Cooking Nicaraguense - Gallo Pinto

This is my first installment of Nicaraguan recipes that I will be posting regularly on my blog. I figured I'd start with Gallo Pinto since it is the most popular dish found in Nicaragua. These recipes are meant to serve more as an educational experience regarding what typical Nicaraguan dishes are like, rather than something that's always feasible to prepare (unless you're really up for the challenge! Some of these recipes can be pretty time-consuming). I hope you enjoy!

Gallo Pinto



2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 large onions – thinly sliced
2 cups cooked red beans
¼ cup water
1 cup cooked white rice

Beans: cook 1 cup of dry red beans with 6 crushed cloves of garlic and water in a pressure cooker for 15 to 20 minutes. Sauté the onion in a pot. Add in the cooked beans and water. Cook for 5 minutes at a low heat whilst stirring. The beans must remain whole. Now add the cooked rice and simmer for a further 10 minutes, still stirring.

(recipe taken from www.nicaragua.com/recipes)

Building Confianza in a Developing World

In Spanish, the word "confianza" means trust, and during our first three months in-country, also known as Peace Corps training, we are taught incessantly about the importance of gaining confianza and building relationships within the community before diving right in and attempting to start a project. In the U.S., diving right in with a business associate may roll, but in a developing nation where you may not share the same political, religious, cultural, educational, and/or socioeconomic background as those with whom you work, if you have no confianza, you'll have limited success.

Now that I have over a year and a half in my site, I feel I've developed enough confianza with certain people to make our work together worthwhile. With some people, it came easily because of their relationships with the previous environmental education volunteer, or because of an inherent openness or fondness towards Americans and American culture. However, this was certainly not the case with everybody.

People generally view all "gringos" the same - rich, right-wing, and basically there to give away hand-outs. To try to teach people the reality in that not all Americans are alike, just as not all Nicas are alike, and that we are working voluntarily for only a modest living stipend, is very difficult.

However, one thing that certainly helps level the playing field is our living allowance, or better said, stipend. In the U.S., we are considered volunteers, but here, we make just about the same amount of money as any teacher, which is not considered a salary for us but rather a stipend for basic living expenses. As much as this can frustrate any volunteer who's used to going out on a weekly basis, traveling, and saving up money back home, it can actually be a blessing.

Why? It puts us more on the same playing field with our counterparts who are making about the same amount of money as we are. We live in similarly-sized houses under the same living conditions and are therefore no longer seen as "rich gringos" (well, at least that is the goal). It gives two people raised under entirely different circumstances more things to share in common.

The rest of the confianza-building process depends on how much you're willing to put yourself out there and step out of your comfort zone during your first few months of service to visit people you hardly even know at their houses and try to carry on a conversation in a language which you barely dominate. As awkward as this was, I now realize how much closer I am with these teachers than with the teachers with whom I started working mid-service because we've gotten to know each other personally rather than on just a professional basis. We cook together, they invite me to family and school functions, they come to my house with their kids, and they paint my toenails (I'm telling you, pedicure-quality toenail paintings).

But not only are we close personally, I have much more success with them work-wise because they show more interest in my projects. They truly understand what it is I'm doing in Nicaragua for two years. So is it really worth having all that free time in your first two months of service and sitting through all those awkward silences when you're first getting to know each other? Absolutely.

It may not have been apparent when I first got here why I had so much time off, why I wasn't just placed in-site right at the beginning of the school year instead of at the very end, or why "confianza" is so important and why we are forced to live on such small means. It's made me get to know and understand better the people with whom I work on a regular basis. I'm more respected. And I often feel more like a part of the community than a complete outsider. So even though my work can often frustrate me, I can at least feel some sense of accomplishment because of the relationships I've built along the way.

Un Dia Tipico

Thank you for those of you who made suggestions for my next blog entry. I will be writing several to try to take into account all of them, since I know there's still a lot you'd like to know. This entry is about a typical day in Nicaragua...

I wake up between 5:30 and 6:30 to the sun rising brightly, illuminating the starfruit tree I have outside of my window. I take a refreshing, or sometimes less refreshing and more frigid, cold water shower, and if there's no water, a bucket bath from the water I have saved in my pila (large water storage area). I'll usually prepare myself a cold oatmeal drink of oatmeal, sugar, and water, but if it's a weekend and I have rice and beans on hand, I'll make gallo pinto (fried rice and beans) with a warm corn tortilla from one of the tortilla ladies down the street and a fresh avocado. To die for.

After I've gotten myself ready, I'll leave for school, umbrella in hand (for both sun and rain), and wait for the bus. The ride is between 20 and 40 minutes on either a paved or dirt road, depending on the school, and if reggaeton is blasting, the ride usually seems quicker. At the school, I'll co-teach the class to 3rd-6th grade collectively (multigrade) on a science-related topic that the teacher and I have already planned earlier that week using lots of fun, hands-on activities.

After spending a few hours at the school, I'll take the bus back into the "city" (sometimes standing), go home to relax, and heat up my lunch on the gas stove. This is usually something that I've already prepared a day or two before and continually heat up throughout the day so it doesn't spoil (since I have no refrigerator...I like to try to stay within the living allowance that PC gives us and since I was never able to save up enough to buy a mini-fridge, well, I don't have one).

The food I'll prepare is usually one of the following: rice and beans with malanga, quequisque (both in the potato family), or chayote (a type of squash) and fried green plantains; curried lentil stew with potatoes, chayote, and carrots served over rice; pasta with homemade tomato sauce, soymeat, and chayote; soymeat prepared with potatoes, carrots, and chayote served over rice; chickpeas cooked with Indian spices, carrots, and tomatoes served over rice; and if I'm lucky enough to be in Managua or another big city that day, I'll bring back some fresh eggplant, broccoli, or spinach to cook with garlic and oil over pasta.

Although this may (or may not) sound appetizing, it gets tiring eating the same things all the time, especially after almost two years. So if you have any simple recipes using any of the ingredients mentioned above, please, send them my way!!!

My afternoons are usually spent napping/relaxing, at the Mayor's Office planning, carrying out an environmental activity or eco-group session, and/or co-planning with one of my six teachers. The teachers with whom I've developed more "confianza" (trust) will usually have me over for a while longer to chat, offering me a drink or sometimes a meal. I feel like I've had much more success working with those teachers (more on that in a later blog).

I mostly get around by bicycle, but if it's raining or looks like it's about to rain, I'll walk. On the days that I go to my afternoon school in town, I'll spend the mornings sleeping in a little bit, hand-washing clothes for about two hours, sweeping and mopping the floors, and cooking one of the above-mentioned recipes. After lunch, I'll walk 25 minutes or ride my bike to the poorest neighborhood in town and spend my afternoon in class there. One night a week I give science classes there to enrolled adults, too.

Upon returning home at night, I'll eat dinner and relax, preparing materials for the next day's class, or watch DVDs of "Sex and the City" or the "Office" until I go to bed around 9 (I know, lame). My days of nightly English classes are over now that we have a new TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer in town, Jocelyn!

On weekends or days that I don't have class, I'll visit friends, have eco-group meetings, travel to a community to plant trees, catch up on household duties and chores, travel two hours to the closest city to get my mail and do some grocery shopping for some difficult-to-find items, watch local soccer games, use the internet, or just relax.

Really, no day is ever the same here because my schedule pretty much varies on a week-to-week, season-to-season basis, but now you've got the gist of what I generally do. If it seems like teaching for only half the day, three to four days a week is nothing, take into account all the wasted time spent making numerous trips to co-plan, meet with someone at the Mayor's Office or an NGO, or even school when I find that they are not there or are in a meeting, which makes planning things really fun for me. But what's great is that I always have the flexibility to move things around if I need to take an afternoon or day off, which is not so easy with a 9-5 job.

Overall, I try to keep myself fairly busy and avoid spending too much time alone in my house to prevent boredom and loneliness. I also want to be able to look back at my two years here and feel like I really did something positive for the community. I've got less than five months left, and time is moving quickly. Hello, U-S-A!

Suggestions?

Hi everyone, I'd like to leave my next blog post open to suggestions. Is there anything I haven't written about or that you'd like to hear more about? Nica culture, a typical day, food, Peace Corps, etc? Please, leave a comment or send me an email...I'm looking for suggestions!!!! Thanks!