Remember the time we killed that chicken?

Ok, ok, so it was really the time that the very capable and sweet-but-shy Nicaraguan farm hand taught us how to kill and pluck and gut a chicken, and it was kind of tough but we tried to eat it anyway? Yeah. That was awesome.
Note: Farm hand (named something like Jader, possibly?) and students did all of the killing and gutting; I did help pluck and cook as none of them were really very experienced with things like onions. Or stirring. It was a division of labor that worked for us. You butcher; I saute. The most amusing moment of the whole thing was when the resident parrot (a not-quite-pet) was eyeing us and making gritching noises and one of my students stared him down and told him coolly, "You're next!"

The farm was simply beautiful - a great view of the mountains, a graceful layout and exhuberant plantings. The couple who farm the land have worked really hard to raise the profile of organic foods, and to keep the foods affordable for average folks. They have this huge collection of seeds and grow an astonishing range of foods. They were generous and funny and kind to us and fed us until we couldn't have held more food. (Plus they were really nice when I was the proximate cause of a cow accident - I was just finished with my turn milking her when someone offered her a banana and she got so excited that she fell over and there were a few mintes of rather desperate cow-wrangling and she was fine but I was about to cry out of empathy and the conviction that I'd hurt her. And yes, I eat beef sometimes. But this was different.)

When we left, we walked about a mile (downhill, over some pretty rough dirt roads) to the bus stop, and then took regular public transportation to church. It's a tough call, selecting shoes that are both hiking-friendly and church-suitable, but it turns out I have particular skill in that area. I did not learn a bit of Spanish before leaving, but I sure as hell had the right shoes.