Pochomil and Purisima!

Last weekend Ivan and I went to Pochomil beach with Sabine and Matt. It was a wonderful and relaxing day! I made some fruit salad with fresh cantaloupe, watermelon and pineapple. Sabine and Matt brought some snacking treats from Trader Joes (sent by Sabine's mom) and of course we had lots of beer, limes and salt!

We were able to drive the car right up to our spot on the beach. There was a little hit with table and chairs and a few hammocks to lounge in. We spent the day snacking, drinking and chatting. The water was lovely, and we found a bunch of real sand dollars (I have never seen them alive before!) I will need to look up some information on them, because we have been to this beach before and never seen them, but this time they were everywhere, I wonder why.

Sabine and I took a nice walk down the beach and looked at all the pretty houses and discussed how we both like Nicaragua a lot more whenever we leave Managua. We got back in time for sunset and then it was time to hit the road, as it gets dark very quickly here and the road back is not the best to drive on at night (or any time) due to its poor conditions. Matt was great at avoiding the pot holes!

As we got closer to Managua we had a glimpse at the Purisima celebration. This is a very Nicaraguan holiday where they celebrate the emaculate conception of Mary. We had been celebrating it at school as well. Basically people make an alter to Mary outside their house with lights and flowers and a statue of Mary. Then people walk to these houses and stand outside and sing songs for Mary. After they have sung a couple of songs the people come out and give them treats like sweet lemons, traditional Nicaraguan candies and corn drinks. It is a little like trick o treating only with a different meaning. People also set off fire crackers at midnight and noon for a couple of days. It was kinda cool to hear the sounds of hundreds of fire crackers going off all at once for a few minutes, but it got old after awhile since people here are crazy for the Purisima, some could not wait until midnight or noon to set off their noise maker.

At school we had a Purisima assembly where they gave the students candy and whistles! The entire school was in the assembly hall and every child was blowing their whistle, it was the loudest, most horrible sound ever! When we got back to the classroom I closed all the windows and doors and did not allow any whistle-blowing in my classroom while they got their backpacks and left.

The Sandinistas continued their occupation of all the traffic circles and handed out rice, beans and oil to people lined up there. I thought it was nice at first but Ivan was very upset by it. He said they are ruining the very Nicaraguan tradition of Purisima. They are not handing out traditional treats, instead they are trying to buy the votes of these poor people by giving them a bag of food. the tax payers are the ones paying for all that food that is being passed out and it is not really helping the people by giving a hand out. We were watching people going through the lines on TV and people would show up with all their kids and they would give every person in line a bag of rice, beans and oil. And there didnt seem to be a system of making sure people didnt go through several times.

Anyway, we all enjoyed the extra day off of work whether we were celebrating Mary or not :)