Corn harvest and chairs with character

El Riito is a small farming community in the mountains of the northern department of Madriz, a beautiful and simple place that the rain paints a vibrant, jungle green this time of year and, though I’ve only lived here one week, my home. Most of the community’s approximately 400 inhabitants are agriculturalists and dairy farmers, cultivating primarily basic grains such as beans, corn and sorghum, but also some vegetables. As it lies in a valley, it does not produce coffee like the surrounding areas, but luckily my host family owns a small coffee farm higher up the mountain, so much of my first three days here I spent toasting and drinking coffee, which means I will fulfill my dream of living in Nicaragua and drinking daily fresh, local coffee. The challenge is getting a cup of black coffee, because as a wise woman told me, “Nicaraguan food is like Nicaraguan culture: sweet.” Nicas, as they call themselves, tend to add lots of sugar to everything.

The agricultural cycle in Nicaragua has two major planting seasons: primera from May to August 15, and postrera from August 15 to late November/early December. (In some regions, there is a third planting season, apante, from December until March.) The first fruits of May’s labor come about in mid-July, in the form of the first beans (frijoles tiernos) and baby corn (chilote), the latter of which I was delighted to see come out of a husk rather than a can and used outside the context of a Pan-Asian stir-fry! Full-size corn and beans are harvested in August, and only in August in the case of corn—beans are harvested in postrera also. Coffee has its own growing season: an annual December harvest.

I arrived just in time for the corn harvest, which means that roughly one-half—rather than the usual one-third—of my daily food intake has consisted of corn in one form or another: tamales, steamed or grilled corn on the cob, sweet and salty variations on the theme of the standard tortilla, and corn drinks hot and cold—to mention a few. I’ve been told this only lasts for the month of August, after which point the remaining corn is dried and stored in silos for the coming year. The men of the family return from the nearby fields with the corn and bean plants, and then men and women all sit together (at least in my host family) and husk and degrain; naturally, neighbors give a hand while visiting. The husking is done in the open air, outside on the porch in plastic chairs.

Every home I’ve visited thus far in Nicaragua—and they have been many—has plastic chairs (We’ve joked that there are more of these plastic chairs in the small country of Nicaragua than in all of the United States.), and most homes I’ve visited have a few rocking chairs, too, which they call abuelitas (little old grandmothers), a name I find joyfully fitting. Abuelitas make a quaint pair for the grandfather clock, both old, beautiful wooden furnishings that add character to a porch or room. Ultimately what gives a chair its character, however, is the person sitting in it, and this community is full of rich characters. It’s truly a pleasure to sit—whether in a plastic or rocking chair, husk corn or degrain beans, and listen.

People here truly live off of the land (The occasional exception is families who receive remittances from neighboring Costa Rica or the States.), and they worship the land accordingly. That is not to ignore that they are, by and large, intensely Catholic; the Christian God/Wild Nature worships exist mutually. Conversations about the weather here are neither small talk nor a common form of complaint, but rather valid and at times profound topics of conversation—profound in the sense that something such as the shortage of rainfall  this season holds weight and directly affects families. 

But as the abuelo (grandfather) of my host family casually responded from his chair, to my question if he was worried: “Every year we plant with a grand faith and every year the outcome is different. But ultimately, we have no alternative to planting. So we plant.”