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.

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.

Thailand tidbits

One of my objectives for this blog is commentary. Most of my online time is spent reading it, so I might as well be part of the community. Considering my residence in Thailand earlier this year, I'd like to begin with that.


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.

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.