I thought I would share two quick stories about adapting to life in Nicaragua.
The other day I was working on some of the materials for a youth workshop in one of the offices of the health center and was really hot. I ride my bike to the health center so often times I arrive and I am hot. It doesnt help that the offices are small and usually have only one small window to fresh (hot) air. So I´m sitting, sweating, making these materials in the office, when something big flies past my face. A bat. My reaction should have been, ¨Holy crap, a bat!¨ But instead my reaction was, ¨That little breeze felt soooo gooood!¨
I´m being a good adapted Peace Corps volunteer by using local resources (a bat) to make up for what I lack (electrical fan)!
My other story is in regards to food and my weight. When I first got to Corinto and showed some of my new friends pictures of me and my family people would always tell me that I ¨looked much skinnier in person than in the pictures¨. I thought that this was a good thing, perhaps I would return to the States skinnier just as my friends had predicted. But then came the reality of living and eating in Nicaragua. Let me explain.
In training, we were fed 3 small meals a day and didn´t know many Nicas outside of our host families. So fast forward to me arriving in Corinto after training (skinnier because of three meals a day in small portions) and discovering the amazing world of fritanga! Fritanga are little stands that women have in front of their houses where they sell all the fried delicacies of the Nicaraguan diet. I´m not going to lie, I became addicted. I craved Dona Blanca´s fried enchilada and gallo pinto every night. So from eating dinner most nights at a fritanga I put on a lot of the weight I had lost. And when I walked into rooms people would say, ¨Hola Pablo, you look fat today!¨ (Oh thank you! Good day to you too ma´am!) Anyways, the fritanga alone didn´t beef me up.
I found myself eating 4 or 5 meals a day because people kept giving me meals. I would eat a sizable lunch and then about 30 minutes later someone would come stop by with a plate of food and say ¨here we made this for you!¨ and I would say to them, ¨oh thank you so much but I just ate!¨ But then they would get a really sad look in their eyes and just kind of stand there with the plate not knowing what to do, so finally I´d say, ¨but I guess I can eat more...¨ So then I would dutifully eat a second lunch. Then dinner time would come around and the same thing would happen. Thus, two dinners and two lunches. This didnt happen all the time, but once or twice a week is enough to beef me up.
In training, we were fed 3 small meals a day and didn´t know many Nicas outside of our host families. So fast forward to me arriving in Corinto after training (skinnier because of three meals a day in small portions) and discovering the amazing world of fritanga! Fritanga are little stands that women have in front of their houses where they sell all the fried delicacies of the Nicaraguan diet. I´m not going to lie, I became addicted. I craved Dona Blanca´s fried enchilada and gallo pinto every night. So from eating dinner most nights at a fritanga I put on a lot of the weight I had lost. And when I walked into rooms people would say, ¨Hola Pablo, you look fat today!¨ (Oh thank you! Good day to you too ma´am!) Anyways, the fritanga alone didn´t beef me up.
I found myself eating 4 or 5 meals a day because people kept giving me meals. I would eat a sizable lunch and then about 30 minutes later someone would come stop by with a plate of food and say ¨here we made this for you!¨ and I would say to them, ¨oh thank you so much but I just ate!¨ But then they would get a really sad look in their eyes and just kind of stand there with the plate not knowing what to do, so finally I´d say, ¨but I guess I can eat more...¨ So then I would dutifully eat a second lunch. Then dinner time would come around and the same thing would happen. Thus, two dinners and two lunches. This didnt happen all the time, but once or twice a week is enough to beef me up.
Anyways I have a few strategies to combat this:
1. Running
2. I bought a fridge. This way when I have gifted food or leftover food I can put it in the fridge and save it for another day.
3. Stop buying from fritanga.
In the past week I have implemented all of these strategies and we´ll see what happens. I dont mind having a gut, I´ve had it my whole life (it seems). But I would like to avoid people greeting me with ¨Wow you´re fat!¨ We´ll see what happens...
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