Trenzas

At some point during my birthday weekend, Stephanie and I had realized that we had yet to make a single female friend here in Bluefields (besides our lovely volunteers) and hence have had almost no exposure to the females side of life. This has a lot to do with the much larger picture of gender roles throughout Nicaragua, and the fact that we work in an entirely male-dominated realm. The reality here is that the few women who do work work in shops, banks, bars and homes with the occasional teacher and doctor thrown into the mix. It's definitely better than it could be, but considering that most women are mothers by the age of 16, there's not a whole lot of opportunity for simulating and engaging jobs. Not to mention, 90% of the available work in Bluefields is unskilled manual labor.

In any case, we wanted to get a better picture of life as a woman and maybe get a chance to chat with a few local ladies. Not having many outlets within our social sphere, we asked around and found a friend of a friend of a worker who occasionally braids hair for a small fee. Not having many other options for meeting women, other than joining the church or getting pregnant, we made our way out to a barrio we had yet to explore to meet up with Fern. This was a bit of an adventure in itself since her directions were, go to the basketball court and wait. I'll come find you. Being the only white girls in town, not to mention this particular barrio, we figured we'd be hard to miss. So, we took a taxi to the court, asked a few people for Fern and were quickly chaperoned by a young girl down an alley and onto the porch of a house entirely dwarfed by an enormous fig tree with beautiful wandering roots. We sat down under the dripping laundry while piles of small children peered cautiously around the door frame.

A short while later, after we'd made good friends with the bravest (and youngest) of the children, her mother finally emerged from the depths of the house. After negotiating a price, we declared our intentions to return later that weekend and headed out. That Sunday, Stephanie, myself and a new volunteer who recently arrived made our way back to the barrio. Our friend was set up at the basketball court selling tacos with all the other ladies of the neighborhood and was thrilled to see us all arrive. When she realized all three of us wanted our hair braided, she called up her sister, enlisted her cousin and set up 3 chairs right there on the sidewalk.

We passed the next 4 hours surrounded by women and children of all ages chatting about daily life, relatives, men etc. It was a little hard to follow all the Creole when the women really got going, but it was absolutely fascinating nonetheless. Despite being the main attraction for the neighborhood that day, it was the first time I felt as if I was getting a true glimpse of the women's world here in Bluefields. After about the first hour, the women pretty much forgot we were there, relaxed and went on with their day the way they would have had they been braiding each other's hair. Well, that's how it felt at least.

In the end, it was a lovely, long afternoon with some wonderful results. Not sure how long they'll stay in, but for the moment I'm loving having my hair braided as it means no maintenance and significantly cooler temperatures.


Oh, in other news, we've also acquired a kitten and a puppy in the last week. They're both adorable!