Recetas: indio viejo, macúa, y mangos

How to make indio viejo:

1 pound chicken breast tofu
4 tomatoes
4 sticks mint
2 onions
1 green pepper
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons vinegar
½ pound corn flour
½ pound butter
½ tablespoon achiote
salt
water

1.) Chop the garlic, onion, tomato and green pepper in small pieces. 
2.) Boil the chicken tofu in a pot with sufficient water to cover it. 
3.) Add the cut vegetables and season to taste with salt.  Let boil on low heat for 15 minutes.
4.) Mix the corn flour with water until it’s liquidy. Add the achiote. 
5.) Melt ¼ pound of butter in a big pot. Once it’s melted add the corn flour-mass, and fry it for about 4 minutes.
6.) Fish out the chicken tofu from the pot, and let the vegetables boil for another 5 minutes.
7.) Tear the chicken tofu into strips and bath them in ¼ pound of butter. 
8.) Fry them in a frying pan and add it in the pot with the mass and the vegetables.
9.) Finally add the peppermint and the vinegar and boil everything for another 2 minutes.

After an exhausting hike to the Volcan Mombacho last Sunday in Granada, our guide treated us to the national cocktail, macúa.  We then made it for a group dinner with our French friends at the hostel (they made homemade hamburgers, buns, french fries, and guacamole...), but at least we got this one recipe down!  1 part guava juice + 1 part orange juice + 1 part Flor de Caña rum + spritz of lime + safe-for-gringas ice.

While kayaking we picked up some mangoes on one of the islets.  When we brought them to our cooking class that evening, the teacher taught us how to serve them Nicaragua style: mangoes peeled and sliced expert-street vendor style + diced chile pepper + salt + lime.  Purportedly good in honey as well.

¡Buen provecho!

Viva la revolución Sandinista

Long live the revolution,
not the rightist molesters

Yesterday, July 19th, was the official anniversary of the Sandinista revolution.  The government recently decided that no one should have to work today either, so the month-long festivities continue.

The anniversary celebrates when the Sandinista revolutionaries overthrew the dictator Somoza on July 19, 1979.  His family had been in control of the country for over four decades thanks to the support of the United States government.  When the Sandinistas finally gained power, they were framed as Communists by the Reagan administration.  Reagan cut off aid to Nicaragua and secretly funded Contra rebels to destabilize the government.  The Sandinistas were leftists but nationalists first.  The most important goals of were independence and empowering the masses.  The legendary inspiration of the movement is Sandino, a short man pictured with a large hat, who fought as a revolutionary against U.S. military occupation of Nicaragua in the 1920’s and 30’s.  His shadow can be found in all corners of the city.

These are EVERYWHERE in every size

The next Nicaraguan national elections are coming up at the same time as in the States.  Daniel Ortega, who was a leader of the provisional Sandinista government in the 70’s, is seeking reelection as president.  It was only when a taxi driver asked me if I'd heard about the alert out to all Americans that I learned the U.S. embassy has recommended its citizens stay out from Nicaragua during the highly political climate. [So, Mom, don't read that paragraph.]

While the government is technically a democracy, all other political opinions are stifled, and elections are rumored to be rigged.  Ortega and the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or the Sandinista National Liberation Front) don’t want international observation because they claim the U.S. has rigged elections in the 80’s and will do it again.


For learning more about modern Nicaraguan history, I highly recommend the book The Country Under My Skin, “an electrifying memoir from the acclaimed Nicaraguan writer and central figure in the Sandinista Revolution,” Gioconda Belli, who I will get to see speak later this month!!!!

Ortega’s government does not commit the abundant, horrific human rights abuses that Somoza’s government did; however, it has created a virtual dictatorship of unchecked power.  Especially in this month of celebrating the revolution, the FSLN party portrays itself as synonymous with Nicaraguan independence.  It is the youth who are most disillusioned with the party.  This is because unlike the older generations, they were never led to freedom by the original Sandinista revolutionaries.  The current FSLN is aggressively courting the youth vote.  They have a huge youth organization that is very closely tied with the schools.  I’ve seen a lot of dances put on by the children of the Sandinista Youth Organization (some traditional dances and some disturbingly sexual).

Youth dances at a FSLN demonstration

Piñatas are incredibly popular here, for every type of festivity

On July 7th, in honor of the Sandinistas recapturing a prison in Leon from the Somozas, the entire town marches all together to the nearby hills where the prison used to be.  While the Marcha al Fortín is officially celebrating this moment in the path to Nicaraguan liberation, in reality the parade was more of a political rally for Daniel, as they call him.  I walked with the parade off to the side on the sidewalk for as long as I could.  The line of people filling the streets stretched about ten blocks.  Street vendors and ice cream sellers also walked the whole march providing their invaluable services.  There was a stage with someone shouting political slogans into a microphone, drumming troupes, dance groups, children dressed in traditional clothes, university students holding large posters, large paper mache figures, men in animal masks, and endless people in black and red bandanas.  When the march turned a corner to go up a narrow road to the Fortín prison in the hills, it got so crowded that I decided I shouldn’t be alone in the middle of the march.  The only other white people I saw were tourists peeking out the window from a hostel taking pictures.

Song of the month, all about Nicaraguan pride in its revolution


On the actual day of the anniversary of the revolution, most of the country goes to Managua to celebrate.  I figured one packed Sandinista rally was enough for me, so I stayed in Leon where it is supposed to be much more quiet.  Yesterday morning though we got news that anti-Sandinistas were protesting by blocking the local party members from entering their houses.  The demonstrators were burning tires in the street where I walk to go to one of the clinics during the week.

Isla de Ometepe

Last weekend Maggie, Hannah, Sara, and I went to Isla de Ometepe.  This was the only Nicaraguan site in my (dad's) Lonely Planet Top 500 Places in the World book, so I had high hopes.  The entire island consists of two volcanos rising up from the middle of Lake Nicaragua.  It is all very undeveloped with few tourists and no cities.  Transportation is not simple, and all its wonders are natural ones.  The best way to get around was by bike or by jam-packed-in-the-way-only-third-world-countries-know-how 'chicken buses.'

Walking through plantain forests from one part of the island to another

We biked to Ojo de Agua, a swimming lagoon in the rain forest at base of volcano.
Unfortunately it's becoming less and less secluded in nature with the advent a poolside restaurant

Walking along the beach, when we came to this super green pasture with horses and bubbling creeks

El Volcan Maderas

Know your earthquake emergency plan!
We also had a what-if-lava-starts-flowing-down-this-road emergency plan

We started out at 5 am for an intense guided hike (only to the half-summit) of the active Volcano Concepción

View as we scrambled up boulders of volcanic rock

Discovering our favorite bakery

We attended a baseball game in Altagracia, the small town where we were staying on the island.  In Nicaragua, baseball is actually more popular than soccer (even though some of the players were wearing soccer cleats and even soccer jerseys).  The games are usually free, and teams from different parts of the island or the mainland will play each other.  Only one of the teams we saw had real jerseys; the other team sort of all just wore blue.  One of the catchers didn't have a chest protector, and almost none of the players had batting gloves.  Stray dogs would wander onto the field from time to time during the game.  The atmosphere was still very exciting and reminded me of summers at home.  In between the double header, all the kids and teenagers (only boys, heaven forbid a girl should've tried to join) run out on to the field to catch balls hit by the players.  (Side note: I tried to convince the hostel owner that I loved baseball because I played softball so much, and he said "Oh, but the girls don't play the sport with bats, right?")  One of the little boys collapsed in the outfield, and it took a minute before eventually the players went out to check on him.  Once roused from his faint spell, he hopped right back up to chase after more balls.

The experience was tainted when we had to leave early because a group of men kept staring at us, surrounding, and making sexual comments at us, pretty typical of my time in Nicaragua so far.  If I had been a male traveler, even if still white as can be, I could have easily sat with the men, talked up the sport with them, and learned something about their lives; there's very little hostility against foreigners.  Instead, being a womyn, I was looked up and down by most men there, shouted "hello sexy" at, and whistled at, eventually feeling so uncomfortable even in a group of four that we all had to leave.  Going on weekend trips as a group of four girls, our Nicaraguan friends will often comment, "You girls are going alone?! Are there any men coming?"  It's not that it is really any more unsafe without a male escort when we're in a group, it's just that it is a bit socially radical.  It's as if they are asking us, "How will you make decisions on your own?  Why would explore on your own?"  Independence is not characteristic cultivated or valued in womyn here.  Men catcall groups of womyn ten times out of ten if there's no man with them.  One man present and a group of womyn will get never get catcalled.  Society allows an independent womyn to be overly-sexualized and mocked on the streets, but an escorted womyn is different since she's under the realm of another man.

In the central plaza of Altagracia; strikingly beautiful and capturing the essence of the island

Granada

The cathedral of Granada

Central plaza of Granada

Ancient figures of gods in the San Francisco convent museum

Courtyard of convent museum

Visiting a weaving shop

Iglesia La Merced
(There were a lot of churches in this city.  And it still couldn't rival Leon.)

View from the top of the tower

Tasting chocolate liquor and tea at the chocolate museum

Traditional Granada dish of vigoron: yucca, salad, and fried pig skin 3/10

Doing a private cooking class (with free sangria!)
Our teacher was so sweet, she had us stop by for free churros the next day

Cooking Indio Viejo; the story goes that to keep the Spanish from stealing their feast,
the natives told them that it was made from the Old Indian who died the night before

Final product of Indio Viejo with homemade tortillas, salsa, and rice 9/10

Visiting a famous cigar shop, he rolled us a chocolate flavored one
only to have us (public health students) all preposterously reject his offer to smoke it

Kayaking among the 365 islets on Lake Managua

Churches of Granada can be seen in the distance

From the top of Fortaleza San Pablo, the sight of many pirate attacks on Granada

We hiked to the top of the Volcano Mombacho, the equivalent of 157 floors up (according to our iPhones).  The first half of the hike it was pouring and often so steep we could've crawled just as easily.  We were freezing at the summit, so the couple of little holes to the center of the Earth that emitted warm, steamy air with a slight smell of sulfur were very welcome.  We could see the entire city of Granada and the islets where we kayaked from the top, as well as two enormous craters.  We heard (eerie) and saw (cute) howler monkeys in the dense trees, and my first in-person SLOTH!  The word for sloth is literally "the lazy" in Spanish.

On our drive out of the city to return to Leon late at night, we could see the red spray of lava surrounding the top of another more active volcano.

Our quaint hostel

San Juan del Sur

Last weekend Sara, Hannah, Maggie and I spent at San Juan del Sur, a beach town filled with American surfer bums.

Our (very luxurious) hostel at SJDS

Sleeping under mosquito nets at the hostel

Running on the beach with Maggie

Don't feed the lizards

Horseback riding along the beach and through the towns

The best part was a hike (think Bop to the Top race in Indy) we took to the Christ of the Mercy statue on a cliff above the city (think Christ the Redeemer in Rio).

Christ of the Mercy statue in distance

View from the top

Despite such a luxurious respite in San Juan del Sur, highlight of the week was still the twenty cordoba street churros filled with dulce de leche cream, 10/10 would recommend.  Eating churros was the only thing exciting that happened to me on the Fourth of July.