Prepping for el campo

I´m going to the country-side for the next 7 days or so. I´ll be living with the poorest in Nicaragua. Here are the statistics. 80% of the people in Nicaragua live on less than US$2 a day. 40% do not have access to potable water, in a country with an inordinate amount of freshwater sources. (We will bring water purifiers, and leave them with the villages after we leave)

So today I went to the Oriental Market to buy supplies for my village home stay.

Food: Rice, beans, oil, sugar, salt, some powdered soup mixes, potatoes, carrots, onions, spaghetti.

A plastic hammock that looks really uncomfortable. Rope.

One small plastic bucket. I´ll use it to take baths and wash my hands at meal times and after using the bathroom. Sidenote--none of the villages will have a latrine. This will be more of a Quetico, dig-your-own-hole style thing. As for baths, I´ll be in the river. A bathing suit would be too risque, so I´m just going to have to figure out what the villagers do. Remain in their day clothes?

Soap for: hands, clothes, and something else. Dishes, maybe?

Matches. Probablry more. My morning in the market was a bit surreal.

All of this will be left with the family after we leave. I feel a bit like Santa Claus. And considering all the other stuff I´ll be bringing, like bedsheets, toiletries, my headlamp, three changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes, etc, I´m going to have more things than all the members of my host family combined.

There are going to be bugs. It´s going to be dirty. I´ll be doing the same work the family does, so I will be tired. They aren´t going to talk slow like my host mom does. They´ve probably never seen a foreigner before.

I have a feeling the upcoming week is going to be one of the most intense of my life. Stay tuned. I leave tomorrow morning at 7:00 am.