Day 16, But Who's Counting

The URL to my blog is Nicaraguan Agriculture because I was going to tie in my work with Nicaraguan agriculture to my internship in the States, but I have too much non-Ag related stuff that I want to include--so I will write a few articles about my work in Nicaragua so you can watch for those later on.

I haven’t blogged in a while because it has been a crazy few days. Yesterday, Danielle and I went with Carlos (A bilingual Nica working on his master's degree) to the Agricultural University. This story gets a little personal, so don’t complain to me later because you have been warned. :) Around 2’o clock I asked Carlos if there was a bathroom in the lab that we were working in. There wasn’t, so I followed him to a nearby building to find a bathroom. It was locked, and he couldn’t find anyone with a key. Instead, I followed him to a nearby bathroom that was used by the University students. There were four stalls and the door to the first one was open so I started to walk towards the open stall. To my surprise, it was occupied by a street dog that was drinking out of the toilet bowl. So, I moved on to the next stall. Besides the great artwork and writing on the walls, the stall was relatively clean. I walked in the stall and closed the door. After closing the door, I realized that there was no toilet paper in the stall (or any of the stalls), so I grabbed the handle to open the door, and it was jammed. I pulled it again with no luck. I was praying that I wouldn’t have to crawl under the door. I finally yanked the door with all my might, and thankfully it came open. By this time, my hands are feeling less than clean, so I decide to wash them only to realize that there was no soap, or towels, so I dried my hands on my skirt and left the bathroom still needing to use the bathroom more than when I came. Around 3’o clock, we left to visit a farm site near Managua. The farm site was in the middle of nowhere and one of the most bumpy roads I have ever been on. After I saw the outhouse on the farm, for some reason, I really didn’t need to use the bathroom anymore! (see picture below) We finally were dropped off at our houses around 7:30 that evening. If I don’t learn anything on this trip, I am learning to be thankful for the little things (like toilet paper, soap, and running water).

Outhouse at the Farm Site

Earlier in the day when Danielle and I were working on our service-learning project, we said hello to the security officers at the university, and they asked us if we liked mangos. Both of us said we did, so the security officers took turns throwing a big green mango into the tree and knocking down ripe mangos for us. They were so good and it was great to watch them take turns trying to knock down mangos for the “gringos.”

Yep. That's a Volcano behind the Corn Field.

Yesterday, we worked on our service learning project for over 11 hours. In the morning, we visited a farm and got to see banana, plantain, coconut, mango trees, and various types of peppers. It was crazy to see how much better the plants were doing in areas that BioChar was used in the soil.  Later in the morning, we visited the man who makes the ovens to burn BioChar. In the afternoon we went to the lab and helped Carlos measure the bio mass of corn stalks from each different plot. In the afternoon we went to the farm site to see one of the BioChar corn fields and look at the crop. We were at the farm for almost five hours. It was well past dark by the time we made it back.

Kitchen at the Farm
The BioChar stove is the orange colored box on the right.

 

There is a tropical storm on the Atlantic Coast (we're on the Pacific), so the weather this week has been much more comfortable this week. It rained everyday this week really hard.

On Tuesday evening I went to the circus in town with a few friends. It was interesting, but definitely not an event that I would bring kids to. It was the first time since arriving in Nicaragua that I was glad that I didn’t understand Spanish. I thought it was worth noting that I went to a circus here, but also that I don’t need to see anther circus for a long time. Overall, every day is an adventure!

During Bible Study tonight my friend mentioned that the Nicaraguans seem so much more content than Americans. I feel like I struggle with that. I've heard many Americans returning from mission trips talk about how people in Latin America are so much more content than people from the United States. Part of me is happy with the fact that Nicaraguans seem happy how they are, but on the other hand, I feel like I resent the fact that they are so content where they are and don't seem like they really desire the change I wish they did. I'll letcha know if I come to any conclusions.