Cultural Differences - Nicaragua and Mexico

Ok, and now to explain some of the differences we've noted between Nicaragua and Mexico...

The food - Mexico is a culinary delight.  Food-wise, this place has got to be the France of Latin America.  We have enjoyed eating traditional Mexican dishes as well as the vast selection of sweets and pastries.  However...one word of caution before you drop everything and come here with fork in hand...Mexicans love their food picante (read:  HOT!). 

The schedule - the eating schedule is different.  The Nica eating schedule is the same as in the states - breakfast early, lunch at noon, and dinner around 6 or 7 pm.  Here in Mexico we eat breakfast mid-morning, lunch (the main meal of the day like in Nicaragua) around 3 pm, and then dinner at 9 or 10 pm.  Mexicans are night owls, staying up late into the night.  Whereas Masatepe is pretty much asleep by 9 pm, here things are just getting started. 

The language - Mexican Spanish is so different from Nicaraguan Spanish!  We've had to learn a whole new vocabulary because many words we learned in Nicaragua don't work here.  For example, in a restaurant if you ask for a straw (pajilla in Nica.) the waitstaff will look at you with blank faces.  The word here is popote.  Of course some Nica words are outright vulgarities here - we could cause an international incident just by calling someone "cheap" (the word for this in NIcaragua is innocent and used quite often but here the exact same word is one of the worse 4-letter word insults). 

The climate and landscape - northern Mexico is arid and desert-like.  This has been a big adjustment from lush, tropical Nicaragua.  Monterrey sits in a valley of the Sierra Madre mountain range, whose jagged peaks reminded the early Spanish explorers of a saw, thus the name sierra (saw).  In this place with very low humidity we've learned to drink LOTS of water.  The air just sucks the moisture out of you.  You can hang wet clothes outside and they will normally be completely dry in less than 2 hours.  From personal experience I've learned that one shouldn't touch many of the plants here because almost everything has thorns, bristles, spikes, nettles, etc.  The desert landscape is especially beautiful under the setting sun as illustrated a few blog posts back.

The development - This is has also been a huge adjustment.  Monterrey is a modern city of over 3 million people with plush air conditioned shopping malls, U.S. chain restaurants and businesses everywhere, brand new cars on the streets, etc.  Mind you, there is still plenty of poverty in Mexico, but one can easily see that Mexico is a much more developed, progressive, and prosperous nation in comparison to backward, poverty-stricken Nicaragua.  The difference is that here there's a sizeable middle class whereas in Nicaragua the division between the rich and poor is more stark.

The kiss - everyone greets members of the opposite sex here with a kiss.  It's a normal part of social interaction but something we're not exactly accustomed to.  It's still somewhat awkward for 6'1" me to bend down to kiss a Mexican woman on the cheek but I'm getting better at it all the time.  T´hat sounds weird, doesn't it?  Welcome to Mexico. 

Comments

[shelli]

It sounds as though you are acclimating well to the new country. It's funny how things can be so different from one culture/country to the next. Especially the language differences!

[polloman]

Yep.That sounded funny but I knew what you meant or hope I do. I assume that this cuts both ways? I can understand how having food like this would be nice Even after two weeks I was like-no more flat grilled chicken, beans and rice. I can't take it. And bland would be the best word to describe the typical nica meal but the fruit and pastries were great.