Bored

The majority of the people in my town either do odd jobs or work in the ¨fincas¨ farms, the men that is anyway, while the woman stay home and mostly do ¨officios¨ housework and take care of the kids. In the homes, about 1/3 have televisions and the Nicas are obsessed with their novelas. The Spanish soap operas start from 7 or 8 in the morning until 10 at night with occasional news breaks. So, usually after finishing up the housework which seems to happen around 10 or so being that they get up at 5 a.m. (that´s not including the meals of course) they have the whole day ¨free.¨ So, what do they do with all of this time, you ask? Travel? Well, only a small percentage (maybe 2 percent) actually have private vehicles and there are still some that even though we have pretty frequent bus service only leave town once or twice a month, if that. I can´t speak for all Nicaraguans but I can tell you what my 13-year old neighbor did yesterday for example. Yesterday, she decided to celebrate her birthday since the actual day fell on a weekday. The typical celebration can include anything from a full blown out party to just a simple dinner with the family. Since this is a rather poor family they decided to just have a basic dinner with the family, killing a chicken and buying gaseosa (pop). She told me that she had a surprise to show me and the surprise was that she had saved the foot of the chicken and had painted it´s ¨toenails¨with fingernail polish. I found it a little disturbing, but I guess when you´re bored...