Para llegar al fin a la victoria - Day of Liberation

Yesterday (July 16th) was the 29th anniversary of the liberation of Estelí. I didn´t have work so I went out Tuesday night to a vigil to remember the revolutionaries who died in the war to get Somoza out in the 70´s.

As it turns out, ¨vigilia,¨ which I thought meant ¨vigil,¨ actually means block party. The whole city was there, and there was live music and dancing and a lot of fun. It was fun because I knew some of the songs and sang along and that felt good, because I really felt it being American this week. It wasn´t because people treated me badly at all, but because a lot of their struggle and the deaths and suffering they´re remembering today would have been avoided if the United States had cared more about the Nicaraguan people and less about money and control. I couldn´t help remembering that, and wishing things had been different.

On Wednesday I went to a parade and the rally, where Daniel Ortega spoke. He says a lot of stuff that sounds very ideal, and he seems really passionate. It´s really too bad that he doesnt put his policies or the government´s money where his mouth and his ¨heart¨ allegedly is.
At the celebration, there was no recognition that Nicaragua still has any problems and a lot of poverty... it was all, ¨We suffered for years and years of war, first against Somoza, then against the Contras and the yankee imperialists, until 1990 when all of our problems went away forever!¨

But Violeta Chamorro was President in the 1990s and she only won because Nicaraguans couldnt keep fighting theUS so they elected the US-backed candidate who was not a very good leader or person... so it was kind of bizarre, but super fun to be there anyway. I guess on the 4th of July (before Bush was President at least) we didn´t spend our evening lamenting our country´s problems, but remembering how much worse it was, and how we overcame.

The rally was so lively! People are crazy in Nicaragua: they were yelling and dancing and drinking and jumping around and singing and cheering and waving flags and generally going nuts. It was the kind of crowd I´ve never experienced anywhere else, and it was really fun to be there!

AUGUSTO CÉSAR SANDINO - Father of the Nicaraguan Revolution Assassinated by Dictator Anastasio Somoza on February 21, 1934

On the Treatment of Women

On the way back from León on Sunday we sat in the last row of the bus, behind what looked like a couple - or rather, they sat in front of us. The man, who was remarkably unattractive, was stroking the woman´s hair. He put his face right up to hers, which was turned away from him towards the window. She kept turning even farther away from him, putting her head down to escape him, and then he gravved her by the back of her head and kissed her. She was shaking. He grabbed the rest of her and forced her into his arms, and he grabbed her breasts, and other lower parts of her body. She grabbed the back of her headrest with one hand, and the seatback in front of her with the other, and pulled herself away from him and his violating hands.

It was then that I realized she was wearing an engagement ring. She was crying, and she looked so ashamed.

Smiling, he laid down on her with his legs outstretched into the aisle. He grabbed her hands, forced her to touch him. He saw us looking at him with eyes full of hatred. He just kept on smiling, this sick, sadistic smile.

¨You know, we´re in public,¨I finally said in Spanish. He ignored me, though I´m sure he heard, and forced her hands lower on his body.

If this is how he acts in public, I can´t imagine what he does to her in private. The men sitting infront of them realized what was going on, and did nothing.

I wanted to give her a hundred dollars and tell her to run. But I didn´t.

What could her situation be, that she is with this horrible man? Is he her fiancée? What could her families´situation be, that they would allow her to stay in such an abusive relationship?

Two hours after we got off the bus, as I wrote this, I was still shaking.

What is this world we live in? What can we do?

Go to pronica.org/donate and earmark your donation for the Acahualinca Women´s Center.

Or, go to nicawomenagainstabuse.blogspot.com Stop by your bank to make a direct deposit tothe Acción Ya! Center Against Domestic & Sexual Violence.
Their bank account is with BanCentro and cannot accept checks in U.S. dollars.

Don´t have time to make a direct deposit? Send me a personal check and I will deposit it to Acción Ya! bank account.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the next day -->

It was a miracle that occurred on my way to work yesterday. Or an incredibly serendipitous coincidence.

It all started when I got lost, walking to the library where I work every day. Directions were never my fortê, but luckily a wise bearded man once told me that you´re not lost unless you think you´re lost. So I kept walking in what I knew was probably the wrong direction, and then I suddenly came upon a sign:

ACTION ALREADY!
Investigative Center for Women´s Assistance
Hostel for victims of domestic violence

ALHAMDULLALLAH! (Thank God!)

I walked past it alhamdulallahing, and then stopped in my tracks, wondering why I was passing by. I turned around, took a deep breath, and walked in.

¨Hi I´m Dina I come from the United States and I go to a university for just women and I am interested in women´s rights I saw something on the bus yesterday that upset me because a woman was being maltreated by her fiancèe and I want to work with you since I´m here in Esteli as a volunteer I work at the library but you know they have a lot of resources so I´m looking for other organizations to work with I can make you a website or a publication and try to raise some money or do anything maybe talk with the women I don´t know but you do can you tell me about what you do?¨

And then I was out of breath. And I did present myself that clumsily, in that single run-on paragraph (my creative writing classmates won´t be surprised) because I knew if I shut up for one second I would forget my Spanish and begin stumbling about while standing still and they would think I was a mess and wouldn´t want me to work with them.

I kind of was a mess, I was so excited, so desperate for someone to explain to me that there is help for abused women here.

When I had said my piece, I held my breath. I had to work with them. I had to do whatever I could to make them money, to reach out to more women, like that woman on the bus, who I should have ... should have done something for.

The woman I spoke with, a brilliant and compassionate Lawyer named Rosa, invited me to sit down beside her.

¨We are a women´s help center, working with women who have experienced domestic physical and psychological abuse. We encourage women to leave their abusers and come here to our safe house to get help. We have psychologists, social workers, doctors, lawyers, security personnel, and teachers here for the women. We have group and individual therapy, and a solidarity group made up of former victims of domestic abuse who we have worked with. The women who were formerly abused, and had no self-esteem are now leaders. They aren´t afraid anymore; they go out in teams to the barrios and encourage maltreated women to come here and get help.¨

The office I walked into was the safehouse for the women who had just taken the step to leave their abusers. Rosa explained, ¨They stay there and attend therapy, get medical attention, human warmth and care, the feeling that they aren´t alone in this. And...¨she paused. ¨We keep them on suicide watch. It´s really hard to take this step in Nicaragua. Women often think it´s normal to be abused. They think they deserve it, that it´s their fault. We´re open 24/7 to deal with emergencies at any time. We always have a security team. We don´t hide here, we´re into outreach. I can´t tell you how many drunk abusers have shown up on our doorstep. But their wives don´t even know when they´re here. That´s how protected they are in our safehouse.¨

Acción Ya lawyers have helped many women win divorce cases and custody of their children, so they can begin a new life without abuse.

When a woman is ready to leave the womens center, Acción Ya staff visit the woman and her children in their new home at regular intervals to ensure they are doing well. Acción Ya provides each woman with a micro-credit loan and qualitative support to begin her new, independent life.

ALHAMDULALLAH.

They enthusiastically agrees to let me do their website and work on publications for them. They also invited me to go and talk with the women, and I´d like to take them to the library to show them how to use computers and internet. This is all moving at Nica pace, so we haven´t a schedule yet, but I have faith.

After all, just when I thought I was lost, I found what I was looking for.

On Backpackers

Ah! They say if you´ve nothing nice to say, don´t say anything.... but someone has to; the backpackers we encountered this past weekend are way too obnoxious for the world to go on like this.

We went to León for the weekend, the first colonial city in Nicaragua. On our first night we stayed in a quaint family-run hostel, but decided to move elsewhere for the second night, since a drunken relative of the owners showed up around 2am to threaten us and tell us to get out of his sovereign nation... or else.

The owner´s response to the threats was to tell us to lock ourselves in our rooms... not to tell the man, who I will call drunk threatening guy, to leave. I got the idea they dealt with this frequently - perhaps even nightly. ¨No, we can do nothing, but we know him. You just have to go in your room, go! Ignore him! Go in your room and lock the door! Now!¨

Stay out of the Hospedaje Viejo.

So the following day we moseyed over to the Big Foot hostel to see if they had beds. They not only had beds, they had an American college dorm building going on there, complete with irresponsible belligerent gringos not wearing shirts, who were burping loudly and laughing hysterically, and all the girls who were swept off their feet by such behavior. And screaming. Screaming a lot.

Couldn´t you do this at home???

As my friend and fellow volunteer Maddie noted, ¨We are in a different Nicaragua than these kids¨ who, upon further inspection, knew nothing about Nicaragua, flaunted their inability to speak Spanish as if they were proud of their ignorance, and dressed like they had been scrounging for garbage in La Chureca - which is, as I understand it, pretty offensive to Nicaraguan people, who take pride in their appearance, no matter how poor they are.

Why would you come to a country you have no real interest in?

I cringe to say it, but I understood the drunk threatening dude from the previous night a bit better after meeting the backpacking crowd. I don´t understand his threats, but I do understand his anger and frustration at some gringos continued exploitation of his country.

The most frustrating part for me was the backpacker´s stated conception of themselves as some sort of counter-culture, a group of kids who were ¨sticking it to the man¨ just by being in Central America. It seemed to me like they were a bunch of self-indulgent kids without responsibilities, jobs, any need of income, or any interest or concern for the people who´s country they were in ... they went to cockfights for God´s sake! Could one travel any more irresponsibly? Probably, actually, but cockfights are pretty up there on the irresponsibility scale.

The Project I Undertook (On Purpose) Begins!

Yesterday I started a theater workshop at Esteli´s Municipal Library. I had passed invitations out to children and parents on the street, and posted up a few signs around the city.

However, when you pass people in the street here, they say ¨Adios,¨(goodbye!). And that´s the encounter. There is no hello. What? I just started pushing the invitation into their hands. ¨Adios! Come to my workshop! Adios!¨A few people did actually stop, often because they were suspicious of the bizarre looking gringa following children and handing them invitations. ¨I was an actress in New York. I want to do a theater workshop at the library. Everyone is invited.¨

¨I don´t understand.¨ I would explain again, smiling into the parents narrowed eyes.

¨Yes gringa, but why?¨

I throttled through a few paragraphs about the richness of Nicaraguan history and culture and how much I have to learn from doing this project with the kids. It seems that, despite Nicaraguans (and especially Estelians) enthusiasm for community-building volunteer work, it is hard for some people to wrap their minds around a gringa coming to Nicaragua to do something good for, not something bad to, the people. Who can blame them?

I explained it as if the theater project was all for my own benefit. Which it is, in part.

My biggest fear was that no one would come. Although atleast no one called me jankee.

I passed out roughly 100 invitations and had about twenty kids, but I was pleased with the turnout on the first day. The ¨taller¨(workshop) runs from 9-11 am and then from 2-4 pm since school is half a day, and some students go in the morning and others in the evening. Most of the students who came in the morning came again in the afternoon (turns out they had skipped class that morning, tsk tsk).

The activity on the first day was not ostensibly part of a theater program. I brought dream catcher making kits, and had each of the participants make one and then write (or draw) about their dreams for their own futures, the future of their community, and the future of Nicaragua. It helped that I have a dream catcher tattooed on my back, since that apparently meant that they must be pretty powerful.

It was striking what the kids came up with. ¨I want to save the environment and beautiful Nicaragua´s natural resources,¨one seven-year-old explained. ¨I want to be a doctor because so many people in Nicaragua are sick and no one helps them,¨wrote another. ¨Well I want to be a teacher so poor people can be doctors if they want,¨ or ¨I´m going to be a teacher because learning makes people happy.¨ One six-year-old said, ¨I want to be a true Sandinista President.¨ Whoaaa. He wasn´t even old enough to write that down.

The taller was for kids between four and eleven years old.

The purpose of this project was to gain an idea of the issues that are important to the children of Esteli. Their articulation of their hopes and dreams (which is also informative about their struggles and fears) has put us on the track to choose or write a play that deals with these dreams and struggles. Furthermore, it helped me establish rapport with them in a calm setting (ok it wasn´t really that calm) before we jump into theater games, which are hard to do among strangers since you really have to put yourself out there and be pretty silly sometimes

Above all, the lesson we got through yesterday was that everyone is free to express themselves in the way they want to at this workshop, and there are no wrong answers here. Some of the children had difficulty making the dream catchers, and they were thrilled when I told them they weren´t wrong, they were creative, which is the most valuable thing they could bring to a theater workshop.

I was thrilled when I heard them explaining to each other that they had different dream catchers because they all had different, unique dreams for the future. And the six year-old who wants to be a true Sandinista President announced more than a few times that he was creative. I think he should run on that platform. Nicaragua thrives on creative grassroots approaches to strengthen the national community and quality of life. A Nicaraguan politician who actually adopted creative efforts him or herself, instead of ¨teaming up¨with international financial institutions could, perhaps, carry out a real, unarmed, true Sandinista revolution.

The Project Begins!

The first one is actually getting over cockroaches the size of my fist.

Two nights ago I was laying in my bed, peacefully reflecting about the day and brainstorming ideas for the theater workshop, which I started yesterday (I´ll get to it). I was listening to what wasn´t but might as well have been Enya (I´ll say it was for the affect) when a cockroach fell from the sky right beside me onto the bed!



And the bed actually shook. I jumped up and promptly threw my book towards the intruder. But I guess these cockroaches are at the top of the insect foodchain and have gotten a bit cocky (pun intended), because he didn´t even flinch. I would have known if he had, these guys are big enough to have faces.

I threw a number of other objects at him, but he wasn´t impressed. I didn´t want to kill it - there´s a difference between a squashed bug and a dead corpse in your bed, and this was the latter.

Finally I turned the mattress upside down and he moved; he hid under my sheets, near the pillow.

Oh God.

I was tempted to run away screaming for help, and then I thought about it for a second and reasoned:

1) That idea is, for many obvious reasons, ridiculous.

2) Flies are more dangerous that cockroaches because they can carry parasites. Cockroaches aren´t harmful. They are just nasty.

3) Cockroaches are SO nasty.

4) OK, I should just get him off my bed and then who cares what he does.

So I threw a tape dispenser. The noise woke up the rest of the house (oops) but the bug who wanted to share my bed was unaffected. I lifted the mattress and shook it as hard as I could. He finally fell on the floor with a THUD and climbed into the tablecloth of my bedside stand.

I pretended I hadn´t seen that and that he was outside.

Project Number One: CHECK. I´m over it.

The next morning my homestay mom asked me if I had slept badly. After the incident, I had actually slept like a log. ¨No, I slept very well thanks.¨

¨Oh. I thought there was an animal in your room last night because I heard you trying to kill something.¨

¨Oh, that was just a cockroach who wanted to share my bed. He wasn´t invited.¨

¨That was all for a cockroach?¨She had a good laugh. ¨I thought it was the animals!¨

Project number two: Getting over animals who make their way into my room (?) that may be more dangerous than cockroaches.

I´ll let you know how it goes.

A Word on Responsible Consumption

Zona Franca is the Chureca of Nicaragua’s officially employed. The industrial section of Managua employs children and adults for fifteen hours a day, six days a week. Though the law stipulates that employees are entitled to fifteen days of vacation every six months, prevalent unemployment ensures that factories are never missing an employee. Privatization of electricity and other basic needs, and cyclical unemployment ensure that in the midst of nonexistent safety measures, sexual assault, and other human rights violations of factory employees, business is booming, and laborers don’t complain, even in the tobacco factories, where the use of plastic gloves is prohibited, despite the toxic chemicals employees handle for fifteen hours everyday.

At the tobacco factory, we saw a number of pregnant women standing up and preparing tobacco leaves for cigars. We asked what the protocol is if a pregnant woman becomes sick in this highly toxic environment. “She can just tell us if she is uncomfortable, and we will move her to another assembly line,” the manager said. He did not mention the thousands of Nicaraguans who are lined up to take a job if an employee complains about his or her working conditions, before changing the subject to the fine quality of their produce.

Eighty percent of factory workers are single mothers. Supervisors often exchange preference for overtime work, for sex. Beyond the few extra hours of underpaid labor these poor mothers gain from the exchange, being raped by your supervisor is a form of job insurance. When it comes time to lay off some employees, who would lay off those who they know they can rape the following day, and the day after, and the day after?

President Daniel Ortega, once hailed as the Sandinista leader (and still hailed as such on billboards across the country) was elected in 2006. Fearful of first-world companies re-outsourcing to other countries with even more appalling working conditions, he has facilitated the drop in the number of unions in Nicaragua from twenty-three a few years ago, to just three in 2008. Spies in factories have been helpful, since they report any potential union organizers so they can be fired before they give other employees any ideas.

Minimum age requirements have been relaxed under Ortega’s rule so that parents, who consider their children “chatel,” can force their children to work in factories if they sign a waiver. Counter intuitively, these children are the “lucky” ones, since their other options include living in the streets, or the capital city’s dump, La Chureca.

What are your consumption patterns? Who produces these materials?

Don’t boycott products you normally use – that just leads to job loss, and a greater population of scroungers living in La Chureca. Research the corporations you support, and write letters on behalf of their employees.

It might take a minute. But many of these working conditions are taking lives.

I’ll let you do the math.

When Children are Chattel

            Everyday we learn new Nicaraguan Spanish words, and try to unlearn (at least temporarily) a few of those apparently “gringo” words we picked up in Spanish classes in the U.S. The word for “kids” is a good example. I had always used “ninos,” but in the last couple of weeks I’ve picked up some synonyms: chevalos, cumiches, chiguines, cipotes, and most recently, chatel.

            Chatel, literally translated as chattel, is a synonym for “kids” in Nicaragua. My Spanish language dictionary defines “chatel” as: an item of personal property that is not freehold and that is not intangible.

            This fact is puzzling, not only because it is grim and even sickening, but because the advancement of young Nicaraguans and children’s rights were at the forefront of the values of the Nicaraguan revolution. During their temporary success, the true Sandinistas organized a literacy campaign. By busing privileged Nicaraguans out to the countryside, the Sandinistas were able to bring Nicaragua’s illiteracy rate from 45% in 1981 to 12% in just six months. But in 2008, roughly 50% of Nicaraguans are illiterate.

Since 1990, eleven years after the revolutionary war ended, and the year that the US-financed Contra War that followed the revolution ended, hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguan street children have picked up a “habit” of sniffing glue. The toxic glue, manufactured and distributed by H.B. Fuller in Minneapolis, is ostensibly used for shoemaking and repairs. Perhaps some people here use it for that, too. The primary consumers of H.B. Fuller glue, however, are children between the ages of four and beyond, and their mothers, who use it to pacify their hungry children. It helps that H.B. Fuller glue has a sweet scent.

We went to the capital city landfill, La Chureca, where 1,200 people live and scrounge for food and recyclable plastics amidst 55 years of garbage of 1.5 million of Managua’s citizens. I saw a child eating H.B. Fuller glue there, tearing apart a Styrofoam cup and licking the insides clean. That was his only “meal” of the day. He was probably around seven or eight years old. I won’t try to describe the environment of Managua’s dump, since even Tolstoy could not capture this hell on earth. Look up “La Chureca” on youtube. It’s worth millions of words. Keep in mind that as bad as it looks, one cannot even begin to imagine the smell before she has experienced it.

When U.S.-backed candidate Violeta de Chamorro was elected President of Nicaragua in 1990, children’s rights fell far, and fast. A member of the oligarchy, whose election meant the end of the U.S. embargo that robbed Nicaraguans of access to food and medicine, as well as the U.S.-financed Contra War, Chamorro put her energy into pleasing her supporters at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United States government. Her cooperation ensured not only that 80% of the new generation of Nicaraguans would remain uneducated and live in the streets, but that Nicaragua would be indebted to international financial institutions and the United States of America for five generations to come. She was elected by citizens who had a gun to their heads. Literally.

There is a saying in Nicaragua: “Vive en el momento, porque manana no sabe lo que va a pasar.” Live in the moment, because tomorrow you don’t know what’s going to happen. It isn’t the same saying as it is in the U.S., because the things that you suspect might happen here include hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and, at best, grossly inadequate governmental aid. Think New Orleans, at regular intervals.

In this country, where children are viewed as chattel, incest is rampant, particularly in the countryside. Fathers consider their little girls their property, and thus they “deserve” to have their daughter’s bodies before any other, less “deserving” man. These girls’ bodies end up deformed and hormonally retarded because grown men have forcefully penetrated their seven-year-old bodies. They become pregnant with their fathers, uncles, or brothers babies before their bodies are developed enough to survive pregnancy. In a country where even therapeutic abortion is illegal, these mothers, who are children themselves, die giving birth to deformed babies, the products of incest.

Who takes care of these babies?

H.B. Fuller, since 1958. As they state on their website, “Your day probably begins and ends with us.” How right they are. (http://www.hbfuller.com/About_Us/index.shtml)

The parents of the young ladies who survive incest, childbirth in their preteens, and anything else one can imagine, have endowed their daughter with a single skill. Many of these girls use this “skill” to persuade truck drivers to take them down to La Chureca in Managua, where they can live in garbage, scrounge for garbage, and prostitute themselves to sanitation truck drivers in exchange for choice pieces of trash: plastic bottles.

Many young girls have told non-governmental organization workers at La Chureca that they are pleased to be there, as it is better to be in the dump, than to be at home. At home, they are forced to wake up at 4am, prepare corn-on-the-cob into tortilla bread, and sell it in the street. Failure to sell all of the tortillas they have prepared in a given day often results in a brutal beating. These girls opt to prostitute themselves to truck drivers and others, who buy their unsold tortillas in exchange for unprotected sex. As a rule, protected sex only obligates a pedophile to buy half of the tortillas, since “protected sex provides half the pleasure.”

55% of Nicaragua’s population is under eighteen years old. What hope is there for the future of Nicaragua?

There is some. Despite the hundreds of thousands of glue-addicted Nicaraguan children living in the streets or in La Chureca, 6,000 of them are sheltered by non-governmental child protection agencies.

Braving the unimaginably dangerous Nicaraguan streets to reach out to glue-addicted street children, Los Quinchos began its project in 1991. Children who agree to leave their glue behind and enter the program are brought to a filter house for food, clothing, shelter, showers, education, recreational activities, and detox. Once they are weaned off the glue through therapy, love, and care, they are transferred to the main house in San Marcos. Boys and girls live in a comfortable campus setting there with children of the same sex and similar backgrounds. They attend the local school, receive tutoring, mentoring, guidance and counseling. They have weekly dance, music, art, theater, and other classes. They learn skills such as hammock weaving, sewing, and professional serving. They smile and laugh a lot, and they hug anyone who walks through the gates.

Children who were once filthy, uneducated, drug addicts transform into mature, capable young adults who support each other and achieve a healthy level of self-esteem. Once they graduate from the program (age at graduation varies, since eighteen is the minimum age at graduation, but Quinchos kids are never “kicked out” of the program), many of them receive scholarships to attend university in Venezuela or Cuba. Others often opt to work at Los Quinchos with the younger children who are still in the program, or use the skills they have learned to begin a business.

I bought a beautiful hammock from a former Quincho yesterday for $20. He lived in a nice home, and his wife was preparing chicken and rice while his young son played with a ball and the dog kissed anyone who came near her. Twelve years ago, this professionally and socially successful man was in the streets, smelling of glue and filth. Despite his success, hundreds of thousands still are.

Go to pronica.org and earmark your donation for “Los Quinchos.” Check out Los Quinchos at http://www.losquinchos.it/

Microfinance: Why It (Sometimes) Just Doesn't Work

As in many other things, the success of microfinance depends on the company, according to Roger Lecayo, Carlos Vidal, and Gladys Manzares. And in a world gone mad over microfinance enterprises, many microfinance companies are bound to be less effective, if not less "good-intentioned" than others. And, as Nicaragua's history proves, this Central American country has been a prime target for those with less than honorable intentions.

When the question of whether or not someone is "worthy" of a micro loan depends on what they have by way of collateral, instead of what they plan to invest in and how much qualitative support they'll have in managing their loan, it is unlikely that the poor borrowers will be able to repay it, let alone the loan and interest.

So if their collateral was their shack, they lose it.

In the world of mirofinance madness, small loan enterprises have been proliferating faster than mosquitoes in the rainy season. And many of them have just one requirement of their clients: collateral. And their collateral can be anything.

Imagine what that includes.

Be careful in selecting which microfinance companies to support. Many of them offer little more to their clients than a loan, when what capital-less pobres really need to succeed includes guidance on investment, capitalist principles, and planning skills. People who have never had money frequently could use some support in figuring out what to do with it to make it grow. Without such support, it is impossible not to default and lose everything as a result.

Finca is a professional and socially responsible microfinance company. Go to www.villagebanking.org/ to learn what they do, and why their efforts work all over the world.

Consumer Rights, Consumer Rights Violations, Privatization, and the TRUTH about Microfinance

The Masaya Consumer Rights Association (ACODEMA), began its struggle for consumer rights when former President Bolanos traveled to Spain with an aim of privatizing Nicaraguan energy in 2000. Since then, Nicaragua has privatized the distribution of energy, after Bolanos signed a thirty year contract with Union Finosa, a Spanish company that has repeatedly violated its contract, Nicaraguan laws, and the rights of the Nicaraguan people. According to ACODEMA, a non-governmental, non-profit organization run by and for the people, the private company Union Finosa has not invested much, but they have taken much.

Union Finosa has a reputation in Nicaragua for shutting off electricity without warning, and claiming they did so because a community that doesn't even have street lights did not pay the electric bill for their streetlights, etc.

ACODEMA recently proved that, when Union Finosa distributed new electricity use meters, they were rigged. Poor Nicaraguans were charged 50% more than they had before the new meters were installed, though their electricity consumption had not changed. ACODEMA's public outcry resulted in a recall of the new, "improved" meters.

"This is a new conquest," ACODEMA staffer Roger Alberto Lacallo says. "It is a conquest of energy. " And it isn't just Union Finosa, but a team of three transnational private energy companies with Spanish bases that threaten Nicaraguan's access to electricity and related consumer rights. "We want to call these transnational companies the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria." And they are presently privatizing energy not only in Nicaragua, but in Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia as well.

Counterintuitively, former President Bolanos granted a $30 million subsidy to Union Finosa, a private, profit-seeking company from Spain that is inappropriately classified as a non-governmental organization that enjoys all associated rights, such as exemption from all taxes. With the dollars saved from its tax exemption, Union Finosa has been lobbying to pass a law that would incarcerate anyone who defaults on their electric bill.

"What happened to the money they promised to put towards Nicaraguan development?" Lacallo asks. "Nicaragua gets poorer everyday. But we are not poor in dignity. We've earned our rights. We have the right to live like people. And we know how to fight for our rights."

And so, ACODEMA used a contribution from a group of American students to establish a radio show in Masaya that informs and educates poor consumers by:
1) Teaching listeners about their consumer rights
2) Teaching listeners how to deal with Unon Finosa gang members that show up at their homes to repossess their belongings if they default on a payment, or accuse Union Finosa of overcharging them or rigging their meter
3) How to organize themselves in order to demand basic consumer rights and protections
4) How to overcome frequently encountered organizational problems
5) How to defend themselves, their belongings, their rights, and their families against infinitely more powerful companies.

Lacallo joined the Sandinista Army when he was sixteen years old, and tells stories, choking back tears, of his friends deaths. "We had to take our friends back to their families after they had been dead for five days. We'd pick them up by the hand and their hand would come off. And the smell... the smell stayed in your nostrils for months. After we fought that war we thought the government would protect us... but many Sandinistas have become rich since the revolution, and have abandoned their values. We, on the other hand, still fight for our principles. We go like little ants to say, 'Yes, you do have rights. This is how you fight for them.' "

The one thing about this government that is an improvement, according to Lacallo, is that one is free to express himself. "We have to watch our backs, though... any transnational company could pay someone to knock me off. So if I walk down one street, I walk back on another street. I don't go out at night... but it's easy to keep going. Because I know that we're right."

The men and women who work for ACODEMA know they're right because they see between 150 and 200 people who show up at their Masaya office everyday with nothing but tears and cries for help. Microfinance groups, despite their image as bringers of goodwill and opportunity, grant small loans to Nicaraguans, who lose everything they own if they default on a payment. "They take your bed," Lacallo says. "They take your personal belongings. They sic the police on you, you'll be arrested." But ACODEMA's activism has succeeded in putting an end to illegal arrests associated with microfinance loan defaults. "We shamed them," he says. "And now the police refuse to take part in this game."

Their success is not surprising. ACODEMA's radio show, which broadcasts Monday through Friday from 7-8 am has become Masaya's #1 radio show since it went on the air in April 2008.

Lacallo says, "Microfinance is a good idea, gone awry. When Internet Cafes receive loans to buy computers, and Union Finosa shuts off their electricity for 12 hours everyday without warning, how will they make money? They default on their loan payments. And then the Microfinance groups take everything. The donations that Americans have granted to microfinance institutions have gone towards making the rich richer at the expense of the poor, who have lost everything."

But it is illegal for the microfinance and Union Finosa bogeyman to go into your home and "re"possess your belongings. This practice, however, is so common that the Nicaraguan people do not even know it is illegal. That's where ACODEMA comes in.

Lacallo explains, "I got involved with the revolutionary war because we were promised that after Somoza was out, all Nicaraguans would have their basic needs and rights. But I see that that is not what happened. So I continue to fight. Before we fought with arms, but now we fight with laws, and the values we gained during the revolution."

It became clear over the course of our talk that ACODEMA's radio show was about to be canceled, because they hadn't the means to pay for another month of air time- which costs less than $200.00. So we all grabbed our wallets and took out between ten and twenty dollars. It took about three minutes for a bunch of unemployed college students to get $195.00 together. And when we gave it to Roger Alberto Lacallo, the man who had lived through the war, and had carried his friends bodies home in pieces, he cried.

To turn these tears of desperation to tears of relief, go to pronica.org and earmark your donation for ACODEMA.

An Amended (and Extended) Nicaraguan History

As our knowledge of the Nicaraguan experience has expanded, it has become clear that the preliminary Lonely Planet history I provided will simply not suffice as a contextual background for my intents and purposes. So, I’ve included the following to fill in some of the more bitter parts of Nicaragua’s history and her present struggles. Much of this information comes from a lecture by Lillian Hall, our ProNica facilitator. She moved to Nicaragua in 1984 during the post-revolution, U.S.-financed Contra war, and got up close and personal with the combat zones: “I needed to be where the war was, to see what our government was doing with our tax dollars,” she explains.

Ms. Hall traveled to Nicaragua for the first time as a college student in 1982. She describes this as the “honeymoon period” after the revolution, when the population was full of the excitement that comes from building a new society that would, for the first time in Nicaragua, govern for the poor majority instead of the rich minority, with heath care, land reform, literacy, and education as its principle values. Sandinistas had fought a revolution against the vastly rich dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza and his heavily armed, U.S. supported National Guard, and they fought with pistols, dysfunctional rifles, molotov cocktails, and stones. One Sandinista said:

“If we were being logical, we never would have thought we could do it. But we weren’t logical; we were dreaming. But we allowed ourselves to dream. And we did it.”

Ms. Hall reluctantly returned after a month in Nicaragua to finish college in the U.S. In 1984, she moved to Nicaragua, with a plan to stay for two years. But she’s still here.

The 1984 Nicaragua housed a very different society than it had in 1982. Reagan had been elected President of the United States. After he labeled the Sandinistas (whose three principles were: 1) political pluralism, 2) non-alignment with East or West world powers, and 3) freedom of expression) “Communists,”placed an embargo on Nicaragua, and launched the Contra War, Nicaragua was militarized, full of tanks, Contra death squads, and crushed dreams. Fear and mistrust permeated everything during the Contra War, just as it had under the Somoza dictatorship. As Eisenhower had said of Somoza, “He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Following the same logic, Reagan poured money into the Contra army, and funded a “civil war,” that was in reality a proxy war for the U.S., which was unwilling to let the Sandinistas usher in democracy in its backyard.

The Contras targeted the infrastructure elements the Sandinistas had built since the revolution had triumphed in 1979: health care centers, schools, day cares, cooperatives, agricultural centers, ecological centers… the U.S. air force flew “Pajaros Negros” (Black Birds) over Nicaragua that did not drop bombs, but rather broadcasted audio that sounded like bomb explosions. The U.S. claimed this targeting of social centers instead of the Sandinista People’s Army, and its employment of psychological warfare rendered it a “low-intensity war.” Since then, it has been reclassified (though never by the U.S. government) as a war of terror, waged against civilians. And rightly so.

In 1990, elections were held in Nicaragua. The candidates included Sandinista Daniel Ortega, and conservative member of the traditional oligarchy Violeta Chamorro. After years of war, Nicaraguans were unwilling and unable to continue fighting the Contras. So they voted for Chamorro, the U.S.-backed candidate, and immediately the embargo was lifted and the war ended. “My heart is with the Sandinistas, but my ballot is not,” captures the sentiment of the day.

And, as soldiers returned from a sick and seemingly never-ending war with severe psychological disturbances, and tried to integrate into society without any psychiatric treatment, Nicaraguan statistics of rape, domestic abuse incest, drug use, and though one of the first laws passed by the Sandinistas was the outlawing of capital punishment, suicide rates skyrocketed.

With Chamorro in power, the war over, and the country in shambles, the world held its breath with the expectation that the U.S. would repair and rebuild Nicaragua. It didn’t. The International Court found that the United States owed Nicaragua $17 billion in damages. The U.S. refused, declaring that the U.S. government does not recognize the International Court. In response to international pressure, the U.S. claimed that Nicaragua was in fact indebted to the U.S., for all of the money that Somoza, “our son of a bitch,” had been granted, and then pocketed, from the U.S. over the decades of the family’s dictatorship. Furthermore, they claimed, Nicaragua was indebted to the U.S. for the aid that had been granted to the Contras to terrorize the nation and her civilians, and which continues to terrorize the mothers who have nothing left of their children except the photos on the wall in the Gallery of Heroes and Martyrs in Esteli.

Though 80% of Nicaragua’s population lives on under $2 a day, and is the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere (aside from Haiti, which is the poorest country in the world), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund assured the U.S. that it would never grant any loans, aid, or debt forgiveness to Nicaragua if the desperate nation did not repay its “debts” to the U.S. government. This burden, of course, falls on the shoulders of the 80% of Nicaraguans who live in poverty. The 12 Nicaraguan families that have over $100 million each had fled to the United States along with the other 1500 Nicaraguan families who had accumulated millions during the centuries of corruption.

The revolution is far from over.

When I arrived, I saw Radio Shack, Pizza Hut, malls… and I thought, “Oh, well Nicaragua mustn’t be that poor.” And then we learned that these shops are frequented by the 1,512 millionaires in the country. The photos of commercial centers in Nicaragua are precisely those that the government points to, as if to say, “See what we’ve accomplished? Nicaragua prospers! The poor have triumphed!”

Daniel Ortega, current President of Nicaragua, made a pact with former President Aleman, the “blast from the dictatorial past” that ensured the two would share and negotiate their power in order to remain in power. Ortega manipulated Nicaraguan laws with Aleman and won the 2006 presidential election with a smaller percentage of the vote than he had lost with in 1998. Many Nicaraguans have explained the current state of the Sandinistas: “The Sandinista leaders have become rich and abandoned the true Sandinista values.”

Although Ortega offered “free” health care and education once he was elected, he has not allotted any money to back up his promise. His symbolic declaration is nothing more than just that - symbolism, and the irony is tangible in the ubiquitous billboards across the country that show a smiling Ortega and a message like “The rich can triumph!” signed, Daniel. It seems obvious where the dollars intended for education and health care have gone. Public hospitals have materials dating to the 1940s, and the 80% of the population that cannot afford health care rarely receive treatment at all, let alone effective treatment.

And what about public housing? One thousand homes are being built for homeless loyal Sandinista supporters who lost during the wars that consolidated Sandinista power. They are being built over the center of Managua, which was reduced to rubble and never rebuilt after the 1972 earthquake, since its right above a fault line, which means it’s prime territory for the next earthquake to do its worst. In order to get these homes ready before July 19th, Nicaraguan Independence Day, the government decided to fore go building metal supports that would hold up the homes in the event of an earthquake or hurricane. I’ve been here for 9 days, and I’ve been through a hurricane already. So, again, the public housing project is terribly symbolic, but terribly inadequate. The homes will barely last longer than the photo opp. on July 19th.

It is, however, Ortega’s second five-year term in office, so as of 2011, his time is over. Considering that Ortega changed nepotism laws that would allow his wife to run for president, it seems that Nicaragua hasn’t seen the end of the Ortegas, and may not until 2021, since Ortega also lowered the percentage of votes required to elect a president (from 45% to 35%), which worked out in 2006 when he received 38% of the vote.

It seems that there is a lot of talk, a lot of billboards, a lot of symbolism (Ortega sent a rose to each of the mothers present at the Mothers Day celebration sponsored by Esteli’s Gallery for Heroes and Martyrs), but behind the scenes, nepotism laws are being struck down, and everything is run by the Sandinistas of the 21st century- a group that bears little resemblance to the Sandinistas of the revolutionary 70s, 80s, and 90s. Below are a few samples of the ubiquitous billboards I've mentioned:

Ortega’s “deal” with corrupt ex-president Aleman ensured a set of political requirements that are impossible to fulfill by anyone aside the post-revolution Sandinistas (thus closing out any potential political competitors), and as a result Aleman, the grossly corrupt president of the mid-90’s who former President Bolanos put in jail, was set free, and put under house arrest. And then it was decided that Nicaragua was his house. It was a very convenient decision, considering the ranches and beach houses he built with money stolen from the Nicaraguan treasury.

Oh, will the corruption and selfishness ever end?

It’s up to Nicaragua. But it’s also up to you and me. Get involved. Stay informed. Give. www.pronica.org

MAKE A DIFFERENCE FROM HOME

To donate to projects in Nicaragua that make a difference, go to pronica.org and support one of their many projects they sponsor that makes a difference in an issue you care about. You can earmark your donation, with a guarantee that your stipulations will be honored. To enable other students to participate in international solidarity and aid work, go to haverford.edu/cpgc and contact the center.

The spirit of Esteli 5/28/08

I got a tattoo of a dream catcher before I graduated from high school. Aside from trying to be cool, it was an attempt to bind myself to the idealistic dreams I had about my potential contributions to the world- and a reminder for myself of the dreams and ideals I had as a naive 17 year-old who had never been outside the comforts of the world's richest countries.

Somehow, I knew it would be hard to remain as hopeful and energetic after actually attempting to change the world. Maybe the inkling came from seeing the spirit of the adults of the 21st century after many of them were done with the spirit of the sixties.

I was right. I've worked at non-profit organizations in post-conflict areas of extremely poor countries in the past, and learned some things that - in particularly frustrating moments - I think I would have rather not learned: that one can have all the good will in the world, but it takes a lot more than good intentions to overcome the tendencies of the "New World Order" that has left most of the people in the world behind. And, after facing some of the obstacles in the way of poverty alleviation: politics, corporate media, instability, cynicism, hopelessness, and poverty itself- a year after I got my symbolic dream catcher tattoo, I was glad I'd gotten it... I already felt like a part of my idealistic spirit had died.

Then, last Sunday, I arrived in Esteli.

I feel like my heart could burst with the spirit of hope that pervades every organizational effort we've seen so far. As soon as we descended from the bus that brought us up north from Managua, we were surrounded by buildings covered in murals with messages like: "Nosotros debemos ser, el cambio que queremos ver" (Be the change you wish to see in the world [Gandhi]) or "Todos tienen derechos iguales" (Everyone has equal rights) or "Cada gotita cuenta" (Every drop of water counts!).

The hundreds of murals are an ongoing project of the organization Funarte, which offers free art classes for children of all ages, and women, who work together to choose an issue that they consider important to their community- from literacy to equality to education to aids, children's empowerment and women's rights and self-esteem - and come up with a sketch that will illustrate the progressive hopes and ideas of the new generation of Estelians.

These efforts have resulted in a socially conscious youth, a beautiful city, and a confident young population, not to mention the parents, who are perhaps more proud of their children than the children are of themselves.

The Funarte headquarters is one of the few two-story buildings I've seen in Esteli (hardly surprising considering the number of hurricanes and earthquakes Nicaragua has endured - and overcome.) It was build over a number of years by various local and foreign volunteers: first the main room, then the restroom, then a classroom, then another... then the staircase, then the office...

We learned that Funarte's mission is even more important than we first realized when we went to Radio las Cumiches (Kid's Radio), a radio station run by young people to advance children's rights, self-esteem, and well-being in Esteli. The man who introduced us to Radio las Cumiches explained the pervasiveness of generational discrimination that exists here- that many children are seen as objects that their parents own, a tendency that results in low self-esteem among children at best, and emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at worst. Radio las Cumiches is a center where all children are free to express themselves qthout scensorship. The staff not only listens to and empowers children by providing a public space where children can broadcast their throughts, but supports and protects those who have experienced abuse by going to their homes to "investigate" and speak with their parents.

The children have a voice in their community through Radio las Cumiches, and share their experiences, good or bad, on air (with changed names) to facilitate awareness and dialogue regarding children's rights and their violation in Esteli.

I'm aiming to begin a children's theater project at the library in Esteli this summer, and I gained a lot from the radio talk. They told us that many children feel so badly about themselves that they feel they have nothing to contribute to the radio station... but they want to spend time there. So they do. And, as we learned, many of them do eventually find value in their voices, and take part in the live broadcasts.

Our trips to Funarte and Radio las Cumiches showcased a sense of responsibility, a creative approach to carrying out their duty to improve the world and the lives of the people in it, an unwavering feeling that they can do it, and a commitment to never give up. Esteli is an intentional community to the nth degree. The "yes we can" infection is contagious, and I caught it. We have two weeks left in our delegation; we'll travel to other projects across the country to advance our sense of the national social advancement efforts... but I can hardly wait to begin working, and becoming a part o the incredible efforts we've seen.

Esteli: The Gallery of Heroes & Martyrs 5/26/08

"It is difficult," our Spanish teacher said, "Difficult to be here."

We were in the Galeria de Heroes y Martires (The Gallery of Heroes & Martyrs): Maddie, Jane, Janique, Katrina, Maddie, Christina, Laurel, and I. The museum is a tribute to those valiant and selfless men and women who fell during the decades of the Nicaraguan revolution.

"It is difficult, because we remember their faces."

She seemed as if she were about to cry, and I looked away. The walls were covered with photos of the faces of which she spoke, with a name, a date, and a place, as the caption... except for "los desaparecidos," whose names and faces lacked any further caption. "Los desaparecidos" in Nicaragua refers to those revolutionaries who went to the mountains in the northern city of Esteli to join the revolution and never came back - not even their bodies. One can only guess- or try not to guess- what happened to them.

According to our Spanish teacher, many of these were kidnapped by the National Guard, and thrown from helicopters. Those men and women died alone, on an unknown day, in an unknown place... somewhere over Nicaragua, or Honduras perhaps. Their photographs, up on the wall of the Galeria, serves as their grave site, where their mothers go to grieve, and to remember.

Our homestay mother this first week, and a mother of a fallen revolutionary, Dona Guillermina Meza, opened the Galeria in the early 1980's, for the community, and especially for the mothers who lost their children in the revolution. Many of these mothers granted their children's firearms and clothing to the museum, and wrote out their stories (if they knew it) so Nicaraguans would never take their post-Somoza, post-Contra, post-Aleman political system for granted.

At a luncheon for the mothers of the martyrs a few days later (on Nicaraguan Mother's Day), one woman hugged me tightly and whispered in my ear, "I'm so happy you're here. I haven't spent Mother's Day with children in over 20 years."

When she loosened her embrace, we introduced ourselves.

Brief History of Nicaragua

Before I begin this blog, a brief history of Nicaragua is necessary to contextualize the country in which I am working. The following was excerpted from the Nicaraguan section of the Lonely Planet Guidebook to Nicaragua and Esteli.

(Paige R. Penland, Gary Chandler, Liza Prado. Nicaragua and El Salvador. Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd. 2006. 55-58).

Nicaragua won independence from Spain in 1821, and the resulting power vacuum led to a civil war. In 1852 the conservatives took power for 30 years of peace, if not prosperity. For the next two decades the USA dominated politics in Nicaragua. In 1914 the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty was signed, granting the USA exclusive rights to a canal it had no intention of building, just to shut out the competition. The occupations casual brutality- torture, political killings, dragging the bodies of dead rebels through the city streets- inspired one teenage boy, Augusto C. Sandino.
The liberals mounted a noble, if ineffective, resistance to the US occupation, which wilted completely in the 1920's. But Sandino- by now a commander of his own personal army- continued fighting. The US trained the Nicaraguan National Guard under the command of loyal bureaucrat Anastasio Somoza Garcia.

In 1934, Sandino was murdered. Somoza overthrew the President in 1937 and took power in a US-backed dictatorship. The US allowed Somoza to amass landholdings equal to all of El Salvador. After his 1956 assasination, Somoza was succeeded by his oldest son, Luis Somoza Debayle. The US Kennedy administration was graciously granted full use of Puerto Cabezas for launching its disastrous 1961 invasion of Cuba. Luis Somoza called for elections shortly afterwards, lost handily to Liberal Renee Schick, then quietly retired.

His younger brother, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was not as eager to give up his birthright.
Luis died in 1967 and Anastasio assumed the presidency. The West Point graduate used the National Guard ruthlessly, stifling a growing call for democracy. An increasingly militant group of university students calling themselves the Sandinistas tried to counter him.

A 6.3 earthquake in the early morning of December 23, 1972 killed 6,000 people and reduced 15 sq. kilometers of Managua to rubble. The world, moved by the holiday devastation, donated aid on an unprecedented scale; Somoza diverted almost everything to family and friends. The Sandinistas were, with this one powerful betrayal, legitimized. Nicaraguans from every walk of life threw in their support, and over the next five years the nation became ungovernable. The Narional Guard destroyed entire cities and assassinated journalists.

Almost every country in the Americas and Europe cut ties with the Somoa regime... except the U.S.

The revolution marched to victory on July 19, 1979, and Somoza fled the country. He was assassinated shortly afterwards in Paraguay.

The Sandinistas inherited a country in shambles. Poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, and staggeringly inadequate health care were just a few of the widespread problems. Some 50,000 people have been killed in the revolutionary struggle and 50,000 were made refugees.
The FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) took power, and the National Guard was replaced but he Sandinista Peoples Army.

In 1981, just days after taking office, US President Ronald Reagan canceled Nicaragua's aid package and publicly committed his administration to helpoing the National Guard regroup and re-arm as the Contras, whose mission to overthrow the Sandinista-led Nicaraguan government would last a decade. Reagan constructed bases for Contras in Honduras and Costa Rica offering millions in training and material aid. The civil war between the Contras and democratic Sandinista government force intensified after Daniel Ortega (current Nicaraguan President) won apparently free and fair elections in 1984.

In 1985, the US implemented a full economic blockade, including food and medicine. 50,000 civilians died.

Ortega lifted press censorship, enforced a ceasefire and called for geenral elections to be held in 1990. Violete Barrios de Chamorro became the first female head of state in Central America in 1990. The transition to power was relatively peaceful. The USA finally called off the embargo, but the country was in ruins.

Chamorro decentralized the government brought the police and military under civilian control, and cut the military's numbers from almost 95,000 at th war's peak to less than 20,000. She constructed a stable foundation on which the nation could rebuild.

Chamorro's replacement, who handily beat Ortega, was a blast from the dictatorial past: corpulent Liberal Arnoldo Aleman, voted one of the world's 10 most corrupt politicians by the UN Human Rights Subcommission. Aleman siphoned off some US $100 million from government coffers, which may be chump change where you're from, but not in Nicaragua. Even after Hurricane Mitch savaged the country in 1998 - killing 4,000 people are destroying a surreal 70% of the infrastructure - he stayed on the take.

Enrique Bolanos, also of the Liberal Party, took office in 2001, he promised to put Aleman in jail. To everyone's surprise, Bolanos actually did it. But it was too late, in a way.
Five years later, in 2006, Daniel Ortega of the FSLN, was democratically elected yet again.


And 2 years later, I and seven other women from Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges showed up to be a part of the continuing social revolution for human rights in Nicaragua. And that's where we are right now.