The days here seem to breeze by at sonic speed. More importantly though I’m no longer certain what seems interesting. Life seems to just fly by. I fed pigs, I watered. I fell asleep. I woke up. I ate. The same things (perhaps minus the pigs) that you did today. All I can offer I suppose are some of my observations or interesting conversations. Thus here is what I have to say:
1. Piglets drinking water out of the puddles on the street is somehow intensely adorable. Probably because they are piglets. The bigger they get the less adorable and the more annoying.
2. I’m really starting to resent the pigs here. They require a ridiculous amount of work to keep up. You have to feed them three times a day, the food has to be cooked down because they are “picky”. This cooking bit involves lighting a fire. And it gets difficult to do with limited resources.
3. To further add to my pig rant, the little mean one likes to chew at things on my person. He untied my shoe. He’s nipped at my pants too. And he is a bully about food in general, as proven by the yelps of the big pig.
4. Yelling at the pigs is strangely cathartic. It’s as close to kickboxing level release since I left my hometown. While it is no where near kickboxing levels, it is just enough to make me smile.
5. Watching a four-year old play with an inflatable ball while his father and older sister try to put the electricity back on is definitely better than the television they had on previously. It is especially adorable when this four-year old doesn’t speak proper Spanish. So you can really only catch about one in every twenty words...
6. Spending time in the house of your farm manager is probably one of the most rewarding moments. You may be surrounded by bags of rice, but you will never feel closer to the locals than that moment. 7. You will also never see a closer glimpse into how they really live. It is both eye-opening and completely humbling.
8. Fourteen year olds should not gyrate. Ever. Not for a dance with their friends. Not for their nations Independence Day. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Thanks.
9. Being woken up on a Sunday at 8:18 am for an emergency green harvest is both hilarious and mind-boggling. Mostly because I just want to crawl back into bed.
10. There is nothing than being given permission from your colleague that you can go back to sleep on a Sunday and not do the morning chores.
11. The slight fly into the ointment of sleeping in on a Sunday until 11:00 am is that when you are half-naked changing into your dirty clothes your farm manager walks by. And looks up. Seeing you have nude. Apparently he just had to pop by after eating lunch with his wife.
12. While walking back from town Dukie was finally seen by the locals attacking their chicken. This resulted in the lady coming up to Totoco and asking for Martijn to pay for the chicken.
13. This same chicken was then killed to put it out of its misery. Something I never thought I would see as a vegan. However there you have it. I have seen a chicken be beheaded, in real life.
14. Realizing that there is a world of difference in watching a chicken be killed on the same wooden stump we use to chop wood than a typical factory farm.
15. Being grateful I am a human and not a chicken in Nicaragua
16. Talking to a local expat about the difficulties of living in Balgue. This ranged from weather, changes in the season, limitation of resources, and never really integrating into the community.
17. Getting emails from friends and family are completely wonderful. They are guaranteed to brighten your day. Especially when they are from your best friend and your Grandpa.
18. Finding a dead gecko in a grease trap is not pleasant
19. Cold showers are made so much better when you curse like a sailor.
20. Balgue may not have a lot of splendor or fine architecture, it will never be similar to Granada or Antigua, but there is a beauty in the simple concrete stone structures and the dirt roads. Or perhaps it is just the beauty of being somewhere with kind hearted people.
21. Realizing that a better name for this blog would have been “the walking cliche of a gringa traveler”
22. I have decided to stay in Balgue for one more month. This year I’m spending Christmas here in Balgue, Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua.
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