Day 14 6/5/13 (Songs of Nicaragua, westernization, infant incubators, a blue on green on green on green towel)

            Good morning everyone!  Hope you had a solid night’s rest for the day’s activities! Today marks being here for 2 weeks! Crazy right!? Last night was actually pretty funny as I got to play some Frisbee outside with Dan, the Salvadors. We were throwing the Frisbee across the street and at one point the Frisbee skidded between two chairs of the neighbors and they flipped out (I went to go retrieve it). They cursed and said I needed to respect their space and I was just like “Lo siento. Lo siento lo siento.” It was kinda sketchy as I couldn’t really say any more.

            This morning was not all that great (in fact this day wasn't all that great). Not really sure why. Breakfast was the standard cheese, B&R and bread. Today in conversation we got to listen to this song called Nicaragua Nicaragüita written by Carlos Mejia Godoy. Check it out here:

Nicaragua Nicaragüita

            Carlos writes the song in the first person. The first verse talks about how Nicaragua receives the gift of love and how the bouquet of flowers of Nicaragua always lives and Jilinjoches (a flower) always flowers for Nicaragua. Carlos then talks about how he kisses the forehead of Nicaragua and how he kisses the pearls of sweat and how they are the sweetest of all the fruits including the Tigüilote and the jocote tronador (a fruit that sounds like thunder when one eats it).

           The second verse is where Carlos talks about Nicaragua being the flowering part of the Pijibay (a fruit) and how his emotion enters Nicaragua in lines of want like kernals of corn. He says the saliva of Nicaragua is sweeter than the sap in a Maranon (fruit) tree. He then repeats how Nicaragua always restores him and his rebellious heart with energy.

          The song then basically describes how Nicaragua is the most beautiful flower blessed by holy fertilizer and is the blood of the old Pre-Columbian leader named Diriangén. He (Carlos) then describes how Nicaragua is the most sweet, sweeter than even the honey of the bees. He then writes that the now free Nicaragua is even more enticing to him.

The song was very popular and was an attempt to help persevere some of Nicaraguan culture despite the wave of Westernization in the period from 1990 to 2007 where fast food, rap music became popular. Also Daniel Ortega's wife named Rosario Murillo had a song written that was in the style of the Beatles (or something) during this time. Since Rosario has acted as the thinking while Ortega has been the action-taker (a good duo), Rosario has helped women gain more rights in Nicaragua. This has become most well known through mandating child support and alimony and noticeable in job prospects as the police chief in Granada is a woman I believe. We also talked about athletes and how it does not pay to be an athlete down here, but Cubans go to Florida to play baseball. Boxers apparently can make a good living here if they become world champions.
     
      After that, lunch was rather dull, although I worked on developing a finite state machine for a 3 state speed controller and sketched out some very rough ideas for a mech that I'd like to weld together. In class we learned about infant incubators and infant warming lamps and how to fix various problems such as the temperature not staying consistent or the fan not working properly. We then had the lab to build an LED flashlight. Dan and I got the flashlight done pretty quickly, but I'm not really sure it makes me feel any better about life. Anyways then I had to buy a towel and got a Cars special edition blue on green on green on green towel for like $6 and bought this sweet triangle bread that was filled with sweet pastry stuff. Life is meh at the moment. So hope you all are having fun to make up for it!