Describes food habits, language, health practices, religious beliefs, and storytelling, inviting the reader to experience life in Awastara First full-length study of a coastal Miskitu community, contrasting life before and after the war years of the 1980s Dennis first journeyed to Awastara, a village on the northeastern coast of Nicaragua, during 1978 - 1979 as a postdoctoral student. He had come to study a culture-bound syndrome in which young women are possessed by devils. In the process, he became fascinated by other aspects of Miskitu culture - turtle fishing, Miskitu Christianity, community development efforts - the whole pattern of Miskitu community life. He also formed deep friendships to carry into the future. Twenty years later he was able to return and continue his ethnographic work. Utilizing ideas from recent interpretive anthropology and a vivid writing style, Dennis describes food habits, language, health practices, religious beliefs, and storytelling, inviting the reader to experience life in Awastara along with him.