Una Problema Para Los Gringos

Eric uttered his first complete Spanish sentence today, "Es una problema para los gringos." We were so proud. It means, "It's a problem for the white people." This will make more sense at the end of this post.

For now, I will catch you up on my journal entries:

Continuation of Day 11 - 7:05 p.m.
Emily and I teamed up today to create a Facebook page for ETCA's products called, "ETCA [threads]". Please look it up and ask to join the group! We will be taking product photos this week and posting them on the page.

I drew up a few ideas for the women to embroider on future bags in my journal.

We are currently experiencing our second thunder storm during the night. The lightening show is stunning over the ocean, creating intense reflections across the water.

As the thunder rolls, Scott is making us a wonderful dinner of fried chicken, potatoes, and a cucumber/tomato salad. Yum...


Day 12 - El Transito, Nicaragua - 9:45 a.m. - Saturday - 06.18.11
I finished reading Poisonwood Bible today and have now started a new book called Little Bee by Chris Cleave. Both of these books so happen to be about white people's relationship with African people, which was not an intentional move on my part. Maybe I am supposed to learn something from this? Poisonwood Bible was set in the 1960s when Baptist missionaries were setting up missions all over Africa. After only reading 40 pages of Little Bee, it appears to be set now, in the early 2000s. We'll see where this book goes, but I'm afraid that it will only reveal more the amount of oppression Africa has experienced in part because of the Western world.

It's been a nice morning. Scott and I made pancakes with mango syrup this morning, which were delicious! The flies here are INSANE. They are in a constant swarm around you and your food all the time. Minor annoyance, I suppose.

- 6:30 p.m. -
We went for a long walk today, exploring the ins and outs of the village. We walked past both churches, to the private school, the baseball park, and down a narrow alley to the beach.


The alley was glittered with pieces of broken tile that Emily and I collected. You surprised? They were the most beautiful shade of pale aqua blue. What should I do with them....?

Our walk to the beach led us to a few hours of play in the waves.

Yes, those are pigs you see on the beach.

The boys attempted surfing, which in these monstrous waves was not very productive! The waves here are indescribably strong. Emily and I made friends with two little boys, Jonah and Dionisio. We threw a little nerf ball around with them on the coast for about an hour. I'm pretty sure the whole village gathered around to watch! All eyes on the gringos. The little boys happen to live just a few houses away, so now as we are relaxing on our patio, we see four little eyes peering through our fence calling, "Emily! Hannah!" We just tell them, "Hasta luego, ninos!" (See you later, boys!)

We are cooking fried chicken nuggest and chicken alfredo tonight, because our electricity went out and we had LOTS of chicken in the fridge! Apparently when the electricity goes out it takes a few days to get it back on.... which, seeing as how we already don't have hot water, and our stove runs on gas, we really aren't missing out on much. I am currently journaling by the lig.ht of a citronella candle - not quite as romantic or inspiring as say, moonlight, but at least there are no mosquitoes.


Day 13 - El Transito, Nicaragua - Sunday - 3:05 p.m. (now)
I am happy to report the the electricity DID come back on last night. But, like I said before, we were not really missing much. Our dinner was amazing! Julie came over to enjoy it with us.

This morning we woke up early and went on the most amazing hike I think I have ever been on. It is a close 1st place with hiking up some fourteeners in Colorado. We hiked along the Pacific coast for 4 hours during low tide. The places that we hiked are extremely dangerous during high tide, so we had to time our adventure carefully. The Pacific coast is very rocky, so hiking meant NOT treading along a sandy beach, but clobbering over cliffsides and boulders, watching as HUGE waves came crashing over the cliff to devour us if we ventured to close to the edge. There were certain points where we could stand at the edge of a cliff and see the Pacific rolling and roaring about 8 feet below us. It makes you feel so small to stand in the presence of such a vast blue space. Truly an amazing sight. We came across several tide pools, filled with sea urchins, animenis (sp?), sea slugs, and small striped fish. We stood in awe, staring into the depths of our newly found natural aquariums, not believing how close we were to such wonders of the sea. One such tide pool was about 6 feet deep, so we decided to jump in and have a swim! It was amazing! We could see right down to the bottom of the pool, so we knew nothing too large or creepy was lurking in its depths. It was the perfect refresher for our sun-scorched bodies.

Speaking of sun-scorched. We are so burned from our hike. Being that high on the cliffs put us pretty close to the sun. No amount of sunscreen could save us from getting at least a little burned. I, of coarse, being the whitest one in the bunch, probably suffered the most. But, I can safely say I have had worse!

Now to explain the title of this post.... Our caretaker at the house, Eddi, a local boy, asked us how to say "quemado" in English. We told him, "sunburn". Then Eric replied, in perfect Spanish, "es una problema para los gringos." It a problem for the white people. We had a good laugh at that.

Sorry for the lack of photos. I did not take my camera with me on our trek today because I didn't know whether or not it would get absolutely drenched. Maybe next time :)

With sand inbetween my toes,

HK