Day of The Race & Monsters Under the Bed

When we came to Nicaragua I knew we would need to hold our assumptions lightly, but I did assume we could remain confident about a few things.

For example, I would have been pretty sure that I'd never be dressing up my son for a national Day of The Race.  What we celebrate in the US as Columbus Day, is celebrated in most of Latin America as El día de la raza or the Day of The [Hispanic] Race.  For many Latinos in the US and indigenous rights groups in the rest of the Americas it has become a chance to celebrate culture and advocate for marginalized groups, but in Nicaragua it is largely a day for national pride and chance to remember Nicaraguan folk traditions.  So August went off to school dressed up in his embroidered “peasants smock” and straw hat.  It was pretty cute.

   

I would also have been confident that I would never actually have to catch monsters from under my children's bed.  But yesterday an iguana crawled into our garden, got spooked, ran into Solomon’s room, and hopped into his bed.  I had to catch him and let him go over our wall.  

Just in case any of you need to catch an iguana in your house someday, it’s not as hard as you think.  They often run themselves into a corner.  When they do, pin down their head with the end of a broom handle, slip in your hand behind and clamp their snout shut.  When you do that their whole body goes limp and it’s easy to pick them up and release them.  I do have to warn any gringo dads, however, that catching iguanas does make me feel cooler that it probably should.

 

And to keep with the challenging assumptions theme, I wouldn't have guessed that boys of mine could be so good looking or sweet.  It doesn't really have anything to do with Nicaragua, but I was looking for an excuse to throw in a couple other nice photos of Solo and Manuel.  All the boys are doing very well, and are happy (usually) to have a Skype chat with anyone who would like to fawn over them.  Hope you hear from some of you soon!