¡BINGO!

One of  the family´s farms. This one has all sorts
of crops, horses, and several ponds for fishing.

In the last few weeks I have continued to explore my site and I am quickly discovering a variety of pass-times. I have already gone fishing, played soccer, gone hiking, watched cock-fighting, cooked, and played BINGO… more on that later.

Two weeks ago I joined my host brothers and a few co-workers in a soccer game. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The game was in the next community over, about a 20 minute hike. There is a full sized soccer field there, and the municipality soccer league plays there every Saturday. There are 8 different teams made up of boys around 14 years old to men in their 30s. Frequently there are spectators, including some girls, but for the most part this is a male dominated area. So I showed up with permission from our team captain to play. They still had to ask permission from the ref and the captain of the other team if it was alright for me, a woman, to play with the guys. Everyone agreed it was alright, but I could tell they were a little un-easy about the whole situation. None of the guys had played soccer with a girl before; for whatever reason almost no girls in my area play soccer. Most of the guys were worried about kicking me or running into me too hard on accident and me getting hurt. Luckily nothing like that happened. The game was fun, but it was really difficult at first. I hadn’t played soccer in over two years and I am not in nearly as good of condition as I was a few years ago. It also took me the entire first half (45 minutes) to figure out who was on my team. Some players had jerseys, but they were simply jerseys of their favorite professional soccer teams and had nothing to do with whether they were on team Guadalupe, or team Zapotillo. Also, we each had positions but that didn’t really mean much. Almost none of the players had any sort of formal coaching. Almost all of them learned from the plays and moves they saw in soccer games on TV. The second half went much better; I loosened up, and had some good runs and passes. I started to gain the confidence of my team members. We ended up winning 3-2 and I hope to play with them again in the coming Saturdays.

Learning how to make tortillas by hand at roughly 6am

I have also spent a good amount of time in my kitchen learning the tricks of the trade from my host mom. I learned how to make corn tortillas, starting from dried corn and water. This can easily occupy an entire morning and relieve some stress. The verb they use to describe tortilla making is “palmear” (said, palm-ā-are) which I like to think of as to palm or to slap, because that’s what it looks like. No rolling pin needed. Since then I have also learned how to make cuajada, the highly preferred cheese around here. It is a soft, salty cheese that pairs nicely with a warm corn tortilla. It is made by hand as well, and is a fairly easy process. Starting with the crude milk, you add this pill that starts the cheese-making process. Then let it sit for 15 minutes or so (I think) and cut large chunks of the cheese out. Slowly press each chunk with your hands to remove excess liquid, and then once it’s fairly dry kneed the cheese with a bunch of salt. Then make soft-ball sized balls to set aside and later to chill in the fridge.

Cooking the tortillas, notice the ugly broken one off
 to the side... that was my first attempt.

I have also shared a few of my recipes with my host family. Last week I made my grandpa’s cucumber salad, it was a hit with my host mom, and not so much with my host siblings… they didn’t like the raw onions or strong vinegar taste.  I also have made French toast, pancakes and a pasta salad. I struggled a bit with the pancakes last week because I’m working with a cocina de leña, a wood burning stove. I still haven’t gotten good at controlling the temperature. I tried to make banana pancakes, and they totally stuck to the pan because the fire was too hot. Before I could fix the problem my host mom added a montón of oil (meaning a lot of oil, or as I like to think of it: a mountain of oil), sure that that would fix the situation. The pancakes just ended up super fried and super burnt. I ate them anyways, they still had decent flavor. I think my next endeavors are going to be spaghetti, and egg salad sandwiches, but not necessarily together.

Finally, to the name-sake of this post…. ¡BINGO! One of my most random finds for pass-times has been playing BINGO. Every weekend night one of the teachers uses a classroom as a bingo hall. He has the whole set-up, with a giant number board to keep track of which numbers are called, and the rotating basket to randomly pick out numbers. Last night there were almost 40 people crammed into the room, some on desks others on benches and others on the floor. Everyone is very intense and giving their friends a hard time about choosing the wrong card or not having won yet. We use dried kernels of corn as markers… and to throw across the room in anger at whoever called BINGO first. There were people from all over town, girls, boys, men, women and a few stray dogs too. It’s a really good time, everyone groans and yells when the number they need isn’t called. It still amazes me how people know what’s going on in town. One of the other volunteers refers to it as Nicaraguan telepathy. Everyone in town knows when something exciting is going on, but I never hear word of it until it is already happening or after the fact. For example, I will walk out to the high school (about a 15 minute walk, literally uphill both ways) and get to the school to see all of the students leaving school 2 hours early, or to find out that there was no class that day. Or I find out there’s a city-wide march against drugs the following morning only because a 9 year old comes to my house the night before to ask me how to spell CRACK for one of the banners. I feel like BINGO falls into this category as well. Everyone in town knows about it and participates and I find out weeks later that all this fun has been happening without me every weekend. Hopefully with more contacts and friends around town I’ll have a better idea of what’s going on soon. 

I think that’s about all for now. Work has continued to be fairly slow, and I am getting to know the other volunteers living nearby me. I also have been mildly sick for the last month or so, I think I’m finally coming out of it though. I went to Managua last week for a check-up to make sure all of my bases were covered and everything is fine. I think once I start doing some more of my own cooking and I start exercising more regularly I’ll be fully better in no time. Thanks for reading! Also, please send me mail, I will write you back for any mail or care packages… hint hint. I’m really craving chocolate/candy and spiced black chai tea.