Matagalpa Musings...

This entry does not have much direction or cohesiveness but I haven't blogged for a while so put away your red pen, sit back and ejoy (or endure) the ride...

We just moved into a house in Matagalpa. Matagalpa is a large city in the mountains, not far from Jinotega where we stayed for 2 weeks with our friends who are missionaries there. We are renting their old house here in Matagalpa.

We have a business right next door that sells some produce and it varies. Today it includes yuka, bananas, plantains, jamaica tea, cuajada seco (a dry parmesan like cheese), guyaba jelly, coffee, dry red beans, honey and oranges. They also sell goat meat (refrigerated), chicken and beef, cuajada (soft cheese), cream (not for coffee, more like sour cream), milk, an unpasturized butter product (which I haven't bought yet but I am thinking of buying for recipes that are cooked, like macaroni and cheese). I am hoping that they will have other options over the next few weeks. I really wish I could get an avocado! I think they must be out of season right now because I haven't seen one since I left San Juan del Sur. I am also eagerly awaiting mango season which, I think, starts in January.

There is a little "soda" on the property as well and they sell 2 or 3 things a day and when they run out, that's it. We have eaten there a few times. We got 6 meals and 6 glasses of juice (we bring our own plates and pitcher) for about $8. It was a chicken dish with a souplike sauce and we all ate it for lunch but there was enough sauce and 1 piece of chicken left so I cooked up some pasta and pulled the chicken off the bone and the kids and I ate pasta with sauce and chicken for dinner. It was a pretty economical meal. Unfortunately they don't serve dinner and if you want all the lunch options you need to get there early. It's a pretty cool thing to have next door.

We have 4 major grocery stores here in Matagalpa. My favorite is La Colonia. It is big and air conditioned (although it's not particularly hot in Matagalpa) and, most important to me, it's well lit! I haven't actually shopped there yet because I have been doing my shopping at La Matagalpa, the locally owned grocery store. It's a good size, not very well lit, but I can find most everything I am looking for there and I like supporting the local business. I was not able to find potatoes there today though. Also I wanted to buy "refried beans" (smashed red beans sold in a bag) but they didn't have any for sale. They did have a "free" bag of refried beans with the purchase of a bottle of ketchup, but none sold individually. The Nicaraguans really like their ketchup too. When Bridget and I went to a cooking class in San Juan del Sur, we made "Tacos Nica" (which may or may not be called that in all of Nicaragua but that's what I was told we were making). We made what we would call in the US "taquitos" with chicken, bell peppers, onion, and carrot. We topped the tacos with Nicaraguan coleslaw (cabbage, carrots and vinegar) and then they put "crema" (like soupy sour cream) and KETCHUP on top!! Uh, no thanks on the ketchup for me. Don't get me wrong, I like my ketchup...on FRENCH FRIES and even hash browns but please stay away from my tacos. I am all for cultural immersion but I don't think I need to put ketchup on my tacos for the full experience!

Now back to the free refried beans when you buy a bottle of ketchup. This is something that intrigues me about Nicaragua. There are no weekly mailers with the sale prices here and no coupons. There is, however, someone in grocery stores who has yellow "GRATIS" tape and he tapes with reckless abandon. I purchased a bottle of vegetable oil last week and it had a packet taped to it with about 1/8 cup of oil. Now maybe that's for when you go on a trip and need to pack oil? I don't know. But I am all about getting the most for my money so I used it to keep my pasta from sticking together after it was cooked...but I didn't need all of it so I left it open propped against the full bottle and the kids ended up oiling the countertop...live and learn. I also bought blackberry (yes blackberry!) jelly with 2 small packets of more blackberry jelly taped to the top (those remain in the fridge). But my absolute favorite tape job was the Raid insecticide with a package of baby laundry detergent taped to it! They must really be pushing the Raid though because they had bar soap taped to some bottles and shampoo. If I had to get a Nicaraguan job, I think I would want to be the person who gets to tape!

OK, back to the house. The house we are renting belongs to our friends in Jinotega. They lived here for 10 years before they moved to Jinotega. There was another missionary family who lived in it for a couple of months. Their stuff is stored in the 4th bedroom. We get to use 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Just about right if you ask me. The house has plenty of room and a big yard and the house comes with a "rental dog". We don't have to feed him but we do need to watch where we step in the big yard. The kids love to play with him and I think anyone who tried to break in with him here would have to be an idiot. He's a black lab mix and is as strong as an ox with a bark that can be heard for blocks.

The boys room has 2 bunk beds and Bridget's room has a full sized bed. Which is nice because if anyone wants to visit us, we can put Bridget in the boys room (she's actually been sleeping in there anyway, but that's a differnt story) and our guests can sleep in her room. The master bedroom has a king sized bed and a bathroom. We have never had a king sized bed so it's quite spacious.

The first night we moved in here it was just me and the kids (Joe was in Esteli). I got the kids to sleep and sat on the giant bed to read. Then I heard a noise. Then I saw the ceiling tiles bowing as "something" ran across the space between the ceiling and the roof. I knew there were rats here that the owners have been dealing with so I wasn't surprised. It was disturbing but I am tough, I can deal. Then about 30 seconds later I heard it again and the ceiling tiles were bowing right over my head. That was when I decided to bunk with Bridget. When Joe came home we attempted to sleep in our bedroom the first night but the rats were too noisy. We tried again the next night but they were too noisy again. Then we found a dead rat on the stairs and that night we were able to sleep in our bedroom without rat noises. Bridget didn't like being displaced so she is very happy to have her own room again. We talked to a contractor today about closing up some gaps to keep the rats out and while we showed him what we wanted done we found 2 more dead rats. Hopefully the dead rat finding will continue until we are rat free. I also found a mouse in a blanket I was carrying but mice are not as disturbing as rats (wow, this trip has given me perspective). Oh and a dead cockroach here and there is not a bad thing. The really good news is that not only have we not been biten by mosquitoes since we got here, all our SJDS mosquito bites have healed and our legs look good, but....

On Thursday we leave for San Juan del Sur to visit our friends there and celebrate the 9th anniversary of Biblioteca Movil. We are riding down with our friends from Jinotega and their 5 kids (in their 16 passenger van). We are staying Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. On Monday morning (early) we are taking a taxi into Rivas (16 miles inland from SJDS) and catching a ride with a friend we met in Jinotega who is going to Costa Rica to satisfy her requirement to leave the country every 90 days. We also need to do that so we are going to drive across the Costa Rican border with her, only about 20 miles from Rivas. From Costa Rica we will cross into Nicaragua and get a ride into Granada to stay at a friend's house (he will be in Costa Rica) and meet a family (that has kids Joey and Bridget's ages) that I have been corresponding with but haven't met (Joe has on one of his trips to Granada). We are planning on staying Monday and Tuesday night in Granada and coming back on Wednesday. We will take a bus from Granada to Managua on Wednesday and hook up with our friend who lives in Managua and he will give us a ride to Matagalpa as he has business to do up here. So it's a pretty simple trip we have planned, what could possibly go wrong?

So that's about all that's going on here. I like the tempurature in Matagalpa a lot. It's sunny and nice but the mornings are nice and cool like spring. I went for my first run this morning and loved the tempurature but now I have to deal with mountains. From what I can tell, in Matagalpa, you are either running up a hill or running down a hill. Even if you try to run sideways, you end up going up or down hills. I am going to ask around and see if there are places in the city where one might run that might include rolling hills. I "ran" 2.5 miles today at a 16:06 pace and my legs are tired! Only 19 days till my Nicaraguan "Seattle Half Marathon"!

Adios...until I post again...