down by exasperated eye-rolls from Juanita and Orlando.

We have a lot more technical training in the weeks to come and soon we'll be splitting up across the country for a week to visit with other aggie volunteers currently working at their sites. For the first time, I'll get a view of what I'll actually be doing for the next two years. I'll also put my green thumb to the test and see if I can't coax some ripe fruits and veggies out of the ground. Who knows? If I discover a hidden talent for horticulture, you may soon see Dave's Magical Coconut and Avocado-Flavored Shampoo/Jelly/Industrial Cleaner on a store shelf near you.