My Nicaraguan Farmer's Tan

Today, I had quite the experience. But first I have to mention, that yesterday I met some catholic nuns, who were dancing. Dancing nuns. It was great. It looks like we'll probably end up helping them with an after school program that they have for children.

Okay, today, we left our house at 630 in the morning. Which sounds way early, and it is, except that everyone here gets up with the sun. So everyone else in León was already up for like an hour and a half. Arturo, Julia and I took a bus to just outside the city. It was quite possibly the most awesome thing I've ever done, because the bus kind of left before I was all the way on. Which was awesome because then I was like those people in all the movies who are hanging out the buses while holding on to one metal bar. It was great, but eventually we had to move all the way into the bus :(

Then we met with a government organization called INTA. Sometimes government organizations are really hard to work with because they also have political agendas, but this one had a community garden already set up in a rural community and we were going mostly to observe and see if we want to start a similar project following their model. But to get to this rural community, we got to ride in the back of a pickup truck. For 40 mins. On a dirt road with lots of dips and rocks. So it was awesome, but my butt hurts.

So then Julia and I helped Oscar set up little support system thingies for their tomato plants. And while we were doing that we saw a caterpillar (which is bad for the plants) so I told him, "bicho malo." Which means "bad bug." And he came over and collected the caterpillars that we found, and he told us that they were going to make soup out of them. And we believed him for like another hour. But then we talked to him some more and we clarified it was a joke.

And then they had a little class for these rural farmers, taught by INTA. And we got to sit there and try and understand as much as we could. And then we went back out into the fields to try and find all the gusanos, which is aparently the real word for "bad bug," so that was fun. And then they had another little class session and then they told us iit was time for lunch!

And that's when it all started.

We washed our hands in there little outside sink. basically there's two sides, and one side is full of water, and   you take a tuperware container, dunk it in the water, then put it on the other side, and wash your hands with it! It's really a great system.

So then we walked over and we seen a whole bunch of giant bowls filled with... soup. Haha so we laughed a little bit and joked about the gusanos being inside. Don't worry, they weren't. But the bowls were huge, so we told them that Julia and I would share one. Then they put the three of us at a table away from everyone else, and we looked at our soup.

Of the things that we identified in our soup, there was: water, corn (still on the cob), bananas (with the peel), a crab head (yes, a crab head, dead... but brains and everything), lots of unidentified vegetables, and a bone (yes, a bone, hueso) with a bunch of tendons and possibly a little meat attached to it. And it smelt awful.

We spent probably an hour trying to get as much down as we could. Julia was a trooper, and by far the last one to stop eating. But overall, Arturo only ate maybe 1/4 or 1/3 or his soup, and Julia and I finished maybe half of ours.

I only ate broth, corn, bananas, and a vegetable that Julia said was similar to a potato- but it was the size of a banana.

It was by far the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten. And we were trying to be polite by eating as much as we could.

Also, while we were eating, we saw a mother give her child a bath in the water we had washed our hands in. Great system.

Arturo went and bought us some soda to wash it down, and while he was gone, Julia and I wrote a little song, the tune might be familiar.

99 flies in Arturo's soup, 99 gigantic flies
You swat at them a bit
They'll throw a fit
98 flies in Arturo's soup.

98 flies in Arturo's soup, 98 gigantic flies... etc.

Yes, so eventually we just told them that generally Americans eat large dinners and breakfasts with a very light lunch, so we couldn't finish it.

And then we went to a little more training meeting (this time more about pesticides being safe for the environment and stuff). And then we made the hour plus trip back to León. By the time we were back at our house, it was 500.

And I don't think I'll ever eat again...

I just wish it was a caterpillar soup...