Stories of the Team Chef (Number Two: Ad-hoc Chicken)

Today was a portentous day in the H2Nica household. Clouds, wind and light rain dominated here in Managua, extinguishing almost any desire for accomplishing anything productive. As dinnertime approached, it became evident to me that we did not have very many ingredients to make anything of value. Enter Ad-hoc Chicken, the chicken of the desperate:

  • First, raid your refrigerator and pantry, discovering only onions, celery, dry asparagus soup mix, rice and four small chicken breasts in the back of the freezer.
  • Defrost the chicken.
  • Slice about one onion and chop about three stalks of celery.
  • Next, get the rice cooking…maybe about 1.5 cups, or so.
  • Throw the asparagus soup mix together with about half of the water the package calls for (thus ensuring a thick sauce) and cook according to the package’s directions.
  • Put some salt and pepper on both sides of each breast.
  • Put some oil in a large skillet and toss in the chicken, onions and celery over medium-high heat.
  • After a minute or two, pour a bit of water in the skillet and loosely cover with a large lid.
  • Cook the mixture for about 20 minutes (10 minutes on each side of the chicken).
  • Make sure to keep a copious amount of celery and onions on top of the chicken.
  • Remove the chicken and pour some of the sauce, onions and celery on top of the breasts.
  • Serve with rice and enjoy!

This serves about four people well. Five (like our team) is stretching it. You’ll probably be hungry before bedtime, so plan for a late-night snack of cookies or cake. I would not suggest ice cream, however.

-Richard Hansen

Aerial Shots

Well, I woke up today sincerely believing that this would be the last morning of my life. Why? Because the plan for the morning was to go up in a shitty little Cessna with another member of our team to film aerial shots of some of the beautiful lakes that dot this country. (Spoiler alert: I ended up surviving the flight…just barely.) However, I wasn’t exactly afraid because diving down into Lake Nicaragua in the early morning is pretty high up on the list of ideal ways to die.

When we got to the airport with a pilot friend of ours who was gracious enough to fly us around, I was immediately surprised by the size of the airplane. This surprise was multiplied when the man who worked at the airstrip was able to easily pull the plane out of the hangar and into position all by himself. 800 kilos? That’s like two large motorcycles! “Jesus,” I thought, “There’s no way we’re going to survive this one.” To give you an idea of the plane’s size, only myself, the pilot and Jordi (our cameraman) could comfortably fit inside without the plane being too heavy to take off.

Miraculously enough, though, the plane was able to take off and away we went! Our route took us all the way up to the perfect cone of Volcán Momotombo, straight down Lake Managua’s shore, over the city, past Laguna de Masaya and Laguna de Apoyo (where we filmed a beautiful time lapse yesterday morning) and back to the airstrip! The flight was disappointingly free of turbulence–good for filming, bad for adrenaline–but it was fantastic to be able to see both the dramatic lakes in this country and its marvelous old cities from two thousand feet (a particularly fantastic experience with the plane’s windows open).

My opportunity for adrenaline came as we approached the airstrip for landing. There was quite a bit of wind on approach and I could not help but to think that we would miss the runway because of how much we were moving from side to side. Sadly, disaster was averted because our pilot was quite capable and landed the plane smoother than I thought possible.

Quite an experience, to say the least. Our shots are beautiful and will serve well to give our documentary the grandeur that it deserves. Off to León on Tuesday!

-Richard Hansen

Pregaming

H2Nica is clearly an international presence here in Managua. The sheer volume of meetings that we’ve been having with organizations as diverse as the UNDP and a nationwide organization that is dedicated to bringing clean water to all Nicaraguans is a testament to this fact.

Every meeting that we have opens the Pandora’s box of the water situation in this country just a bit further. It is almost impossible to keep up with the number of possible stories and contacts that we get from each of our existing contacts. I suppose that it is better to have an embarrassment of riches in this respect rather than having to stumble around in the darkness. However, we are now presented with the almost impossible task of selecting between a multitude of potentially-brilliant stories.

We have tentatively decided to take several trips in order to cast the widest possible net while simultaneously keeping this project at a small enough size to be able to give these stories the deep understanding that they require. Here are a few:

  • We are certainly taking a trip to the Caribbean coast, to a city called Bluefields. Though it is relatively expensive to get there because of the necessity of flying, Nicaragua’s Atlantic regions are historically ignored and merit a good deal of attention just for that reason. Not to mention, Bluefields illustrates Nicaragua’s water paradox well: it is in the middle of more fresh water than the vast majority of places on Earth, yet most of the population lacks potable water.
  • Chinandega, in the northern part of the country, suffers from a more traditional problem: it is in the driest part of the country and a significant percentage of the population relies on catching rain water to get what they need to survive. Therefore, the problem here is really one of a combination of poor management of existing resources and lousy infrastructure.
  • León, which is north of Managua, suffers from problems related primarily to the possible contamination of water by large businesses. We will primarily be looking into some allegations that water contamination has sickened and even killed quite a few people there. This story is a bit more tentative than the others because of a lack of solid information, but has a lot of potential to be a riveting tale.

These are just a few of the themes that we are looking to examine here! The challenge will be to tell the story of water in Nicaragua in a way that is compelling, cohesive and comprehensive all at the same time. No mean feat, but if anyone can do it, this team can. We are committed, passionate and resourceful. I cannot wait to see what the next few weeks bring.

-Richard Hansen

Stories of the Team Chef (Number One)

As part of my duties here in Nicaragua, I have assumed the responsibility of being the team chef. Soooo, from time to time I will be uploading my off-the-cuff recipes. That said, here is today’s lunch, Filete de Pescado a la Hansen:

What you need (for four-ish people):

  • Two fillets of some kind of white fish
  • Cream
  • Capers
  • Scallions
  • Mushrooms (button, I guess)
  • Garlic
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Butter
  • Flour
  • Rice

Instructions:

  • Put some salt and pepper on both sides of the fish
  • Heat a bunch of butter up in a pan
  • Cook the fish at medium-high heat for about four minutes per side
  • Remove the fish and set aside
  • Put some minced garlic in the pan and saute it
  • Toss a bit of flour in the pan to thicken up the butter
  • Lower the heat to medium-low
  • Put some sliced mushrooms in the pan
  • Almost immediately after that, put a decent amount of cream, some sliced scallions and a small handful of capers in the pan.
  • Heat the mixture up a reasonable amount, but don’t burn it!
  • Remove from the heat and pour over the fish.
  • If you made rice, use the rest of the sauce on the rice like a curry
  • Enjoy!

This is a good meal to have if you feel like having a hunk of lead in your belly that will keep you filled for many hours.

-Richard Hansen

Remembrance of Things Past

After three years away from Nicaragua, I have returned! I always knew that I would come back to this beautiful country one day but could not have possibly guessed that it would be under the circumstances under which I now find myself. (I’m filming a documentary about water, for god’s sake. I suppose that life has a tendency to be unpredictable in often-wonderful ways, though, so here I am.)

What has struck me the most over the past week of traveling through this country are the vivid memories that have been endlessly recalled from forgotten recesses of my brain by the oddest triggers: The smell of burning wood as soon as I stepped out of the airport reminding me of street food purchased on the side of a rural highway in Estelí, the familiar rumbling of the oddly-shaped paving stones that cover this country evoking a humid sunset journey by scooter on the island of Ometepe. It is difficult to believe both the power that such insignificant triggers have in recreating memories and the fact that I ever could have forgotten these memories to the vagaries of time, in the first place.

-Richard Hansen

P.S. Because of time pressures, I will write more about the substantial work that we’ve done during the past week in a bit. Suffice it to say that things are looking up and we have an embarrassment of riches in choosing between compelling stories to film.