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.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
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.
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