Humble Laughter

Stomaching the pig you heard being slaughtered two hours earlier is not the easiest thing to do for breakfast. Especially when it is fried and served with rice, beans, salad, and tortillas at 6:00 a.m.

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Determined to be able to speak Spanish at least at a conversational level before leaving Latin America, Amanda and I enrolled in a week of intense Spanish lessons at La Mariposa, in the small town of San Juan de la Concepcion. For the past week, we have been studying one-on-one with patient teachers, and re-learning grammar and vocabulary that had been lying dormant for years. It is amazing how much comes flooding back when you study just grammar for 6 hours a day. Yet what has marked our time here in San Juan more than the school, has been our conversations, hearty laughs, and sometimes awkward moments with our host family.

Sleeping, eating, and conversing with locals plunges you into the thoughts, problems, cultures, and concerns of day-to-day life. It is a view that is hidden from hostels, cities, and the long bus rides across the country. It is how you are able to wake up to a pig dying and then eat it fresh! for breakfast, and how you get to know someone who has just returned from work at a sweatshop.

In this humble abode lives Gollita, her husband, and one of her grown daughters. In the other

house on the property lives another daughter and her three children. Yet members of the family flow in and out of the rickety metal gate; stopping by to ask a question, to pass the time, and to snag a bite to eat . . . but mainly just to say hello.

Each evening Gollita serves us a feast. The family sits around the table watching us eat (they eat separately), laughs at our misunderstandings, and quizes us about life in the states. We daily eat our body weight in traditional Nicaraguan food: a heaping plate of gallopinto (red beans and rice mixed together), a fried plantain, weird extremely salty cheese, a salad of tomatoes and shredded lettuce, and small portion of meat. Then dessert -when you can't possibly fit anything else - is a giant bowl of fruit.

Wednesday evening, stuffed to the brim, Gollita told us that she hoped we would be able to sleep through the madrugada (early dawn). Amanda and I chuckled, knowing that neither of us would sleep well at all. Nights are not quiet in Central America, to say the least. Each house blasts their stereo systems as loud as possible. When the people can't hear their own mariachi or reggaeton music over that of their neighbors, they crank it up louder. Radios usually shut off by midnight, but come on by 3 a.m. Add some dog fights. And some dogs barking at the dogs fighting. Toss in some roosters, and the honking of public buses carting people to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. No, nights are not very quiet in Central America. Gollita said it again: "Espero que puedan dormir esta noche." Why, we asked? What's special about tonight? "It's Thursday, the neighbors kill the pigs tomorrow," she replied. "Fried pig for breakfast!"

Sure enough, at 4 a.m. we awoke to the shrill cries of the pig being slaughtered in the neighbor's yard. The noise is piercing at first; you can hear the animal's initial moment of absolute terror and pain. The shrieks gradually slow down and each cry becomes quieter, as though in his last few breaths the pig finally realizes what he should have known all along, that this has been his fate since birth.

6 a.m. cerdo frito! Good morning Nicaragua! It was enough to make me want to return to my vegetarian habits . . .

The family was so pleased to share this meal with us. Gollita had woken up early to get in line to purchase the freshest pork possible. The people of San Juan de la Concepcion live humbly, but largely. To go to the bathroom, you go in a hole. To take a shower, you pour water over your body, scrub and then rinse - all out of a bucket. To wash dishes and clothes, you carry just enough water across the yard. To dispose of trash, you burn it. To earn enough money, many people work 12 hours days in a sweatshop and commute over an hour each way, without complaining. Yet despite these perhaps humble elements of life, the people celebrate like no one else, taking out loans in order to throw their daughter a proper quinceanera, or their son a huge graduation party. They joke and jest constantly, and are not afraid to laugh. They dine and drink well. And on Friday's they eat fried pig.