I'm Dreaming of a Wet Christmas

Most of the bE volunteers leave Bluefields over the holiday, either to return home or visit different sections of Latin America. One contingency headed out to do a turbine replacement at a Costa Rican eco-lodge. Others left for Brazil, Panama, the U.S., France. Meanwhile, Ali, Ken, and Luic remained in Bluefields to hold down the fort, bake cookies, and feed the mosquitos.

In order to properly celebrate the holidays in Bluefields, all you need are a couple cans of bright house paint, some twinkle lights, a few over-the-top decorations (easily purchased downtown), and a handful of firecrackers. Apply liberally. Repeat as needed. You will have plenty of time to rest afterwards, during one of the holiday's thirty-seven traditional meals.

Vida Luz, a close friend of bE, invited us to celebrate Christmas Eve with her family, which at least one of us (hint: it wasn't Ali or Luic) was mildly concerned about due to his linguistic-related failings. We were expecting a quiet evening that would later be filled out by a party happening at Hotel Anabas. Following a filling meal of roasted meats and salads and beer at the home of Vida Luz’s sister, Argentina, we headed into town to their mom’s house to meet and visit with twenty additional family members.

Their second-story home overlooks a busy street in downtown Bluefields, with a spacious patio, fresh paint, and a light-up Santa that Luic helped fix (another bE success story). At eleven, Secret Santa activities began and, for some kind reason, we received gifts. At midnight we headed down to the street to set off fireworks that lit up both the sky and the feet of anyone who wasn't paying attention (never, ever turn your back during those first few minutes of Christmas). Fireworks were followed by another meal.

At no point during the evening did Ken accidentally ask to borrow a pig.

Christmas itself was mellower, waking up late and listening to Christmas music online (Luic hinted that the only French Christmas music occurs in churches). After a traditional Nica lunch of noodles and vegetables, we attempted festive-ness with tortilla Española, honey-glazed carrots, salad, and rum punch ( ½ a pineapple, ¼ a watermelon, two oranges, and rum). Pineapple-upside-down cake and chocolate chip cookies for desert, joined by one of the bE house guards (Victor). While our families up north were looking out onto a thick covering of snow, here it was 80+ degrees and pouring rain. In the waning hours of our very traditional holiday, Luic worked on a final report for bE while Ali and Ken watched Kill Bill Volume 2.

A belated and confused Feliz Navidad from Nica!

The Occasional Pets of Bluefields

Four dogs currently serve as guardians and general mud-footed deviants of the bE house: Cooky, Flipper, Suzie, and the unnamed black one. The computer printers have identical names and are labeled, which is the only reason we have any guesses at the spelling. We expect all of the dogs to be named and properly accounted for once a fourth printer arrives.

Both Flipper and Suzie sleep in blue buckets or on tables just outside the main house. They are energetic protectors of the house (even from people friendly to bE), and for this are fed comparatively well with chicken scraps and rice. No one knows where the black one sleeps. Cooky, already quite old and bearing a striking resemblance to Snoop Dogg (apologies for lack of a picture), was recently hit by a car and removed next door to be cared for. When we see her, all she does is shake and stick her tongue out with her eyes closed. Despite diligent efforts at fence patching, Suzie follows the bE crew down the street to work each morning. Her sense of adventure is greater than her obvious fears of traffic and neighborhood dogs.

Pets aren’t really the same here, despite the fact that everyone seems to have two or more dogs and cats and parrots (and monkeys and songbirds) holding down their porch. Most animals we see outside the bE house are malnourished, flea-bitten, and bruised or beaten or hairless in spots. They are not fawned over, or fed chicken scraps. They are anything but adorable. Population control is dependent upon natural cycles of life and death.

Walking to work on Friday, we passed a truck with its bed full of animal carcasses and a long red puddle trailing down the street. A man in rubber boots stood over them with a hose, pushing liquids and runoff onto the street. We assured each other they were cows.

En La Finca

Our first Sunday in Bluefields began with a taxi ride to where the pavement ends. From there, a dirt road winds up a slight hill, past windblown shacks, a burning cliff of garbage, and partially cleared forests where individuals are staking out claims with makeshift fencing and started foundations. Local government officials, we were told, recently indicated that nothing would be done about squatters in this region, resulting in the recent influx of activity. Beyond this: a state-of-the-art cattle operation (shining, spotless, no cattle), an unattended horse waiting for its owner to return from the bush with armfuls of chopped wood, and, past a dry well, the road to la finca.

La finca simply means “the farm.” There are many farms, but this is the familiar one. The owner’s family has close ties with blueEnergy. Following a quick hike up to a main building (staffed solely by the three children above and below, their parents at market), the eight of us had a leisurely lunch beside the remnants of a dismantled lookout post, before heading down into the jungle, GPS equipment in tow, in search of long-lost fence posts.

Jungle are not conducive to clumsy people. There are streams that can only be crossed through the clever use of tree limbs and by reinventing yourself as a tripod. There are monkeys that express loud, whooping umbrage at your presence. There are bullet ant parades. There are memories of clear-cut national forests. Two machetes upfront.

You're obliged to fall at least once, as a show of good faith.  

When it’s over, when a rusty spoke of metal attached to barbed wire emerges at the bottom of a hill, then fencing and cleared space, it will seem anticlimactic. It will seem, even though a one-hour hike turned into four, premature. Machetes will be slid away too soon. Eventually, dirt paths, a burning cliff with foraging animals, and then pavement resume. The monkey will still be whooping, distantly, but with less feeling.

Bluefields, or Where Planes Refuel on the Way to the Corn Islands

blueEnergy’s center of operations in Bluefields, Nicaragua makes it a reasonable panga ride away from the coastal communities it serves (Kahkabila, Monkey Point, Set Net) and an unreasonable distance from pretty much everywhere else. People do not come here. It is not spoken of as a vacation destination. You can, and we did, request a one-way ticket in Managua to Bluefields (with reservations) and still receive a round-trip ticket to the Corn Islands. This will only become evident at baggage check.

The only other gringos you will see here are on their way somewhere else.

There are two options for getting to Bluefields, one of which is quick and painless. The plane ride from Managua runs about $80 one way, $130-ish ida y vuelta. They will leave as soon as the plane is full, so it is strongly inadvisable, for example, to scamper off to the international section of the airport to change money and leave your spouse hanging out with your stuff while the plane begins boarding forty-five minutes early. Once safely aboard, do not sneeze. The plane will roll.

The other option is by bus, then boat. It is cheaper, slower, and scenic. Spanish for crocodiles is cocodrilos. Keep your hands to yourself and everything will be fine.

Upon safely arriving in Bluefields, you will find two casinos, a Tip-Top Chicken (fast food that’s as good as it sounds), a wharf, market, small downtown shopping area, and pulperias selling beverages and fruits every other house. You can buy Toña in three minutes, walking, round-trip, if you take your sweet time. The population is 55,000 people, though it seems smaller. The streets are full of taxis and thin dogs seeking employment in scratching themselves. There are few private vehicles here, due to the general inaccessibility by road and the relative costs. Sometimes, there are sidewalks. You will have a difficult time finding a lighter outside of downtown, but not matches. Forget everything you know about craft beer.

It’s difficult to say what it would be like coming here outside of an institutional presence. People seem to generally know what we’re doing, or who we’re involved with, and blueEnergy has close ties with the community and a local technical school here. It’s less safe at night, after ten o’clock, regardless of who you are. The nightlife is limited but lively. Everything is cheap, by American standards. If you manage to make your way out to visit, take the plane, bring a hammock, and we’ve got the first round.