It has been a very long time since I've been able to write. Lots has been going on, and now I realize that I never even wrote about my week in Nicaragua. Maybe that is where I should begin then? It's been so long already, so much has happened since, but I suppose I should keep going in order to stay sane. But I am tired, and feel like I'm getting a sore throat, so am going to try to cover as much as possible in as little time as I can!
So, we left for Nicaragua on Sunday morning (September 18th!) at 6:30 am. I got very, VERY sick about half an hour after getting on the bus. I'm not even going to talk about it here, because I'd actually forgotten, but someday I'll tell all those curious folk out there. The bus ride took another eight or nine hours, which were punctuated by frequent pee stops and David, our biology professor giving loud lectures through the bus microphone. Crossing the border into Nicaragua, we had to present ourselves to a ramshackle border house that has been denounced by Costa Rican and Nicaraguan officials as being corrupt (if you pay, you can get through quite quickly). Once on the other side of the Costa Rican border, we drove through 100 ft of no-mans land, filled will endless cargo-carrying trucks (they have to wait 2-3 days to cross the border - sometimes up to a week), street dogs, and people peddling cashews and sea shell statues. Once our passports had finally registered on the Nicaraguan side, we had to drive the bus through a fumigation zone that sprays some sort of pesticide on vehicles. As though the wind wouldn't blow invasive species across the invisible border line...?
We finally got to the hotel in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, at about 8 at night, after which we ate and then attended a lecture by Keith Poe. Keith has worked with micro-credit loan agencies and spoke about how problematic giving loans to women in Nicaragua has been, in particular to agrarian families. During my course last year on environmental justice in the age of climate change, we'd discussed the socio-political dynamics of how sustainable micro-loans actually are, and why in some areas and to some populations they have been vastly more successful than in others. It was pouring rain that night, and we were listening to the lecture under an aluminum roof, and much of what was said was drowned out by the tinny echoes of raindrops. I wasn't tired after a day of sitting and nodding off in the bus though, so I stayed awake with classmates, drinking tea, and trying to speak Spanish with the son of one of our guides. It's particularly embarrassing when I try to converse and then have to announce: "WAIT UP. I don't know the past, or future tenses. Any of them. So use your imagination and try to figure out what the hell I'm saying, please?"
I slept very deeply that night, thankfully - since the next morning was jam-packed with activities. We woke up at 6 am, and after a brief breakfast got a speedy bus tour of the city of Managua. We visited Lake Managua, one of (or maybe THE biggest lake in Central America?) and learned about the planned restoration projects they have for it. Since bodies of water will clean themselves, the plans for the future are essentially to stop the pollution that drains into the river and keeps the chemicals out of balance, which prevents all sorts of wonderful things, such as fish, birds, bugs and people from swimming in the lake with happy abandon.
Then we visited the site where the Nicaraguan people once held a revolution - in some respects. It is a square which would now contain the President's home, if he did not chose to live elsewhere since there is a legend that it is dangerous and haunted (despite having been built by the Tibetans!). Two previous president's daughters (and maybe a son?) have died there - so current president (and running Sandinista party candidate) Daniel Ortega has opted out of living there. We were there especially early, so the square was empty besides for some stark morning light, and a couple carriages drawn by very ribby horses. There are giant propaganda signs for the next election surrounding the square, many of which are pink and covered in cursive writing (Ortega's wife's favorite color, and handwriting), and other of which appealed to the Nicaraguan historic sensibility of being a revolutionary country.
I find the sentiment of being attached to the revolution-of-yore both (somewhat) inspiring and (somewhat) alarming. In France, I saw something very similar, of people describing their unique nationality and locating their identity within an idealized struggle that happened at some point in the past, and which often overlooks the current struggles of today. The United States, and probably most countries that have unified through revolution do the same. In the case of the United States, we look to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, these two documents written by a gaggle of slave-owning white males, as references to tell us how to address the abortion of a young female who was never given any sexual education because her school district decided - on the advice of the State - that it was unconstitutional? What? It's clearly more complicated than that, and what I said barely make any sense - and yet it's probably happened over two dozen times in Alabama alone. Who were these men, and how have we let their words become our bible? What is this human condition that necessitates idolizing the past, reasoning our present with it, and betting our futures on it? How can this possibly make us sleep any deeper at night?
And though that seems to have diverged off into a tangent, the point is, nationalism can lead to crazy extremes. In the case of France, the USA, and also Costa Rica, nationalism has led to some extreme levels of xenophobia and h8erade towards migrants, who, as we all know I'm sure, are the backbone of our labor force. No matter where you go, there will always be someone who follows behind you and takes the work that you wouldn't do. I think that's what they call economics, and they tell me it's one of the things that keeps this planet spinning (albeit with some wobbles here and there).
So for Nicaraguans, nationalism has become an extreme form of propaganda that panders (for many) to the still-burning hearts of repressed Nicaraguans who fought to overthrow the Samoza family dictatorship during the Sandinista Revolution of the 1960's. The Sandinista Revolution lasted for about 40 years, until the 1980's when the United States decided to intervene with the well-meaning socialist programs that were reshaping the country (though with some clumsiness here and there, inevitably). Under a bright faced and bushy tailed Ronald Reagan, the United States secretly trained 12,000 troops in Columbia to overthrow the Sandinista government. In a little known war, the U.S. trained and directed operatives killed over 10,000 Nicaraguan civilians, and wounded hundreds of thousands more. Through this, the U.S. was able to sign a new pact for the Nicaraguan people stating that no alternative to the Panama Canal would ever be built with any country besides the United States, and...the rest of the incentives for war aren't really coming to me right now. Communism? That's probably the big reason. Since Che was giving the dapper young Sandinista government a hand. After all, they are neighbors, and why wouldn't one revolutionary give another revolutionary country some help? Oh, also worth noting - the war wasn't official. Congress and the United States voted no, but hey, shit happens, Reagan signed some papers, and 10,000 people died. Ugh.
Writing about the things I learn about here makes me feel like I'm in a terrible nature documentary, that doesn't know the correct names of different species, or step carefully so as to protect all the delicate little ecosystems. I'm just a fat picnicker laying my blanket out and chowing down on a ham sandwich while looking at the scenery.
It isn't a good feeling.
Neither is being so tired that I've only written about day one so far! Alright:
We then visited the "Heroes of Nemagon", and learned about their court cases against Dole and United Fruit for misinforming them about the toxic pesticides they were working with. They have been camping in front of the capital for years now (many up to twenty years), waiting for some sort of restitution. They suffer from many different ailments, a barrage of cancers and organ failures, and only in the past 3 years have they received government homes. I wrote a paper about government housing projects in Nicaragua, which I will include on here at some point. Until then, to learn more you can go here to learn more: http://www.goodplanet.info/eng/Contenu/Points-de-vues/Nicaragua-The-march-of-no-return-for-the-victims-of-Nemagon
After visiting the Heroes of Nemagon, we got lunch at a hot little restaurant where I ate a pickled pepper that made me cry, and where later we discussed our reactions to the visit to the ex-banana plantation workers who'd suffered exposure to nemagon. For me, as I wrote in the paper that I'll eventually include, in which I go more in depth, I was incredibly struck by the sense of community that has been created by universal suffering. The Heroes of Nemagon (Daniel Ortega relabeled them from the victims to the heroes of Nemagon) feel universal compassion with other workers who have been, and who are being exposed to toxics worldwide, and for many, their family is now in Managua, in this public park where the approximately three-hundred victims/heroes have been living their protest for the past decades. Once the discussion was complete, we drove to a volcanic crater on the way to San Ramon, where our Nicaraguan host families live. The crater was beautiful, but not as beautiful as San Ramon!
I'm going to save writing about my Nicaraguan host family, and the rest of my visit for another time! All good things in time! Until then here's the album of photos from my trip. Maybe it's a slideshow?! Wow - let's see if that works.
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