Vomit Soup

I suppose we are looking for a challenge. We’ve climbed a volcano which was a tough eight hours up and back on the side of a pretty steep cone. We’ve taken some interesting little jaunts in the countryside, down rivers, across lakes and around town. At the moment, we are taking Spanish grammar lessons, which although mundane, are not easy. Over the next few weeks we are thinking of doing some scuba diving and some paddling in Honduras. I’m sure all of these will present the sort of opportunities to stretch beyond the boundaries of our comfortable lives without actually putting ourselves in any real danger.

So it’s safe to say that I will get absolutely no sympathy from the people I’ve left behind to shovel snow and fight through temperatures that words cannot describe. But I have to ask you to put aside your perceptions of Nicaragua, the beautiful paradise that it is, and try to understand the horror that I have had to endure.

Last night, I was forced to eat something that brought back a haunting memory. Black beans submerged in a purplish broth with curdled sour cream on the surface ... it looked a lot like something I vaguely recall projecting into a toilet bowl in the 10th grade after drinking 2 liters of Rockaberry cooler. The real horror lies in the fact that the flavour was reminiscent as well. Kieran didn’t help any by leaning over and saying: ¨don’t you love how it’s warm - not quite hot... just like...¨ yeah. Just like vomit, Kieran. I KNOW.

I ate it. I ate it for the reputation of Canadians in Nicaragua. I ate it because we are guests in someone’s home and I ate it knowing that it would only make me stronger. And if I puked it back up, it wouldn’t be any worse than it was when it went down.

It was a gastronomically terrifying day all around when I really think about it. We had fish head soup for lunch - or was I the only one who got a fish head in my soup? The broth was good - watery more than fishy which suits me fine as I am only just beginning to acquire a taste for fish. The vegetables were fresh, and the portions were ample. The soup was fine, but I lost my apetite a little while sitting around the table with three extremely large Nicaraguan women who made sick soup slurping sounds and picked fish bones from their teeth while chewing with their mouths open. It made the fish head peering up at me look kind of pretty.

Not to worry - I don’t intend to turn this blog into a place to bellyache about crappy food. It hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. It’s just that telling you what happened today in grammar class seems a lot less interesting than the texture and colour of vomit soup.

I’m having filet mignon tonight. No, no, it’s not being hosted by our new Nicaraguan family – the steak I am having for dinner would cost them half their month´s wages. We’re going out for Kieran’s birthday to a nice restaurant, and ending the night at Rincon Leygal – the local Sandinista club whose walls are adorned with images of Daniel Ortega and Augusto Sandino, che Guavera and various other characters from the communist era. We are hoping to kick back and listen to the songs of the revolution while enjoying the capitalist nature of the establishment. A bucket of beer with a pinch of irony… should be good fun.

We are off to the Miraflor Nature Reserve near Esteli this weekend. I can’t wait to get out for a hike in the cloud forest. They say that this place is what the Monteverde Cloud forest in Costa Rica was like before the tourist boom.

Away, away, to study my verbs.