Dad invited me to the High School Winter Concert. Usually, these types of events make me shudder and turn back to my laptop. Dad and I both know the majority of the high school choirs are painful collections of gangly adolescents who breathe from their shoulders and never stay in tune. But we also know that we are hosting a South Korean student for the week as part of a Christmas homestay program and to deny Kim Jo the opportunity to see dozens of hormonal teenagers who think they can sing is unthinkable. Also, I was curious to see my old high school, inhabited by students I had never met.
Of course, all of the songs were Christmas-themed. One of my favorite pastimes is situations like this is to squint my eyes and watch the entire ensemble blend into one big Caucasian blob. But Kim Jo said she liked them, although she did not understand what figgy pudding was, and why “they wouldn’t go until they got some,” as the demand seemed rather threatening. So Dad launched into an explanation about an old tradition in England of caroling from house to house for treats.
I can’t believe this didn’t occur to me during La Purisima. For those who don’t know, this day celebrates the conception of the Virgin Mary. The night before is known as La Griteria, or The Shout, something like that. Groups of Nicaraguans visit families with Purisima altars set up, sing one of the holiday songs, and receive gifts. The gifts are usually practical, like Tupperware or cups, but you can also get nacatamales (think large mass of cornmeal with some meat in the middle), juice, noisemakers, candy, etc. Let the imagination go wild.
Of course I threw myself into celebrations with some others in the group, as well as a few Nicaraguan friends who knew where the good houses were and how to sing the songs. We really do just shout out the song. I’m beginning to think Nicaraguans prize decibels over harmony. And we never did just a refrain; we shouted out several verses before calling it good and getting our treats. I wonder why this tradition died out in England? And why it is such a big deal in Nicaragua? If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment.
The best part about the night was roughly midnight, when what sounded like every person in Managua lit off all the firecrackers, fireworks, and various noisemakers they had bought with their bonus paycheck. I stood in the park with Rachel, Brian, Cailen, and David, and couldn’t stop grinning. For all Nicaragua’s inner contradictions and divisions, at least they can all agree that setting off explosives to celebrate Mary getting knocked up is a splendid idea.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Home...
So, I'm back in the states. It feels rather sudden, and I'm reeling both mentally and physically. What with the strep throat and ear infection that made the 12 hour plane ride (involving two transfers) a living hell. I've been making plenty of notes however, so hopefully I'll create some entries later about other Nica experiences. For now, I'm facebooking like there's no tomorrow, downing double dosages of ibuprofen, and taking antibiotics. In reality, I'm not even home yet, I'm at my aunt's in St. Paul. I still need to drive 3 1/2 hours north to get to my house. Where my parents can't wait to pile on the creature comforts. I don't know what I'll do with so much love. I've been in 100% academic load for four months. The switch over has been far too sudden.
Upcoming:
+ sights and sounds of Maximo Jerez
+ Nicaraguan political commentary
+ an explanation of exactly what I did for my independent study
+ poetry
All photos are finally on flickr, and even in handy, themed sets. Much more helpful to view. Whenever I'm not writing blog entries or writing internship applications for the upcoming summer, I'll probably be organizing them even further. I call it my Tupperware peccadillo.
Upcoming:
+ sights and sounds of Maximo Jerez
+ Nicaraguan political commentary
+ an explanation of exactly what I did for my independent study
+ poetry
All photos are finally on flickr, and even in handy, themed sets. Much more helpful to view. Whenever I'm not writing blog entries or writing internship applications for the upcoming summer, I'll probably be organizing them even further. I call it my Tupperware peccadillo.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Guidebooks and Taxis
I went hiking today! Sort of. Here is my day, delivered in numerical order.
I shall begin with a quote from Lonely Planet, a so called "credible" guide book.
"Today protected as part of Reserva Natural Tepesomoto-Pataste, the gorge is phenomenal, with steely gray cliffs and graded peaks carved from the dry forest and pockmarked with caves. It's a 3km hike into the canyon from a trailhead that leaves from a well-signed exit 15km north of Somoto. A taxi can take you there for US $4."
Hah!
1. Arose at 5:30 AM in Esteli, Nicaragua
2. 6:45 AM: begin 3 hour bus ride to the town Somoto begins
3. 9:50 AM: Find a taxi fairly quickly. By taxi, this actually means a random guy, his taxi ID and decals in absentia. However, I bargained him down from $6to $3 for a ride to the Natural Reserve. Indeed, he agreed far too quickly on the cheaper price. Relying on my intrepid instincts at this point, I get in.
4. Rode with sketchy "taxi" man for four blocks, where he stopped to ask two girls where the Reserva is. Upon discovering that he was not ripping me off, and actually had to go somewhere substantial, he told me he was not going to take me to said Reserve.
5. 9:55 AM: I exit. "Forget" to pay.
6. 9:56 AM: Begin a quick exchange of information with the women. They tell me I need to take a bus to Samoa to find the Reserve. I do not trust their advice. After all, no bus is mentioned in Lonely Planet. It clearly says taxi.
7. I wonder around Somoto, looking for someone to give me advice.
8. 10:05 AM: A man in a furniture store turns out to be the executive director of an ecologically minded radio station that does some seat-of-the-pants eco-tourism. He tells me to take a taxi to Uniles, where Santiago Rivera would take me up the mountain. As the word in Spanish for canyon has escaped me, I am unable to verify that is where I'm going. Yet, he does own a radio station. And knows a man named Santiago.
9. 10:35 AM: Find a taxi at the market place. It is not quite the price radio man told me, but I am indeed in a taxi.
10. 10:45 AM: Arrive at a pulperia. Taxi man leaves. Two girls approach me and ask if I am going to the mountain. Impressed by the ease of transfer, I begin walking with them.
11. 11:00 AM: Find Santiago. Establish that the spanish word for canyon is...canyon. Also establish that if I want to visit the canyon, I need to take a bus. Which leaves at 11:00.
12. 11:01 AM: Begin hike with Santiago up the mountain behind his house. This gentleman looks to be about 70, with the classical wrinkly face you see in small Spanish villages. He also carries a machete, which he uses more as a walking stick than to chop things. I did see him chop some grass at one point.
13. 11:34 AM: Santiago points out the canyon to me. I have to take his word for it, as I could not see it, the canyon resting roughly 30km away.
14. Hike continues, taking us through coffee fields, over a small creek, up rather muddy narrow pathways, and past some very pretty flowers. We would have gone to the very top of the mountain, but it was too cloudy to see what we could see, as it were. So we decided it was best to return. I also find out Santiago is in a fairly successful fair trade cooperative, and has even been to the US several times to promote mercado justo. He even has a medal.
15. 1:17 PM: Return to Santiago's house. He shows me his medal: a small gold medallion somehow laminated into a dusty picture frame. I drink half a cup of coffee, the standard brown colored sugar water, and take a picture of one of his grandkids shelling beans. Now I have documentation of where their beans come from.
16. 1:24 PM: A taxi-van arrives, part of it's daily route. I bid farewell to Santiago and his family, and ride back to the bus station.
17. 2:00PM: Express bus leaves for Esteli.
18. 3:14PM: I celebrate my day over fresh wheat bread, hummous, cucumbers, and tomatoes at La Casita. This is a cafè outside of town, with a cactus garden and very rambunctious adolescents who take gelled hair seriously.
It's the quintessential mix of what I've experienced in Nicaragua. Adjusted expectations, generally helpful and friendly people, even the cognates. And never trust Lonely Planet.
I shall begin with a quote from Lonely Planet, a so called "credible" guide book.
"Today protected as part of Reserva Natural Tepesomoto-Pataste, the gorge is phenomenal, with steely gray cliffs and graded peaks carved from the dry forest and pockmarked with caves. It's a 3km hike into the canyon from a trailhead that leaves from a well-signed exit 15km north of Somoto. A taxi can take you there for US $4."
Hah!
1. Arose at 5:30 AM in Esteli, Nicaragua
2. 6:45 AM: begin 3 hour bus ride to the town Somoto begins
3. 9:50 AM: Find a taxi fairly quickly. By taxi, this actually means a random guy, his taxi ID and decals in absentia. However, I bargained him down from $6to $3 for a ride to the Natural Reserve. Indeed, he agreed far too quickly on the cheaper price. Relying on my intrepid instincts at this point, I get in.
4. Rode with sketchy "taxi" man for four blocks, where he stopped to ask two girls where the Reserva is. Upon discovering that he was not ripping me off, and actually had to go somewhere substantial, he told me he was not going to take me to said Reserve.
5. 9:55 AM: I exit. "Forget" to pay.
6. 9:56 AM: Begin a quick exchange of information with the women. They tell me I need to take a bus to Samoa to find the Reserve. I do not trust their advice. After all, no bus is mentioned in Lonely Planet. It clearly says taxi.
7. I wonder around Somoto, looking for someone to give me advice.
8. 10:05 AM: A man in a furniture store turns out to be the executive director of an ecologically minded radio station that does some seat-of-the-pants eco-tourism. He tells me to take a taxi to Uniles, where Santiago Rivera would take me up the mountain. As the word in Spanish for canyon has escaped me, I am unable to verify that is where I'm going. Yet, he does own a radio station. And knows a man named Santiago.
9. 10:35 AM: Find a taxi at the market place. It is not quite the price radio man told me, but I am indeed in a taxi.
10. 10:45 AM: Arrive at a pulperia. Taxi man leaves. Two girls approach me and ask if I am going to the mountain. Impressed by the ease of transfer, I begin walking with them.
11. 11:00 AM: Find Santiago. Establish that the spanish word for canyon is...canyon. Also establish that if I want to visit the canyon, I need to take a bus. Which leaves at 11:00.
12. 11:01 AM: Begin hike with Santiago up the mountain behind his house. This gentleman looks to be about 70, with the classical wrinkly face you see in small Spanish villages. He also carries a machete, which he uses more as a walking stick than to chop things. I did see him chop some grass at one point.
13. 11:34 AM: Santiago points out the canyon to me. I have to take his word for it, as I could not see it, the canyon resting roughly 30km away.
14. Hike continues, taking us through coffee fields, over a small creek, up rather muddy narrow pathways, and past some very pretty flowers. We would have gone to the very top of the mountain, but it was too cloudy to see what we could see, as it were. So we decided it was best to return. I also find out Santiago is in a fairly successful fair trade cooperative, and has even been to the US several times to promote mercado justo. He even has a medal.
15. 1:17 PM: Return to Santiago's house. He shows me his medal: a small gold medallion somehow laminated into a dusty picture frame. I drink half a cup of coffee, the standard brown colored sugar water, and take a picture of one of his grandkids shelling beans. Now I have documentation of where their beans come from.
16. 1:24 PM: A taxi-van arrives, part of it's daily route. I bid farewell to Santiago and his family, and ride back to the bus station.
17. 2:00PM: Express bus leaves for Esteli.
18. 3:14PM: I celebrate my day over fresh wheat bread, hummous, cucumbers, and tomatoes at La Casita. This is a cafè outside of town, with a cactus garden and very rambunctious adolescents who take gelled hair seriously.
It's the quintessential mix of what I've experienced in Nicaragua. Adjusted expectations, generally helpful and friendly people, even the cognates. And never trust Lonely Planet.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Good Central American news source
If you want to know what's going on around here, a good online magazine (in English!) is Envio Magazine
Currently, the articles focus on the (lack of) hurricane relief, penalization of abortion in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan elections, Hugo Chavez, and dirty politics. Good stuff.
Currently, the articles focus on the (lack of) hurricane relief, penalization of abortion in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan elections, Hugo Chavez, and dirty politics. Good stuff.
Unexpected events: an example
So, here's an event that happened this morning, one of those surprises I was talking about yesterday.
My goal for breakfast was to find cafè girasol, which is the money making part of Familias Especiales Julia Biliarte, an organization that supports disabled kids and their families. I thought I'd send some dinero their way by eating some gallo pinto and cafè presto (aka beans, rice, and instant coffee). I had success, then decided to find a cybercafè nearby.
Nothing turned up. Worse, the street turned into a dead end. But as I got closer to the roundabout, it became clear I was at Matagalpa's cemetary. It's this enormous complex of spanish-influenced, colorful, above ground grave things, not really sure what they're called, up on a hill. Great views, as usual. In any case, much different than the humble graveyard where uncle Tim is currently interred.
As I take in the sights, wishing I had brought my camera, a 20-something Nicaraguan asked if I came to see the Ben Linder grave. This is where it gets cool, because I had wanted to see his grave, but didn't think I'd have time in Matagalpa to go see it. Also, it's kind of creepy to ogle someone's remains. But Linder is a special guy. He was an American hydroelectric engineer and unicycle clown who was killed by the Contra forces in 1987. In Managua, there's an organization called the Ben Linder House, which sponsers events all week long, mainly for English-speaking volunteer groups. I still need to go there. But anyway, I got to chat about cemeteries in front of a clown/engineer's dead body.
Afterwards, I took a taxi to the Rubèn Darìo park, I think with the same driver who took me there last night. Matagalpa in the morning is tranquil. The clothing stores and their super sized speakers aren't open yet, the breeze is still cool, and not all the benches at the park are taken. And of course there are plenty of cybercafès nearby.
Anyway, I hope to write again next weekend. I'll be in Estelì. My plan is to got the Heroes and Martyrs Gallery, take a yoga class, visit an organic farming collective (anyone need medicinal herbs?), tour a Cuban cigar factory (I do plan on purchasing some), and take a hike in Somoto, a nearby village with an apparently spectacular waterfall called Somoto Canyon, birthplace of Central America's largest river. I'm salivating a little.
During the week, I plan on interviewing more of the women in the cooperative, as well as trying to rustle up some people who aren't thrilled with the organization, at least for a change of pace. This Wednesday, I'm going to move in with Mayrita, the president of El Privilegio. I need to take more pictures. That will indeed happen.
Until next week then.
My goal for breakfast was to find cafè girasol, which is the money making part of Familias Especiales Julia Biliarte, an organization that supports disabled kids and their families. I thought I'd send some dinero their way by eating some gallo pinto and cafè presto (aka beans, rice, and instant coffee). I had success, then decided to find a cybercafè nearby.
Nothing turned up. Worse, the street turned into a dead end. But as I got closer to the roundabout, it became clear I was at Matagalpa's cemetary. It's this enormous complex of spanish-influenced, colorful, above ground grave things, not really sure what they're called, up on a hill. Great views, as usual. In any case, much different than the humble graveyard where uncle Tim is currently interred.
As I take in the sights, wishing I had brought my camera, a 20-something Nicaraguan asked if I came to see the Ben Linder grave. This is where it gets cool, because I had wanted to see his grave, but didn't think I'd have time in Matagalpa to go see it. Also, it's kind of creepy to ogle someone's remains. But Linder is a special guy. He was an American hydroelectric engineer and unicycle clown who was killed by the Contra forces in 1987. In Managua, there's an organization called the Ben Linder House, which sponsers events all week long, mainly for English-speaking volunteer groups. I still need to go there. But anyway, I got to chat about cemeteries in front of a clown/engineer's dead body.
Afterwards, I took a taxi to the Rubèn Darìo park, I think with the same driver who took me there last night. Matagalpa in the morning is tranquil. The clothing stores and their super sized speakers aren't open yet, the breeze is still cool, and not all the benches at the park are taken. And of course there are plenty of cybercafès nearby.
Anyway, I hope to write again next weekend. I'll be in Estelì. My plan is to got the Heroes and Martyrs Gallery, take a yoga class, visit an organic farming collective (anyone need medicinal herbs?), tour a Cuban cigar factory (I do plan on purchasing some), and take a hike in Somoto, a nearby village with an apparently spectacular waterfall called Somoto Canyon, birthplace of Central America's largest river. I'm salivating a little.
During the week, I plan on interviewing more of the women in the cooperative, as well as trying to rustle up some people who aren't thrilled with the organization, at least for a change of pace. This Wednesday, I'm going to move in with Mayrita, the president of El Privilegio. I need to take more pictures. That will indeed happen.
Until next week then.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Life in the Highlands
Life has taken a turn for the strange. I started my independent study project roughly a week and a half ago. So, Wednesday morning I took a bus from Managua to Matagalpa, not really knowing where I was going to sleep that night or who was going to be my principal advisor for the study period.
I take a taxi to CECOCAFEN, which some of you might know about already. Suffice it to say, it deals with fair trade coffee initiatives, as well as social development programs in the areas that grow coffee. There, I'm met by a woman who tells me my advisor couldn't make it. So, we go to a bread store and buy a quick lunch, then she drops me off at the bus stop, giving instructions to the ticket vender to make sure I get off at El Roblar. Before she leaves, she tells me to ask for Mayra when I get there.
I got to enjoy the next couple of hours, bemused, watching the Nicaraguan mountainside roll by. The bus looks vaguely familiar, and eventually I figure out it is the exact same but Rachel and I used a month before when we lived in the campo to go to La Chocolata, that elementary school in the middle of nowhere. Even later, I figure out El Roblar is the last stop on the line, meaning Rachel and I indeed walked through the exact same town in which I was now going to spend the next three weeks of my life. Life is too weird.
Mayra turns out to be a very energetic woman in her 30s, who directs her son to take my bag and myself to Don Wilfredo's. Don Wilfredo turns out to be a 45 minute uphill walk from El Roblar.
He is also probably the luckiest landowner this side of Estelì. His farm is atop a mountain overlooking the surrounding area. It's absolutely incredible. Wilfredo himself is an outgoing sort of guy who is more or less willing to talk about anything. His life story is a bit like this: a coffee picker, he traveled all over Nicaragua (here I disbelieve his story a tad) to find the best farm land. It happens to be here, conveniently where his wife's father owned a substantial amount of land. He was also a guerrilla fighter during the Somoza dictatorship, and taught himself to play guitar. Please try and picture yours truly on a mountaintop, listening to a 60 year old ex-guerrilla coffee famer play ranchero music on his slightly out of tune guitar, illuminated by lamplight, crescent moon behind his left ear. Yeah, hard.
Anyway, I stayed with him and his family for a week, learning the ropes of coffee farming. More or less. So, you never know, some of your future coffee may carry the sweat of my fingertips. I did some coffee picking, and helped de-pulp and wash the beans. By help, I mean in some touristy kind of way, I partook in their daily routine. Nothing special by any means, just a way to get an idea of the way coffee is a part of their life, and who takes part in what stages of coffee production.
Every day, something new surprises me. The people here are generous with their time and knowledge, and I can turn nearly any misfortune into something worthwhile.
This past Wednesday, I moved to a new house, Doña Dionysia's. Her house is more typical: the husband abandoned her for a new wife, tons of family living with her, a bit less picturesque surroundings. But this is for the best: Wilfredo wasn't going to talk much about machismo and its effects, and that's really the heart of my investigation. She also has some incredible trails through her coffee fields. Coffee grows best under shade, so it's like walking thtough some jungle which just happened to grow a lot of coffee. Which I think I said about the finca I visited last time I was in the campo. So yes, that indeed is the norm.
I should probably say something about the cooperative. It's name El Privilegio. It got that name because the women who formed it believe it is their priviledge to empower themselves by leaving the kitchen (at least part of the time), becoming wage earners, and otherwise increasing their capacity as human beings (which sounds better in spanish). The cooperative holds a collective savings fund, which was started in part thanks to the above mentioned CECOCAFEN. They use this fund as collateral to make loans in order to produce coffee, grow basic food necessities, or fund small businesses. The cooperative makes funds through UCA San Ramon (where my advisor works), an organization that provides loans for 18 other cooperatives in the area (Yasika Sur). The UCA, whose mission emphasizes gender equality, also provides workshops and other programs to address problems prevalent to the countryside. Topics include sexual and reproductive health, women's rights, self esteem, literacy, how to grow crops, how to manage credit, etc. It's a wide range. The UCA also provides student loans to the children of cooperative members.
Everyone I've talked to has nothing but good things to say about the UCA and El Privilegio. I doubt I'll find anyone willing to critique the two organizations, expecially since they know I'm writing a report on the cooperative. There are some improvements El Privilegio is hoping to make, such as increasing membership (there are only 28 members), and garnering support from their children, especially their sons, as they empower themselves.
There's also an interesting twist: a new cooperative law passed in the national assembly of Nicaragua basically requires small co-ops to unite. The all male cooperative in El Roblar is therefore going to unite with the all woman co-op, so they can save overhead costs. However, the women from El Privilegio were originally the wives of the male co-op members, who decided to create their own organization because of the exclusion experienced in the male dominated one. So...now they're re-uniting, in a way. And of course by now all the men have new wives, which makes the situation a bit more tense. This is another topic few are willing to talk about openly. And I doubt it has a place in an academic work anyway. In the end, the only thing theý'll have in common is an accountant and board of directors--they will continue meeting separately, hold seperate savings accounts, etc.
Hopefully all this info will turn into a 30 page paper. Hard to tell at this point. In the meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy the crisp mountain air, the views, and everything else that will make everyone at home jealous.
I take a taxi to CECOCAFEN, which some of you might know about already. Suffice it to say, it deals with fair trade coffee initiatives, as well as social development programs in the areas that grow coffee. There, I'm met by a woman who tells me my advisor couldn't make it. So, we go to a bread store and buy a quick lunch, then she drops me off at the bus stop, giving instructions to the ticket vender to make sure I get off at El Roblar. Before she leaves, she tells me to ask for Mayra when I get there.
I got to enjoy the next couple of hours, bemused, watching the Nicaraguan mountainside roll by. The bus looks vaguely familiar, and eventually I figure out it is the exact same but Rachel and I used a month before when we lived in the campo to go to La Chocolata, that elementary school in the middle of nowhere. Even later, I figure out El Roblar is the last stop on the line, meaning Rachel and I indeed walked through the exact same town in which I was now going to spend the next three weeks of my life. Life is too weird.
Mayra turns out to be a very energetic woman in her 30s, who directs her son to take my bag and myself to Don Wilfredo's. Don Wilfredo turns out to be a 45 minute uphill walk from El Roblar.
He is also probably the luckiest landowner this side of Estelì. His farm is atop a mountain overlooking the surrounding area. It's absolutely incredible. Wilfredo himself is an outgoing sort of guy who is more or less willing to talk about anything. His life story is a bit like this: a coffee picker, he traveled all over Nicaragua (here I disbelieve his story a tad) to find the best farm land. It happens to be here, conveniently where his wife's father owned a substantial amount of land. He was also a guerrilla fighter during the Somoza dictatorship, and taught himself to play guitar. Please try and picture yours truly on a mountaintop, listening to a 60 year old ex-guerrilla coffee famer play ranchero music on his slightly out of tune guitar, illuminated by lamplight, crescent moon behind his left ear. Yeah, hard.
Anyway, I stayed with him and his family for a week, learning the ropes of coffee farming. More or less. So, you never know, some of your future coffee may carry the sweat of my fingertips. I did some coffee picking, and helped de-pulp and wash the beans. By help, I mean in some touristy kind of way, I partook in their daily routine. Nothing special by any means, just a way to get an idea of the way coffee is a part of their life, and who takes part in what stages of coffee production.
Every day, something new surprises me. The people here are generous with their time and knowledge, and I can turn nearly any misfortune into something worthwhile.
This past Wednesday, I moved to a new house, Doña Dionysia's. Her house is more typical: the husband abandoned her for a new wife, tons of family living with her, a bit less picturesque surroundings. But this is for the best: Wilfredo wasn't going to talk much about machismo and its effects, and that's really the heart of my investigation. She also has some incredible trails through her coffee fields. Coffee grows best under shade, so it's like walking thtough some jungle which just happened to grow a lot of coffee. Which I think I said about the finca I visited last time I was in the campo. So yes, that indeed is the norm.
I should probably say something about the cooperative. It's name El Privilegio. It got that name because the women who formed it believe it is their priviledge to empower themselves by leaving the kitchen (at least part of the time), becoming wage earners, and otherwise increasing their capacity as human beings (which sounds better in spanish). The cooperative holds a collective savings fund, which was started in part thanks to the above mentioned CECOCAFEN. They use this fund as collateral to make loans in order to produce coffee, grow basic food necessities, or fund small businesses. The cooperative makes funds through UCA San Ramon (where my advisor works), an organization that provides loans for 18 other cooperatives in the area (Yasika Sur). The UCA, whose mission emphasizes gender equality, also provides workshops and other programs to address problems prevalent to the countryside. Topics include sexual and reproductive health, women's rights, self esteem, literacy, how to grow crops, how to manage credit, etc. It's a wide range. The UCA also provides student loans to the children of cooperative members.
Everyone I've talked to has nothing but good things to say about the UCA and El Privilegio. I doubt I'll find anyone willing to critique the two organizations, expecially since they know I'm writing a report on the cooperative. There are some improvements El Privilegio is hoping to make, such as increasing membership (there are only 28 members), and garnering support from their children, especially their sons, as they empower themselves.
There's also an interesting twist: a new cooperative law passed in the national assembly of Nicaragua basically requires small co-ops to unite. The all male cooperative in El Roblar is therefore going to unite with the all woman co-op, so they can save overhead costs. However, the women from El Privilegio were originally the wives of the male co-op members, who decided to create their own organization because of the exclusion experienced in the male dominated one. So...now they're re-uniting, in a way. And of course by now all the men have new wives, which makes the situation a bit more tense. This is another topic few are willing to talk about openly. And I doubt it has a place in an academic work anyway. In the end, the only thing theý'll have in common is an accountant and board of directors--they will continue meeting separately, hold seperate savings accounts, etc.
Hopefully all this info will turn into a 30 page paper. Hard to tell at this point. In the meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy the crisp mountain air, the views, and everything else that will make everyone at home jealous.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
This independent study thing
Today my Independent Study Project proposal is due. I've signed an ethics statement, filled out a form about how I plan on researching human subjects in an ethical manner, made a budget, wrote an outline, and discussed my methodology methods.
My project is such: I am going to work at a women's coffee cooperative, El Privilegio, for three weeks. During that time, I hope to research how the women consider themselves part of Nicaragua's women's movement, as well as how this cooperative compares itself to other, heterogenous, coffee cooperatives. It's broad, but I'll narrow it down once I get there. Everyone will be happy to know the proposal is in spanish. Very special.
This possibly means lack of communication (more than normal, if that's possible) for the three weeks I'm gone. Then of course I'll be writing my ISP (again in spanish--this was a choice mind you, so everyone should be proud), so who knows if I'll ever use this thing called internet after November 7.
Other ISPs in the group include:
+ a project about the people who live and work in Managua's landfill
+ Public health in the Garifuna people (afro-indian descendents who live on the Caribbean Coast)
+ Studying the rebuilding efforts in the RAAN, where the Hurricane hit the hardest, and also where there's historically been the least infrastructure of any part of Nicaragua
+ The Russian diaspora to Nicaragua
+ How (international) funding organizations for non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua affect their mission and activities
+ The introduction of a police force into Orinoco, a 100% Garifuna community on the Caribbean coast that has never had police before.
+ The changes in teaching styles throughout the Sandinista revolution and the conservative period of the 1990s
I bet the people doing these ISPs would be horrified in how I summarized them, and of course there's loads of background information in all of these that is hard to project in a sentence. But it's an idea of how diverse the projects are.
The blog about sights and sounds of Managua is pending. So are more about El Salvador.
My project is such: I am going to work at a women's coffee cooperative, El Privilegio, for three weeks. During that time, I hope to research how the women consider themselves part of Nicaragua's women's movement, as well as how this cooperative compares itself to other, heterogenous, coffee cooperatives. It's broad, but I'll narrow it down once I get there. Everyone will be happy to know the proposal is in spanish. Very special.
This possibly means lack of communication (more than normal, if that's possible) for the three weeks I'm gone. Then of course I'll be writing my ISP (again in spanish--this was a choice mind you, so everyone should be proud), so who knows if I'll ever use this thing called internet after November 7.
Other ISPs in the group include:
+ a project about the people who live and work in Managua's landfill
+ Public health in the Garifuna people (afro-indian descendents who live on the Caribbean Coast)
+ Studying the rebuilding efforts in the RAAN, where the Hurricane hit the hardest, and also where there's historically been the least infrastructure of any part of Nicaragua
+ The Russian diaspora to Nicaragua
+ How (international) funding organizations for non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua affect their mission and activities
+ The introduction of a police force into Orinoco, a 100% Garifuna community on the Caribbean coast that has never had police before.
+ The changes in teaching styles throughout the Sandinista revolution and the conservative period of the 1990s
I bet the people doing these ISPs would be horrified in how I summarized them, and of course there's loads of background information in all of these that is hard to project in a sentence. But it's an idea of how diverse the projects are.
The blog about sights and sounds of Managua is pending. So are more about El Salvador.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
El Salvador: Or, a walk in the rain
We´ve arrived at Guazapa, one of the guerrilla strongholds during the civil war. To greet us are three youth in a youth-run eco-tourism organization, to take us on a tour through the ¨backyard¨of the community.
I should probably mention at this point it had been raining all day before and today, with no sign it would stop. No one in the group was discouraged by the drizzle and we agreed to take the tour anyway.
The kids were about our age, ready to answer any questions we had, although little was volunteered. I attribute this more to my bad spanish and the rain than their tourism capabilities. On the way up the mountain, we stopped at various points of interest.
First, we stopped at the edge of one of the cornfields. This is not a typical cornfield--it´s all generally on a slant, and an individual field was roughly an acre or two big. All the corn had been turned upside down on the stalk, as our guides explained, to keep the corn dry inside. The husk slid all the rain off this way. Also, the corn here is white. The legend is that long ago, a princess was seduced by one of the gods, and became pregnant. Soon after, the kingdom suffered from a famine. The king, believing her immoral act was the cause, said she must either rectify the situation or be killed. She went to the god, and told him the situation. He told her to tell the people to start plowing their fields--they would use her teeth for seeds. The ¨seeds¨took, and when the corn matured, it was the exact shade as the princess´s teeth.
Next stop was a large stone with a depression in the middle of it. Basically an outdoor pestle, it is believed indigenous people used the stone to prepare medicines. It´s a bit odd to see the stones apparently scattered around the fields, sometimes inside the corn rows, doing nothing but collect rain and mud.
Also on the walk was an indigo ¨bath¨. I didn´t get this part of the tour at all--the rain had picked up and the voices couldn´t compete with the various forest sounds. The place where the indigo was made looked like an old stone basement, open to the elements. The bark of indigo trees somehow gets processed in this stone-walled structure. Indigo plays an important part in El Salvador history. This blue dye was the country´s first export product, and colonizers moved all original inhabitants of the lowlands where the indigo trees grew best. This was of course the best land in El Salvador for cultivation, so the people were forced to the highlands to make a more difficult living there. The great irony is that when the indigo trade ended (after the germans created artificial paints), coffee became the new export product. This grows best in the highlands, so the indigenous people again lost their lands to the colonizers.
The land situation was this: land was divided into haciendas, enourmous coffee fields owned by a single person. Those who didn´t own the land could still live on the edges, provided they worked as coffee pickers. They were also allowed a small piece of land to grow subsistence crops. Basically slavery. In 1932, many coffee pickers attemped an uprising, managing to kill about 100 hacienda owners before the military came in and killed 3000 campesinos (literally, country dwellers).
This was the beginning of a brutal period of repression, which didn´t spark into actual civil war until 1982, exactly 50 years after the first uprising. During this war, at least 75,000 people died, 85% of them killed by the national army. Only 5% were killed by the FMLN, the guerrilla movement, and the other 10% cannot be determined. An additional 8,000 went missing, with another 1 million homeless and yet another 1 million exiled. The war lasted 10 years, with peace accords being signed January 1992. During the war, the US government gave roughly $7 billion to the government, beginning with Carter and ending with H. W. Bush. Reagan of course was an emphatic supporter of the aid.
It´s one thing to know these facts. It´s another to talk to someone who lost family members, eyesight, limbs, and more in the war. It´s another thing to see, during this eco tour, a small hole dug into the hill side to hide people from bombs the government would send down as part of a Scorched Earth campaign that did little more than kill innocent people. The hole was a small tunnel someone could crawl into, currently filled with water and the occassional bat. When in use, it was covered by bamboo and random detritus, and was a successful way to hide from the military and their weapons.
After looking at the tunnel, we went further up the mountain to a guerrilla base. We didn´t get to see where the ¨hospital¨used to be, because it would have requred two more hours in the rain. Which is a shame. But we got to see the kiosk, which was a cabin with large awning we could stand under, with a few old signs says ¨danger, mines¨in spanish. We were assured all the mines had been cleared away and the signs stayed only as a relic of the times. During the war, landmines were used to protect the guerrillas from the foot soldiers. On of our hotel managers in San Salvador, Damien, actually led a group of 15 guerrillas, and they engaged in the same activity, among other things. (Damien is a whole other story. I´ll see if I can get that up as well)
This was our last stop. On the way back, I admired the beauty of the land, talked to my friends about upcoming college registration, and tried to process just what exactly we had seen.
I should probably mention at this point it had been raining all day before and today, with no sign it would stop. No one in the group was discouraged by the drizzle and we agreed to take the tour anyway.
The kids were about our age, ready to answer any questions we had, although little was volunteered. I attribute this more to my bad spanish and the rain than their tourism capabilities. On the way up the mountain, we stopped at various points of interest.
First, we stopped at the edge of one of the cornfields. This is not a typical cornfield--it´s all generally on a slant, and an individual field was roughly an acre or two big. All the corn had been turned upside down on the stalk, as our guides explained, to keep the corn dry inside. The husk slid all the rain off this way. Also, the corn here is white. The legend is that long ago, a princess was seduced by one of the gods, and became pregnant. Soon after, the kingdom suffered from a famine. The king, believing her immoral act was the cause, said she must either rectify the situation or be killed. She went to the god, and told him the situation. He told her to tell the people to start plowing their fields--they would use her teeth for seeds. The ¨seeds¨took, and when the corn matured, it was the exact shade as the princess´s teeth.
Next stop was a large stone with a depression in the middle of it. Basically an outdoor pestle, it is believed indigenous people used the stone to prepare medicines. It´s a bit odd to see the stones apparently scattered around the fields, sometimes inside the corn rows, doing nothing but collect rain and mud.
Also on the walk was an indigo ¨bath¨. I didn´t get this part of the tour at all--the rain had picked up and the voices couldn´t compete with the various forest sounds. The place where the indigo was made looked like an old stone basement, open to the elements. The bark of indigo trees somehow gets processed in this stone-walled structure. Indigo plays an important part in El Salvador history. This blue dye was the country´s first export product, and colonizers moved all original inhabitants of the lowlands where the indigo trees grew best. This was of course the best land in El Salvador for cultivation, so the people were forced to the highlands to make a more difficult living there. The great irony is that when the indigo trade ended (after the germans created artificial paints), coffee became the new export product. This grows best in the highlands, so the indigenous people again lost their lands to the colonizers.
The land situation was this: land was divided into haciendas, enourmous coffee fields owned by a single person. Those who didn´t own the land could still live on the edges, provided they worked as coffee pickers. They were also allowed a small piece of land to grow subsistence crops. Basically slavery. In 1932, many coffee pickers attemped an uprising, managing to kill about 100 hacienda owners before the military came in and killed 3000 campesinos (literally, country dwellers).
This was the beginning of a brutal period of repression, which didn´t spark into actual civil war until 1982, exactly 50 years after the first uprising. During this war, at least 75,000 people died, 85% of them killed by the national army. Only 5% were killed by the FMLN, the guerrilla movement, and the other 10% cannot be determined. An additional 8,000 went missing, with another 1 million homeless and yet another 1 million exiled. The war lasted 10 years, with peace accords being signed January 1992. During the war, the US government gave roughly $7 billion to the government, beginning with Carter and ending with H. W. Bush. Reagan of course was an emphatic supporter of the aid.
It´s one thing to know these facts. It´s another to talk to someone who lost family members, eyesight, limbs, and more in the war. It´s another thing to see, during this eco tour, a small hole dug into the hill side to hide people from bombs the government would send down as part of a Scorched Earth campaign that did little more than kill innocent people. The hole was a small tunnel someone could crawl into, currently filled with water and the occassional bat. When in use, it was covered by bamboo and random detritus, and was a successful way to hide from the military and their weapons.
After looking at the tunnel, we went further up the mountain to a guerrilla base. We didn´t get to see where the ¨hospital¨used to be, because it would have requred two more hours in the rain. Which is a shame. But we got to see the kiosk, which was a cabin with large awning we could stand under, with a few old signs says ¨danger, mines¨in spanish. We were assured all the mines had been cleared away and the signs stayed only as a relic of the times. During the war, landmines were used to protect the guerrillas from the foot soldiers. On of our hotel managers in San Salvador, Damien, actually led a group of 15 guerrillas, and they engaged in the same activity, among other things. (Damien is a whole other story. I´ll see if I can get that up as well)
This was our last stop. On the way back, I admired the beauty of the land, talked to my friends about upcoming college registration, and tried to process just what exactly we had seen.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Flickr account
I have a place for photos. Here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12182515@N06/
I probably need to get a pro account soon so all my pictures can get uploaded. Donations, anybody?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12182515@N06/
I probably need to get a pro account soon so all my pictures can get uploaded. Donations, anybody?
A little Q & A
So, I´ve noticed that I´m not answering most of the questions posed to me. So I´m going to take some time to resolve this issue.
Campo:
Was there any government presence there? Yes, but only in the form of UNAG, unión agricultural. I´m a bit shaky on this, but it´s state-run organization for farmers, which pretty much includes every campesino. This organization is currently focused on land reform, in the hopes that the government will buy land, then give it out to land-less campesinos. But then again, this might actually be one of those organizations that used to be part of the (Sandinista) state in the 80s, and is now indepent, or affiliated with the Sandinista party. Other than that, I didn´t see much. Even the literacy program is taught over the television, and since La Amancia never has electricity, and only three TVs, this can´t be very effective. What usually happens is that an NGO swoops in, gives out free medicine or builds a few new houses, then leaves. I also don´t remember any police, although that might be a mistake on my part.
You said the family has a radio--is that how they get news of the world outside La Amancia, or is it just entertainment? We only used it for after-dark dance parties. I asked my mom once if she had any hope for the future, and she said no. I don´t think my mom sees any point in listening to the news.
How does the local economy operate--on the barter system? Hard to say. I only ever saw people giving things away. It´s probably a system of reciprocity--whoever has a resource, like coffee or oranges, will give it away to those who need it. I didn´t see a market around La Amancia, but there must be one, and I think that would use currency.
I am wondering whether or not the grown children help support their mother and the younger kids. My mom there has a complicated family life. I know for sure two of her older children still live in La Amancia, but her son hates her, and I met the daughter only because we went to visit her. Her younger daughters all helped to take care of the baby, and it´s possible that her kids sent her assistance, and I just didn´t know about it. I never know what I can pry into and what I can´t.
How old was the woman who you lived with? I think she must have been at least 43. She had her first baby in 1980, which was 27 years ago, and she couldn´t have been younger than 16. Well, yeah, she could have, but I´ll pretend not.
Does Edu help women start businesses, and if so, what kind of businesses do women do? Right now, she runs a pulperia, a small convenience store. When she lived in Matagalpa, I´m beginning to gather she worked only with cases of violence against women. I´ll ask her about it.
Were the bugs as bad as expected? Not at all. I had some bedbug issues, but nothing serious. The other two communities had a terrible time with mosquitos, but La Amancia didn´t have any issues.
How are you dealing with all of the poverty you are seeing/experiencing? Not all that well. It´s depressing to see how little the government is doing to help its people. Ortega seems to prefer saying empty words about supporting Iran´s nuclear weapons program, or criticizing Bush´s foreign policy in a manner that won´t actually incite a US response. Worse for me, most of the people are very pessimistic about the direction of the country. On the carribbean, they are taking matters into their own hands, completely ignoring the government that ignores them in turn. But also, I´m personally uncomfortable living in such poverty. The food is heavy, I think because people feel fuller quicker, there´s not always electricity, the living conditions themselves are not like the couches and lazy boys I´m used to, etc, ad nauseum. This isn´t a vacation, I keep telling myself. But it´s hard to get used to living like this (and I´m certainly not experiencing the brunt of poverty--I´m still sheltered in many ways). I hope to take this experience with me, and use it as momentum for my career goals. And of course this is all great social capital.
Do the people seem happy despite their lack of material wealth? Depends where you are living. On the Pacific side, most people are very cynical about the future. So yeah, Nicaraguans love to go out to clubs, or love to chat in front of a pulperia, but the poverty is something they are unhappy about. The Caribbean coast is completely different, again because they do not depend at all on the central government to help them. It´s very empowering. And there´s the whole carribbean philosphy, which everyone there firmly believed in. So, although they were generally poorer than the Pacific Nicaraguans, everyone was optimistic, and for good reason.
So, what are you eating? Hard to say. In Managua, I eat rice, beans, cheese, fruit, and bread. My beverages are water and fruit drinks. On the coast, I ate shrimp, fish....and rice, beans, cheese, fruit and bread. I really didn´t like the food on the coast--there was sauce on everything, and it was way too rich. And heavy. I love to eat, but I never really got excited about eating on the coast. Except for my very first meal, rondón. That was spectacular, and I´ll never forget it. For a change of pace, I had ramen noodles (with an egg. I´ll never forget you Caryl!) last night. And I made wild rice soup last week, which everyone loved. I´m making it again Wednesday night. Also, there´s a great vegetarian comedor that I like to go to as well. I had garbanzo bean soup there, and they have excellent soy burgers.
Campo:
Was there any government presence there? Yes, but only in the form of UNAG, unión agricultural. I´m a bit shaky on this, but it´s state-run organization for farmers, which pretty much includes every campesino. This organization is currently focused on land reform, in the hopes that the government will buy land, then give it out to land-less campesinos. But then again, this might actually be one of those organizations that used to be part of the (Sandinista) state in the 80s, and is now indepent, or affiliated with the Sandinista party. Other than that, I didn´t see much. Even the literacy program is taught over the television, and since La Amancia never has electricity, and only three TVs, this can´t be very effective. What usually happens is that an NGO swoops in, gives out free medicine or builds a few new houses, then leaves. I also don´t remember any police, although that might be a mistake on my part.
You said the family has a radio--is that how they get news of the world outside La Amancia, or is it just entertainment? We only used it for after-dark dance parties. I asked my mom once if she had any hope for the future, and she said no. I don´t think my mom sees any point in listening to the news.
How does the local economy operate--on the barter system? Hard to say. I only ever saw people giving things away. It´s probably a system of reciprocity--whoever has a resource, like coffee or oranges, will give it away to those who need it. I didn´t see a market around La Amancia, but there must be one, and I think that would use currency.
I am wondering whether or not the grown children help support their mother and the younger kids. My mom there has a complicated family life. I know for sure two of her older children still live in La Amancia, but her son hates her, and I met the daughter only because we went to visit her. Her younger daughters all helped to take care of the baby, and it´s possible that her kids sent her assistance, and I just didn´t know about it. I never know what I can pry into and what I can´t.
How old was the woman who you lived with? I think she must have been at least 43. She had her first baby in 1980, which was 27 years ago, and she couldn´t have been younger than 16. Well, yeah, she could have, but I´ll pretend not.
Does Edu help women start businesses, and if so, what kind of businesses do women do? Right now, she runs a pulperia, a small convenience store. When she lived in Matagalpa, I´m beginning to gather she worked only with cases of violence against women. I´ll ask her about it.
Were the bugs as bad as expected? Not at all. I had some bedbug issues, but nothing serious. The other two communities had a terrible time with mosquitos, but La Amancia didn´t have any issues.
How are you dealing with all of the poverty you are seeing/experiencing? Not all that well. It´s depressing to see how little the government is doing to help its people. Ortega seems to prefer saying empty words about supporting Iran´s nuclear weapons program, or criticizing Bush´s foreign policy in a manner that won´t actually incite a US response. Worse for me, most of the people are very pessimistic about the direction of the country. On the carribbean, they are taking matters into their own hands, completely ignoring the government that ignores them in turn. But also, I´m personally uncomfortable living in such poverty. The food is heavy, I think because people feel fuller quicker, there´s not always electricity, the living conditions themselves are not like the couches and lazy boys I´m used to, etc, ad nauseum. This isn´t a vacation, I keep telling myself. But it´s hard to get used to living like this (and I´m certainly not experiencing the brunt of poverty--I´m still sheltered in many ways). I hope to take this experience with me, and use it as momentum for my career goals. And of course this is all great social capital.
Do the people seem happy despite their lack of material wealth? Depends where you are living. On the Pacific side, most people are very cynical about the future. So yeah, Nicaraguans love to go out to clubs, or love to chat in front of a pulperia, but the poverty is something they are unhappy about. The Caribbean coast is completely different, again because they do not depend at all on the central government to help them. It´s very empowering. And there´s the whole carribbean philosphy, which everyone there firmly believed in. So, although they were generally poorer than the Pacific Nicaraguans, everyone was optimistic, and for good reason.
So, what are you eating? Hard to say. In Managua, I eat rice, beans, cheese, fruit, and bread. My beverages are water and fruit drinks. On the coast, I ate shrimp, fish....and rice, beans, cheese, fruit and bread. I really didn´t like the food on the coast--there was sauce on everything, and it was way too rich. And heavy. I love to eat, but I never really got excited about eating on the coast. Except for my very first meal, rondón. That was spectacular, and I´ll never forget it. For a change of pace, I had ramen noodles (with an egg. I´ll never forget you Caryl!) last night. And I made wild rice soup last week, which everyone loved. I´m making it again Wednesday night. Also, there´s a great vegetarian comedor that I like to go to as well. I had garbanzo bean soup there, and they have excellent soy burgers.
I wonder how you will decide on your independent study topic--any subjects floating to the top yet? Actually, yeah. I want to work on a women´s coffee cooperative, either in Matagalpa or Esteli. My project will be a case study, focusing on how effective their organization is, the effect of machismo in the women´s home life and work, and their amount of access to the international coffee market. But I still have research to do, namely the coffee business, the Nicaraguan women´s movement, and the history/functionality of Nicaraguan cooperatives.
Do they paint the cement houses or do they color the cement? All (completed) houses I saw were painted, in any color you can imagine. The issue is really maitenence. My house, for example, is this great green color, but I don´t think it has had a fresh coat in years.
When will you start your book? Difficult to say. Maybe after I become president.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Coconut milk is good with everything
I´m completely blown away by the caribbean coast. I expected something like the campo, only more depressing. Instead, I live with a social activist by the name of Wesley Williams. He now runs a guesthouse, where I and 8 other students live. The name of the town is Pearl Lagoon, and we´re staying here from Wednesday to Saturday. Every day we talk to two representatives of the various organizations and NGOs around the town. They are incredibly dedicated and eloquent, something we pick up more easily here than on the Pacific side since most choose to speak in English with us.
The town is a mix of shacks, cement houses, and something like bungalows. It sits right at the waterside, but since it´s a lagoon we can´t see the ocean. The town mostly fishes for an income, and does some subsistence farming of the side. Although the town has about 1000 houses or so, the roads are generally not paved. This is only an issue on the roads cars pass through--most is pedestrian oriented. There´s also a lot of four wheelers, such as the one used by the police. There´s only 7 police for the entire municipality (like a county), so they can´t possibly be very effective.
Anyway, the town has two primary schools (one public and one private, although the private one costs less than a dollar a month to attend) and a secondary school. The university is a 40 minute panga ride away to Blufields. A panga is a 12 seater boat with an outboard motor, which the group has been using extensively, first to get from El Rama, where the road basically ends, to Bluefields, where we spent a night.
I´ll say a bit about Bluefields here. It´s mostly a spanish-speaking community, and the biggest town in RAAS (Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region). We stayed in a guesthouse right on the shoreline--the panga pulled right up to the restaurant part. I went for a walk around with some others in the group, and we mostly saw a lot of brightly colored cement houses, used clothing stores, clothing boutiques, and street music vendors. I´m still not sure how I feel about the town, which is fine since I only spent one day there and probably shouldn´t pass judgement on it.
As for food, it´s been great. We had the regional dish, rondón, for lunch the first day. That´s a type of fish, cooked in some kind of sauce. Very rich. They also cook up coconut bread, which everyone should try. They have rice and beans on the coast, but they stew it with coconut milk as well. We´ve also had shrimp, probably the best I´ve had in my life. Not even that weekend in Vietnam´s Ha Long bay compares to it. Although there I had great clams. And lobster. And, like all Nicaraguan exports, the best lobster goes to the States, so we haven´t seen much of that around here. People have been over fishing them, so now there are penalties if the fisherman keep lobsters below a certain size.
This is just a sprinkling of what I´ve learned here, but I don´t want to overwhelm everyone. I´ll just say we´ve so far spoken to the caldía, or mayor, of Pearl Lagoon, the municipal director of FALDCANIC, and a member of CONADETI.
FADCANIC stands for Formación del Autonomía y Desarollo de la Coasta Atlantica de Nicaragua. That translates into the Formation of Autonomy and Development of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. It is an NGO with funding from Austria and Norway to develop the capacity of the people here to live sustainably. What I like about the NGO is its consciousness to empower the communities themselves, and not impose improvements on them. The organization first talks to the comunity to see what needs to be done to improve it and help mitigate the poverty, then provides education and microcredit to give the people the capacity to provide a livlihood for themselves. For example, FADCANIC funds a school in Pearl Lagoon, in which all the teachers are from Pearl Lagoon. The NGO provides workshops to improve their teaching skills, and funding to attend the university in Bluefields. The schoolboard is comprised entirely of the student´s parent, and they are the ones who manage the direction of the school. So of course the NGO is effective in helping the communities here--it´s run by the people who are familiar with the community, know what the problems are, and now have the capacity to solve these problems.
CONADETI is the Comisión National de Demarcación Territorial Indigenas y Etnicas. I don´t think that needs a translation. The issue is that the indigenous people of the coast are used to working the land communally, but the mestizo community migrating east from the Pacific side have a European understanding of land, which requires titles of ownership. So this commision was created in 2003 to set up a way of giving the people communally titled land. But of course this is hard because people fight over which communities have the comunal right over what land, and the process has been really slow. It doesn´t help that the government doesn´t provide them with much of a budget--it´s mostly funded by UNESCO. Also, the reason the word Territory is used over Land is because Land only applies to earth, and Territory to land, water, minerals, and the cultural tradition itself--so the idea is to preserve not only the land for those who use it, but also this cultural history that comes with comunal ownership.
Finally, I´ll say a little but about the Garifuna. They´re a very small ethnic group, whose history is rather recent. Their ancestor are escaped African slaves and the Arawak indigenous group. They originally lived in Honduras, but have since migrated to Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Orinoco, where the other group went, is home to the largest Garifuna population in the world. The entire group is currently involved in preserving the Garifuna language, which only 10 can speak fluently, as well as codifying their culture and traditions. This is also funded by UNESCO, but they´ve only given $20,000.
I´m so impressed by the people here. This is nothing like the campo organizations, which suffered from a lack of involvement in La Amancia. Which I think is a product of dependency on the government or NGOs to swoop in the fix everything for them. What I´ve seen here is a history of people who want self-determination, and are in the process of working towards that. It´s very uplifting. No wonder so many SIT students go to the caribbean coast for their projects.
Also, I might be going to the Pearl Keys, apparently the tourist hot spot on the caribbean coast. Stay tuned.
The town is a mix of shacks, cement houses, and something like bungalows. It sits right at the waterside, but since it´s a lagoon we can´t see the ocean. The town mostly fishes for an income, and does some subsistence farming of the side. Although the town has about 1000 houses or so, the roads are generally not paved. This is only an issue on the roads cars pass through--most is pedestrian oriented. There´s also a lot of four wheelers, such as the one used by the police. There´s only 7 police for the entire municipality (like a county), so they can´t possibly be very effective.
Anyway, the town has two primary schools (one public and one private, although the private one costs less than a dollar a month to attend) and a secondary school. The university is a 40 minute panga ride away to Blufields. A panga is a 12 seater boat with an outboard motor, which the group has been using extensively, first to get from El Rama, where the road basically ends, to Bluefields, where we spent a night.
I´ll say a bit about Bluefields here. It´s mostly a spanish-speaking community, and the biggest town in RAAS (Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region). We stayed in a guesthouse right on the shoreline--the panga pulled right up to the restaurant part. I went for a walk around with some others in the group, and we mostly saw a lot of brightly colored cement houses, used clothing stores, clothing boutiques, and street music vendors. I´m still not sure how I feel about the town, which is fine since I only spent one day there and probably shouldn´t pass judgement on it.
As for food, it´s been great. We had the regional dish, rondón, for lunch the first day. That´s a type of fish, cooked in some kind of sauce. Very rich. They also cook up coconut bread, which everyone should try. They have rice and beans on the coast, but they stew it with coconut milk as well. We´ve also had shrimp, probably the best I´ve had in my life. Not even that weekend in Vietnam´s Ha Long bay compares to it. Although there I had great clams. And lobster. And, like all Nicaraguan exports, the best lobster goes to the States, so we haven´t seen much of that around here. People have been over fishing them, so now there are penalties if the fisherman keep lobsters below a certain size.
This is just a sprinkling of what I´ve learned here, but I don´t want to overwhelm everyone. I´ll just say we´ve so far spoken to the caldía, or mayor, of Pearl Lagoon, the municipal director of FALDCANIC, and a member of CONADETI.
FADCANIC stands for Formación del Autonomía y Desarollo de la Coasta Atlantica de Nicaragua. That translates into the Formation of Autonomy and Development of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. It is an NGO with funding from Austria and Norway to develop the capacity of the people here to live sustainably. What I like about the NGO is its consciousness to empower the communities themselves, and not impose improvements on them. The organization first talks to the comunity to see what needs to be done to improve it and help mitigate the poverty, then provides education and microcredit to give the people the capacity to provide a livlihood for themselves. For example, FADCANIC funds a school in Pearl Lagoon, in which all the teachers are from Pearl Lagoon. The NGO provides workshops to improve their teaching skills, and funding to attend the university in Bluefields. The schoolboard is comprised entirely of the student´s parent, and they are the ones who manage the direction of the school. So of course the NGO is effective in helping the communities here--it´s run by the people who are familiar with the community, know what the problems are, and now have the capacity to solve these problems.
CONADETI is the Comisión National de Demarcación Territorial Indigenas y Etnicas. I don´t think that needs a translation. The issue is that the indigenous people of the coast are used to working the land communally, but the mestizo community migrating east from the Pacific side have a European understanding of land, which requires titles of ownership. So this commision was created in 2003 to set up a way of giving the people communally titled land. But of course this is hard because people fight over which communities have the comunal right over what land, and the process has been really slow. It doesn´t help that the government doesn´t provide them with much of a budget--it´s mostly funded by UNESCO. Also, the reason the word Territory is used over Land is because Land only applies to earth, and Territory to land, water, minerals, and the cultural tradition itself--so the idea is to preserve not only the land for those who use it, but also this cultural history that comes with comunal ownership.
Finally, I´ll say a little but about the Garifuna. They´re a very small ethnic group, whose history is rather recent. Their ancestor are escaped African slaves and the Arawak indigenous group. They originally lived in Honduras, but have since migrated to Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Orinoco, where the other group went, is home to the largest Garifuna population in the world. The entire group is currently involved in preserving the Garifuna language, which only 10 can speak fluently, as well as codifying their culture and traditions. This is also funded by UNESCO, but they´ve only given $20,000.
I´m so impressed by the people here. This is nothing like the campo organizations, which suffered from a lack of involvement in La Amancia. Which I think is a product of dependency on the government or NGOs to swoop in the fix everything for them. What I´ve seen here is a history of people who want self-determination, and are in the process of working towards that. It´s very uplifting. No wonder so many SIT students go to the caribbean coast for their projects.
Also, I might be going to the Pearl Keys, apparently the tourist hot spot on the caribbean coast. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Off to the coast
Ok, so I've been pretty busy this week, but I'm going to the coast tomorrow morning at 5 am, so I better write something now. Hopefully I'll get around to all those questions later, since right now it's midnight and I should probably get some sleep. And pack.
So, about the coast. It's the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, which is both gorgeous and impoverished. Narcotrafficking is big here as well, so the communities aren't all that healthy. We'll be there for a week, split up between Orinoco and Pearl Lagoon (I'm in Lagoon).
As for recent events, you will all be pleased to know I prepared wild rice soup (which actually thickened into something more like a casserole) for my mom and some friends. Huge success. It will probably be the next big phenomenon of Maximo Jerez. So when I get back from the coast, we'll all cook ethnic dishes--I'll learn how to cook something along the lines of indigena viego, but I think that's wrong.
My mom here has been telling me some more stories about herself as well. Apparently she was a Spanish teacher a while back for high school. So I asked why she left, and there are three reasons. One, the students were coming in with not even a basic education. Some couldn't even spell their own name correctly, which made teaching a secondary level spanish class very difficult. Two, the schools are autonomous, so students whose parents couldn't pay were asked to leave, and those who could were passed regardless of actual aptitude. Third, oone of her students had been approached by her boss (he had stayed behind with her in between periods and dropped his pants. She ran off and told Edu, my mom). So when she reported him, she was fired. And she hasn't been able to get a job in education since. And this is one top of the fact she was a teacher in the literacy crusade, headed up the youth organization of the revolutionaries, picked coffee (more or less voluntarily) for the revolutionary cause, and runs her on business. And worked in a womens NGO in Matagalpa. She's my hero.
Other than that, I'll just say life is wonderful here. It's cheesy, but whatever. I'm good.
So, about the coast. It's the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, which is both gorgeous and impoverished. Narcotrafficking is big here as well, so the communities aren't all that healthy. We'll be there for a week, split up between Orinoco and Pearl Lagoon (I'm in Lagoon).
As for recent events, you will all be pleased to know I prepared wild rice soup (which actually thickened into something more like a casserole) for my mom and some friends. Huge success. It will probably be the next big phenomenon of Maximo Jerez. So when I get back from the coast, we'll all cook ethnic dishes--I'll learn how to cook something along the lines of indigena viego, but I think that's wrong.
My mom here has been telling me some more stories about herself as well. Apparently she was a Spanish teacher a while back for high school. So I asked why she left, and there are three reasons. One, the students were coming in with not even a basic education. Some couldn't even spell their own name correctly, which made teaching a secondary level spanish class very difficult. Two, the schools are autonomous, so students whose parents couldn't pay were asked to leave, and those who could were passed regardless of actual aptitude. Third, oone of her students had been approached by her boss (he had stayed behind with her in between periods and dropped his pants. She ran off and told Edu, my mom). So when she reported him, she was fired. And she hasn't been able to get a job in education since. And this is one top of the fact she was a teacher in the literacy crusade, headed up the youth organization of the revolutionaries, picked coffee (more or less voluntarily) for the revolutionary cause, and runs her on business. And worked in a womens NGO in Matagalpa. She's my hero.
Other than that, I'll just say life is wonderful here. It's cheesy, but whatever. I'm good.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Back from the mountains
Ok, I've been avoiding writing an entry, since I'm afraid I won't accurately represent what happened in the campo. But I'll give it my best shot.
I lived in La Amancia, with a single mom and five of her kids. The other seven are old enough to live out of the house. Yeah, her kids range from a 26 year old daughter to a three month old son. Who I ended up taking roughly a million pictures of, I guess because he made a good picture prop. We lived in a one room shack with wood boards for walls, a tin roof, and a dirt floor. The house was shaped like a small L, with a bed on the ends and the living room in the middle. We lived right on the main road so every half hour or so a creatively decorated bus would rumble by to pick up/drop off day laborers, students, teachers, and everyone else in the campo. They're apparently privately run, and they're surprisingly effective. So, kudos.
La Amancia never had electricity, we used the candles I brought after nightfall, generally 6:00. We had a radio, so sometimes my sisters and I (they're all under 13) would have dance parties to reggeaton, merengue, mariachi, and pop. They're way better dancers than me.
The scenery is gorgeous. The farms are not Iowan cornfields, they're more like a jungle that spontaneously decided to grow coffee, corn, bananas, oranges, papayas, chayote, and anything else. I met the owners of one of these farms, and they were really friendly. Without knowing anything about me except I'm a student from the US (None of the reps from SIT came with us, it was just me and 5 other students from the group), they showed me around (with two other students) both of their gorgeous fincas.
Not only that, these people can be incredibly motivated. I met one woman, Blanca, who teaches elementary school during the week, then attends class in the city on weekends to be a high school professor, all while 7 months pregnant (when I was there anyway). Rachel (Blanca's host sister) and I went to the elementary school with her, which was ridiculous. We took two buses and an hour long walk up a mountain road (which included a small river to ford) to get to the three-room school. We played games with the kids and gave an english lesson. I like thinking that 30 kids in the middle of nowhere know the lyrics to "Miss American Pie."
Life there is so hard. The father of my host mom's (Myrna) children is a drunk, would beat Myrna, and eventuall married another woman. Myrna doesn't even have the money to buy flour for tortillas. We ate only what I brought, what other people gave to us, and what she could find in her own little farm. She's pretty lucky; she owns about an acre of land (or half a manzana, as I heard it) just outside of town. But anyway, domestic abuse and alcoholism is very prevalent in the campo, no doubt due to the grinding poverty. I'd like to write later about machismo if I get a chance though, it's an interesting topic.
Anyway, it's a start. Please, ask me questions so I can figure out what else to say. =)
I lived in La Amancia, with a single mom and five of her kids. The other seven are old enough to live out of the house. Yeah, her kids range from a 26 year old daughter to a three month old son. Who I ended up taking roughly a million pictures of, I guess because he made a good picture prop. We lived in a one room shack with wood boards for walls, a tin roof, and a dirt floor. The house was shaped like a small L, with a bed on the ends and the living room in the middle. We lived right on the main road so every half hour or so a creatively decorated bus would rumble by to pick up/drop off day laborers, students, teachers, and everyone else in the campo. They're apparently privately run, and they're surprisingly effective. So, kudos.
La Amancia never had electricity, we used the candles I brought after nightfall, generally 6:00. We had a radio, so sometimes my sisters and I (they're all under 13) would have dance parties to reggeaton, merengue, mariachi, and pop. They're way better dancers than me.
The scenery is gorgeous. The farms are not Iowan cornfields, they're more like a jungle that spontaneously decided to grow coffee, corn, bananas, oranges, papayas, chayote, and anything else. I met the owners of one of these farms, and they were really friendly. Without knowing anything about me except I'm a student from the US (None of the reps from SIT came with us, it was just me and 5 other students from the group), they showed me around (with two other students) both of their gorgeous fincas.
Not only that, these people can be incredibly motivated. I met one woman, Blanca, who teaches elementary school during the week, then attends class in the city on weekends to be a high school professor, all while 7 months pregnant (when I was there anyway). Rachel (Blanca's host sister) and I went to the elementary school with her, which was ridiculous. We took two buses and an hour long walk up a mountain road (which included a small river to ford) to get to the three-room school. We played games with the kids and gave an english lesson. I like thinking that 30 kids in the middle of nowhere know the lyrics to "Miss American Pie."
Life there is so hard. The father of my host mom's (Myrna) children is a drunk, would beat Myrna, and eventuall married another woman. Myrna doesn't even have the money to buy flour for tortillas. We ate only what I brought, what other people gave to us, and what she could find in her own little farm. She's pretty lucky; she owns about an acre of land (or half a manzana, as I heard it) just outside of town. But anyway, domestic abuse and alcoholism is very prevalent in the campo, no doubt due to the grinding poverty. I'd like to write later about machismo if I get a chance though, it's an interesting topic.
Anyway, it's a start. Please, ask me questions so I can figure out what else to say. =)
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Prepping for el campo
I´m going to the country-side for the next 7 days or so. I´ll be living with the poorest in Nicaragua. Here are the statistics. 80% of the people in Nicaragua live on less than US$2 a day. 40% do not have access to potable water, in a country with an inordinate amount of freshwater sources. (We will bring water purifiers, and leave them with the villages after we leave)
So today I went to the Oriental Market to buy supplies for my village home stay.
Food: Rice, beans, oil, sugar, salt, some powdered soup mixes, potatoes, carrots, onions, spaghetti.
A plastic hammock that looks really uncomfortable. Rope.
One small plastic bucket. I´ll use it to take baths and wash my hands at meal times and after using the bathroom. Sidenote--none of the villages will have a latrine. This will be more of a Quetico, dig-your-own-hole style thing. As for baths, I´ll be in the river. A bathing suit would be too risque, so I´m just going to have to figure out what the villagers do. Remain in their day clothes?
Soap for: hands, clothes, and something else. Dishes, maybe?
Matches. Probablry more. My morning in the market was a bit surreal.
All of this will be left with the family after we leave. I feel a bit like Santa Claus. And considering all the other stuff I´ll be bringing, like bedsheets, toiletries, my headlamp, three changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes, etc, I´m going to have more things than all the members of my host family combined.
There are going to be bugs. It´s going to be dirty. I´ll be doing the same work the family does, so I will be tired. They aren´t going to talk slow like my host mom does. They´ve probably never seen a foreigner before.
I have a feeling the upcoming week is going to be one of the most intense of my life. Stay tuned. I leave tomorrow morning at 7:00 am.
So today I went to the Oriental Market to buy supplies for my village home stay.
Food: Rice, beans, oil, sugar, salt, some powdered soup mixes, potatoes, carrots, onions, spaghetti.
A plastic hammock that looks really uncomfortable. Rope.
One small plastic bucket. I´ll use it to take baths and wash my hands at meal times and after using the bathroom. Sidenote--none of the villages will have a latrine. This will be more of a Quetico, dig-your-own-hole style thing. As for baths, I´ll be in the river. A bathing suit would be too risque, so I´m just going to have to figure out what the villagers do. Remain in their day clothes?
Soap for: hands, clothes, and something else. Dishes, maybe?
Matches. Probablry more. My morning in the market was a bit surreal.
All of this will be left with the family after we leave. I feel a bit like Santa Claus. And considering all the other stuff I´ll be bringing, like bedsheets, toiletries, my headlamp, three changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes, etc, I´m going to have more things than all the members of my host family combined.
There are going to be bugs. It´s going to be dirty. I´ll be doing the same work the family does, so I will be tired. They aren´t going to talk slow like my host mom does. They´ve probably never seen a foreigner before.
I have a feeling the upcoming week is going to be one of the most intense of my life. Stay tuned. I leave tomorrow morning at 7:00 am.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
La Vida
I can't believe it's been almost a week since my last entry. It should probably also be known that I was sick all of Thursday and Friday. My cold morphed into a 100 F fever. Then I woke up this morning a bit dazed but back to normal. Fortunately, it's la semana patria (patriotic week), so we got Friday off. I mostly self medicated with water and an "anti-gripal" drug called Panadol. Right now I'm at the SIT study center, with the hope of completing my paper about above mentioned semana patria--in Spanish--yet that is for some reason a bit daunting at the moment. So I'll talk about my feelings instead. =)
Here's my daily routine. I wake up at around 7:00-ish, probably earlier thanks to a rather enterprising rooster next door. Since the water shuts off at 8:00, I make sure to take a shower soon after I wake up. I'm not sure exactly how the water system works in the house. Edu fills up buckes to the brim every morning so there's ample amounts for the rest of the day. There's even a barrel in the shower, so if I miss the water hours, I could always take a bucket bath. Then I have breakfast, usually rice, beans, and a banana.
At around 8:30, I start walking to the UCA. Usually I go with a few other people from the SIT group, and we take a route known 'round here as the Zig-Zag, preferred for its scenic beauty and lack of pedestrian-unfriendly superhighways. Depending on who I walk with, this can take between 20 and 40 minutes. Taxis are constantly beeping at us--their way of inquiring if we want a lift-- and men regularly shout out piropos, or catcalls, at the women. The best way to deal with this is to ignore it, reactions of any kind just make it worse. But then of course you occasionally ignore someone who genuinely is wishing you a "buen dia." But that's life.
Spanish class goes from 9-12:30, with a break at around 11:00. At this point I usually buy instant coffee from a little convenience store on campus. It costs 3 cordobas, which works out to about 1 penny. Unless you want milk or sugar, then it can get as pricey as 6 cordobas. Class is a lot of discussion which helps widen my vocabulary and improve my grammar. There's three spanish teachers, and every week the three spanish classes rotate. So, the first week I had Myrna, last week was Araceli, and next week Ramon will be my professor. Also, twice a week we have conversation partners. These partners are students at the UCA who are paid to talk with us for an hour. I never really know what to say to my partner, Margarita--I think she sees herself as a teacher more than a peer. So our interchange is a bit unidirectional. She's majoring in "bancofinancia," and is pretty much always busy. I asked her how she was going to celebrate la semana patria, and she seemed surprised at the idea. Still, I'm happy to have someone to practice my spanish on.
After class is out, I have lunch somewhere. A couple very enterprising students in the group have found some great comedors--on thursday we went to a vegetarian eatery, which included some very delicious soy burgers. I don't think I've ever gone to the same place more than twice. And the price is never more than 35 cordobas. That's maybe $1.50. Lunch is usually rice, beans, chopped up cabbage (soaked in vinegar to ensure cleanliness), a banana, and some kind of meat. It sounds more boring in text. You have to imagine plastic square tables and red plastic chairs, the smell of diesel and whatever sugary beverage you managed to order (on thursday, mine tasted exactly like therma-flu). There's always some sensory overload during lunch.
In the afternoons, I have class with Aynn and Guillermo on the CIES campus. This is fairly close to my neighborhood, which is good because the sun begins to set about the time class ends, so it's a safer campus to leave from. Aynn teaches a field study seminar every Monday, and Guillermo leads the Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society seminar, which has always been lectures and presentations from other people on topics surrounding Nicaraguan politics. Last week has been really interesting. First, Guillermo talked to us about his experiences during the revolution and later fighting the contras. Then a Contra commandante talked to us about his point of view. And on Thursday, we heard from a man who fought the sandinistas, basically because he thought he was true sandinista and the ones in power were too marxst-leninist. There's always a question and answer session as well, and I've managed to ask a question every time. Don't know if they were all that good, but I like that I'm involved.
After that, I go back the the SIT center, which is just a few blocks from my house, to do homework. Electricity was off from 5-10 this week, and next week that will change to 2-7, which makes far more sense in regards to lights sources. SIT has a couple electric lamps, so I use them. Then I go home to the pulperia, have rice and beans for supper, and talk Edu outside of her store for a few hours.
Sometimes, I'll go to a concert or two during the week. I went to a fundraiser for the hurricane on Tuesday, which mostly featured (mostly bad) folk singers. On Thursday I went to a different hurricane fundraiser to see the pop band Perrozonpopos, which reminded me of Jack Johnson. Except there were something like two bass players, a synthesizer, a drum set, and an electric violin as well as a lad back guitar player man.
I think that sums up my life. Any questions?
Here's my daily routine. I wake up at around 7:00-ish, probably earlier thanks to a rather enterprising rooster next door. Since the water shuts off at 8:00, I make sure to take a shower soon after I wake up. I'm not sure exactly how the water system works in the house. Edu fills up buckes to the brim every morning so there's ample amounts for the rest of the day. There's even a barrel in the shower, so if I miss the water hours, I could always take a bucket bath. Then I have breakfast, usually rice, beans, and a banana.
At around 8:30, I start walking to the UCA. Usually I go with a few other people from the SIT group, and we take a route known 'round here as the Zig-Zag, preferred for its scenic beauty and lack of pedestrian-unfriendly superhighways. Depending on who I walk with, this can take between 20 and 40 minutes. Taxis are constantly beeping at us--their way of inquiring if we want a lift-- and men regularly shout out piropos, or catcalls, at the women. The best way to deal with this is to ignore it, reactions of any kind just make it worse. But then of course you occasionally ignore someone who genuinely is wishing you a "buen dia." But that's life.
Spanish class goes from 9-12:30, with a break at around 11:00. At this point I usually buy instant coffee from a little convenience store on campus. It costs 3 cordobas, which works out to about 1 penny. Unless you want milk or sugar, then it can get as pricey as 6 cordobas. Class is a lot of discussion which helps widen my vocabulary and improve my grammar. There's three spanish teachers, and every week the three spanish classes rotate. So, the first week I had Myrna, last week was Araceli, and next week Ramon will be my professor. Also, twice a week we have conversation partners. These partners are students at the UCA who are paid to talk with us for an hour. I never really know what to say to my partner, Margarita--I think she sees herself as a teacher more than a peer. So our interchange is a bit unidirectional. She's majoring in "bancofinancia," and is pretty much always busy. I asked her how she was going to celebrate la semana patria, and she seemed surprised at the idea. Still, I'm happy to have someone to practice my spanish on.
After class is out, I have lunch somewhere. A couple very enterprising students in the group have found some great comedors--on thursday we went to a vegetarian eatery, which included some very delicious soy burgers. I don't think I've ever gone to the same place more than twice. And the price is never more than 35 cordobas. That's maybe $1.50. Lunch is usually rice, beans, chopped up cabbage (soaked in vinegar to ensure cleanliness), a banana, and some kind of meat. It sounds more boring in text. You have to imagine plastic square tables and red plastic chairs, the smell of diesel and whatever sugary beverage you managed to order (on thursday, mine tasted exactly like therma-flu). There's always some sensory overload during lunch.
In the afternoons, I have class with Aynn and Guillermo on the CIES campus. This is fairly close to my neighborhood, which is good because the sun begins to set about the time class ends, so it's a safer campus to leave from. Aynn teaches a field study seminar every Monday, and Guillermo leads the Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society seminar, which has always been lectures and presentations from other people on topics surrounding Nicaraguan politics. Last week has been really interesting. First, Guillermo talked to us about his experiences during the revolution and later fighting the contras. Then a Contra commandante talked to us about his point of view. And on Thursday, we heard from a man who fought the sandinistas, basically because he thought he was true sandinista and the ones in power were too marxst-leninist. There's always a question and answer session as well, and I've managed to ask a question every time. Don't know if they were all that good, but I like that I'm involved.
After that, I go back the the SIT center, which is just a few blocks from my house, to do homework. Electricity was off from 5-10 this week, and next week that will change to 2-7, which makes far more sense in regards to lights sources. SIT has a couple electric lamps, so I use them. Then I go home to the pulperia, have rice and beans for supper, and talk Edu outside of her store for a few hours.
Sometimes, I'll go to a concert or two during the week. I went to a fundraiser for the hurricane on Tuesday, which mostly featured (mostly bad) folk singers. On Thursday I went to a different hurricane fundraiser to see the pop band Perrozonpopos, which reminded me of Jack Johnson. Except there were something like two bass players, a synthesizer, a drum set, and an electric violin as well as a lad back guitar player man.
I think that sums up my life. Any questions?
Sunday, September 9, 2007
random happenings
So I´ve been trying to learn more about my host mom´s history. This is what I´ve got so far.
Eduviges (Edu for short) grew up in Managua. When she was 12, she went to a pueblo near Matagalpa to teach as part of the Literacy Crusade. I´m fairly certain she was the only one of her family to go. This was a voluntary program started by the Sandinistas shortly after the revolution against the Somoza dictatorship. The Crusade was so successful it won an award of some sort from the UN. And my mom was one of those teachers. When she was 12.
After that, her family began hosting American students when she was 16. At first her dad didn´t want students, as they represented imperialism, even though her mom was for the idea. At the last minute, one student had no place to stay, so after Edu said she was fine with the idea, the student moved in. Her dad didn´t talk to him for three days. Finally, he started making a bit of small talk, and learned the student was a farmer, just like he had been before living in Managua. It was magical after that.
And I have a vague idea of what she did afterwards. She lived somewhere not in Managua, working in a feminist organization to help women support themselves. This involved things like microcredit and sexual health, I belive.
After her parents died, she decided to come back to Managua--she had missed it. She opened her little convenience store and has been here for at least 4 years, in the same house her parents lived in. I think.
I´m beginning to see just how little I´m remembering what people tell me. I always understand my mother, I´m just not taking it in. This is rather frustrating.
This past weekend, I almost went to Omatepe, which is the island in the Nicaragua Lake. It was formed by two volcanoes and looks a bit like an hourglass. I was up at 4:30 in the morning, waiting for the rest of us who wanted to go, and as the minutes went by, it felt more and more like a bad idea. The group was fairly big, about 7 people, which usually makes for a frustrating time when it comes to decision making or hotel-room-renting. I had no idea what the plan was , and to make things worse, Ally´s host mom, who had decided to accompany us to the waiting place for some reason, said there weren´t taxis this early. So we had no way to get us to the bus stop. And we didn´t really know when the bus left anyway. So, I got the heebie jeebies and went back home.
I still don´t know what to think about that. Lately, whenever I go ahead and do something because I´m afraid I´ll regret it, I end up regretting that very decision. So on the one hand, I wish I had gone. On the other, I´m also sure I would not have enjoyed myself while there. Is that a self fulfilling prophecy? In this case I doubt it. There were too many factors that had been freaking me out. Still, it was a tough decision. But we have a three day weekend coming up, and I´m sure I can plan something out for that.
I´ve been thinking over my independent study project however, and I would like to work with coffee farmers. I know there´s a female cooperative somewhere, and I´d enjoy living there and researching the dynamics of the organization. But I´ll need to talk to Aynn, the academic director, for additional direction.
In other news, my spanish still sucks. Writing in english right now probably isn´t helping. But I´ll be at the UCA (the university) an hour early for additional time with my teacher, and I´ve got another wonderfully long week of spanish ahead of me. Wish me luck.
Eduviges (Edu for short) grew up in Managua. When she was 12, she went to a pueblo near Matagalpa to teach as part of the Literacy Crusade. I´m fairly certain she was the only one of her family to go. This was a voluntary program started by the Sandinistas shortly after the revolution against the Somoza dictatorship. The Crusade was so successful it won an award of some sort from the UN. And my mom was one of those teachers. When she was 12.
After that, her family began hosting American students when she was 16. At first her dad didn´t want students, as they represented imperialism, even though her mom was for the idea. At the last minute, one student had no place to stay, so after Edu said she was fine with the idea, the student moved in. Her dad didn´t talk to him for three days. Finally, he started making a bit of small talk, and learned the student was a farmer, just like he had been before living in Managua. It was magical after that.
And I have a vague idea of what she did afterwards. She lived somewhere not in Managua, working in a feminist organization to help women support themselves. This involved things like microcredit and sexual health, I belive.
After her parents died, she decided to come back to Managua--she had missed it. She opened her little convenience store and has been here for at least 4 years, in the same house her parents lived in. I think.
I´m beginning to see just how little I´m remembering what people tell me. I always understand my mother, I´m just not taking it in. This is rather frustrating.
This past weekend, I almost went to Omatepe, which is the island in the Nicaragua Lake. It was formed by two volcanoes and looks a bit like an hourglass. I was up at 4:30 in the morning, waiting for the rest of us who wanted to go, and as the minutes went by, it felt more and more like a bad idea. The group was fairly big, about 7 people, which usually makes for a frustrating time when it comes to decision making or hotel-room-renting. I had no idea what the plan was , and to make things worse, Ally´s host mom, who had decided to accompany us to the waiting place for some reason, said there weren´t taxis this early. So we had no way to get us to the bus stop. And we didn´t really know when the bus left anyway. So, I got the heebie jeebies and went back home.
I still don´t know what to think about that. Lately, whenever I go ahead and do something because I´m afraid I´ll regret it, I end up regretting that very decision. So on the one hand, I wish I had gone. On the other, I´m also sure I would not have enjoyed myself while there. Is that a self fulfilling prophecy? In this case I doubt it. There were too many factors that had been freaking me out. Still, it was a tough decision. But we have a three day weekend coming up, and I´m sure I can plan something out for that.
I´ve been thinking over my independent study project however, and I would like to work with coffee farmers. I know there´s a female cooperative somewhere, and I´d enjoy living there and researching the dynamics of the organization. But I´ll need to talk to Aynn, the academic director, for additional direction.
In other news, my spanish still sucks. Writing in english right now probably isn´t helping. But I´ll be at the UCA (the university) an hour early for additional time with my teacher, and I´ve got another wonderfully long week of spanish ahead of me. Wish me luck.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Orientation Complete
So, I have finished my first 7 days or so in Nicaragua. I am orientated. I am trying to write in English with a keyboard configured for Spanish. I have no idea where to find apostrophes. It is a bit odd, and makes for choppy writing.
Anywho, I have a host mom, Eduviges, who owns a small convenience store (pulperia) attached to her house. I have two host siblings. Heyling, female, 10 years old, and Edubar, male, 7 years old. Edubar is ridiculously shy, but Heyling likes to talk to me and help me out when I start fumbling my Spanish. It is a pretty quite house compared to other people in the group, but I like it. Also, my host mom talks nice and slow, taking care to use words I understand. This is not the case in my Spanish class and my seminar.
The seminar is going to be pretty frustrating for a while. I am in level 1 Spanish, which is the lowest tier. So while I know I will be a lot better by the end of the semester, I am really struggling at the moment. This is rather unpleasant. Hopefully, this helps how I interact with foreign exchange students in the future. I wonder if I can turn this into a Writing Center presentation?
Managua. There probably will not be many pictures of this city, since I do not want my camera stolen. Maybe pictures of my neighborhood, Maximo Jerez, will happen. But here is a description. (I do not know where the colon key is either. I am surprised how much a simple apostrophe helped my flow. Or it was a cheat. No, definetly keeps a paper suave (smooth).)
The houses consist of a solid concrete wall bordering the sidewalks. You know when one house ends and another begins thanks to the different paint colors. Everything is on one floor, as far as I know. This is probably mostly a low income thing, but could also be from the 1972 earthquake. Most people have front porches that double as garages occasionally, with several rocking chairs behind a solid metal gate that stretches from the floor to the ceiling. My host moms pulperia has something similar to a metal garage door to keep it secure. The colonia (neighborhood) has a little park in the center, with multicolored swings, monkey bars, and slides. It also has a basketball park, where I hear teenagers gather for games. Due to all this concern for safety, it is hard to convince myself to explore the area. No doubt there are cute little andens (pedestrian streets) yet to be explored, with imaginative color combinations on the houses and adorable children playing in the streets.
Food is always an adventure. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and for around $2, one can get quite a spread. The fare is carb heavy, what with the rice and tortillas, which can lead to a mid afternoon crash if one does not look out. Fortunately, coffee is offered at around this time for my afternoon class, so I have no problems.
I will try to remember some of my funnier bilingual moments in the future. For now, take care not to mistake infierno for fuego. Infierno is an adjective pertaining to hell, which is not quite accurate when trying to talk about firemen in my Spanish class.
Anywho, I have a host mom, Eduviges, who owns a small convenience store (pulperia) attached to her house. I have two host siblings. Heyling, female, 10 years old, and Edubar, male, 7 years old. Edubar is ridiculously shy, but Heyling likes to talk to me and help me out when I start fumbling my Spanish. It is a pretty quite house compared to other people in the group, but I like it. Also, my host mom talks nice and slow, taking care to use words I understand. This is not the case in my Spanish class and my seminar.
The seminar is going to be pretty frustrating for a while. I am in level 1 Spanish, which is the lowest tier. So while I know I will be a lot better by the end of the semester, I am really struggling at the moment. This is rather unpleasant. Hopefully, this helps how I interact with foreign exchange students in the future. I wonder if I can turn this into a Writing Center presentation?
Managua. There probably will not be many pictures of this city, since I do not want my camera stolen. Maybe pictures of my neighborhood, Maximo Jerez, will happen. But here is a description. (I do not know where the colon key is either. I am surprised how much a simple apostrophe helped my flow. Or it was a cheat. No, definetly keeps a paper suave (smooth).)
The houses consist of a solid concrete wall bordering the sidewalks. You know when one house ends and another begins thanks to the different paint colors. Everything is on one floor, as far as I know. This is probably mostly a low income thing, but could also be from the 1972 earthquake. Most people have front porches that double as garages occasionally, with several rocking chairs behind a solid metal gate that stretches from the floor to the ceiling. My host moms pulperia has something similar to a metal garage door to keep it secure. The colonia (neighborhood) has a little park in the center, with multicolored swings, monkey bars, and slides. It also has a basketball park, where I hear teenagers gather for games. Due to all this concern for safety, it is hard to convince myself to explore the area. No doubt there are cute little andens (pedestrian streets) yet to be explored, with imaginative color combinations on the houses and adorable children playing in the streets.
Food is always an adventure. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and for around $2, one can get quite a spread. The fare is carb heavy, what with the rice and tortillas, which can lead to a mid afternoon crash if one does not look out. Fortunately, coffee is offered at around this time for my afternoon class, so I have no problems.
I will try to remember some of my funnier bilingual moments in the future. For now, take care not to mistake infierno for fuego. Infierno is an adjective pertaining to hell, which is not quite accurate when trying to talk about firemen in my Spanish class.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Visiting Leon (a city, not my grandpa)
So, the rainy season isn't as serious as I thought here. We took a day trip to Leon today. Clearly. This is a colonial city which has a major part to play in the Sandinista revolucion. The famous poet Ruben Dario lived here, a different poet assasinated the first Somoza dictator here, and there's probably more I didn't catch from the various people I met at this town.
I engaged in what is called the "dropoff." Our leader dropped us off in pairs with a question that we needed to answer, in some random part of town. I spent the day with Tabitha, answering the question of who is the patron saint of Leon, how does the town celebrate said patron, and when. As well as learn a part of a song.
So we started striking conversations with everone we met. Tabitha is pretty awesome. She's been here for two weeks at a language school already, and she's not easily embarrassed. So she happily chatted up everyone, and I did my best to put in a few words here and there when I knew what was going on (for the most part). I hope I don't sound like she did all the work, we made a good team. But she was really encouraging, and I love her point of view when it comes to being in a foreign country.
And apparently, the patron saint is the Virgen from Mercedes. The town has a procession on September the 24th and pray that she will protect them for a volcanic eruption. Which sounds odd. But considering the old Leon is covered (for the most part) under mounds of ash closer to one of the nearby volcanoes, it's not all that bizarre. Tabitha and I found this out from about three different sources. By far the most helpful were the tour guides in the main cathedral (third largest in Latin America by the way; the blueprints for the Peru cathedral and the Nicaraguan got switched en route to the Americas. Strong wave? A Guatemalan soldier with a vendetta? Hard to say). But we also talked to a couple of children, two (very unhelpful) men, some women at their fruit stand, and a janitor at the cathedral. It was like various small hints leading to the grand explanation at the church. Very exciting.
We also ran into a guy who had two replicas of the Virgen that he and his family will take through the procession later this month. He was fun.
And we also spent quite a long time talking to some hispanic hippies our age who made their living traveling through south america selling braided jewlery.
They're way more friendly than they look. And yes, I am now the proud owner of a handmade bracelet. It's rad.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Diesel heaven
"Watch out for the cars here. They...don't stop."
First words out of my academic advisor's mouth when she met me at the Augusto Sandino airport in Managua. Sure enough, a car zipped by when I attempted to cross the road to the tiny parking lot where our bus, an old school bus painted white with a green rim around the bottom, waited. I hand my bright green suitcase to Don Juan, the driver, who flung it through one of the windows in the back row. After exchanging "hola"s, I wander off to scope out the Nicaragua scene.
This schoolbus is clearly not alone. Dozens of busses, creatively painted, rumble by. Maybe school just got out, since children in uniforms are emerging from various alleys around the highway. Managua, Nicaragua is both what I expected and a complete surprise.
On that cryptic note, I need to go get supper.
First words out of my academic advisor's mouth when she met me at the Augusto Sandino airport in Managua. Sure enough, a car zipped by when I attempted to cross the road to the tiny parking lot where our bus, an old school bus painted white with a green rim around the bottom, waited. I hand my bright green suitcase to Don Juan, the driver, who flung it through one of the windows in the back row. After exchanging "hola"s, I wander off to scope out the Nicaragua scene.
This schoolbus is clearly not alone. Dozens of busses, creatively painted, rumble by. Maybe school just got out, since children in uniforms are emerging from various alleys around the highway. Managua, Nicaragua is both what I expected and a complete surprise.
On that cryptic note, I need to go get supper.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Thailand tidbits
Thailand's military has long been corrupt. A part of the country's elite since its independence in 1932, the organization has run a patronage system that has long since integrated the private sector with the public. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra attempted to make himself the head of this clientelist system, and his hubris is certainly one of the factors that led to last year's coup. The military junta, also known as the Council for National Security, published a white paper explaining the reasons for the oust. Personally, I think King Bhuimibol orchestrated the coup with the help of military generals close to him, especially the influential (former general, former prime minister, current head of the Privy Council) Prem Tinsulanonda. As my Thai politics professor in Chiang Mai said, a call from Prem is gold. I doubt the monarch or the military wish to voluntarily give up their hold of Thailand's economy to an upstart telecommunications technocrat.
So this gets me back to corruption, and the spiffy article I found in The Nation (Bangkok's Independent newspaper, not the liberal periodical of US origins):
Police Bill to go Through Despite Officer Opposition
The bill aimed at drastically restructuring the Royal Thai Police will go
through the vetting process and not be withdrawn despite opposition by police
officers, Justice Ministry deputy permanent secretary Kittiphong Kittayarak said
yesterday.
The government published a white paper detailing the areas it wished to reform, mainly increasing the dismal salaries, relieving the police of any duties outside "providing security to Their Majesties the King and Queen," "crime prevention and suppression," and "serving and protecting the public." Apparently the police had also been responsible for graft-friendly duties such as forestry (illegal logging, anyone?), railroads (smuggling!), and highways (smuggling!). The bill will also decentralise the police system, making it harder for individuals to set up an expansive patronage system, although it is doubtful this practice will be fully eradicated. Finally, the bill seeks to set up a National Police Policy Committee, separate from the Royal Thai Police itself, which would oversee complaints filed against them.
I'm impressed this bill is going through, though. I can never be certain whether this is all talk or what, and as far as I know the bill hasn't passed yet. Who knows, maybe after the elections (and when will that be, exactly?) Thailand will finally see some military reform.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
rhythmic summer days
This time the blog really will happen. I promise.
Went to the coffee shop today. Sat next to a mother-daughter pair eating gelato while I tried to interpret what exactly my book was trying to say.
"Global political processes and shifting relations between state actors and global capital have reconfigured a transnational field of power relations, creating spaces for resistance as national and transnational interests line up differently at different points in time."
This is one of the assigned readings for my Nicaragua semester, which incidentally begins on Wednesday. Three days from now. I'm fully packed, save for a two weeks supply of underwear and my toothbrush.
My days at home have become rhythmic. It's unnerving. I do very little beyond reading, walking, and the occasional nightly outing to a friend's house. Last time I did this, we watched sci fi movies (really bad ones) and ate salad.
I found this last month at the Field Station (Ely, MN). The FS leases its land from Potlatch on one side and the state on the other. Last year Potlatch started prepping some of its land nearby for a timber cut. After the company had clear cut a small area, the price of timber fell too low to make the venture economically viable. I suppose Potlatch is just biding its time, in between handing out notepads and pencils to elementary schools. I think I still have mine.
Went to the coffee shop today. Sat next to a mother-daughter pair eating gelato while I tried to interpret what exactly my book was trying to say.
"Global political processes and shifting relations between state actors and global capital have reconfigured a transnational field of power relations, creating spaces for resistance as national and transnational interests line up differently at different points in time."
This is one of the assigned readings for my Nicaragua semester, which incidentally begins on Wednesday. Three days from now. I'm fully packed, save for a two weeks supply of underwear and my toothbrush.
My days at home have become rhythmic. It's unnerving. I do very little beyond reading, walking, and the occasional nightly outing to a friend's house. Last time I did this, we watched sci fi movies (really bad ones) and ate salad.
I found this last month at the Field Station (Ely, MN). The FS leases its land from Potlatch on one side and the state on the other. Last year Potlatch started prepping some of its land nearby for a timber cut. After the company had clear cut a small area, the price of timber fell too low to make the venture economically viable. I suppose Potlatch is just biding its time, in between handing out notepads and pencils to elementary schools. I think I still have mine.
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