Cold, Barrio Neuvo, and Bill

"In the eyes of the mourning the land of dreams begins." Pablo Neruda

I'm wildly upset at the moment. I have a terrible cold that's making my whole body ache. I spent the night thrashing in and out of sleep, and woke up at 5 am with a pounding headache. I'm happy that I'm enough of a worrier that I packed a bunch of Nyquil and Dayquil. Since today is the second day of final exams, it could not be more needed right now.

Another good thing, I suppose, is that this cold has escalated to the worst it will get in 48 hours. Since our Field Program leaves for the week (& next three weeks) on Monday at 7 am, and we'll be traveling in cramped little cars, I'm aiming to have a gross, very sick weekend, followed by good health!

I'm not sure where I got it, could have been at the hospital last weekend (a friend was hurt), or at the Barrio Nuevo we visited on . Barrio Nuevo is a shanty town largely made up of undocumented Nicaraguan immigrants. We were doing interviews (I still haven't written about the interviews we held with street vendors in San Jose!), and this woman's grand daughter grabbed by hand to lead me around at one point, and also spoke incredibly close to my face. Since she and her sisters spend their days running around a dirty neighborhood that has no real septic system except for the river, it's almost certainly from there.

What a wild afternoon though. Tiny little shacks clustered one next to the other, creating a miniature city of 600 people. Children and dog crawling all over, and food being cooked in pots over fires in the street. Each home probably houses 5-15 people (the one we were in had about 10, and three tiny rooms). Most of these people came here for greater prospects, and now can't even get jobs since getting documented as a migrant has an upfront cost that is about what a migrant would earn in a month. And there is no law, and no barriers between the lawless and law abiding. We followed these two little skipping grand daughters to the river, to see their bridge to the next town (rocks with an electrical chord to hold on to - a dangerous option when it rains and the river rises), and suddenly found that they were skipping around crack dealers, shrieking and giggling as people sniffed and snorted in front of us.

The Nicaraguan grandmother was carrying a baby, and we were climbing up uneven stairs to where she would drop us off and pick up the "gift" of compensation from ICADS for her time - a bag of groceries (there's a shadow of something overwhelmingly desperate, and at the same time cruel in this). She told us about her worries for her grand children, but that despite having better opportunities for work in Nicaragua (she worked in the fish market), as well as a real home that she owns, and no negative attitudes due to her migrant status, she stated that will stay, so her young granddaughter with special needs may get the attention she needs to learn in Costa Rica. However, here she rents a tiny home for sky-high prices, from a Costa Rican land owner (who most likely doesn't even own the land she lives on), and her sole occupation is cooking enchiladas on Friday and Saturday night, and selling them to the towns people.

I don't know where to go from here, I don't think many would. But at about 1 am last night I found a short film about one of Amherst's townies, whose name I've known for a year but who still have never talked to. As you can see, he is not easy to approach. I once overheard a piece of the therapy session he was receiving in the park, and since have greatly admired the mind inside. It's a beautiful little movie about a sad and beautiful life.

Bill; The Man Behind the Legend from Alex Echeverri on Vimeo.

Some Neruda for my dog

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy

Part I: Nicaragua

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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In memoriam

"Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

In 1977, when we started the Green Belt Movement, I was partly responding to needs identified by rural women, namely lack of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter and income.

Throughout Africa, women are the primary caretakers, holding significant responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become scarce and incapable of sustaining their families.

The women we worked with recounted that unlike in the past, they were unable to meet their basic needs. This was due to the degradation of their immediate environment as well as the introduction of commercial farming, which replaced the growing of household food crops. But international trade controlled the price of the exports from these small-scale farmers and a reasonable and just income could not be guaranteed. I came to understand that when the environment is destroyed, plundered or mismanaged, we undermine our quality of life and that of future generations.

Tree planting became a natural choice to address some of the initial basic needs identified by women. Also, tree planting is simple, attainable and guarantees quick, successful results within a reasonable amount time. This sustains interest and commitment.

So, together, we have planted over 30 million trees that provide fuel, food, shelter, and income to support their children's education and household needs. The activity also creates employment and improves soils and watersheds. Through their involvement, women gain some degree of power over their lives, especially their social and economic position and relevance in the family. This work continues.

Initially, the work was difficult because historically our people have been persuaded to believe that because they are poor, they lack not only capital, but also knowledge and skills to address their challenges. Instead they are conditioned to believe that solutions to their problems must come from ‘outside'. Further, women did not realize that meeting their needs depended on their environment being healthy and well managed. They were also unaware that a degraded environment leads to a scramble for scarce resources and may culminate in poverty and even conflict. They were also unaware of the injustices of international economic arrangements.

In order to assist communities to understand these linkages, we developed a citizen education program, during which people identify their problems, the causes and possible solutions. They then make connections between their own personal actions and the problems they witness in the environment and in society. They learn that our world is confronted with a litany of woes: corruption, violence against women and children, disruption and breakdown of families, and disintegration of cultures and communities. They also identify the abuse of drugs and chemical substances, especially among young people. There are also devastating diseases that are defying cures or occurring in epidemic proportions. Of particular concern are HIV/AIDS, malaria and diseases associated with malnutrition.

On the environment front, they are exposed to many human activities that are devastating to the environment and societies. These include widespread destruction of ecosystems, especially through deforestation, climatic instability, and contamination in the soils and waters that all contribute to excruciating poverty.

In the process, the participants discover that they must be part of the solutions. They realize their hidden potential and are empowered to overcome inertia and take action. They come to recognize that they are the primary custodians and beneficiaries of the environment that sustains them.

Entire communities also come to understand that while it is necessary to hold their governments accountable, it is equally important that in their own relationships with each other, they exemplify the leadership values they wish to see in their own leaders, namely justice, integrity and trust.

Although initially the Green Belt Movement's tree planting activities did not address issues of democracy and peace, it soon became clear that responsible governance of the environment was impossible without democratic space. Therefore, the tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya. Citizens were mobilised to challenge widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement. In Nairobi 's Uhuru Park, at Freedom Corner, and in many parts of the country, trees of peace were planted to demand the release of prisoners of conscience and a peaceful transition to democracy.

Through the Green Belt Movement, thousands of ordinary citizens were mobilized and empowered to take action and effect change. They learned to overcome fear and a sense of helplessness and moved to defend democratic rights.

In time, the tree also became a symbol for peace and conflict resolution, especially during ethnic conflicts in Kenya when the Green Belt Movement used peace trees to reconcile disputing communities. During the ongoing re-writing of the Kenyan constitution, similar trees of peace were planted in many parts of the country to promote a culture of peace. Using trees as a symbol of peace is in keeping with a widespread African tradition. For example, the elders of the Kikuyu carried a staff from the thigi tree that, when placed between two disputing sides, caused them to stop fighting and seek reconciliation. Many communities in Africa have these traditions.

Such practices are part of an extensive cultural heritage, which contributes both to the conservation of habitats and to cultures of peace. With the destruction of these cultures and the introduction of new values, local biodiversity is no longer valued or protected and as a result, it is quickly degraded and disappears. For this reason, The Green Belt Movement explores the concept of cultural biodiversity, especially with respect to indigenous seeds and medicinal plants.

As we progressively understood the causes of environmental degradation, we saw the need for good governance. Indeed, the state of any county's environment is a reflection of the kind of governance in place, and without good governance there can be no peace. Many countries, which have poor governance systems, are also likely to have conflicts and poor laws protecting the environment.

In 2002, the courage, resilience, patience and commitment of members of the Green Belt Movement, other civil society organizations, and the Kenyan public culminated in the peaceful transition to a democratic government and laid the foundation for a more stable society.

Excellencies, friends, ladies and gentlemen,

It is 30 years since we started this work. Activities that devastate the environment and societies continue unabated. Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own – indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.

In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.

That time is now.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has challenged the world to broaden the understanding of peace: there can be no peace without equitable development; and there can be no development without sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space. This shift is an idea whose time has come.

I call on leaders, especially from Africa, to expand democratic space and build fair and just societies that allow the creativity and energy of their citizens to flourish.

Those of us who have been privileged to receive education, skills, and experiences and even power must be role models for the next generation of leadership. In this regard, I would also like to appeal for the freedom of my fellow laureate Aung San Suu Kyi so that she can continue her work for peace and democracy for the people of Burma and the world at large.

Culture plays a central role in the political, economic and social life of communities. Indeed, culture may be the missing link in the development of Africa. Culture is dynamic and evolves over time, consciously discarding retrogressive traditions, like female genital mutilation (FGM), and embracing aspects that are good and useful.

Africans, especially, should re-discover positive aspects of their culture. In accepting them, they would give themselves a sense of belonging, identity and self-confidence.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There is also need to galvanize civil society and grassroots movements to catalyse change. I call upon governments to recognize the role of these social movements in building a critical mass of responsible citizens, who help maintain checks and balances in society. On their part, civil society should embrace not only their rights but also their responsibilities.

Further, industry and global institutions must appreciate that ensuring economic justice, equity and ecological integrity are of greater value than profits at any cost.

The extreme global inequities and prevailing consumption patterns continue at the expense of the environment and peaceful co-existence. The choice is ours.

I would like to call on young people to commit themselves to activities that contribute toward achieving their long-term dreams. They have the energy and creativity to shape a sustainable future. To the young people I say, you are a gift to your communities and indeed the world. You are our hope and our future.

The holistic approach to development, as exemplified by the Green Belt Movement, could be embraced and replicated in more parts of Africa and beyond. It is for this reason that I have established the Wangari Maathai Foundation to ensure the continuation and expansion of these activities. Although a lot has been achieved, much remains to be done.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

As I conclude I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream. Playing among the arrowroot leaves I tried in vain to pick up the strands of frogs' eggs, believing they were beads. But every time I put my little fingers under them they would break. Later, I saw thousands of tadpoles: black, energetic and wriggling through the clear water against the background of the brown earth. This is the world I inherited from my parents.

Today, over 50 years later, the stream has dried up, women walk long distances for water, which is not always clean, and children will never know what they have lost. The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder.

Thank you very much"

Excerpt from Wangari Maathai's 2004 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Domingo a la finca de mi familia

After a very intense week in Nicaragua, the tales and pictures of which I haven't even thought about dealing with yet, I was incredibly happy to return home to my host-family. And they were incredibly happy to see me! Rosy, my mother, had just come back from a party arranged by ICADS for all host-mothers, which included food, bingo, and dancing. In the end everyone walked away with little presents (in Rosy's case, a purple violet, one of her favorite flowers).

They were all extremely excited to hear my stories, and impressions of their neighbor country, and overjoyed that I'd had such a wonderful experience there. I walked away from Nicaragua with a lot of new understandings that I am still sorting out and working to integrate into my vision of the world.

My last post is a bit melodramatic, but it fit my mood and thoughts at the time, and in many ways is representative of deeper impressions I felt. I now feel embarrassed to be apologizing here, in my own space where I have the freedom to write, about something that might have made others uncomfortable. But recognizing that is important, so I'll explain. I was exhausted from a week of stimulating (if not over-stimulating) experiences, lectures, and encounters. Finally, I was doing the last of my assigned readings for the Nicaraguan trip when I found that short poem at the beginning of a piece about world hunger. I was particularly struck, especially since I turned such a stubbornly blind-eye to the hunger in Nicaragua.

I have been conditioned (or, should I say, permitted myself to be taught it was alright) to look past the beggars of every age, gender, or background that approach me in the street, regardless of country, history, or time of day. I spent so much time thinking over what was in front of me, what social ills and triumphs I witnessed, but ignored the most blatant physical incarnation of poverty there is, and denied its existence by refusing to look it in the eyes.

As of now, I've moved from brooding on structural poverty and hunger, to brooding on the ways in which they are currently being addressed. Maybe I'll post my most recent class paper about it. It's not very good though..

But THAT'S not what I came to write about! I came to show some photos of what happened AFTER Nicaragua.

So, as I learned before I left Costa Rica, my host family here is quite large, and there are a number of small farms in the family - at least two. At one point I stated there were eight siblings, however, I learned last night those are just the girls. There were also four boys. Five, but one died young (as many, many do), at the age of 13.

But my host mother and her boyfriend bought a farm about five years ago, way up in the mountains, about forty-five minutes from where we live in Curridabat. Rosy was disapointed to hear that I'd already made plans to explore San José with a friend the next day, since she'd wanted me to come help them fertilize some corn on Sunday. I paused over my guava juice, and then quickly bailed on my previous plans. Sorry friend! There will be many more weekends. But there will be few opportunities to get to spend time with my host family, both with all the travel my Field Program will be doing, as well as with how busy the family is!

So yes, that's how I ended up in a clunking old minivan, driving through red lights up into the mountains, higher and higher into the foggy mists of the Costa Rican morning!

We didn't eat breakfast before leaving, so one of out our many stops along the way was to a little shop where we bought some empanadas and other morning snacks. Rosy's goddaughter rode up on a motorcycle with her husband (once a visiting minister from Panama, who accidentally fell in love with this young church-goer, and went from studying to be a Father to wanting to be an altogether different kind of father), and they chatted and caught up. Ana had packed us little sandwiches, and when we finally scaled the last mountain road, we say under a large lean-to and drank coffee and ate our breakfast, while waiting for the two other workers to arrive.

Soon they grumbled up, riding tandem on a small minibike. Both were friendly, and thought it was terribly funny that there was an American chilling (literally), eating empanadas and drinking coffee out of a thermos with them, and anxiously waiting to help them out. It was incredibly cold that early in the morning, so they too hugged their foam coffee cups while they caught up with Rosy and Randal. One is a deaf-mute, though despite the difficulty I had understanding him, he ended up being a joy to spend time with. Throughout the whole day he went out of his way to show me all the wonderful things on the farm, like I was a three year old just walking outside for the first time, and it is his hands that you can see in many of the photos holding up different fruits, trees, and leaves.

Once we had eaten, we walked down the steep path towards where there is a house looking out over the mountainous property. In the past, a family lived there to care take for the farm and to look after the pigs and cows that also lived on the property. However, due to terribly cold nights, and an apparent falling out with this family (who "preferred to sleep") the house now sits vacant, and the key for the padlock on the door has been lost. Rosy seemed rather blasé about trying to get back in at any point soon, though she did express her desire to live on the farm eventually, however I believe they would build a new, and smaller home that would be more insulated and cost less to heat.

At this point, we separated. Rosy and I headed down hill amongst the corn stalks to throw little pellets of white fertilizer on the roots of the plants, while the men headed in different directions. Though we didn't have to wear gloves, the fertilizer gave off an acrid smell and left a thick white powder on coating fingers. Another worker, who was putting red pellets at the base of banana and avocado plants used a plastic bag as a glove. This was an herbicide, I was told.

Though I was puzzled between my host-mother's stance on the importance of organic farming, in particular since she has discussed with me before her feelings about how detrimental pesticides are for health (and why she chooses to avoid buying especially non-organic fruits and vegetables), I decided not to question her methods or choices. Rather, tried to help out as much as she'd let me, and otherwise to enjoy myself - and to clamber around the mountains after her looking at plants and flowers, soaking up the beautiful scenery and place. I told her how incredibly lucky I am to have found a host-family here who lives in the city but owns a farm! Next time I go, I will inquire further about the products they use, how often they're applied, how they decided what to use, etc.

The actual work ended up taking less than half an hour, after which we clambered over to where there once was a field of avocado plants (which were sadly almost entirely eaten by cows). There, I realized that the expensive hiking shoes I own really couldn't handle the slippery mountainous terrain. I don't know how the farmers here manage, climbing up and down day after day. Once the last of the avocado plants were tended to, and beans examined, Rosy decided to bring me further down, into the forest where the trees are protecting a river that emerges from the mountains. There we walked along, looking at larger avocado trees, examining the air plants on larger branches, and tracking different birds. All of this we did passively, not as active biologists or aspiring naturalists, but just as a group of observant folk talking a walk through the woods.

We also found a sloth! Sleeping cradled in the top of a tree! It was clearly exhausted, because my group began clicking and clapping, to no avail. After a minute, one member began throwing sticks at the branch it was sleeping on to rattle it and oust it from its slumber. Finally, after several long moments permeated by the rattling and shaking of the tree, the sleepy beast stretched and looked around it slowly. It looked back at us repeatedly with extremely fatigued confusion, its long white fur making it look like a sleep-deprived teen. It was really one of the coolest things I've seen in the wild. A very close second runner up would be the congo monkey we saw on a Nicaraguan coffee-farm-mountain, though.

After this sighting, we circled the base of the mountain and then began the walk back upwards. Many tree roots on the side of the mountain formed the steps we walked on. However, my host mom had a bad knee from running when she was younger, so we ended up walking back up on a dirt road of an empty tree farm. After a pre-lunch snack, we said goodbye to the workers and descended the mountain into a couple small rural towns to run errands. Everywhere we went, we got involved in deep conversations with people, many of whom stared very openly and asked a multitude of questions about me. It was fun, but I was tired. On the drive home, we bought fifteen ears of corn on the side of the road, which later we ate as a pre-dinner snack. So much food!

Though I've been washed by waves of melancholia recently, my host family has been bringing me so much happiness! They are really wonderful people, and I am so happy to finally be able to speak with them comfortably, and to share with them (and be shared with in return!)

I'm ending this now but first would like to announce....today, I had a four hour Spanish class, all alone! Who would have though that in a little over three weeks I could go from having next-to-no Spanish, to being able to discuss incredibly complex things that I even have problems discussing in English for four whole hours? Not I. And yet, look at me go!

Nicaragua

Live hungry:
no one says it like that.
We say, "They're hungry."
But in Central America, where
a fifth of the people are underfed,
we can truly say these people "live hungry."
It's like starving to death
in slow motion.

Carmelo Gallardo



































Photo taken in the floodplain slums of Grenada, America's oldest colonial city, where an association of women called Casa de la Mujer (an NGO) have been helping to reconstruct and raise shanty town homes so that they will not be flooded by rain, grey water, sewage year-round.

This is in exchange for two workers to help build, some materials, and approximately $200 dollars, paid per month in $25 dollar segments - and women are to be the property owners. These have been set to ensure personal investment, and are particularly designed to address Nicaragua's dependency on aid (both on very small, local, and nation-wide scales).

Many families have been unable to meet these low terms, and on top of the other challenges they face (such as illness, hunger, and extreme poverty), continue to be flooded. Beyond this wall, the inside of this home was filled with a foot and a half of filthy water.

The Casa de la Mujer, funded by Nicaragua's socialist Sandinista housing programs, Grenada's sister cities, and NGOs in France, Spain, and Germany, has recently decided to move forward with its project, covering the costs for these families in a second phase of construction needed to raise the entire town several feet and provide a home for those families that were not included in the first phase.

However, a roof and four walls may serve to house and hide the structural issues that ensure that poverty and misery persist in Nicaragua, which statistics tell us is the poorest country in Central America, and second poorest in Latin America. At the same time, never before have I seen a country that is so wealthy in terms of environmental resources as well as social ones.

The saddest side of Nicaragua, which is also the most fascinating (in my eyes), is how Nicaraguans have been so shaped by their tumultuous past that in a miriad of ways their infrastructure simply cannot support them. But they, too, see how incredible rich and beautiful their country is, and see at the same time that there is no clear path forwards, and that their way is only becoming clouded again in the current political situation.

Nicaragua, at least from what I learned in one week of being in the country, faces an extreme paradox set in the most simple of ways: how does a country that has everything and yet has nothing become something? And if it cannot see its way forward, what will happen?

Domingo a mi casa

Today I babysat Triné, the little niece who comes to my home every day. Gradually, after moving through every possible interesting thing I could show her to play with in my room, we began doing art with my beautiful selection of highlighters. She decided to draw the kittens I have from a photo album (Willie, and later Weenettee).























Here is Willie. However, Triné quickly grew rather demanding that I help her draw specific things that I couldn't understand, because:
A) she speaks only Spanish
B) she speaks super fast
C) she is three and can't pronounce r's and may or may not have a lisp. I can't tell what is up. All I knew was she kept saying "dad", but each time I'd help her the head of hers she'd get offended I didn't know how to do it right.
So I drew mine.























Very funny! She liked his hair. Also - both these pictures were taken by Triné. She figured out how to use my digital cam with alarming ease for a 3 year old, and proceeded to hold it and click photos of every thing in the house for the next two hours. Some pictures came out great, some, not so great. Over half were taken in the cave she built herself in my closet/cupboard. I don't have any of those uploaded yet, but here's what she looked like. Adorable!






























I was grateful for her rampant picture taking though, because it allowed me to have some pictures taken in the home, without having to take them myself and feel like a privileged tourist remarking at the scenery or cultural differences and sending the news home.... Which is essentially what I'm here 100% of the time, and I'm always in a hella-guilt trip about my voice and privilege and all the uplifting things that surrounds that subject....























But look! Triné snapped a picture of Ana, my host-aunt! Ana was clearly taken aback by the shrieks and sudden propaganda that stopped her on her way into the kitchen. But I love this photo, and you can see the strange warehouse indoors-outside that is going on in the background, as well as bedrooms build into the warehouse ground floor.
I'll put up a whole album of her trippy pictures at some point, they're wonderful.























But soon she discovered the laptop, and began to write a long email full of "ppppppppp's" and "wwwwwwwwwwwwwww's" . Since she couldn't grasp what the deal is with the mouse pad, while playing the only game on my computer (Tic Tac Toe?) she opened up Photobooth...












































So, that was exciting!
But after a long day of play and washing my clothes by hand (whee!), my energy level began to plummet. I told Ana later that I think today was especially exhausting since this is the most Spanish I've ever spoken in one day, and definitely the most effort I've had to make while trying to understand over such an extended period of time. Which is good! But hard! And I didn't end up napping, which suxx, but I did get a fruit popsicle full of mango chunkz! Which I snapped for the viewing pleasure of one and all. YUMM.























Now I'm leaving for Nicaragua for a week - should be really wunderbar! If I never come back, know at least looking for me will be easier there since the roads have names.