Beans and Rice

kidney beans, onions and rice, known as galla pinto, is the staple diet here. If you work on the houses or in school then that is the lunch provided along with a meat dish, although sometimes the meat here can't be stomached by some. Other dishes are burritos and tomalis (meat encased in rice, boiled in a banana leaf), are good and they like deep fried things here too, no mars bars though. Usually its a piece of chicken wrapped in tortilla, with salad and salsa picante,mmm.

The houses are taking shape. The concrete frames are almost complete and blockwork walls also (although apparently a window was put in the wrong place). This week was spent tieing all the metal for inside the columns, and mixing cement of course! Its a good site to work on because a volunteer house is nearby and we can have some tunes playing. Theres plenty of fresh water too,(which is practically unheard of in Central America), because some nuns whom owned the site previously built a well there, halliluya sisters.




There was a small culture festival in town this weekend, music, poetry and circus acts. Afterward the volunteers started on the cana and I ended up getting very drunk. There's alcohol problems in La Prusia so none is allowed in the volunteer houses, as we're supposed to set an example. . I ended up going looking for spider monkeys at 4am, which I thought was a great idea until I got lost and had to climb a tree to get my bearings. Managed to get a nasty bite from something in my shoe too (note: always check for insects/scorpions when putting on clothes), but that's nothing compared with the first weekend..see attached photo.



There's football and baseball between the Nicas and volunteers. Managed to loose 20-2 this Wednesday, it was the bad surface . . I'm yet to play baseball but maybe next week.

There's a thriving market in Granada. Back when the Sandinista took power they made any jobs fixed pay, and people realised they could make more street selling, so theres still that ideal. and cheap DVDs too, I couldn't find Pulp Fiction though,"tienes Tarantino?". They also sell juice in sandwich bags, which is another throwback to when the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown, and there was only one factory open making plastic bags.


See you next week amigoos

Pirates de la Prusia

another week in La Prusia mixing cement and working on a tan.

The houses being built are designed by an architect called Teddy Cruz, who works from Boston. Angel, is a 70 year old proffessor at harvard (but retiring this year...)spends his holidays in La Prusia, and relays the information from the architect to the constuction team. The design is more complicated than the previous development of homes, but should still be affordable. The previous homes were supposed to cost $1000 dollars but due to rising oil prices they ended up costing more like $2500. Two contstuction teams are paid individuals, and the labour is not, i.e.the volunteers and future owner of the house. See attached photo



More new Spanish and a Canadian volunteers have arrived and the houses should be full next week. 8 people in our house and one bathroom, fun fun. At least I wont have to cook for a month or so...I didnt make enough tuna burgers last time oops! Although I got some pastrys and Nica sweets for dessert, its all about the dessert! Some of the Nica sweets I bought were these pink coconut sprinkles dried into fingers, the colourings must be stong because i was pissing pink for 4 days.

Apart from construction there was a trip to the beach for kids who had attended "summer school" (its their summer holidays). The theme was pirates, and the treasure was sweets. Different games, the funniest being when teams of 5 kids had to wrestle the big South Carolina volunteer sumo style, "yall give me this game cos am a big guy?".

Big baseball game in town last night, Granada vs Leon. Tried to get a ticket at the stadium but it was packed out, the atmosphere sounded awesome from the outside! so instead we went to some bars to sample the flor de cana. Its the smoothest rum that you can drink easily with some ice. Got this cool video outside the stadium when they were restocking beer..



In nature watch this week theres been an ant attack in the orange volunteers house. There were many casualties and the battle continues.

gringo times

The last two weeks have been interesting

After chaos at the airports I got to Nicaragua and arrived at the charity. Casas de la Esperanza (in a nutshell) is a charity in La Prusia. La Prusia is a neighbourhood of poorly built homes in Granada, Nicaragua. Most of the people build on land that they don't own. The charity buys land,(which is overpriced due to foreign investment), and if a family who is currently in a shack wants to build on it they can get the materials and help from the charity[ok quite a big nutshell]. The family can they pay back the charity for the price of materials over a period of time. Other things like community education and workshops in welding, computers etc.[thanks to those who donated laptops] all help for building a real community, employment prospects and paying back the charity for more development. . .[more at http://www.casas-de-la-esperanza.org/index.html]. . . The new plot has just been started with some architect designed houses featuring a butterfly roof to collect water. Lots of trees are protected on the site (as trees are fairly essential for hammocks..a fine invention) and the houses will sit between them nicely, giving shade from sun and hurricanes!

There are volunteers of course(it being a charity, and one you don't have to pay to stay at), mostly Spanish (amazing cooks who smoke like chimneys), Americans ("sup yaal"), and me, a castaway Scot ["aye pal"]. The minimum stay is 2 months, just to stop freeloaders taking advantage of the accommodation. I know the essential cuss words in spanish now, but might try getting some Scottish words into the local dialect. Any suggetsions you can comment on the page; I was thinking munter, or mingin' might sound good or "que pasa..pal".

The locals are very friendly although there was a machete fight earlier in the week where a Nica guy got his arm chopped..not really, just an exaggeration [don't let reality spoil a good story they say]. They talk a bit slower than Spanish people [hooray] but I've not quite grasped the language yet [damn my ignorant brain!]. People with vans often give free lifts down/up the very bumpy road to la Prusia. Today some friendly cops gave me a ride down the 6km to town.

me "is that an AK 47?"
jose the cop "yes"
me "can i have a go?"
jose "jejeje..no"

Not sure why being in a poverty stricken county I would ask to get a shot on a cops AK47 though, to many movies perhaps.

The wildlife is awesome. I've seen some cute mini parrots, which I think are called loros, an iguana, loads of geckos, and today I rescued a scorpion (possibly the coolest looking animal ever) from the bathroom. The landscape is dry as its summer but there's banana trees near the volunteer house and orange trees (a certain type of green oranges..very tasty).

So its all good in the hood although I'm still suffering from culture shock. Tonight its my turn to cook. Tuna Burgers is the plan for the volunteers. Interestingly there are no vegetarians, which I thought would be the case for the alternative lifestyle here, but that's just more stereotyping i guess.

Any comments please and I'll try write something next week.