Work in Masaya

I arrived in Masaya on Monday evening, and have since been working on a website for the Consumers Defense Association of Masaya (ACODEMA). You can read about their work in earlier entries: Consumer Rights & Their Violation, and Miceofinance: Why it (Sometimes) Just Doesn´t Work.

Roger Lecayo, the President of ACODEMA, met me at the bus and showed me around Masaya. Everyone knew him and greeted him cordially as we passed. When we went to dinner and tried to pay the check, the owner refused to charge him. I got a discount at my hostel for being affiliated with the organization.

Roger Lecayo leading a march against water pribatization in 2003.

Water is still a public utility.

Masaya is a lovely city, and has an aesthetic character somewhat like that of Estelí: small and charming, but still a city. It´s manageable, friendly, and colorful. However, it isn´t otherwise much like Estelí. In two days here, I´ve met more anti-Sandinistas than I ever could have imagined existed in the whole country, and have seen more street children sniffing glue than there were shoeless kids in all of Estelí.

On Tuesday I arrived at the ACODEMA office preceeded by about twenty citizens seeking help to present their claims against Unión Fenosa, the Spanish company that is the sole distributor of electricity in Nicatagua.

One woman had been billed in June for three times as much electricity as she had used in the preceeding months of this year. She had apparently not acquired any new appliances, nor had she used her existing appliances more than usual.

Another women had arranged a payment schedule with Unión Fenosa previously, but the payment schedule that the company had agreed upon was not honored, and her electricity had been cut. There were as many other complaints as there were poeple in the ACODEMA office, and we all went to Unión Fenosa to get it straightened out.

We waited for 30 minutes before anyone saw us. Roger went into the office with each of the distressed customers individually to give them support and representation in presenting their claim. All were resolved.

¨That seemed easy enough,¨ I said.

¨They respond to ACODEMA representatives,¨ he explained. ¨They know we know our rights and we won´t allow them to be violated. When indiviauls, just normal people contact Unión Fenosa they simply don´t respond. So we go with them and demand a response. And nine out of ten times we win, because their claims are well-founded.¨

I understood, suddenly, why Roger and other ACODEMA staff are so popular in Masaya.

Last Day in Esteli

It is my last day in Estelí. It is also the day of nationwide liberation of Nicaragua. Most of my family is in Managua celebrating the holiday’s 29th anniversary, but I stayed behind to pack and say good-bye to the city that, if I weren’t already a ride-or-die New Yorker, would have stolen my heart completely.

Estelí had its liberation day last Wednesday, July 16th. After Matagalpa, Estelí was the first city to overcome the National Guard in 1979 and be liberated by the Sandinista Army. The Dictator Somoza held on to the capital, Managua, until the 19th, when he fled to Miami, where he was granted asylum by the United States government, which had funded the terrorism of Somoza’s National Guard.

Apparently, the Somoza government’s plan was to stay in power until 1980, when the U.S. would have a presidential election and, they suspected, a new U.S. government would grant even more military and other aid to the Somoza dictatorship. They were right. Reagan won, but it was too late for Somoza and his cronies. The Sandinistas triumphed that July.

It was a short-lived triumph. Reagan cut off all aid to the newly liberated, people-led Nicaragua, and funded the Contra army to devastate any democracy or social services the Sandinistas had established in Nicaragua after 1979. For more post-1979 history, see blog entries from June, “A Brief History of Nicaragua” and especially “An Amended and Extended Nicaraguan History.”

I went to get my sandals and workbag repaired today. The repairman I met is deaf, but through my slow, bad, desperate efforts to sign (alphabet and makeshift gestures only) I managed to explain what I needed. He asked me where I was from, and I spelled out U-N-I-T-E-D S-T-A-T-E-S until I realized that those letters do not create words in Spanish. So then I spelled out A-M-E-R-I-C-A and he understood. It was only later that I realized I used the sign for “X” instead of “R” so I effectively spelled out A-M-E-X-I-C-A. I was worried he thought I was Mexican until he charged me an unmistakably gringa price. He signed, “hungry,” so I didn’t negotiate. Well, at least I have a pair of shoes with soles.

Tomorrow I’m going to Masaya to work with the consumer-rights organization ACODEMA for my last two weeks in Nicaragua. Their work, and why it’s so important, is described in June’s blog entries: “Consumer Rights and their Violation,” and “Microfinance: Why It (Sometimes) Just Doesn’t Work.”

I called Roger Lecayo, the director of ACODEMA, to tell him I would be in Masaya to start work on Monday. He said to just go to the ACODEMA office from the bus stop. I don’t know where it is, of course.

“Well, just ask someone,” he said. “It’s not far from the bus station.”
“OK, no problem, Señor Lecayo. Thanks so much and see you Monday!”
“Wait!” he exclaimed. “Make sure you don’t ask a police officer.”
“OK.” In two months in Nicaragua, I can count the number of police officers I’ve seen on one hand. Using two fingers.
“But don’t ask anyone who might work for Union Fenosa either, or anyone who… actually, just call me when your bus arrives, and I’ll come and get you.”
Of course. This is, after all, the man who said he has to look over his shoulder and go home by a different route every day due to the nature of his work.

Corporations are even scarier in Nicaragua than they are in the U.S. Unless you’ve seen “The Insider.”

DANGER! Watch Yourself!

I woke up a few nights ago to a gunshot, and another one, in quick succession. I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a car backfiring, since that’s what I try to convince myself it is at night in New York. But the hour, and the screaming that followed it, assured me that I wasn’t mistaken, and assured that I wouldn’t fall back asleep for quite a while.

The shots and screaming masses were right outside our front door. Twenty minutes later, there was another shot, and the screaming masses dispersed.

The next day I asked my Nica grandmother what had gone on the previous night.

“I heard shots,” I said.
“Oh, well there is a member of one gang on the right side corner of our street, one from another on the left corner, and then the member of the third gang is just across the street. They’re a bunch of troublemakers.”
“With guns?”
“No the police came and shot into the air one time to break up the fight.”
“I heard three shots.”
“Oh. Well… the police fired three shots then.” And the conversation was over.

Later my fourteen year-old sister said, “The big fight is tonight.”

Oh God.

The end of an Era

My work at the Estelí Library, Acción Ya, and Radio Cumiches ended today. I´m headed to Masaya this weekend to work for my final two weeks with Roger Lecayo and the consumer rights organization ACODEMA, which I wrote about in a previous entry. If you´re interested, look up the entry about Consumer Rights & Microfinance.

The theater workshop ended up being more of a general after school program for the neighborhood kids, but we had a wonderful time! Here are some pictures of our work, and our last day together... we made certificates of accomplishment, and piñatas!