Funny, Fantastic, and Frustrating

In this blog i decided to take the opportunity to relay some of the things that have been said to me that made me laugh out loud, or that seemed really interesting to me, or situations that were down-right frustrating...yet all illustrate what day to day life in puerto cabezas is like...

fantastic...cody´s amazing connection with a man named chico down at the pier. on any given day we can drive down to the pier, pull up in front of his small, yellow painted, wooden shack and collect pounds of fresh caught monster crabs, or lobster tails. chico has also been known to hook us up with half of a red snapper or some delicious fresh conch meat! all we need to do is get the butter, cody cooks it up, and we are feasting of giant claws!

funny...Ena and i were talking about our families one day. She asked me how many sisters and brothers I had, and nodded politely as i told her i had one of each. she then asked me if i get confused when i would see my sister, mistaking someone else for her, because all white people look the same! I explained to her that i am pretty confident of who my sis is! Earlier in the year I had attended a global health conference and during one presentation the lecturer mentioned a study that was conducted in which people of a similar color are able to distinguish between people of the same color better than those of a different color....case in point!

funny...Dr. Aragon likes to ask me all kinds of questions about the United States. I think he is either trying to flex his knowledge to impress me or to dispell myths. One day he told me how people in the US dont have sex. He then said that all we do is work and so there isn´t any time for sex. He explained that this was different from latin america where everyone makes time for it. I told him it wasn´t true...its just that people in the US use more birth control than in Puerto Cabezas!

fascinating...Miskito women follow many tradtional practices related to birth, post partum, and care of the newborn.
-Several of the women at the casa materna have not participated in learning to crochet or embroider. come to find out these women have a beleif that if you crochet or sew during pregnancy that this will cause the babies cord to wrap around its neck.
-Many woman are known to use teas of commonly found herbs to stimulate labor. this is the oxy-casera that i refered to in an earlier post. They also protect themselves from wind/cold entering their body after birth. This is a common preocupation of women throughout all of latin america, yet their preventative practices are different. Women here put cotton balls in their ears and cover their head for 9 days postpartum to prevent wind from entering their body and affecting their uterus. Similar to other latin american cultures women will make tea from rosemary in a large pot and sit over it to steam the uterus and release any wind or retained placenta.
-As far as newborn care women put a red plastic band that has a large brown seed as large as the newborns fist, around the babies arm to ward of the evil eye which is known to cause diarrhea, dehydration and death. the baby is also fed 1oz of a tea of cumin or fennel 3xdaily after birth to help expell all of the meconium (babies first poop) and prevent colic. Women are also advised not to do any sewing post partum because this can prevent the babies umbilical cord from drying up and falling off.

frustrating...trying to start even the smallest business in puerto cabezas! since my arrival i have been planning on starting a small business to sell frescos, ice, and boly at the casa materna to gain more funds for them and help provide money for transportation of the pregnant ladies/new moms. Everything moves in slow motion here...you make a plan to go look at fridges and it ends up taking a week before it happens. then you find out that the store is waiting for a new shipment that must be hauled through the mud and crater like pot holes of the "road" from managua, so you want to wait to see what they will bring before you commit. the shipment of course will be in at 4pm that same day...but one week later it finally arrives. then when you finally try to make the purchase the credit card machine line is down. it will be fixed by 4pm. its fixed 4 days later. then they arent sure how to use the credit card machine...then they learn...then you find out that they don´t take master card. then you use your debit card...but a block has been put on it...then you have to go to the internet cafe and use skype to unblock the card, and after four attempts (because the connection gets lost) you finally get it unblocked. then you realize it has been 3 weeks and 9 hours and you still havent got the fridge...but you are close, closer than ever before!

now we will see how long it will take to make the frescos and sell them. my goal is to sell just one bag of fresco before my little plane takes me back to managua then once again to san francisco! All frustration aside, if it was as easy to run errands and accomplish goals here it wouldnt be puerto cabezas...it would be the states and it would lose all of its charm and tranquility!