Nepal - family visit

The thing about having henna-d hands is that it marks you as one of *those* tourists like elephant pants or greasy hair does. And not only was I henna-d but my hair had transformed into a weird sticky mess. It felt like none of my shampoo had washed out and it was just glopping together. (N touched it and said it wasn't as bad as she expected -- which I suppose means that it looked terrible.)

On New Years Day, we (and our bad hair) were invited with all of the out of town guests to A's mother's house for lunch. Luckily we were passed by the groom's family's bus as we walked to the house; otherwise we would have been lost in the pleasant suburbs. Lunch was daal and rice, spinach, turnip pickles, bitter melon, spicy potatoes, carrots, cucumbers and a variety of desserts that tasted surprisingly like incense. The only thing I didn't enjoy were the peas that I laboriously separated from my rice and the bitter melon which tasted intensely green. (For those of my family members reading, bitter melon is that spiky cucumber that TiAn would grow and Gram stole until she realized it was gross.)

After lunch, we met up with Dipak (D), his friend Raj, and his daughter Aarushi for second-lunch. D is the husband of our friend Ambika from grad school. We drove up past Swayambunath to a place overlooking the city where people come to enjoy the fresh air. I'm not sure it's high enough to be fresh air but it was a pleasant enough place to catch up and chase Aarushi around. Then we went back to D's house where his mother had prepared us a delicious meal of rice and daal, chicken, spinach, and spicy potato. My apologies to Mama D but I couldn't finish my rice. She served us more and more despite N using the most Nepali phrase we know: "pugyo!" "I'm full."

Then we distributed presents which was a little bit awkward because both N and I had forgotten that D lives with his extended family and we hadn't really brought easily shareable gifts. It seems like the most talked about gift was a lime green snake that went "chomp." Aarushi chattered on the whole time (after the first silent half hour) and the only words I recognized were "Mama's English friends", "snake chomp!" and "baby monkey sleep"

Then N and I returned tot he hotel to prepare ourselves for the wedding. Evidently my head is smaller than the average Korean's and doesn't absorb moisture as quickly.

Nepal - We circumambulate and dance!

The next day I treated myself to a non-meat-tasting breakfast and spent some time reading before transferring to another hotel and reading some more. I can't be blamed. The new hotel had these cushiony window seats in the warm sun and they provided a whole pot of complimentary tea. That evening I moseyed down into the city proper for dinner with the Yale girls! We ordered enough apple cakes for an army and caught up until late (9 pm).

On New Year's Eve, Nara (my Korean bestie who has braved four countries and five New Year's Eves with me) and I headed to Swayambunath, a Buddhist stupa on the west end of Kathmandu. Not only were we unable to negotiate a good price with the taxi driver but he also very nearly set us on fire; as we rounded a corner his incense burner fell off the dashboard and onto the floor. It was a toss-up between dying a in a conflagration or a traffic accident but he managed to retrieve it. Having narrowly escaped death we were unceremoniously dumped at the bottom of a long slight of stairs. I took quite a few photos on the way up the temple if only because I needed to catch my breathe; a trekker I am not.

Nara and I did our three circuits of the stupa and then retired to a rooftop tea shop to consult the guide book and learn what we saw. Such as: 

• the tower has thirteen levels, a symbolic number in Buddhism
• the eyes represent the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha 
• the nose is not a nose but the symbol for "ek" the number one
• the dome at the base represents the world
• the monkeys that live there are holy! Evidently, Manjushri the bodhisattva of wisdom and learning let his hair grow long and his lice transformed into the monkeys. Not holy lice but holy monkeys  

holy monkeys!

A scientific interlude: the air quality in Kathmandu is so bad these days that even Nepalis are wearing facemasks. In fact, the 2018 Environmental Performance Index (which A worked on) names air quality as the top public health threat and Nepal is in the bottom five.

See?

Then I spent an hour watching Nara agonize over which carved mountain stone to purchase.

That afternoon we went to A's mehendi celebration where all the ladies ate lunch, got henna tattoos, and danced the afternoon away. I was genuinely surprised that I could sit still for the twenty minutes it takes to get henna'd. I also didn't touch anything for the hour it takes to dry!

My freak of nature fingernail has never looked better.

Then the dancing began in earnest. We were subjected to learning "a traditional Nepali dance" which turned out to be the equivalent of "my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard."

After this good-natured hazing, the Yale girls crammed into a taxi (with a driver who taught us to count to ten in Nepali) to get a New Year's Eve dinner. We talked career and personal goals while accompanied by sitar music and headed home once midnight struck in Korea. That's right, we made it until 9PM. Have to rest up for more family festivities!

The Loved Ones - an ode to/from Evelyn Waugh

Last week I picked up an erratically highlighted version of The Loved Ones by Evelyn Waugh. Touted as "a dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide" I read it more as a misguided love story surrounded by death. 

British Dennis Barlow is an uncouth pet mortician while his love interest Aimee Thanatogenos (her name roughly translates to “beloved of the race of death”) is Waugh's imagined "typical American woman": feeble in intellect, indecisive, sentimental, perpetually immature. But at least she works in a super classy cemetery and is also being courted by the head mortician, an artist in his own right. 

Funny but somewhat surreal, the book was lent an additional layer by the streaks of orange my anonymous highlighter provided...including some words and phrases on the cover and on the copyright page! In an effort to provide meaning perhaps I will transcribe them here. I know that you'll never read it to the bottom but beware spoilers.

Read into them as you will: 

nourishing taproot of tradition
1948
they don't expect you to listen.

It's the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard."

fatuously called the "right" side of sixty
he now aspired to the honours of age.

one gets in a groove and loses touch.

Beverly Hills.

Bel Air.

doyen
colleen.

gloaming
monacles
The time was apt for
toddling.

five-to-two
We can't all be at the top pf the tree
ate at drug-stores.

I always think how much better not to have anything to atone for, eh?

The head-lamps of the waiting car spread a brilliant fan of light
Hollywood Boulevard.

prune and polish
a young man of genius,
Hollywood is my life.

The studios keep us going with a pump. We are still just capable of a few crude reactions--nothing more. If we ever got disconnected from our bottle, we should simply crumble.

Once or twice when I was in liquor.

Whispering Glades Memorial Park,
hatted and freshly painted.

sombre good taste
carbolic,
these were the branded drug,
as a monk will repeat a simple pregnant text, over and over again in prayer.
Presently the telephone rang.

207 Via Dolorosa, Bel Air.

incineration?"

"The best will be good enough."

niche in our columbarium
Grade A service
Happier Hunting Grounds

Artists are by nature versatile and precise; they only repine when involved with the monotonous and the makeshift.

buzz-bombs
umbrageous
others had their pets emabalmed
she-bear
It is forbidden by California law to scatter human remains from an aeroplane
snakes-and-ladders
house-match
equanimity
leaden effort
moke
maybe you feel kind of allergic to the assignment?"

has been,"
footled
right here right now."

urbanity
Britisher
How say
wop
blunt Nordic terms
pudgily
fishmongering
cordwaining
englishry.

tocsin.

yeoman
false and fruity tones
we all suffer for the folly of one.

In a world of competition people are taken at their face value. Everything depends on reputation-- 'face' as they say out East. Lose that and you lose everything.

Times without number
necropolis
news-sheets
patois
Golden Gates.

They were vast, the largest in the world,
gabled,
pigeon-cote.

Whispering Glades,
Mortuary Hostess.

Before Need Arrangements.

inhumement, entombment, inurnment
immurement,
insarcophagusment.

The casket is placed inside a sealed sarcophagus, marble or bronze, and rests permanently above ground in a niche in the mausoleum.

The Park is zoned. Each zone has its own name and appropriate Work of Art. Zones of course vary in price and within the zones the prices vary according tot heir proximity to the Works of Art.

starting
mottled
cornice.

They fixed that stiff,"
"so he looked like it was his wedding day. The boys up there surely know their job. Why if he'd sat on an atom bomb, they'd make him look presentable."

slipping on her professional manner again as though it were a pair of glasses,
Waiting Ones
leave-taking
Something dark is best to set off the flowers."

sacristy chest
apotheosis
Slumber-Room
leave-taking
chaise-longue
pince-nez.

half-exposure in the casket,
chaise-longue?"

The leave-taking is a very very great source of consolation. Often the Waiting Ones last saw their Loved Ones on a bed of pain surrounded by all the gruesome concomitants of the sick room or the hospital. Here they see them as they knew them in buoyant life, transfigured with peace and happiness.

a last beautiful memory on the mind."

I am a foriegner. I have no intention of dying here."

morbid reflexions.

death is not a private tragedy of your own but the general lot of man.

Hamlet
'Know that death is common; all that live must die.'

the Chinese were said subtly to distinguish one from another of their seemingly uniform race,
Mortuary Hostess
croon
livery
crimson grease;
photographs
They are the greatest help in re-creating personality.

"Braces.

suspenders."

leave-taking
'Burn him up cheap.
Folks pretend to love their pets,
sortie
redolent
embalming rooms
inclined china slabs,
pressure pumps,
deep gutters
heavy smell of formaldehyde.

cosmetic rooms with their smell of shampoo and hot hair and acetone and lavender.

paunchy.

nugatory
He had only to be seen with a corpse to be respected.

voice assumed a peculiar tone when she spoke to him.

carotid suture
Radiant Childhood smile."

Waiting One
Loved Ones
swirling and gurgling of taps in the embalming rooms,
rubbery cheeks
Within two hours the main task was complete.

but the oeuvre was designed for the amber glow of the Slumber Room
blue stipple work around the eyelids
"A tendency to open in the inside corner?"

I worked a little cream under the lid and then firmed it with No. 6."

When I send a Loved One into you, I feel as though I were speaking to you through him."

Had they been mother and child I should have taken both,
There is something in individual technique -- not everyone would notice it perhaps; but if I saw a pair that had been embalmed by different hands I should know at once and I should feel that the child did not properly belong to its mother; as though they had been estranged in death.

outfitters
raised the arms and set the hands together, not in a form of prayer, but folded one on the other in resignations. He raised the head, adjusted the pillow and twisted the neck so that a three-quarter face was exposed to view.

leave-taking in the Slumber Room.

ante-room
hot-house
cornice.

cumulus
catalfalque.

as ageless as a tortoise and as inhuman;
holm-oaks
Whispering Glades held him in thrall.

sat in purdah, hidden from curious glances.

langurous,
lychgate
guichet.

abstracted
miasma
unregarded
coxswain
Animals are a headache in cemeteries.

Annual.

they appreciate the privacy, too, same as cats."

bosky
wattle
haricots
simple bronze plaques; flush with the turf. bore the most august names in the commercial life of Los Angeles.


peace cane dropping slow,
fruiterer.

verisimilitude.

pickled in formaldehyde
painted like a whore,
Shrimp-pink incorruptible,
irrefragable
a treatment needing special Soul;
Do you think anything can be a great art which is so impermanent?

Once you start changing a name, you see, there's no reason to stop. One always hears one that sounds better.

between psychology and art and Chinese, you had the mortuary in view?"

blue rinse and set,
the Dreamer
I was just glad to serve people that couldn't talk.

I'm just a handmaid to the morticians
carillon
laid his card along the teeth and gums.

grim line of endurance,
We know cases who have only experienced real love after several years of marriage and the arrival of Junior.

a stamped and addressed
he is British and therefore in many ways quite Un-American.

he is cynical at things which should be Sacred.

barbary goat
columbarium."

sing an orison
bran-tub
They have proved themselves in the lowlier tasks to be worthy of the higher.

the Dreamer
embalmers' room
swish and hiss of the taps,
oilcloth curtains
dabbed herself under the arms with a preparation designed to seal the sweatglands,
first freshness
The truth is that morticians, however eminent, are no paid like film stars.

The mothers of great men often disconcert their son's admirers.

pince-nez
positively insulting clothes.

tartarean
You would say, would you not, that a non-sectarian clergy-man was the social equivalent of an embalmer?"

belfry
tartan
dalliance
rough-hewn
BRUCE.

CANTY
skirl
hogmanay,
maun
crapulous.

missive
spoke the tongue of Los Angeles;
eagle-haunted passes
An umbilical cord of cafe and fruit shops,
ministrations
swilling out corpses.

on the horns of a dilemma
Whispering Glades the most wonderful thing outside heaven.

'half in love with easeful death'
you're the nautch
spasmodic
the instruments and chemicals which are the staples of feminine well-being,
barbituates
the staple of feminine repose.

It came at length brusquely, perfunctorily, without salutation or caress. There was no delicious influx, touching, shifting, lifting, setting free and afloat the grounded mind.

the empty streets flamed with light.

The East lightened. In all the diurnal revolution these first fresh hours alone are untainted by men.

the slopes became a dancing surface of light,
mortuary
incuriously
sheeted dead.

Aimee's death Dennis
rival in love, Mr. Joyboy.

these are wild words."

nutburger?

"Cyanide. Self-administered."

abandoned weeping.

Panegyrics
collecting-van.

allow me an old man's privilege
Even among the best you find a few rotters.

No one in Southern California, as you know, ever inquires what goes beyond the mountains.

penury.

Whispering Glades was ideally equipped for the smooth movement of bodies.

man-handled their load to the crematorium.
apposite,
madcap,
stylists
filmdom
American ethos...
mass-mind of America,
the compulsion to 'package everything, even love and death...

I went to Puerto Rico - in December!

For Christmas my sister invited me to Puerto Rico and despite the threat of having to share a room with a sixteen year old and a four year old, I jumped at the chance. My sister E is notoriously uptight well-organized about vacations. Generally, she releases a spreadsheet to the whole family months in advance that includes lodging, travel times, etc.

So it was a surprise when my sister abdicated all responsibility for planning beyond booking the flight and house...even though I roll the same spreadsheet-y way:

And it went well! Except I couldn't find any Christmas carrollers with whom to get drunk. Ah well.

Day #3 we moseyed over to El Yunque National Park. The guidebook says to stop at the Visitor Center but I'm telling you now that it's not necessary...unless you super duper have to pee or you enjoy paying $4 for documentaries about something you'll see later. There are no trails that leave from the Visitor Center. So choose some trails to hike, arrive directly there, and be aware that after around two there will be no parking anywhere. We stopped at Yocahu Tower and counted the steps three times (travelling with a four year old is interesting) and then hiked to the Mt. Britton tower whining much of the way (travelling with a four year old is interesting). On the way back sooo many people asked us if they were almost there...and many of them were wearing t-shirts from midwestern states...and my sister and her family struck up conversations with each of them. Peak Minnesota. Then it was so crowded that we couldn't park at any of the trailheads so we went home and beached.

The next day we ventured into San Juan, the gorgeous city founded in 1503. One of the tour guides referred to San Juan as in international pit stop which, although irreverent, gives you a sense of its original purpose as a much-coveted stopover for merchants and later a much fought-over location fortified up the wazoo. As big fans of the National Park Service we went to San Cristobal and Fuerte El Morro to see these forts. And I learned a new word!

 Not to be confused with

One of the guerites at Castillo San Cristóbal is called "El Guerita del Diablo." Local legend says that soldiers often disappeared randomly from the guerite. The Devil got them! It;s more likely, however, that soldiers left their post to go to the bar or meet up with their boos, and decided to never come back. El Guerite del Diablo it is currently inaccessible to the general public, but it can be seen from the upper part of the fort.

See?

After the first fort we took a lunch break Cafe Manolin where we scarfed down the best mofongo on the planet. Mofongo, for the uninitiated, is plantains fried then mashed with salt, garlic and oil and then stuffed with meat. The general consensus is that it was delicious but sits like a rock and was perhaps was a one-time thing. (I have pictures of my giant food baby but I reserve the right to not display them to my ten readers.)

El Morro was stunningly byootiful:

After we were hot and tired and fort-ed out we left to wander through the city. We stopped in some random churches but the highlight, especially for my niece Elena, was Parque de las Palomas. I'm not sure that she was aware that Paloma is Spanish for pigeon and that the park would be filled with her least favorite vertebrate but she weathered it with a minimum of screaming.

The next day we headed to Fajardo where the older kids and brother-in-law went kayaking. I had neglected to say in the planning that I wanted to go NIGHT kayaking to see the bioluminescence so I also neglected to go with them because I was afraid I would fry. Instead, my sister, the kidlet, and I swam all day, stopping only to eat something called arepas but definitely not arepas but still pretty good.

Brother-in-law had only ONE thing that he really really wanted to see: Arecibo Observatory. Not because he's a big fan of the movie Contact but because he's a giant nerd.

So we obliged! According to their website "Arecibo Observatory is a research center operated by SRI International, USRA and UMET, under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF). and NASA. As the site of the second world's largest single-dish radio telescope, the Observatory is recognized as one of the most important national centers for research in radio astronomy, planetary radar and terrestrial aeronomy." I don't know what any of that means and even though it was explained through a short movie, several displays, and a tour guide I still don't.

Because we didn't order a rental van in a timely manner, we were stuck with two cars. Every day I would have to bribe someone to come with me and that day my sister took the bait. So I drove to our next stop through winding Puerto Rico back roads, with E gasping any time I was anywhere close to driving us off a cliff or into another car. Such drama. (Some of you may have driven with me in Nicaragua and know that I am perfectly capable but perhaps a little Latina in my driving style.) Our next stop was Hacienda La Esperanza. Managed by Para la Naturaleza, a Puerto Rico-based conservation group, the Hacienda highlights the sugar industry and the enslaved persons that made it possible.

A press for sugar cane

Fully mechanized operation (from West Point foundry!)

A collection of machetes,

The area was beautiful, the tour comprehensive and informative, and the legacy of slavery was not glossed over.

That evening we stopped at Bebo's, a VERY popular roadside barbecue joint out by the airport. I thought I did a good job ordering (without a menu and as a vegetarian) but learned that my niece doesn't actually like yucca or platanos and was (rightly) sick of beans. Ah well.

After days at the beach and driving around I really didn't want to go home and immediately applied for a job at the university measuring urban street trees...but I didn't get it so it left me open for other adventures to write about soon!

(For realz though, I went to India. You'll enjoy this.)

Bhutan - don't tease the animals

On the day that the monks migrated, we had a light day in Thimpu. Because "we're ladies" we went to the nunnery above the capital city. I had mentioned several times the temptation to run away to a Buddhist nunnery and I was pleased by what I saw: the nuns were surrounded by the smell of lemongrass as they chanted and played hand drums and a cat made itself comfortable in the sunniest nun lap. In Flushing, I always see nuns in Starbucks so I think that all of these things combine for a peaceful existence. I'll just have to work on my ability (or lack thereof) to sit still.

Then we moseyed on to an art 'emporium.' There we learned that the artists are divided into category according to skill. The younger/less talented artist draw the pieces, the more experienced artists fill in the backgrounds and the masters paint the faces and gold details. Each of the paints are made from Himalayan rocks and the canvas is cotton treated with animal fat. That combined with five barefooted young men all in one room made for a pretty stinky studio. Papa Lee bought some art but I resisted because I still haven't hung up any of my paintings from Nicaragua.

Our next stop was an art school. The country of Bhutan has 13 arts: metal-working, silver-smithing, gold-smithing, painting, basketry, weaving, woodworking, sewing, drawing, sculpture, dancing, singing, and I can't remember the last one. (Man! I was so close!) The school was closed for the King's birthday but one lone student approached us trying to sell some of his painting. We obliged but his works seemed a bit blurry so we took an active role in teaching him how to be used to disappointment and rejection.

Our final stop before lunch was to pay a visit to the national animal of Bhutan: the mighty takin, The takin was described to us an animal with the face of a goat and the butt of a cow. Wikipedia describes it as "a bee-stung moose." According to legend, it was created by the Divine Madman (that same guy who painted phalluses all over the country). There were signs all over asking us not to tease the animals which of course tempted me to taunt them mercilessly. "You stupid takin! You're ugly! No one will ever love you!" Nara thought this was hilarious but Phuntsho was a little shocked. Just gives you a little glimpse into the respective Asian senses of humor...but then Nara's always down for a good insult as I'll explain later.

Yo momma so goatlike...

No matter. We then headed back into Thimpu proper to have lunch with Phuntsho's wife Kunzang (our friend from grad school) and her brother who was visiting from Colorado. That afternoon, we went to a food festival where each of the 20 districts had a booth where they prepared and sold their specialties. At lunch, there was some discussion on whether these foods would be prepared according to stringent Western hygienic practices. Nara and I decided to risk it. and somehow fell into choosing the food that the other had to eat.  I made her eat an apple, walnut tart and she made me eat a thick buckwheat noodle covered in chili paste. And just because we hadn't eaten enough, we then met Kunzang and her family for a home-cooked dinner of ema datsi (chilies with cheese), buckwheat pancakes, red rice, spinach, lentils and well-filled glasses of wine.

Ema datsi is considered Bhutan's national dish and we ate a lot of it. Check out this video of a woman in traditional dress cooking. Please ignore her terrifying fingernails.

My notes from the evening are a mixture of the suitably esoteric:

• in the land reform of Bhutan the maximum land holding is set at 25 acres
• concept of 'government' versus 'state' especially regarding environmental commissions that have authority to penalize
• Bhutan will be organic by 2020

 vocabulary:

• gang = mountain
• chu = river
• chobs = cheers
• gardinche(la) = thank you

and general observations:

• old people marathon
• the country smells of betel nut

To clarify "old people marathon" because I'm sure that's the topic you have most interest in - when we left the hotel in the morning we spied a bunch of geriatrics running through town with numbered bibs. When I asked what was going on I was told that there was a marathon. Bhutan, however, does not hold with the standard distance for the marathon as this one was about 5K.

ALL the words!

Once upon a time (summer 2013) in a land far, far away (Santa Cruz, Bolivia) I commented to a friend (A) that I was thinking of signing up for an advanced Spanish class to smooth out my remaining grammatical errors. A said "Why? You know plenty of words." to which I indignantly responded, "I want to know ALL the words!"

As a good little language learner I keep a continuous list of new vocabulary. Since I just finished a notebook, I thought I would share some with you.

From the time I was reading the Safety and Security Manual:
pernocte - overnight
hostigamiento - harrassment
abolladuras - dents
fechorias - misdeeds
semovientes - livestock
escombros - debris
abrumadora - overwhelming
saque partido - take advantage

From the passion fruit report:
hito - milestone
deschupona - suckers (as in the coppice sense)

From our biannual staff meeting:
destreza - dexterity
hambruna - famine
pericia - expertise
cherepo - the loudly chirping lizard living outside my hotel room

From the painful audit that I didn't have the level of vocabulary necessary to translate for even though that was my main involvement:
cotizacion - bids, quotes
comprabantes - vouchers
delinquent account - saldo vencido (and totally not saldo delinquente which connotes little car-stealing, smoking in the bathroom accounts)

From the thousand interviews we had dealing with the milk/meat value chain:
pichinga - big container (this word only exists in Nicaragua)
arancel - tarriff
novillo - steer
pauta - pattern
ubre - udder (my favoritest new word)
pugna - conflict
potrero - paddock
errar - to brand
parida - calving
reductasa - reductaze (had to look that one up in English too)

From driving around:
marginal - service road
timon - steering wheel
desnivel - ramp
saca la lengua - to use blinker (or what you yell when someone doesn't use their indicator)
fulano - someone  you don't know (ie, The guy on the bus said...)
deacachimba - awesome (strong. not for polite company)
tuanis - awesome
chocho - awesome

This is fairly standard practice. Comparing notes with our guide at Mombacho, he totally whipped out his own vocab list. Really.

I'd have to a whole book for slang.

Nicanol v Quechanol

My big bad boss asked me recently what sort of differences I had noticed between Nicaragua and Bolivia, especially given that they are the second and third poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. It seems kind of unfair to compare two countries with such different historical legacies, indigenous heritage, and extent of foreign influence and doubly unfair to compare them after just six weeks.  Keeping in mind that the circumstances in which I live in Nicaragua are different -- with 300x more people, making 6x the money, and with access to about 20x the number of supermarkets -- here are my first impressions.

Overall, Nicaragua seems more developed and more amenable to tourists… more cars, more malls, more people who speak English. There are a crapload (that’s a scientific measurement) of expats for better or for worse. I used to fel that my blue eyes could burn holes into people but I kinda miss being the exotic (if not much-maligned) American. The other super obvious difference is the climate. It is hot here pretty much all of the time. It’s not as bad as I imagined it would be but my hair has not reacted that well.  Just today, a relatively humidity-free day, a colleague commented that my head seemed smaller than usual.

One of the simultaneously fun and frustrating aspects of moving to a new country is learning all the new slang (and curse words).  Bolivian Spanish is just kind of grammatically wrong. For example: once my Quechua profe was trying to describe the difference between two words by saying that one meant “de sueno” and the other “con sueno.” When I couldn’t figure out how that distinction translated to English I asked some non-Bolivian Spanish speaking friends who told me that, in any case, both were incorrect.

During most informal conversations here in Nicaragua I just sit listening wondering what the heck they’re talking about. It’s not for lack of Spanish vocabulary. A country full of poets as national heroes, Nicaragua takes the language to a whole new level; Nicanol is colorful and mumbled, and full of words that are made up. Last week I had a five minute conversation about the word cucuruchu (I think) that basically means “something that sticks up, like the tippity-top of a tree, a cowlick, or a pompom on a hat”.  Other new vocabulary: chavalo = teenager, chunche = thingie, chapa = earring, chiguena = baby, anda … = do you have …?.

Of course the food is a little different here too. Less soup, more cheese. I once bribed a Bolivian friend to go out for pizza with me but if I stay in Nica too long all the delicious salty fried cheese (especially with maduros) is going to lead me to an early death I’m sure. I miss my Camargo figs and peaches and plums though.

And last but not least: the couches are comfier in Nicaragua!